The Death of Pope Francis

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. So why don't we go ahead and start this podcast with praying for the repose of his soul? We'll see. In our Father. Hail Mary. [00:00:20] Speaker B: In the Father and Son, the Holy Spirit. [00:00:22] Speaker A: Amen. [00:00:22] Speaker B: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. [00:00:38] Speaker A: Hail Mary, full of grace. [00:00:39] Speaker B: The Lord is with the Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. [00:00:43] Speaker A: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for. [00:00:45] Speaker B: Us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. [00:00:57] Speaker A: Amen. [00:00:57] Speaker B: Father and Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. [00:01:00] Speaker A: So today is April 21, 2025, and Pope Francis, it was announced, passed away this morning. I don't think this came as a big shock. I mean, I don't think people expect it to happen this morning, but of course he's been battling some significant health problems over the past few months. In particular, I myself said I don't think he's going to make it through 2025. And I wasn't a Nostradamus to say that. It just simply was the fact that he was an 88 year old man with one and a half lungs and a lot of poor health issues and poor health. And so he passed away this morning. And so I want to talk a little bit about Pope Francis, about my own kind of a reflection of my own views towards Pope Francis over the years, what I think his papacy, the legacy of it's going to be. Also talk a little bit about the coming Conclave. I think we'll talk about that more as we get closer to it. I think there's nine days of official morning. There's some good sites out there that kind of explain the process. I'm not going to go over that here, but it's going to. They're not going to also start the conclave tomorrow. There's a whole process by which that's been set in which the cardinals will gather. There'll be a funeral for Pope Francis and then there will be the actual conclave, probably in about two weeks or so from now, approximately. And then at that point we can talk more about the conclave. But I'll talk about a little bit at the End of this, the program today. You know, personally, I wrote an article also at Crisis magazine, that published today. Yes, I did write it before this happened, because every, every Catholic media outlet had articles, an article or articles prepared for the death of Pope Francis, particularly in the last couple months. So I wrote this about a month or two ago. I, I looked at it again this morning before I published it. But I talk about his papacy and my thoughts on it just for myself. I want to talk a little bit about my own kind of progression in my views of Pope Francis. I think I share these, actually, with a lot of people. I don't think I'm unique in my own viewpoint here. When Jorge Bergoglio was first elected Pope Francis, I had never heard of him. I had no knowledge of him. And so I. It was an open book to me. I was like, okay, that's who the next pope's going to be. I was, I was happy with Pope Benedict. I was very unhappy they resigned, but I was happy with Pope Benedict in general. I very much loved Pope John Paul ii. In hindsight, I do have some more criticisms of him now than I did back then, but at the same time, overall. So those are the only two popes in my lifetime as a Catholic. And so I was like, okay, here's another Pope. We'll just see what happens. And so I just, you know, I did see initially some more traditional Catholics who were very critical of him and, and basically saying, this guy's going to be a disaster. And I'll be honest, I wasn't happy about that. I wasn't happy with the traditions for saying that, because I was like, give the guy a break. Give the guy a chance. Let, Let, let's see what happens when he's in the chair of St. Peter before we immediately assume he's not going to be a good Pope. Let's give him a chance. And then I, I will say that, that I started to get a little bit uncomfortable pretty quickly. You know, the who am I to judge? Comment. What was. Was obviously a bit troubling. But honestly, my, My thought at the time was simply, okay, he needs time to understand the office better, how every word he says is going to be parsed is going to be critiqued and maybe misunderstood. And so let's give him a chance. I was a little bit concerned, though, that there was never a statement made afterwards to kind of clarify what he meant. And, of course, this became the pattern of his papacy, where he would say things that were provocative and controversial, interpreted in a certain way, and then Nothing was ever done. To clarify. No, that's not what he meant in that case, because most people interpreted the. Who am I to judge? As a support for homosexual activity. I'm not saying that's what he meant even. I'm just simply saying most people, that's how they interpreted that phrase. And that was. That was said, by the way, just a couple months into his pontificate. I think it was In August of 2013, something like that. And then I will say the first time, I kind of was like, okay, I'm not quite sure about this. Was actually. I think it was an apostolic constitution. Came out in November of 2013. So just a few months after he became pope, called Evangeli Gaudium. I was very excited about this because it was about evangelization. I was the director of evangelization of a diocese at that point. And so to me, it was like my boss's boss was literally giving me marching orders, was saying, okay, here's how we should evangelize. And the first part of it wasn't bad. But the more I read, the more I was like, I admit, I'll just come out and say