When the Pope Is Sick: Who Runs the Church?

[00:00:00] Foreign. [00:00:12] Welcome to Crisis Point. I'm Eric Sammons, your host. Before we get started, you know what to do. Hit that subscribe button, hit the like button, let other people know about it. I appreciate people who are subscribing now that I'm reminding you again. [00:00:24] So, yeah, just please hit the subscribe button. That really does help get the podcast out to more people. And also hitting the like button does the same thing. [00:00:33] So let's go ahead and get started. I, I want to talk today about Pope Leo and the fact that he recently had surgery that he's been for, for lung cancer, essentially, is what it is. Just to be clear as we get started here, I am not a doctor. I don't pretend to be a doctor. I don't, I don't pretend to be one on, on podcasts. And so I'm getting this medical information from various sources, and I'm not claiming to be an expert on it, but Pope Leo himself announced it on October 11th Angeles, that he was going to have. [00:01:08] He had a nodule that was potentially cancerous that they wanted to remove. And so on October 13, which was, by the way, the anniversary of Our lady of Fatima's miracle, the dancing of the sun, that happened in October 13, 1917. And I think that's meaningful. I think that's meaningful because the history of the modern papacy has been very wrapped up with the messages of Fatima. And so I think the fact that the surgery was scheduled for that day is meaningful. And so essentially what happened was the lower right lobe was removed. [00:01:44] And it was said that this was at an early stage. It was circumscribed and localized. [00:01:51] It was fully removed. The doctor said it was radicality, I think, is the word he used, which means it's fully removed. [00:02:00] The Pope is recovering right now as we speak. He's still, he's doing well. He's walking, he's eating normally. All the tests are coming back. Normally. There was a story that he even said mass in his, in his room or something like that, but I don't think that was confirmed. [00:02:16] Audiences have been canceled through at least the 20th. And he's. But Leo still wants to go to make his South America trip in November. [00:02:27] So that's, that's kind of up in the air. So kind of. What does this mean? Is this serious, Will? You know, is this something that means the Pope's life is likely going to be short? Remember, he's only 71 years old. People expected when he was named the Pope that he would have a long papacy, maybe 20 years or so, or 15 to 20 years. And so this does kind of put that into question. [00:02:51] But I think again, not being a doctor, from what I heard he's in, everything's going well. [00:02:58] Now the question is going to be if further tests show that the cancer spread beyond the nodule that was removed, obviously that would be a problem and that could cause long term consequences. [00:03:09] But the fact that it was early stage and it was localized, it puts him in kind of the best odds group. [00:03:15] The, the, the idea that it's, you know, high percentage chance everything will go well. [00:03:20] I also think the fact that he's a Pope means it probably was caught early because I'm sure the Pope, the Popes always have regular checkups and tests and things like that. It's not like somebody who might go years before they see a doctor and all of a sudden they find it, it's been, and it's, it's spread a lot. My guess is that he's had multiple, since he's become Pope, he's had multiple times that this has been checked. You know, he's been checked over and everything. And so my guess is it probably was very early stage. [00:03:49] The recovery is the idea. Supposedly this is what I read is that he'll have full energy back within six to eight weeks and he can live a normal life on, you know, they don't have to do anything. Everything is fine, he's active, they will, they'll, you know, keep him, keep checking on him and things like that. So I, I think, you know, it is serious what, what he had to have happen if this happened to a loved one, a spouse, for example, you would take it seriously. You'd ask people to pray for you or your spouse. And, but it's, but it's very treatable if it's confirmed early. And it seems like it's confirmed early now. [00:04:29] There always has to be some hesitation when we talk about the Pope's health because historically the Vatican has been very typed about Pope's health. I mean, a Pope could be dead for five days and they say he's doing fine. That's been the historical nature of how things operate at the Vatican with the Pope's health. It does seem, though, I feel like this might be the best as far as transparency the Vatican's ever been about the Pope's health. I, I mean, because typically you don't hear anything about the post health until he's about to die, like days before he dies, something like that. In this case, we're hearing just about this medical Procedure. And it doesn't seem like it's life threatening or anything, but they're letting us know a lot. But there's always the chance that they're holding things back. Now, the reality is the Pope has a right to certain privacy, personal privacy, just like anybody else, so they don't have to tell. There's no moral obligation or legal obligation to tell us every single aspect of what's going on with his health. [00:05:27] But it does sound like they're sharing a lot and letting people, and letting people know what's going on. [00:05:33] Now, one question I think we should ask is that I know has been asked by many people, what happens when the Pope is incapacitated? Who's in charge? [00:05:43] I mean, the Pope went under for this surgery, as I understand it. I think I got