Faithful Bishops Rise Up

[00:00:15] After years of episcopal silence in the face of heresy, corruption, and scandal, we're starting to see some successors to the apostles boldly standing up for the faith. That's what we're going to talk about today on Crisis Point. Hello. I'm Eric. Sam is your host and Aaron chief of crisis magazine. Before we get started, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to ask you to smash that like button to subscribe to the channel. I'm also going to ask you to follow us on social media at crisis. Mag at all the various locations. And finally, I'm going to ask you to subscribe to our email newsletter, which you can [email protected] where you can sign up for that. Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, let's get started. So lot going on in the Church right now, isn't there? It's the day before the Synod on Synodality starts, and we have the Dubia, new Dubia being released. It's like a band, the Dubia dropping a new album, the New Dubia, they have a few replacements from the original band. It's like when Van Halen, boy, I'm dating myself, whoever the I can't remember the name now of the person who replaced the other person. But now we have new members of Dubia cardinals, we have obviously the Senate, we have responses, we have new cardinals, we have just a lot going on. [00:01:36] And I could spend the next half hour, hour complaining about all things going on. And there's a place for mean, I've done it before myself, I could do it again. But I do think what I'd like to do instead I would like to talk about the response, which of course is the Dubia cardinals as part of it. But not about the synod on synodality or about what Pope? Francis and Cardinal Smoochie Fernandez have most recently said. [00:02:06] But instead about the response because I think this is something we need to keep clear. If you look in the 16th century, that is one of the worst times for the Catholic Church. It's a time of the Protestant Reformation. [00:02:22] Countless souls were lost to the Church during the 16th century. [00:02:27] But also if you look at the 16th century, what do you see? You've seen St. Ignatius of Loyola? St. Teresa of Avila? St. Philip Neary? I mean, the list could go on and on of some of the greatest saints the Church has ever seen. And why did they rise up to be such great saints in response to the crisis going on? [00:02:47] That's how God responds to a crisis is he raises up saints. Now, saints, of course, can be popes, they can be bishops, they can be priests, they can be laity, they can be sisters, brothers, doesn't matter. [00:03:01] He wants to raise up everybody as a saint. Of course, what I want to focus on today is some bishops, some bishops who are standing up, particularly in this time, they're responding. And I think this is something there's always been a bishop or two that it's like, okay, he's not so bad. But I feel like they're getting their voice and they're recognizing where we are in the crisis and the need for somebody to speak up, the need for somebody to say, enough is enough. We've had enough YouTube laypeople like me saying it. [00:03:34] What we need is some successors to the apostles to put their weight behind it. Like I said, we've seen this piecemeal, but I feel like, boy, it's really happening now. You know, the old Ron Paul meme. It's happening. [00:03:46] It's happening with the jazz hands. I feel like that's what's happening. [00:03:52] So I just want to go through a few of these bishops. The first one I have to mention is one I just met this weekend for the first time in person, and that's Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas. He's at the Catholic Identity Conference, where I was also honored to be a fellow speaker. With him, I got a chance to hear him speak. I got a chance to meet with him and actually talk to him for a while with some other people. [00:04:15] And let me tell you something, he's the real deal. He is the real deal. This is a man who is exactly what he appears to be in the public, which is just a plain spoken East Texan. [00:04:31] I'm trying to think of a way to say this that does not sound insulting, because I mean it literally the opposite, but it's obvious he's not a scholar. He's an intelligent man. Don't get me wrong. He's not a scholar, though. He doesn't follow the nuances of everything going on. He just is trying to do his job as a bishop. He takes very seriously the fact that he's a successor to the apostles. [00:04:58] John Henry Weston, who was also there, LifeSight News great guy, by the way. I love what he said. He's like, he's a fisherman. He comes across he's not literally a fisherman. He's a horse farmer. That's what he grew up as. He comes across, though, as a fisherman, I. E just a plain spoken, ordinary person who's been called by God to a great task. [00:05:17] That's