it. I felt uncomfortable. I felt like he was very focused on this world and on some political things, ideological things, and not really on evangelization as I understood it. And I'm not saying I was right and he was wrong. I'm just simply saying, as I understood from reading the writings of Pope Benedict JP2, Pope Paul VI document on evangelization, the church's documents on evangelization throughout the years, throughout the centuries, and it just seemed to not really be aligned with that. So I was like, okay, well, again, though, I just continued to say, well, we'll see. And then just. It became like a constant drip, drip of things that would come out of the Vatican, come out of the papacy. That made me uncomfortable, made me more and more think that I'm not quite sure if this is working out so well as time went on. And then I did get to a point where I was like, okay, I really think this is not going well, that this papacy is not going well. It's not not helping to advance the cause of the gospel, the cause of the Catholic Church. But I stayed mostly publicly quiet about that. I just didn't feel like, comfortable talking about it publicly. But I will say the McCarrick summer of 2018, the summer of shame, that's when I just kind of a switch flipped in me where I said, okay, it doesn't do any good to just simply keep my mouth shut and to not be willing to criticize the Pope directly and other hierarchs in the Church because Pope Francis clearly was close with Cardinal McCarrick. I believe he knew. I believe, I mean, even though I'm not a fan anymore of Archbishop Vigano, I believe Vigano's account that he basically informed Pope Francis that there was problems in the Carrick and what kind of problems there were. And so then at that point, I became publicly critical and I became one of the people who was most known for being publicly critical of Pope Francis. Now, when I look back at the things I said and did over the years, there are times I, I do think that I said things out of anger, out of an uncharitable spirit, and, and, and I don't, and I shouldn't have done that. But on the whole, I don't really take back anything I said as far as the content of what I said in my criticisms of Pope Francis over the years, even my, my harshest criticisms of Pope Francis. And so I just felt like that it was necessary to do this. And in fact, I had a lot of people, a lot of people contact me and thanked me for it because I felt like I tried to be critical of Pope Francis while always trying to be charitable, trying to also make it clear that I'm simply trying to repeat what the Church has always taught and how what Pope Francis might have said or done maybe caused confusion, maybe caused a scandal, maybe caused people to not understand what the Church really teaches. And I. So I had a lot of people reach out to me and say thank you, because they also felt uncomfortable and felt like, this is not what we've been taught. This is not what I see in the Baltimore Catechism. This is not what we've been, you know, the Church has always said, but they started to felt like, what's going on? But the Pope is saying this. And so when I and others, I'm not the only person born, I said, yeah, this is not correct, and here's why. Not just I don't like it or it makes me feel bad like that, but specifically when the Pope says, for example, the death penalty is inadmissible, why is it that that is a problematic way of putting things? When Amoris Leticia says, basically, it gives an open door to communion for the divorced and remarried, why is that not. That is not Catholic teaching. And so those type of things, people would say thank you, and it helped them to continue to practice their faith and be faithful Catholics. Now, of course, if you think Being a faithful Catholic is simply just agreeing with every single thing the current Pope says. Well, then I understand you might think that's a bit of an oxymoron for me to say that, but I just had a lot of people who were happy that at least some people were saying, okay, what this current Pope is saying there are reasons to believe is contradictory to what the Church has taught and even scandalous, and also criticizing him for actions like people he appointed to high office, his deal with China, things of that nature. Now I will say then, though, however, in August of 2024, so last August, I decided to stop criticizing Pope Francis publicly. If you look back, you'll see I have not criticized him myself. I myself have not criticized Pope Francis publicly since August. I announced that I did this in October, but it was really in August. And this came to me in prayer. It came to me through some self reflection, but mostly it wasn't. And I said at the time, it's not that I'm saying my criticism before, I now disagree with, I still believe in the content of them. It's simply I didn't see what the point was of continuing to do it. Everybody knew where Pope Francis stood, people who followed me knew where I stood, and I just didn't. I felt it did more harm than good to continually bring up the problems of the Francis pontificate, to continually bring up the scandals and other things like that. And also I felt like it wasn't good for my own spiritual life to complete, continually be focused on it. So I stopped criticizing him back in August. A lot of people said at the time, oh, you're going to, you know, you'll break this within a few weeks. But I didn't, because I really did believe it. I really did think that was the right thing to do. I still think that now. And I said I was not going to criticize him for the length the rest of his pontificate. Now, his pontificate is over. Now I'm not going to all of a sudden become, let's spend the next six months criticizing