that right. Yeah. And so he obviously couldn't govern the Church when that was going on. But, but it does raise the question of what happens if a Pope is physically or mentally incapacitated and who's in charge? Who runs the Church? [00:06:02] There is no vice Pope. There is no vice Pope that takes over like what happened with the American presidency. In fact, I would say this is a big kind of hole in canon law that really is coming to the fore because of modern medicine. [00:06:17] Back in the Middle Ages, you. You get sick, you died pretty quickly. There weren't. [00:06:22] It wasn't very common for somebody to be incapacitated for maybe a decade before they passed away. Like my father, he died of Alzheimer's, but he had it for 10 years before he passed away, which was great to have him with us for all that time. But he was incapacitated. If he was like the Pope, he couldn't have done his job for about eight to 10 years of his life before he died, because modern medicine can allow us to live through incapacitation much longer. [00:06:51] That wasn't the case in the past, but now it is. And also, you could say probably in the Middle Ages, I bet there were some Popes who might have been somewhat incapacitated. But the Church just ran on because nobody knew. There wasn't social media. There wasn't a constant desire to see the Pope or anything like that. Somebody in England doesn't care if the Pope hasn't made a public audience in a year or something like that. And so probably things just ran behind the scenes. But you can't do that now. [00:07:15] You can't do that now. You can't hide the Pope's illness for a long or incapacitation for very long before people are going to be starting to ask about it. It's like that guy who's running for Senate, I think it is in Texas, who was all of a sudden disappeared for a few weeks. Everyone's like, what the heck? You can't get away with the Pope just being incapacitated for very long without people knowing about it. So what do you do? There is no Canon law that states what did happen. There is canon Law that states what happens if a Pope dies. Dies. Who is in charge of certain things during that? The camera. Lango, Lango. I think I mispronounced everything, but you know what I'm talking about. He does have certain powers, mostly just to run the Conclave, make sure the Conclave happens. But he doesn't have, like, universal power. He doesn't have like the Pope's powers when the Pope, Pope is dead. But when a Pope is incapacitated, there's nobody technically in charge instead of him. Now, yes, the Secretary of State, Cardinal Peril, can run things. [00:08:14] The, the, the, the, the, the casteries, they could still. They will continue to run, do routine things, but anything that needs the Pope involved just can't happen. [00:08:25] If the Pope can't do it, there's nobody to replace him. And so it really does bring up some real issues that we might have to face one day. And that is like, what do you do if a Pope's incapacitated? You hope that if a Pope knows he is in the process of becoming incapacitated, mentally or physically, that he would willingly choose to resign so we don't have to worry about it. [00:08:52] But it's. I mean, just think, what if a Pope gets Alzheimer's? [00:08:56] What if a Pope gets Alzheimer's? What do you do? [00:08:59] What do you do? Because if he does not willingly resign, then we have a Pope with Alzheimer's, and who knows what he could say? Who knows what he could do? It's a real issue, and I don't think there's an easy answer, because the way that the Church is set up, with the Pope having the powers that he does and nobody else having them, it's kind of hard to say, well, somebody else could. [00:09:23] It's like in Star Trek. I'm sure it's in the military. In Star Trek, the medical officer, chief medical officer, has the power to relieve the captain of duties if they feel like he is incapacitated in some way. [00:09:37] It's the only power that the chief medical officer has over the captain, but does have that. There's nothing like that in the Church because you can't Put somebody, a human, over the Pope. You can't say, well, this person can declare the Pope is incapacitated, because think about how awful that would be if you had that. Because now that person has a power nobody else has. And it could be influenced, corrupted, whatever. They could kick a Pope out who's not incapacitated, and what a mess that would be. [00:10:03] And so there's real questions here about what do we do if a Pope is incapacitated? Because you could have a situation where Vatican officials, they just start speaking for the Pope and they just start acting like they're kind of. And they say, oh, yeah, the Pope Leo believes this or that, and really he's. He has no idea they're even saying it. A lot of mischief, a lot of bad things. We already see this happens. I mean, Cardinal Roche recently. I was going to talk about this in a minute, but I'll bring it up now. Colonel Roche had this interview recently where he's talking about tradition as Custodis and Simone Pontifical. And it was this awful. It was just awful. It's typical Cardinal Roche stuff where he just says things that are simply not true and simply. [00:10:44] He just revises history and he makes theologically and liturgically terrible statements. But, but, you know, he. He basically stated very definitively that Pope Leo is not going to change tradition. Custodas. Well, you can't say that, Cardinal Roche. You might be right, but you can't say he says it definitively. Like, oh, it's. It's been determined. What was interesting is his interview talking about this came out on the day of the surgery. Now, I think the interview happened before they even