what Bishop Strickland is. And so I just really appreciate him standing up for the faith right now. Yes, he's being persecuted by people in the Church. Yes. It's possible that he won't even go. And I lost my train of thought there for a second. It's possible he won't even be the Bishop of Tyler by the end of this year. These things are possible. [00:05:50] But the fact is, he has to be faithful to the call he's been given. He can't worry about that stuff, and he doesn't. He comes across very much just like they're going to do with me, whatever they're going to do with me. I just have a job to do. I have a vocation. I have to be the shepherd of my flock, and that's what I'm going to do. [00:06:07] And his speech was just very inspiring. So Bishop Strickland, obviously, is the first, I want to mention not the only, but first good bishop. And I'm just so inspired by him and by his lack of fear and his really it really is inspiring. Now, of course, beyond Bishop Strickland, we now have, of course, the new Dubia cardinals, for lack of a better term. We all know years ago, a number of cardinals, including Cardinal Burke and some others, sent Dubia to the pope, pope Francis. Now, Dubia, just for people who aren't quite clear, it literally means doubts, but it's really questions. It's the way you do things, actually, in the Church, when you do things properly, if you're not sure of something, like maybe the pope has said something or done something or some issue is up and you're not sure, or you want clarification from the pope, you just simply ask him questions. Typically, you ask him in a yes or no fashion, I e. Where the answer can just be a yes or no. And so they did this a number of years ago. Famously, pope Francis never responded to it. [00:07:18] Now, apparently, some more questions were sent back in July, and it was sent by Cardinal Burke. Again, Cardinal Brand Mueller, I believe he was one of the original Dubia cardinals. Cardinal Sarah, that's a new addition. Cardinal Zinn, that's not a new addition. And Cardinal, I apologize, I don't know who this cardinal is. Sandoval I don't even know how to pronounce his last name. I'm terrible with names, so I'm not going to try. But anyway, another cardinal. I apologize, Your Eminence, for not knowing how to pronounce your name. You seem to be awesome, though. I will say that. So anyway, Cardinal Zin and Cardinal Serrado are huge because Cardinal Zim, if there's one churchman left who has moral standing in the world, it's mean what he's done in China, the persecution he's endured, and how he's spoken, mean just cannot be overestimated. And so Cardinal Zhin, obviously, being added to this list of questions is a big deal. And so what happened was, in July, they sent him a list of Pope Francis, a list of questions. They got an answer very quickly, which is a little surprising, but they didn't think the answer. They didn't really frankly, they were just as confused by the answer as they were before they asked a question. So they reformulated their questions so that a yes or a no could be answered to make it clear, like, okay, we really want to make sure we understand what you're trying to say. [00:08:47] And so the questions, there were five questions, and the first one has to do with whether or not the Church can teach doctrines contrary to what she has previously taught. The second one has to do with blessing of unions as homosexual persons. That one's made big news recently. The third question is about whether or not the synod is the supreme authority of the Church. Like, can it basically define new doctrines at the synod even though it only has a preselected number of people, includes laypeople and priests instead of just bishops. The fourth question is can the Church ordain women? [00:09:25] And the fifth question was whether or not a penitent who while admitting his sin, refused to make an intention not to commit, and refuse to make the intention not to commit again, can validly receive sacramental absolution? Meaning is repentance necessary for absolution in confession? And so that was back in July. They made it public this weekend that they had asked these questions because they did not get an answer on their second list of questions. [00:09:54] They did not, though, say what the first list of answers were, but Cardinal Fernandez just did release that and essentially after reading the responses, you can understand why they had to reformulate the questions because his answers were confusing his meaning. Pope Francis now we all know that Cardinal Fernandez is probably the one who wrote the answers, but it was in Francis'name and therefore it's Francis's answers. Obviously he approved them. The one that's getting the most press right now is the blessing of homosexual unions, in which he did not technically say it was okay to bless homosexual unions, but