as you know my name is david i'm the creator and host those of you who know me and know my channel and my content you know that i only fear bad catholics catholics who attack the church that want to subvert the church dissidents wolves in sheep's clothing rebels those who want to claim to be catholic but they're working against mother church and working against our holy father the vicar of christ who today is pope francis and hopefully for a long time to come will be pope francis i love pope francis i like pope francis i submit in docile and loving obedience to pope francis and to the bishops who teach in union with him the living magisterium of the church pope francis has said that we cannot dissent from vatican 2 and he upholds the teachings of vatican ii because it's an infallible ecumenical council guided by the holy spirit and there are dogmatic truths contained in the 16 documents of the council particularly those dogmatic constitutions the dogmatic constitution of the church but what really gets my goat what really annoys me is when so-called catholics and uh since october of last year and even beforehand but for the context of this video i want to talk about something that i've been discussing with a friend a catholic friend a conservative catholic friend via email he never i'm not gonna name him but he never fails to take every opportunity to malign the pope to disparage the pope in his own subtle way and i'm not saying i'm noticing a pattern when there's a news headline that typically the right wing instead of cantus the rat triads when there's a headline about pope francis their prejudice against pope francis because they want to believe that he's a progressive that he's liberal and he no doubt has leanings that way you know certain aspects of his pastoral care for the weakest and most misled among his flock he's very compassionate very generous patient and he indulges them with an abundance of christ's mercy the infinite mercy of christ while remaining firm about the essential saving truths but since october as i'm saying here the discussion with my friend has revolved around primarily i want around one anti-catholic piece of propaganda in the form of a meme or a cartoon you can see it on your screen and of course it has to do with so-called same-sex civil unions and the attitude that pope francis has toward same-sex civil unions and more importantly toward the eternal salvation of those of his flock and of the world generally who suffer from same-sex attraction so if you're listening to this and you don't have the video in front of you i'll just describe the image it's a cartoon with four panels so i'll start with the first panel you see someone drowning in a sea and that c is labeled sin it's the sea of sin and the person as if to grasp or something to cling on to someone to see him and to save him from drowning in his sin and we know that it's sexual sin because this person represents a whole class of people that class of people is labeled same sex attracted people that's the label on this person he represents this hand extending from the sea of sin in which he is drowning his hand represents a person that belongs to that class of same-sex attractive people and there are many many people suffering from same-sex attraction the second panel is identical but for a second hand which is reaching in toward the hand of the drowning man and this new hand this savior that's coming apparently to rescue the hapless victim of same-sex attraction this new hand is labeled very clearly as belonging to so there's a moment here of hope and of potential salvation the next panel the third of the four panels shows pope francis not rescuing the hapless lost sheep but rather giving and the clapping noise reverberates as the two hands meet we see the phrase same sex civil unions so whereas in panel two we had the expectancy and the hope of salvation here we see a very inappropriate interaction between the pope who can save this man and who should save this man and who is morally obligated to save this hapless sinner that's contrasted with this cold and criminally negligent attitude which is completely inappropriate and then of course in panel for the sinner having been neglected by the pope and not getting the help that he needed is left to sink into the ocean of sin and he's overwhelmed we see the little last tiny bubbles of air rising out of the water as his lungs fill up and he dies he dies not a physical death but the final death is spiritual death eternal damnation i haven't done a search recently but back in october of 2020 i did research and i found that this image was being used only and exclusively having looked at the image and having described what's happening objectively i think we can see that being very negligent of his duties the duties of his office of the of the man because he's a christian he has this duty to help those who are reaching out from the depths of sin reaching out grasping at anything to be saved so it's an attack not only on the office of pope but on the very person it's a very very scathing indictment it's a criticism to say it's a criticism is an understatement i won't go so far as to say that it damns him but it certainly shows a damnable neglect man so why have i been simple but profound piece of conservative catholic propaganda since october they're about a hundred back and forth emails since october the most recent email exchange was prompted by the fact that the vatican has recently come out and said that the church cannot bless same-sex civil unions because god can't bless sin that's the headline that you'll see in a lot of articles and the pope has endorsed and signed off on the document itself and the notes that went with the document that was released to the public so pope francis is not condoning endorsing or blessing same sex civil so when i saw this news article i sent it to my friend this conservative catholic hoping that he would privately quietly on his own terms in his prayerful reflections apologize to jesus christ for having maligned his vicar on earth the vicar of christ the holy father pope francis for having maligned him such a horrible way it saddens me it's very christ has given the keys to the kingdom of heaven is pope francis perfect of course not is he a sinner of course he is is he wrong about things of course he is that goes without saying you'd have to be insane to ascribe absolute perfection to the pope or absolute infallibility to the pope the pope is not absolutely infallible his infallibility is very he speaks for christ the holy spirit is at work in him in a way that the holy spirit is not at work in any other human you have to believe that if you're christian this is not to exaggerate the merits of the person or the dignity of the person but the dignity of a human being cannot be exaggerated so i'm not in danger of if i give too much dignity too much respect to a human being much less if i give too much dignity and respect to the vicar of the god man jesus christ there's no danger there's no danger for me because i know who and what pope francis is in salvation history i know who and what he is i know and for someone to call themselves a catholic and to mock and ridicule the vicar of christ because he doesn't happen to conform with your because he doesn't reflect your way of seeing doesn't conform to your taste how you would like to emphasize the truths of the faith how you would like to guide and direct the flock pope francis doesn't conform to you he is your servant yes he is the servant of the servants of god he is there to in the same way that a husband is there to serve a wife and his mission is to serve but what does that mean when the man of the household the father figure has that