Pope Francis, but I am now, I do believe it's important that we, that we have the proper historical understanding of the Francis papacy and we properly understand where his papacy lies in, in the history of the Church and what's impact and what's legacy will be. So I, I am willing to criticize him again now, publicly. Now some would say this is actually worse in some ways because you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead. I've, I, I've Already heard this on social media today, and I think there's some problems with this. A couple things. First of all, that's a modern, mostly modern. It's a social convention. It's not a moral truth. So criticizing somebody who just died is not necessarily a sin. It can be, depending on what you say. But it's not like a precept. At church. You may not speak ill of the dead. I mean, when Cardinal. Oh, not anymore. Cardinal When Theodore McCarrick died a couple weeks ago, nobody was like, okay, you can't speak ill of him for 24 hours or until he's buried or whatever the case may be. So it's a social convention. And the truth is it's a good social convention in many ways. So, for example, if I have a friend and his dad passes away, and let's say his dad was just not a good guy, he was like a jerk, let's say, it would be wrong of me, I think. Not necessarily sinful, but. But definitely social convention, I think is good in this case, to speak ill of him at that point. If my friend tells me, oh, my dad passed away, I wouldn't say, well, I mean, he was kind of a jerk, wasn't he? Of course I wouldn't. Even if he was, even if that's true, you don't say that because he's not. He's not a public figure. He's a private. He's a private individual, and the family needs to mourn that person. I don't think the social convention, though, is, like, binding and 100% has to be followed in the case of public figures. Public figures have a great impact on the world. Like somebody like Pope Francis has a huge impact on the Catholic Church. He's had a huge impact on millions of souls. And so simply to just say, oh, we cannot speak ill of him until some predetermined time frame which isn't actually, you know, is it the first 24 hours? Is it until he's buried? Is it the first month? Is it till we have another Pope? I don't know. It's never defined. But I honestly think oftentimes it's used as a way to, by supporters of Pope Francis to say, okay, we will shut them down so that we can craft the narrative now so that the next pope who is elected will be in the same mindset as Pope Francis. Because while nobody's willing, if nobody criticizes him, then we can shape this narrative of how great a pontificate he had, and then maybe the cardinals will elect another person in his likeness. Also, some people were saying this. It's just simply hyper papalism. You can't speak ill of a pope. I mean, they were saying this before he died. Now they're saying it now that he has passed away. You can never say anything critical of the current pope. And it's a hyper papalism. And it's something that I've been combating now for years, because I think it really is a improper understanding of Vatican I, improper understanding of Catholicism, that you cannot criticize the current Pope or a previous pope, or whatever the case may be. I also think we can look to, for example, look to the Old Testament and how the Jews talked about their leaders, their kings, who were their spiritual leaders. When we say a Jewish king that was like their pope in many ways, because he is their spiritual leader. I mean, they did not hold back on what they thought about bad kings. They did not hold back at all. It's very much right there in the sacred Scriptures what they thought of the kings who were not faithful to God. They made it very clear that these people were not following God and that because of them, many evil things happened in the world. And there's a very much a bluntness. I mean, there's a certain a matter of modern kind of Anglo etiquette in the whole. Don't ever speak ill of the dead again. I'm not saying the social convention just shouldn't exist at all. Like I said, you wouldn't say that about a friend's dad who passed away and, you know, wasn't known or anything, but you knew he wasn't. You didn't really like him very much. But Pope Francis has had a huge impact on the church. And if we just simply say no, we can't speak ill of it. And if you're in a state of mourning and you don't want to hear it, don't go on the social media, don't listen to podcasts and things like that. And so I just. Maybe this makes me socially awkward or whatever the case may be, that I'm willing to say a criticism of Pope Francis on the day that he passed away. But I just, you know, it's kind of weird because I wouldn't criticize him publicly for months, but now I will. But I just don't think that this is a moral binding precept that we have to follow, especially in the case of somebody who has done, be honest, a great deal of damage to souls and to the church over the past 12 years. And so I am going to be willing to criticize him. I'm also willing to say good things about him too. Like, for example, I am very, I was very pleased with Pope Francis and how he worked for peace in the world, particularly in Ukraine and the Holy Land. He did not fall into a specific political category. Instead, he wanted peace above all. And I very much am grateful to Pope Francis for that focus on peace in Ukraine and in the Holy Land. I mean, it was very admirable and I'm very thankful for that. So it's also not a matter of let's just try to find everything wrong with Pope Francis. But I said in my article this morning, I'll just say it here, Pope Francis was a terrible pope. And there's no way to sugarcoat