he did say that basically it was up to discretion of a priest. That if a homosexual couple came to them and asked for a blessing, you could give it to them. Not on the union necessarily. I mean, it's the typical word salad, the typical okay, let's be ambiguous enough that essentially in practice, priests are going to be allowed to bless homosexual unions without any fear of reprisal, without any fear of discipline. Yes, I know. Pope Spleenors. He didn't technically say that. But we all know how this works. I mean, I don't know how we can't look at these things in a vacuum. We have to look at them at how things have been done for the past ten years. But even for the past 60 years, you give these ambiguous answers. You basically, especially under Francis, you give an answer that on the one hand acknowledges. Eric Ubaro wrote this, explained it very beautifully, I think on his Facebook page. He also tweeted it out. [00:11:29] But you acknowledge the norm and the fact that the norm can't change, which pleases and helps the orthodox, lowercase o orthodox and conservative Catholics. But then you basically give a lot of words that open up in practice, an allowance for what's being asked for. [00:11:54] And same thing happened with divorced communion for Dorset and remarried and it's happening here with the blessing of homosexual unions. [00:12:01] So anyway, so my point here though is that these cardinals, God bless them, have spoken up. I know they're doing it through a kind of a weird way to normal people, like why are they asking these questions? Don't they know the answers yes, they know the answers. They know what the Catholic answer is. But they want the Pope in his ministry, as a successor of St. Peter to make it clear what the answer is, because they know a lot. If Cardinal Burke just went up there and said the answer to these questions are no, no, yes, yes, or whatever it is, well, who's going to listen to him? They're going to say, oh, that's just Cardinal Burke. He's one of those conservatives, he's a rad trader, whatever. But if the Pope says it, then there can be no debate. And that's why they're asking him. And so what they're doing is their job is cardinals. They're the only ones doing it. Now, Cardinal Mueller also then afterwards has said that, yes, he supports this effort as well. Cardinal Mueller doing a great job as well. He was at the Catholic Identity Conference this weekend, not in person, but he was there through zoom or whatever. [00:13:05] So Cardinal Mueller is also supported. So these are cardinals who are doing their jobs to be advisors to the Pope. And when they see a problem in the Church, they ask the Pope to clarify it, to resolve it. That's exactly what they're supposed to be doing. So God bless them. And so, yes, they know what the answers are, but they want the Pope to clarify it. And let's be honest, the Pope not clarifying it is his answer. That is an answer. [00:13:32] Somebody asks you a question, you can say yes, you can say no, you cannot answer. All three are actually answers. [00:13:39] And that's exactly what's happening here, is the Pope is giving an answer by not answering the simple yes or no. And I asked this on X or Twitter. I have a hard time calling it X on Twitter today, which is, why couldn't the Pope just answer yes or no on these questions, as every Catholic, like, particularly in the blessing of same sex unions, as every Catholic who's ever lived until about a few years ago would have answered? The answer would have just been a simple no. I mean, it wouldn't have been like, oh, of course, no, of course we can't bless homosexual union. Why can't he just do that? [00:14:17] And I think by asking it, the cardinals are making that clear what his answer is. So we have Bishop Strickland, we have the Dubia cardinals, we have Cardinal Mueller, all standing up for the faith, god bless them, keep them in your prayers. Now, I want to mention another bishop. Now, I will be the first to say this is my favorite bishop, I'm a fanboy, whatever you want to call it, bishop Athanasia Schneider, for years now, this obscure auxiliary bishop from Kagestan, I can never pronounce that. I'm sorry, Your Excellency. I'm sure it's a wonderful and beautiful country, Kygakstan. I think that's how it is. Anyway, my pronunciation is here. It should be like somebody should go through all my podcasts and just grab every time I mispronounce a word or a name, because I think that would be at least an hour long. Okay, so anyway, Bishop Athanasia Schneider, this is a holy man. I've met him multiple times, and again, he's the real deal. He's different than Bishop Strickland, but they're the same as well. They both come across as authentic. [00:15:22] But Bishop Schneider is a very holy man. [00:15:25] He's already done so much. He also came out in support of the Dubia cardinals. He's