knew about this or that there was going to be a surgery or whatever. So I don't think they were related. The timing, I don't think was related, but I really just think that this is where a lot of mischief can happen. If a Pope. I mean, what about if a Pope is somewhat incapacitated, but not completely, and maybe he's just weak because of. For health reasons or he's not as mentally sharp as he has been. Well, people can take advantage of him. [00:11:41] And, you know, I'm saying all this, and I don't have answers. I don't have, like, where I'm saying, okay, this is what the Church needs to do. [00:11:48] But I do think it's something that the Church is going to have to. [00:11:53] I mean, it's going to have to recognize. It's going to have to figure out, okay, what do we do in cases when a Pope is still alive, but he really can't fulfill the office of the Papacy. I mean, the presidency in America has this, has this laid out like the 25th amendment. Although, I mean, I don't think that's really going to, really going to happen be used, it looks like, and at any time. [00:12:15] But it just, you know, we don't have a 25th amendment. I don't think we should have a 25th amendment. But I don't know what we're supposed to do. But this is something I think we should be praying about. Pray that the Holy Spirit would protect the Church so that we don't get in these situations. And maybe that's the answer. Maybe the answer is simply we just have to trust the Holy Spirit, that it would not, you know, the Holy Spirit would not allow there to be a situation in which a Pope was incapacitated but still in office. [00:12:43] I think that would be, that, that would be our prayer. And maybe that's, that's the answer. Maybe that's all it is. [00:12:50] But yeah, it's something we, we have to pray about. Now I, I want to bring up a couple, like the online reactions to the, the Pope's illness because I think they reflect what a lot of people outside the church and maybe ill form Catholics or people aren't Catholic, how they kind of look at this stuff. There was one, there was a viral post, it got almost 500, 000 views or something like that. Probably is over that by now where that when, you know, when the Pope gets sick, he went straight to science. [00:13:17] Lmao. Why didn't he pray himself to recovery? And I think they were trying to make this idea that, oh look, these, these people act like they're faith and but then when they have a problem, they go to science. Now fortunately, I'm pretty sure that this was community noted when, when this was said because it's so stupid. But I do think, I mean, obviously had 500,000, you know, views, lots of likes, you know, thousands of likes and things like that. People do think like this. There are people out there. [00:13:46] It's kind of like, you know, why rely on doctors? Why not just pray? You know, why, why, you know, why not just ask for a miracle? And the reality is that we've always believed as Catholics. Catholics are not anti science. We've never been anti science. And so, I mean, a lot of times in the public consciousness, remember your typical person who isn't religious themselves, which is a lot of people now, they just see Christianity as this big blob, this big kind of everything together and like they have, and their, their, their impression of, is just kind of what they've seen in the media. [00:14:23] And so, for example, for them, a fundamentalist snake handling Protestant in Mississippi is no different than a educated Catholic professor in Italy. They basically believe the exact same thing. [00:14:38] And of course we know, my audience, I know, knows that's just not the case. They're very different in very many ways. And the reality is Catholics have always been pro science. I mean, we're the inventors of so many things and we're the ones who really got science off the ground. Modern science as we know it got off the ground because of Catholics in the Catholic Church. [00:14:59] And so of course we go to a doctor. Of course we go to doctor. Now, I want to make it clear, and I've said this before in the past, I'll say it again here, Catholics are opposed to scientism, believing science has the answer to everything. It's, it's the, it's the new religion. And we do question, we can question science. In fact, that's the whole point of science is you question statements and you try to prove them with facts, with tests and things like that. And so just because science, the science says today something doesn't necessarily mean we have to embrace it because a lot of people who are scientists say crazy things that are wrong and they try to make it like the science says that. I mean, case in point, Dr. Fauci. And so I just think that, you know, this idea, I think we need to recognize people do see this, that they see this fundamental divide between science and faith when there really is not a divide. Now, to be clear, when you are sick, you should go to the doctor if it's, if it's necessary to the doctor, not when you just have a cold or something. You should try to get medical treatment. Now we can debate what's the best medical treatment. I mean, my wife will tell you many different things than what perhaps a standard doctor might say about what's best. And I actually go with my wife on these things because there's natural medicine, alternative medicines, there's the standard medicine, all that. I'm not here to debate those type of things today. I, I'm just simply saying that if you were in a car wreck and you're, you, you're, you know, you got injured in a car wreck, you want to go to the hospital to get taken care of, right? Yes. You don't just sit there in pain and say, well, I pray that God will take care of me. There