that. When we look at the history, I'm not saying he's the worst pope ever or anything like that. I'm just simply saying if you look at his 12 year pontificate, it was full of scandal. It was full of just a lot of souls being confused, of being led astray. I mean, I kind of mentioned in my article today kind of the three things I kind of mentioned. There were his comments that he said, public comments, a lot of comments he made, the personnel he selected for a lot of important positions in the church and some of his official acts. I mean, we all know about the comments. Every time he got on a plane, it's nervous. I still remember this day. I don't remember a lot of them. I mean, there's a lot of things he's done I could not, I can't recall to mind anymore. I've kind of blocked them out or just forgotten about them. But I remember when he made the comment, it was 2015 in a plane, when he said that Catholics shouldn't breed like rabbits. And the context of it, it very much came across like he was criticizing po. I'm sorry, criticizing Catholics who have a lot of kids. And as a, as a father who has a lot of kids, I will admit that was. That was like a little bit shocking. And I would just say publicly that my wife was very hurt by that. And I don't blame her because the sacrifices she has made to have a lot of kids, physical, mental, psychological, everything. She's endured three miscarriages and given birth to seven children. And I think just to hear her spiritual father, her Holy Father say basically kind of demean that, I think was very hurtful to her. And it was hurtful to me. It made me angry, I'll be honest, because it was hurtful to her as her husband. I wanted to protect her. And to hear that was very demeaning. And by the way, before I mentioned any other comments, I know the Pope splainers have an explanation for everything he ever said and did. And it's just like, okay, fine, at this point, I'm not going to argue with you anymore. I know what I heard with my own ears. I, I would look into these things. I did not get this from mainstream media reports or anything like that. In fact, often when the Pope would make a comment that was scandalous, I would then go look at the full context. I would go to the Vatican website, read the whole thing, and I'd find there's actually things in there worse than the thing that was publicly kind of making, making the rounds. And in the context it actually made it worse. But all so many comments like that the personnel he select arounded him. I mean, just a lot of bad characters. Now you could say something similar to Pope John Paul ii, although he picked people like Ratzinger as well. He had a mixed record, we'll say, but Francis picked a lot of people around him who were just bad actors, just bad. And the bishops he selected, just bad actors. There's just no other way around it to say that than to say that. And you know, personnel's policy, I don't think that's. You can't just wave aside and say, well, that's, you know, what they did, whatever. I mean, he picked a lot of people in high positions and he got rid of a lot of good people. He got rid of Seurat, Cardinal Seurat, Cardinal Burke, you know, Cardinal Mueller, you know, lots of other, lots of good Cardinal Pell, lots of good men who could have surrounded him, he pushed aside. And so I think we can't ignore that. And then of course there's his official Acts Amorous Leticia, I've already mentioned, and the Abu Dhabi Declaration, which was very scandalous. I wrote about that a lot in my book Deadly Indifference. And of course I can't not mention Traditionis Custodis. As somebody who attends the traditional Latin Mass and has for years, I have seen the great good it has done for souls. I have seen people directly seen people, many people, souls brought closer to Jesus Christ and more in love with him and become better people and become more holy, more saintly because they attend the traditional Latin Mass. I've seen it time and time again over the past 14 years. And then for the Pope to basically say this is a harm to the Church, we need to eradicate this from the church. I mean, he literally wanted it to be completely gone from the church. And it takes steps to attack everybody who attends the traditional Latin Mass, to attack it and to try to eliminate it and do everything he can to persecute those who attend church Mass. There is literally no way you can excuse that. I understand that there are some people attending church Latin Mass who at times may do bad things. I'm one of them. I know that. I'm not. I don't claim to be a saint. I don't claim to be somebody who's always done the right thing and, and every public statement I made is perfect. Anything like that. That being said, you take care of those people individually. I've said this a million times before. But if Pope Francis has a problem with Taylor Marshall, he should just go after Taylor Marshall and she'd contact Taylor Marshall's bishop and have him, you know, excommunicated, punish whatever she do the same thing with my bishop or whoever the case may be. That's not what he did. He painted this broad brush and he said all traditional Catholics are the problem in the church at a time when it's in the west, at least in America and parts of Europe, it's the only part of the church that's growing to say that's the problem in the church. It just was just unbelievably awful and petty in so many ways because he would make these descriptions of traditionalists that frankly show no knowledge, no personal, direct knowledge of traditionalists. I mean, he could not have talked to any of them at any length of time based upon the way he described them. Honestly, it's not hard to believe that he hated us. I mean, I don't know any