come out in support of Bishop Strickland, but he's done something that no other bishop has done for a very long time. He's done something that is far more significant than I think people will realize, far more significant than anything else any other bishop has done. God bless the good ones. I'm not saying anything against what they're doing. [00:15:51] What he has done should I have, like, a drum roll or something? What he has done is he has released a new catechism called Credo. I have it in my hand. For those who are watching Credo compendium of the Catholic faith, he has written a catechism. This was published just recently, I mean, just came out. And I will put a link to buy it from Sufi Institute Press in the description after I get off the air here. [00:16:18] I hear it's already sold out at Amazon, and I prefer if you buy it from Sophia Institute, maybe I might try and make it so you can buy it straight from Christ's magazine website too, but buy it directly from Sophia. This is a big deal. Why is it a big deal? [00:16:32] I think we have to understand it's a big deal. We have to understand kind of the history of catechisms. There might be Catholics who think it's weird for a bishop to write his own catechism. Don't we have the universal catechism? Why do we need a bishop? I mean, should every bishop write their own catechism? Is that how it works? But actually, that's because they don't understand the history of catechisms. The fact is, there have been hundreds of catechisms written over the centuries, and typically they are written by individual theologians or bishops, or maybe a conference of bishops, a synod of bishops. And in fact, in that time, I believe there's only two universal catechisms, meaning written for the whole church by Rome, and that is the Roman catechism, which is a catechism that came out of the Council of Trent and today's catechism of the Catholic Church, which essentially is the catechism coming out of Vatican II. [00:17:23] Those are the only two times. And both of those catechisms were actually not written, intended to be used by the laity. They were intended to be used by bishops and theologians to write their own catechisms because that's actually how it's done. But for some reason, after the catechism was written and published in the 1990s, there was this idea that there's never a need for another catechism, but that's not the way it works. [00:17:50] Catechisms are written, like I said, there's been hundreds. And one great thing I just want to mention this has actually been behind me this whole time. I've been podcasting for over two years now, the Tradovox series. Also, Sophia. It is compiling all these catechisms over the centuries into a multi volume work. I believe they have twelve volumes. I only have nine back here. I still need to get the latest three. I'm not sure how many volumes are going to be. I think 20 something. But it brings together all these different catechisms in one place. And one of the purposes of it, of this series, is to show how they all unite. They're all in keeping with each other. It's not like one catechism is better than the other in the sense of promoting doctrine. Some are better in just how they're written, but they all share the Catholic faith. So we have Penny catechisms, we have the Bellarmin has a catechism, the Dewey Catechism. [00:18:50] Obviously, the most famous probably in America is the Baltimore Catechism, which was released by the Catholic Bishops of America in the late 18 hundreds. Originally. It's called the Baltimore Catechism, I believe, because they decided to do this at a conference they were holding in Baltimore. [00:19:05] So it's not weird that a bishop would write his own catechism. In fact, in a very real way, a bishop writing a catechism is a formal exercise of his authority as a teacher, as part of the magisterium. It's not just like an interview on an airplane. It's not like something he posts on his website or says in a homily. It's not even like an apostolic letter he writes. It really is an exercise of the Magisterium. And so this catechism, credo by Bishop Athenic Schneider is a big deal. [00:19:44] Here's another reason it's a big deal. This catechism got an imprimatur from the local bishop who resides in New Hampshire, because that's where it was published, was in New Hampshire. So Labaski, I believe you pronounce his name, bishop Peter Labaski, Bishop of Manchester, gave it the imprimatur. That's a big deal. [00:20:07] That's a big deal, because here's another bishop confirming, yes, there is nothing in this catechism is contrary to the Catholic faith. [00:20:15] And so very much this is a big deal, this catechism. The significance is large. Now, here's what I love about this catechism, and I'm talking about this a lot, because I really feel like we've been starved as Catholics for decades for