is somewhat a in The Catholic world, there can be sometimes you go a little bit too far, like, oh, I'm just going to, I'm just, you know, I shouldn't be a wimp. I just need to embrace the pain or whatever. But if there's a real health need, you should go to a doctor. [00:16:50] But you also absolutely should pray about it too. God wants to hear our prayers about these things, about the most mundane things. It's okay to pray to God to say, hey, my back is killing me. Can you help me out? And maybe you wouldn't pray quite like that, or just say, give me the strength to offer it up and to get and to do the tasks, the duties of my state of life, even with this back pain. But it's okay to also ask for, to be, to be relieved of it. There's nothing wrong with that as long as you always, in your mind, at least subconsciously think your will be done, your will be done. That's what matters the most. And so as Catholics, we very much go, go to science, go to the medical establishment when they're not crazy for help, when we have health problems. But we also pray, and we can also pray for a miracle. There's nothing wrong with praying for a miracle. It's good to pray for a miracle, except in God's will. So somebody has a terminal diagnosis or it looks like they might die, it's okay to pray for a miracle that they wouldn't. [00:17:50] And so these things are, in the modern mind, in the modern world, it's like they, they're two separate worlds. But in the Catholic world, they're integrated completely. They're completely integrated into one whole. [00:18:03] The, the idea of, of using modern tools, modern medicine, and using, and our faith and our prayers are all combined. So yeah, of course the doctor, of course the Pope went to a doctor, and I guarantee you, I can feel very confident saying, I guarantee he also prayed about it. He prayed for the doctors and nurses. That's what we should do too. Pray for the person who is the victim, kind of has the illness, whatever, and pray for the doctors involved. [00:18:28] Another reaction I saw online, which is, which is also common. This one had like hundreds of thousands of views as well. And I'm sorry, hundreds of likes is why would the Pope, why would God, I'm sorry, why would God let the Pope get cancer when. And this was an anti Trump person who said, but like, Trump is thriving. I mean, Trump is okay. Trump is physically. The man is just, he's an aberration. [00:18:58] He is a walking miracle, practically. I mean, the man is over 80 years old. [00:19:03] By his own admission, he has not lived a healthy lifestyle. Now, he does not drink, he does not do drugs. That is obviously very good for his health. And so that's, that's good. But he doesn't exercise, he eats fast food, he drinks Diet Coke. I mean, he, he doesn't sleep a regular. All the things they tell us we have to do, you know, get a good amount of sleep, don't, don't eat these types of food, gets, you know, all that stuff, don't have lots of stress like that. The man just somehow thrives. It's, it's. I don't know, I can't explain it, but the point is here is like, why would God let the Pope get cancer, but let he let somebody like Trump thrive? Now, if you're anti, if you're a pro, Trump person just put in anybody bad for that because we all know bad people sometimes thrive in, in health and other ways. And so really it's, it's, again, it's a misunderstanding. I know, like, our audience wouldn't think that necessarily, but I do think we need to recognize how many people think things like this and understand it from our own perspective so we can explain it. And I think in this case, we have to remember that the way, the state of the world, we are in a post fall, post lapsarian state, I think is the technical term meaning after the fall, the lapse of Adam and Eve. And so there's a tension between the goodness of what God has created and the way in which it has fallen. It has been damaged during, due to sin. [00:20:29] Remember, the fall brought sin and death into the, you know, sin brought death into the world. [00:20:36] And so we are not, our bodies are not perfect anymore. They are not able to, to, to live forever without illness, without sickness, without tiredness or fatigue or anything like that. [00:20:48] All that is because of the Fall, our own fault that is in tension with the fact that God did create the world and create it good. [00:20:56] And so God did not, you know, when Christ came, he came to solve sin, so to speak, to make up for sin, but he did not take away all the effects of the fall. He made it so we can overcome them in baptism through his passion and death and resurrection. But he did not, he did not take away the effects of the fall, like the fact that we get sick, the fact that we can get cancer, things like that. [00:21:21] And so we have to remember that. And, and, but the, the beautiful thing about this is it's not just like God said, okay, you Guys fell, I'm going to lead you to your own consequences, your own devices. You're going to get sick and stuff like that. No, what he did was he entered into that suffering because Christ himself, why. Whereas I would not say he got sick, he did obviously get injured. And, you know, with the passion things that he could fall and scrape his. His knee just like any other kid. [00:21:47] And so. But what God does is he enters into that and he joins with us so that our suffering, whatever suffering may be, can be joined with his on the cross. And that lifts us up to Him. And in fact, what God does is all the evil that's happened because of the fall. And to be clear, all evil that has happened is because of the fall. I mean, and Satan's fall is. It can be used as a means for good. St. Thomas Aquinas