other way to put it, but that he really hated us in the church. Now, I want to be clear about something. It's not that traditionalists and more conservative Catholics don't deserve criticisms and shouldn't be criticized and challenged by the Pope even. That's not what I'm saying. In fact, I heard a sermon recently from a Catholic priest who celebrates the traditional at Mass that was very hard hitting against traditionalists. Very hard hitting. It's not online or anything that just. I heard it personally, but boy, it was good and it really challenged me. It made me realize I need to step up and that is a good thing. So it's not saying, oh, we're a bunch of snowflakes. You can't criticize trads or whatever the case may be. Yes, absolutely. We should be criticized as much as anybody when we do things wrong. And like I said, when this holy, more traditionally priest said, gave a homily that was very critical, very challenging is a better word about some of the problems in the traditional world. I was like, yes, I need to look inside myself and make sure I'm not doing those things. I need to really do that. And so I'm not saying Pope Francis shouldn't have been challenging and even critical of traditionalists, but that's not what he was. He simply launched petty attacks against traditionalists and any. Not only just like Patricia, Latin mass people, but like, if you wore a cassock, he didn't. He seemed your priest, he seemed to have a problem with you or, you know, you know, whatever the case may be, wore lace. And so I really do think that on a whole, all these things were very scandalous and they just were distressing. This whole pontificate has been a trial for the church. And I just. And if this bothers you for me to say this right now, I mean, you probably shouldn't be listening to me. But I feel like we need to be honest. The most charitable thing we need to do is to be honest and direct about the state of the Church today. That we need to be honest and direct because that's the way through. That's the way that we will eventually get through it and have a renewal in the church. If we try to act like there was nothing wrong or we refuse to talk about anything wrong during the Francis papacy, we're just going to continue the same mistakes that we did. And so that's why I think it's also okay to criticize, for example, certain aspects of Pope John Paul II's Papacy, because there were certain aspects, like what appears to be religious indifference. I'm not saying he was personally religious indifference, but he allowed it to foster within the church. So I just personally think that this is the most important thing right now, is that we're very honest about the Francis papacy. I hope one day that a future pope or a council basically declares the Francis papacy null and void. I'm not saying that he wasn't a pope, but basically kind of makes his acts null and void and that we move forward from there. I will say also that the Francis papacy has truly helped, I think, Catholics in a very difficult way to better understand the papacy. I've talked about this time and time again, but I do think that the papacy, the understanding of papacy in the Catholic Church has become deformed over the past century, century and a half. My friend Timothy Flanders, over 1 Peter 5 calls it the Spirit of Vatican I. Kind of keeping of the problems with the Spirit of Vatican ii. He talks about the Spirit of Vatican I, where after Vatican I there was this hyper papalism that, that grew that where people believe that popes could do no wrong, they couldn't be criticized. And it really. There was two aspects of that. There was two branches of that tree. One is the Pope Spleen and the other is the city of a. That a, a, a pope just simply cannot do wrong. The current Pope, at least I think though a lot of times this was, this is just done by the Pope you like. I mean, I just saw today where a X account that is well known for being very much nothing Pope Francis has done is wrong. He's based, he's awesome. Somebody asked him, what are you going to do with the next Pope, you know, for the next. But you're going to say the same attitude. And he said, well, I have to wait and see. Well, you just proved what we're saying, that you just simply are because you support him is why you're saying this. So if we have another Pope, all we're saying is like the current Pope, whoever the current pope is, right now there isn't a current Pope, but whoever the next pope is, that they can do wrong at times. And this is a much more healthy attitude towards the papacy. To me, one of the scandals of the Francis papacy, it wasn't Francis himself as much as it was Catholics who fell into the stereotypes I thought I believed when I was Protestant and I had to be disabused of by Catholics. Catholics. No, no, we don't have to agree with everything the Pope says. No, no, we don't have to. He's not infallible in everything he says and does. I thought that as a Protestant and then I changed my mind because I realized, okay, that's not true because Catholics told me it wasn't true. Then all of a sudden I start seeing people do that. And did I do that some with Pope John Paul ii? I'm willing to say yes, I probably did. There are probably times where I know there were times where like, for example, there might be a apologetic argument against abortion or home sanctuary or something like that. And I would just simply say, well, Pope John Paul II is against it and that's the end of the story. That's not how it works. And so I shouldn't have done that. But then people today who are like Pope Francis says it, therefore it has to be true. That's not Catholicism. That's a Cult. That's not Catholicism. That's a cult. And I think that's been a good