bishops to speak up, to stand up and say, this is the Catholic faith. What's being said over here is not true, and this is the Catholic faith. Well, now we have it. We have it. This is something you can use to teach your kids, your grandkids, yourself. [00:20:47] You can understand the faith. And it's a beautiful catechism. It's in question and answer format like the Baltimore Catechism, like most catechisms have been in the past. [00:20:56] And it's very much Bishop Schneider style, very direct and to the point. In fact, I'd say probably most of the questions start with a one word sentence. Answer either yes or no. As our Lord said, let your yes mean yes, your no mean no. Don't give me this word salad of non answers. Just say yes or no, and then he might explain it some. So I'm going to pull up a couple of the questions now, one thing, okay? I do have one criticism of this catechism. [00:21:26] It has numbered questions, but it has multiple sections and they restart the numbering in each section. So if I say question 161, that's actually of a part section one. There's another question 161, probably in other sections. That's my only criticism. For example, what of the novel claim that our gender may not correspond to our biological sex? Here we go. So the Baltimore catechism doesn't answer this question because nobody was idiotic enough to ask it when the Baltimore catechism was written. But now, of course we have people were asking it. So Bishop Schneider writes, this era of gender ideology or gender theory denies the reality of the two sexes and replaces it with unlimited private choice, claiming that one's inner thoughts and feelings are merely social and educational conditioning constitutes the gender of the true self, a kind of gnostic and ultimately Satanic dualism that must be rejected. Here's a catechism saying gender ideology is a Satanic dualism. [00:22:24] And he goes on like, why does the era of gender ideology appear more prevalent in our time? The abandonment of reason is the typical outcome of sins against chastity, which are all too common today. [00:22:37] Furthermore, fallen man is always tempted to make his own mind the source of truth, rather than conform to the external, objective laws of nature and revelation. Okay, let me look at another question. [00:22:47] Does the Muslim religion adore the one true God? Boy, here we go. Does the Muslim religion adore the one true God? Answer no. [00:22:56] Just no. The Muslim religion rejects God's self revelation as a trinity and denies the divinity of Jesus Christ. The adoration proposed in this religion cannot be true, as every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. [00:23:11] While an individual Muslim may, incidentally, adore God as Creator, this would only be at the natural level according to man's capacity for natural knowledge of God. I mean, perfect answer. [00:23:21] Then the next question then. Muslims do not adore the one merciful God. Quote together with us Catholics answer no. That Together with us, by the way, in quotes, is from Vatican, too. [00:23:33] Catholics consciously profess and adore one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity, not simply the one God. [00:23:41] Okay, another question then. God does not will the diversity of religions found the world today? Answer no. I just love it. He's like yes or no. God cannot be the author of religious error or any other evil because god is true is necessarily impossible for God, the supreme truth, to be the author of any error whatsoever. Rather, false religions arise from the deception of the devil, sin and ignorance, evils that God merely tolerates in our fallen world. Another question is Christ merely a privileged way, in quotes to God, among many other possible ways? I think we all know where that quote comes from. Answer no. [00:24:20] Such a notion expresses religious indifferentism the belief that all religions are channels of grace, holiness and salvation, even if some are more efficacious than others. [00:24:29] Another question what if Catholics who are publicly known to commit such sins sorry, this is in the context of sins against chastity, sins against the 6th Commandment. What if Catholics who are publicly known to commit such sins against the 6th Commandment? Catholics who engage in open adultery, cohabitation, pornography, homosexual lifestyle or political activism for such causes, e. G, the so called LGBTQ agenda must be regarded as public sinners until they have repented and been reconciled to the Church. They must be denied Holy Communion by any minister of the this is just this is what we want in a catechism. This is what we want in a catechism. Plain answers. This is what we want from our bishops. Plain answers. Yes. No. That your yes mean yes. You know me. No. You ask a question, you get a direct answer. And this is something