talks about God permits evil only. Only to draw a greater good. So the fact that Pope Leo got cancer could be very much could to draw a greater good. Maybe it's because there weren't enough. We don't ever know for sure. But I'm just saying, speculating, maybe it's because simply there weren't enough people praying for him. And so all of a sudden it reminded us, hey, we need to pray for the Pope. Because we do all need to pray for Pope. Whether he's super healthy or if he's very sick, it doesn't matter. We need to pray for him. Whether he's doing a good job or a bad job, we need to pray for him. [00:22:46] And so this, maybe this is a reminder. Maybe it was something that. A greater good for him personally, maybe because of this, he's going to be a better Pope. [00:22:55] Maybe he's. Maybe this will be a. A means by which he, he recognizes certain things. He's a better Pope. It's not even saying anything against his papacy. I'm just simply saying we all could be better. And maybe this was a way for him to become a better Pope. And so it's not like providence. Divine providence is a reward system, like a holiness reward. If you're holy, then you get good things happen. That's prosperity gospel crap. That's prosperity gospel crap where it's like, okay, if I'm good, then God will give me blessings. God will give you blessings, but not in the way people think. Because what they're saying is material blessings like money, like health, things like that, power, success, all that. [00:23:35] That's not the way it works. God never promises that. Now, if you are holy, you will get blessings, but they're spiritual blessings and holiness might be. Might entail a lot of suffering. In fact, often it does. If you look at the saints, they choose suffering. [00:23:50] And so it's not a holiness, like I said, a holiness reward system. In fact, our sufferings are the path to holiness. And so the fact that the pope had to suffer some here, that could be a very good thing. If he offers it up, that means he can grow in holiness again. We can pray, we can, we go to doctors again. It's all balanced. You don't want to go too far to the extreme anyway on this. Like, be like, okay, I feel, I feel sick, so I'm just gonna tough it out and offer it up. Yes. But also I can pray that I get better if that's God's will. And if it gets bad enough, I go to the doctor to take care of it. [00:24:27] That's the mature kind of Catholic way of doing it. We have a balance between all of this. And so, yeah, the fact that Trump somehow has avoided any type of health consequences to his lifestyle, I mean, I don't know. We don't know why that is, but again, it's not because it doesn't mean Trump's been super holy. And that's why that just because, you know, he's been so good and so faithful to God that that's why he's made him so healthy. No, the, the, the, the, the sinner gets sick and the saint. I'm sorry, the sinner stays healthy and the saint can be sick, those things and vice versa. That's just not how it works. And so, you know, the idea that if you're, if you're good, then you will get these material and physical blessings. So I think that's something we need to remember, too, that some people do think like this. [00:25:14] And so I think, you know, we saw this, like with Pope John Paul II when he had his public suffering before his death. I think it really drew a lot of people closer to God because they saw, wow, why does he continue on? Like, you know, there's the whole debate, of course, about, like, death with dignity, which is, of course a lie, as most these modern slogans are. This idea that because, you know, if your life isn't worth living, then you can just have yourself, you know, kill yourself or whatever, have them pull the plug. Every life is worth living. No exceptions to that rule. Now, I'm talking about the death penalty. I'm not going to get into that, but it's still worth living until they die. The point is, is, like, the person, no person should want to kill themselves because they think that their life isn't worth living, because it is worth living. And so likewise, even if you are suffering, even if you are in pain, even if you feel like you've been a failure in your life, it's still worth living. [00:26:10] And so I think the Pope, being sick and handling it, hopefully with resignation to the will of God, I think you can be a good example for many people. And so it can bring a lot of good out of that. So. So, okay, I'm going to wrap it up there. This wasn't going to be a super long episode, but I just wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about, first of all, to remind everybody, pray for the Pope. And I said this the other day, but do penance for the Pope. We say pray for something and that's good. And I don't want to act like that's not good, but I really do think as Catholics, we should add on penances like do something like, for the Pope, where like maybe skip your morning coffee, put a rock in your shoe, take a cold shower. It doesn't fast, you know, skip a meal, all these different things. You can do a penance where you say, I'm offering this up for the Holy Father. [00:27:00] That's what really is Catholics for you should do. But I wanted to just kind of run through what happens if a Pope is sick, who's in charge, things like that. And some of the common things. I've heard objections to the idea of a Pope being sick and going to doctors for it. So, okay, I'm going to wrap it up there again, again, pray for the Pope. Pray that Cardinal Roche gets replaced. Pray for the Amoris Letizia meeting going on. Pray for the church. I mean, essentially is what we're trying to say here. Okay, everybody, until next time. God love you. And remember the poor.