thing in of the Francis that's come out of the Francis papacy that we need to recognize. And so whoever the Pope next may be, let's say the Lord works mysterious ways. And all of a sudden they call up Bishop Athanasius Schneider and say, we elected you as the next Pope. I would be ecstatic. I would be overjoyed. But even then, I shouldn't use arguments after he becomes Pope, saying, well, he said it, so therefore it's true. Now, I might say, yes, we should follow what the Pope says, because we, he's saying, is consistent with the tradition of the Church. It's consistent with what we've always taught, what we've always believed. That's what a proper way to do it. And so I think that's. That's important going forward, no matter who the next Pope may be, how good or how bad he might be, that we consistently say, okay, popes are important for. For many reasons, but not as like a prophet, like a Mormon prophet who just basically declares, this is what truth is. That's not the purpose of papacy. Now, I want to mention one other thing. I got a lot of flack this morning on X, because I posted a post this morning after hearing about the death of Pope Francis that just said Deo Grazias. And that's all it said. And of course, people were livid, people were upset, people were freaking out. And I understand some people might have misunderstood it. First of all, I do want to be clear. San De Gracias is not a celebration. It means thanks be to God. And as Catholics, we are to believe, to be thankful to God in everything, in good and bad. I remember this is something that came to me, a little personal story here. Hope you don't mind. When my wife had her first miscarriage. This is probably 15 years ago. Yeah, 15. No, 20. Oh, my gosh. 20 years ago now. Oh, geez. And it was, you know, she was about 17, 18 weeks. And I remember the passage from the first chapter of Job, the Book of Job, where all these terrible things happen to Job. His whole family dies. He loses everything. And he says, you know, naked I came into the world naked. I will leave it. Good things come forward, bad things. Blessed be the name of the Lord in all things. And that really hit me at that time. In fact, we put Blessed be the name of the Lord on the tombstone of my son who died in the miscarriage. And it reminded me that we're not Just supposed to thank God when we like what's going on. We thank God in all things. But I thank God often in my prayers of thanksgiving after Mass for my failings, for my fault, even for my sins. Now I understand. I want to be clear here. We should never be thankful for our sins in the sense that we want to keep sinning, but just it's because it's an opportunity for me to recognize I need God. Opportunity to realize under my own power, I am nothing. Opportunity for me to get back up and serve God. And so when I say Deo Gratias about the death of Pope Francis, I am saying a number of things by this. I am saying, and I will be. And I don't want to act like I'm not saying this. I am thankful that the Francis papacy is over. I'm not going to deny that I am thankful it's over. I'm also thankful that his own suffering is over, because the fact is that, you know, I'm sure he suffered a great deal at the end there. It could not have been easy for him. I was thankful when my dad died. I was thankful when my mom died because their suffering was over, because their time had come. I was very sad at the same time, and I was. I'm thankful in a. In a very real way for the Francis pontificate. All these critical things I say don't mean I'm not thankful for it, because I'm thankful because of the good that God brings out of everything. And I'm thankful that God. I'm also thankful for the papacy. I'm thankful that the papacy endures in spite of bad popes and good popes. And even when a pope dies, we have a way in which we're going to have a new pope. So, yes, I am. I think it's very appropriate to say Deo Gratias in every situation in life, because we should be thankful for everything. So I get that people freaked out and people were like, oh, he's celebrating the death of the Pope. That's not saying De Gracias is not a celebration. It's simply saying, I'm thankful to God. I'm thankful to God for everything. And yes, I am thankful that this papacy is over, but I'm also thankful for Francis. I'm thankful for the church and thankful for, for all aspects of, of being Catholic and, and this is part of it, being even Catholic during a period of sede vacante. I'm thankful for that. Now, I, I probably. I'll get to some comments in the live chat here in a minute, but I just want to briefly talk about the coming Conclave. The first one is, is that don't believe anything you read in the media, especially the, the, the mainstream media, they, they are completely ignorant of the goings on in the Catholic Church. I mean, just saw today where they said Cardinal Farrell, who is the, I can't remember the title now, but he's basically kind of in like the guy who's supposed to kind of organize things now that the Pope's dead until the next Pope is elected. And he said he's now the head of the Catholic Church. He's not the head of the Catholic Church. Only the Pope ever is the head of the Catholic Church. But the mainstream media is going to get everything wrong. They're going to put everything in the American mainstream media going to put everything in American political terms. Is this guy pro Trump or anti Trump, you know, pro migration or anti migration? He's, is he pro homosexual marriage or anti homosexual marriage, all that type of stuff. So just ignore and don't, don't listen to the mainstream media at all. But I would say that I do think, and I've said this already, I said this in a, in a podcast earlier this year