Bishop Schneider is wonderful at doing, giving direct answers, no matter what the consequences might be of those answers, he just gives them. And so another beautiful thing about this I love about this catechism at the back, there is an index of errors. And so, for example, generic old ones like adoptionism or something like that, polynarianism, but then also things like Islam, LGBTQ ideology, hinduism, paganism, Protestantism, reiki, religious indifferentism, so, transgenderism, transhumanism, transmigrationism. So all these different errors, there's an index. So you can look up the error and you can look up exactly where it is mentioned in the catechism and how it's wrong. [00:26:21] So this, really, I feel, is the antidote to today's confusion. We now have a reliable catechism we can go to with our kids, with our family, with ourselves, to know the answers, what the Catholic faith teaches. And again, this is not just one bishop who just his opinions. This is an exercise of the magisterium, of the ordinary magisterium given an imprimatur by another bishop. And the bishop, by the way, the recommendations for the catechism in the back are from Cardinal Sarah heard his name already. Bishop Strickland heard his name already. Bishop Elias Nassar of Lebanon. God bless you, Your Excellency. Also, Dr. Scott Hahn. He's not a bishop, but we all know he's good. And so they've already endorsed this and said great things about mean, I don't want to stand up here and act like I'm giving a sales pitch, but you really got to buy this. And like I said, I'll put a link to it. Go to Sophiainsteute.com right now and you'll see. I think it's on the homepage right now, but I'll put a link in the description for those who are listening or watching later. [00:27:32] So here we have bishops, bishoping, for lack of a better term, being successors of the apostles, preaching out the truth, preaching out the faith, doing their job. We have to support them, we have to pray for them. We have to do everything we can. We have to fast for them. [00:27:52] I know it's easy to get cynical. I fall into it myself. In fact, it was recently I was kind of falling into cynicism. I could feel it in my mind, in my spirit, a spirit of cynicism. And I will tell you, meeting Bishop Strickland personally cured me of that very quickly. Reading this catechism cured me of that, because I realized there are faithful and holy men as successor, the apostles doing what they can. Yes, I would love it to be more, and hopefully it will be more. We've already seen it's increasing. I pray that it increases even more that every bishop begins to do this. [00:28:27] Now, I have to speak for a moment about someone who possibly might seem like an omission that I have not mentioned, that's Archbishop Vigano. Now, I will say Archbishop Vigano was heroic in what he did, in helping to expose the misdeeds of Theodore McCarrick. There's no question about that. And he should be thanked forever for that, because we don't know if McCarrick would have really been taken care of if not for Archbishop Vigueno. And so he has our thanks for that. He's also said some things since then that are very good, very solid in exposing what is going on in the Church, and we should be thankful for that and grateful for that, and I am. [00:29:14] However, I just have to say, I personally believe that Archbishop Vigano has kind of gone off the rails and is actually doing more harm than good. And this is from a few reasons, I think this he has been suggesting for quite some time that Jorge Borgolio is not the Pope, and he has come out and said it explicitly this weekend, that he does not believe Bergoglio, pope Francis is actually the Pope. And by saying that, okay, I'm not going to have a whole thing about state of continentism here. People know where I stand on not I completely sympathize with, and I do understand the average Catholic who says, I don't understand how this guy can be pope, I don't understand how Francis can be pope. But they continue to go to Mass at their parish that's united to the Church includes Francis in the prayers of the canon, and they continue to pray for the Church. I get that. I'm not condemning that person at all. It's a time of confusion. I understand why you're confused by that, but that's different than somebody actually saying. He is not the Pope, period, in the story, because an individual simply just can't say that. And so by doing that, I really feel know to use the Colloquial phrase, he's jumped the shark. But I think more importantly, he's doing more harm than good because he's leading souls away from the Church by doing that. And I think that's very tragic and I don't think it's not something I'm going to embrace or endorse. And so I can't call him one of the good bishops anymore. I think he has good intentions. In fact, I think most bishops have good intentions, even the ones who barely do anything, they probably have good intentions, but good intentions are enough. So I think he's actually working in ways that harm the faith, harm the Church. And I think this isn't like the only thing. I mean, his deep involvement in American politics I think is a bit OD and his embrace of Trump. [00:31:20] I'm not huge pro Trump guy, I'm not a huge anti Trump guy either. I think that's a bit OD. And frankly, it's not his role. His role was to be the one who exposes what went on, the corruption in the Church. He said there was more coming, he never delivered. And then also another big problem I have with him was when he called Moscow the third Rome. For those who understand the theological implications of that, that's a huge deal. That's basically embracing Eastern Orthodoxy in a way, because what it's saying is the third Rome theology is the idea that Rome was the first Rome, it fell, meaning it no longer had its role as the unifying center of Christ Church. The second Rome became Constantinople. [00:32:04] And then when it fell in the 1450s by the invasion of Islam, the Otoman Empire, then Moscow took over the role as Third Rome because that was about the time the Romanov dynasty started. Soon after that and Moscow became a patriarchy then wasn't and was. But anyway, that's a very orthodox theology to call Moscow the Third Rome. So when we did that, I was very troubled by that because that will lead people to Eastern Orthodoxy and away from the Catholic Church. [00:32:34] And so ultimately I'm not going to include Vegano in my list of good bishops. I pray that he would return to believing that, accepting that Francis is the Pope at least, that he has no authority to make these declarations and that we have focused on what does he know about the corruption, that he would reveal it and stay focused on that. [00:32:56] Okay, I feel like I just had to bring that up because I know people would ask, what about Vegano? And that's my view on it. I understand some people might not agree with me on that. I know some great people who still like Vegano, and so we have a disagreement on that. Okay, fine. [00:33:13] Now getting back to my point, I'm going to wrap it up here. I think one of the things that's been on my heart recently is the importance of praying for my local bishop. And I think this is something all Catholics need to do. We talk a lot about praying for the Pope, and obviously, as Catholics, we should pray for the Pope, but I think we don't talk enough about praying for our local bishop that is actually our pastor, our Father in the faith, more directly than the pope is. He has a more direct responsibility for our soul. And so I think we really need to be praying for him, whoever he might be. And I know for most people listening to this, watching this, their local bishop is a disappointment. Maybe even he's really bad. Maybe you live in Chicago or Washington, DC. Is really bad. But ultimately, though, you need to pray for him. You need to pray for him to be a bold defender of the Catholic faith, to be a successor of the apostles. The Catholic Church cannot exist without bishops. Bishops are not an add on. Bishops are not an extra. They are essential to the very structure of the Catholic faith, how Christ himself set it up. Bishops are not like cardinals are in a human addition that just helps the Church run the askries at the Vatican. The whole Vatican apparatus is just a human made, a man made institutions that help the Church run your chanceries like that. All these things are add ons. Bishops, however, are directly instituted by Jesus Christ, and they answer to Jesus Christ. The bishops do. And so we need to pray for them, pray for the souls, but pray that they would be good shepherds and don't become too cynical by our bishops. We see good here. There is good happening. Let's pray that more and more will happen. I believe that these bishops, like Bishop Snyder, Bishop Strickland, the Dubia Cardinals, they're arising because of our prayers, mostly, probably the prayers of those nuns that are in their contemplative orders. But all of our prayers continue to pray, particularly pray for your bishop. And know that there is clarity in the midst of confusion. Something like Credo by Bishop Anthony Schneider, like the Dubia Cardinal's, questions that make it clear what the answer is, like Bishop Strickland's apostle letters he's been writing and putting on his website recently, there is clarity in the midst of this confusion, and so seek that out as a Catholic. Seek out the shepherds who are speaking with the voice of Christ, and I've mentioned some of them here in this podcast. Seek out those shepherds and follow their words. Okay, I think I'm going to stop there. And let's pray for our bishops. Let's pray for the Pope. Until next time, everybody. God love.