when I was talking about the Pope probably will die this year. I, I do not think, personally, I don't think the next Pope's going to be a Francis like successor. I could be wrong. Obviously. Every prediction can be wrong. What we can go back and see. I just think that his picks for cardinal, for the College of Cardinals were eclectic. They weren't always ideologically bound by to him. I mean, I think his American picks often were and his Western European picks were. But he picks people from all over the world and they didn't get together hardly at all. They don't have, they haven't had gotten time to get to know each other at all. I don't think Pope Francis knows them very well or knew them very well. And so I really think that what's going to happen is that the College of Cardinals is going to the Conclave will look to a less contentious Pope. If nothing else, he might be ideologically aligned with Francis, but I don't think he's going to be somebody who's going to govern in the same style as Francis. I think that's what I mean when I say we're not going to have a Francis too. I mean, he might take the name Francis too. Hope not. But I don't think he's going to be somebody who governs in the same style as Francis did, which I think is a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I do think it's possible we'll get a good, you know, a solid pick for the next Pope. I think there's some papable, personally. One of the. Some of the ones, obviously Bishop Schneider. I don't think that's gonna happen. But, you know, love that Cardinal Sera, Cardinal Burke. I don't think that one's gonna happen. Colonel Erdo, Cardinal Mueller, uh, Cardinal Pizzabala. I mean, these are some names that I think would. Could. Would likely be a big improvement and could be very solid popes. Most of those names I said probably aren't likely. Colonel Pizzabala probably is the most papable. Maybe Colonel Erdo as well, of Hungary are probably the most papable of the ones that I mentioned. And there's some other candidates who aren't, you know. Okay, there are some candidates that I, frankly, I worry about. But I will say this. Even if a cardinal who appears to be the most Francis, like in the worst, and he takes the name Francis ii, even then, I don't think as soon as he's elected, we should immediately be like, this is going to be a disaster. I just don't like that attitude. I think we should be. Have a wait and see, be praying for him, hoping that, okay, let's give him a chance. The graces of the Petrine office could come upon him and couldn't and could change how he looks at things and how he does things. I also think we should not. I mean, I don't think we can prove this or do anything to stop it, but I don't think we should be ignorant of the fact that there could be a deep state influence on the conclave. Now, I know some people like, oh, get your tinfoil hats on. You know, Samus is going crazy as conspiracy theories. But the fact is, is that the papacy is one of the most powerful offices in the world. Even today and throughout history, political forces have definitely influenced conclaves. I mean, let's not pretend otherwise. There's reason to believe there was political influences in the 2013 conclave, maybe in 2005. So there could very possibly be political influences of, like, deep state operative types in the 2025 conclave. So we should be praying for the Holy Spirit to prevent that from happening. Although the Holy Spirit could also work through that. Maybe some deep state, you know, operative wants a certain pope person to be made Pope, and he would end up being who the Holy Spirit wants. And so maybe that's the way it would happen. I think we should be open to all these possibilities. I think also, though, that as lay Catholics and priests, I know, listen to this, and even some bishops, believe it or not, I think that, you know, we can't. We're not going to be voting, we're not going to be selecting the next Pope, but we can pray, and we obviously should be praying to the Holy Spirit for the next Pope. We should be praying that the next pope would be a holy pope, would be a wise, but would be a courageous pope. Those are always the three ones I've been praying for. I've been praying for the next pope for years. I've been praying for Pope Francis. It's interesting. He died. Pope Francis died this morning, I think a little bit right before I got up this morning. I got up pretty early and I was. I was praying for Pope Francis, as I always do. And so it was just, you know, and I, I always pray my prayer for Pope Francis and for. I always pray for the Pope Francis, the next pope, that they would be holy, wise and courageous. I say that because, first of all, they have to be holy. You want a holy pope. That's, that's like the first thing. You want a wise pope too, meaning he's prudent, he judges well. He. He. He can govern the church well. And so wise pope is very important, too. Wisdom. I mean, not book knowledge necessarily, but wise and governance. And I think we want a courageous pope because here's the fact, it's very difficult. There will be very many evil forces against whoever the pope is. And so we want a courageous pope that can stand up to it. I'll be honest. I personally think that's where Pope Benedict failed. I think Pope Benedict was holy and I think he was wise. I don't think he was courageous. So ultimately. And I think that. So that's why I've always prayed those. For those three characteristics, for a pope, for wholly wise and courageous. And so let's be. Join me if you want to keep praying, to pray for the next pope to be like that, Pray for the church and yes, pray for Pope Francis, continue to pray for the repose of his soul. That's just what we do as Catholics. We pray for everybody when they die. And so I think we want to pray for, you know, for Pope Francis. This is a, you know, a very important time in the life of the church. And so let's just, you know, continue to pray for one another and pray for the cardinals and pray. Pray for the Whole church. Okay. Let me just grab some of the comments and questions in, in the live chat and we'll go through those and then we'll, we'll wrap it up here. Okay. Highway Marshall says you're right on Pope Francis. Mr. Sammons, he was not a good pope. As Archbishop Chaput mentioned at First Things, Francis had a good heart, but he did not protect the doctrine of faith. Yeah. Archbishop Chapu, I recommend his. In First Things, he was, he did a very good job of balancing a, a respect for the papacy, even a love for Pope Francis. I think it's. I loved Pope Francis because I know what love means. It doesn't mean I have to agree with everything he says, but he did not do a good job of protecting the doctrine of the faith. Okay. Edu Adu Cashin. I apologize if I mispronounce your name. Says I don't think acknowledging it is talking ill of hate him. And I, I hope I, I mean, I know some people will interpret like that and we just can't. I can't do anything about. I can't control how other people think. I just think it's necessary to make sure the historical record is correct. Dave Earhart, he says, hoping the conclave will truly be led by the Holy Spirit and they'll elect a more conservative pope. The church and the world need it. Any ideas? Like I, I mentioned, I like Cardinal Siraz, Cardinal Pizzabala, Cardinal Erdo Cardamom, Cardinal Pizza Ball, by the way, he's a wild card. And I will be the first to admit that he's not somebody necessarily who, like, is a cons, quote, unquote, conservative pope. He, he's from. He's the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and he has been very critical of what's going on in Gaza. He's been very supportive of Middle Eastern Christians, most importantly, but even Muslims. And he's been critical at times of Israel. But he's a very, he comes across, at least to me, as a very holy man. He offered himself as an exchange for the hostages that Hamas had. You know, he offered his own, you know, that he would be taken hostage and said, and I think so. It's not like Colonel Pizza Ball is like, oh, he's a big traditional Latin mass guy. No, he's. I assume he's not. But I think that wild card could be very good. I think he comes, he comes across very holy, very wise as well, so. And very courageous. I hope he's very wise. I actually don't. You know, I think that. But he's, he Comes across definitely courageous and definitely holy. But Erdo, I think, is, you know, good. Mueller, Sarah I don't think they have likely a chance. Okay. T.K. o'Rourke says, I feel like the child who had an odd relationship with the father, while those outside the family said nothing but good things and those in the family canonize him. I just kind of sit back and pray. I think this is something. I thank you, TK for saying that, because I think this is something we have to recognize. There are a lot of Catholics who feel personally very hurt by Pope Francis. I don't really classify myself as that. That. I mean, but I just. I know Catholics, particularly women. I'm not saying this is like a effeminate thing. I'm saying this is a womanly thing, and that's a good thing, that this is God's created women a very special way. And I think they tend to be more hurt by what Pope Francis has done. And I think to just pretend like, okay, we have to only say good things about him, and we can't say that he did anything negative. I think that adds to the hurt that they feel because they see this father figure as somebody who really has done a lot to harm them and has treated them very poorly over the years. And now all of a sudden, like, we're going to canonize him immediately. I think that's something we have to recognize. And I want to. I want to, like, kind of speak out for those people. And if you're somebody like that, I mean, I hear you, I understand. I think it's legitimate if you're hurt. I don't think that's like just some kind of snowflake thing. I really think it's legitimate because of the things that Pope Francis has said and done over the years. If you were a traditionally minded Catholic just trying to live a holy life, you didn't care about church politics, you weren't saying anything publicly against whatever, and all of a sudden, the Pope, the man who's your Holy Father, says all these negative and even attacking things about what you love. I understand that you're hurt, and so that's why I'm not going to jump the canonized the man. I just don't think that's the proper reaction. Jerry De Clean says, great reminder not to believe anything said in media reconclave. Yeah, it will be bad, people. It will be bad. They will be saying things that just are just inaccurate, that will just be just not. Not good. So just don't just ignore them. We'll have commentary throughout it at Crisis. So obviously, you know, and there's some other good Catholic outlets that will have good reporting and things of that nature. So there is some good stuff out there. Just, just be careful about believing everything you hear about, about the Conclave. Okay. I'm going to leave it there. I appreciate everybody who tuned in again, please pray for Pope Francis, for repose of his soul. Pray for, you know, his, his judgment. Pray for the cardinals who are going to be meeting soon, the Conclave. Pray for the Catholic Church, and pray that many souls will be brought closer to Jesus Christ through what's happening in the Catholic Church today. That's really what it's all about. Okay, everybody. Until next time. God love.