powerful mission it means that the wife and kids put themselves willingly underneath his care and protection in other words they place themselves under his mission which is to guard protect and to educate among other things what does it mean to be under the mission it means sub mission it's submission complete submission of intellect if you don't give submission of intellect and will to the holy father to the vicar of christ i'm sorry to inform you you're not catholic it sounds harsh but this is the teaching of vatican ii this is the teaching of vatican one this is the teaching of trent this is the teaching it's the unchanging teaching of the church has it been better and better articulated in recent decades centuries yes better and better articulated vatican 1 went further than trent vatican 2 went further and deeper than vatican won but it's the same teaching it's that little mustard seed growing into the great tree and under which we can and outside of which there is no rest there's only politics there's the left there's the right pick your side and start slinging mud at your neighbor hatefully this is how conservative catholics treat pope francis like he's just another man he's the head of the church for now but hopefully he'll pass away peacefully but quickly so that we can have a good conservative traditional catholic they don't understand how conservative and traditional pope francis is they have no idea because they're blinded by their right wing propaganda their politics corrupts everything and people are obsessed with their left right dichotomy in which position they've taken which nuanced and exact flavor of the month do they subscribe to a commit to with such religious fervor it's fascinating and it would be comical if it weren't so tragic because the the end result is propaganda like this anti-catholic propaganda hateful damnable propaganda there's no excuse for it that's why i don't spend a lot of time reacting or responding to those on the they're relatively harmless they just want to indulge in pleasure because pleasure feels good and pleasure is good ontologically pleasure is good it's a simple childlike animalistic natural desire to indulge in what feels good i don't have a lot of female priests okay now we're talking about something that's more political but for the for the average lefty it's about being able to have recreational sex with whomever or whatever individuals groups objects whatever it is sexual pleasure pleasures of food the pleasures of sleep they're wrong but it's not as hateful as the self-righteous pride because of the camouflage of the traditional rigorous teachings of the church so they can present themselves with this full armor that they're more they're the super catholics more catholic than pope francis for a lot of them they're more catholic so it's the right that gets my goat it's the right that i think and that's why i'm glad to have a pope who is ostensibly on the left left leaning i like having left leaning pope because it forces those on the right to drop the mask to lift the mask during these moments like this where they reveal their hatred for christ their hatred for i wouldn't be able to see this if we had a true so-called right-wing pope so-called traditionalist pope i've already said and i'll continue to say pope francis is ways but if these right-wing catholics get what they want they get the kind of pope that they want we're not going to see the the pope bashing we're not going to be able to tell is this just a very devout catholic or is this a self-righteous catholic that's full of pride we're all full of pride anyway but i'm talking about a very specific particular conservative political ideology that parades as self-righteousness in the realm of religion and this case in particular in the field of catholicism it's truly one of the most sickening things i've seen on planet earth the right wing wolves and sheep's clothing they disgust me i want what's best for them i want them to convert and to repent but it's sickening i was very happy to hear that milo is dedicating his life to christ and doing a novena or some sort of consecration to saint joseph very glad to hear it when i saw his in-depth a catholic so-called catholic news agency that disgusts me because it's anti-catholic it's anti-pope francis blatantly and unapologetically so i'm banned i'm permanently banned from their comment section on their website because a few years ago i defended pope francis against but when milo gave his interview with john henry weston or whatever his he couldn't help but bash pope francis milo that he couldn't help himself he had to go on a little one or two minute rant about how unforgivable sexual scandal and the cover-up and the priority plate and that and you also wrote a book a couple years ago diabolical how pope francis has betrayed clerical abuse victims like me and why he's got to go you you did have a flare for the dramatic in your headlines but i mean it's i guess very accurate what what can you say about that and what do you say about that now post um kind of conversion in a way i consider the cover-up systematic purposeful deliberate cover-up on an industrial scale of abuses to be equal in magnet in in magnitude and moral horror to the abusers themselves which is a big thing to say which will upset a lot of people but um pope francis has now it is a matter of record being responsible for some of those cover-ups this is a situ this is a uniquely awful situation in which there it's no longer a case of whispers but a case of known objective fact that the heir to saint peter's lost his moral and spiritual authority by rehabilitating theodore mccarrick by um perpetuating in the cover-up and and and in lies about clerical abuse in um defending priests who describe victims as hysterical as you know all the rest of it the stuff he did as an archbishop just unspeakable i'm very uncomfortable with a lot of what he's done to pander to the press in terms of this sort of peronist power for its own sake i'll say whatever it takes to make me popular um wishy-washy you can never really nail down what i mean because i keep saying these ambiguous accidental things off the cuff um you know i'm very uncomfortable with that method of um public relations and i'm very uncomfortable with what it has done for the reputation of the church i'm very uncomfortable with it spiritually i'm uncomfortable with him but the thing that he does that rises to the level of being plainly unforgivable are the multiple instances of complicity that we have seen from pope francis when it comes to covering this stuff up you could accuse john paul ii of naivete you could accuse benedict of i think and i love i love the man but you know so i don't say this with any pleasure but i think you could accuse him of looking the other way for a bit too long and then bombing out before you know before he had to deal with it um and i don't think there's much um honor to be found in looking the other way i think that that strikes me as as as cowardice but i think the guy you know is a theologian not really a a born leader per se um but there is evil of a different order when we consider pope francis and the things that he we know he has done the china arrangement to the extent that we know the facts where he as far as we understand rehabilitated his you know pedophile friend um sent him to china naturally rather than staying at the sent him to china to do a deal with a regime that operates concentration camps in which the catholic church basically endorsed a schismatic church and handed over the reigns of of of of of picking bishops to uh you know this evil authoritarian regime in exchange it now seems obvious for money i mean who knows if the details will ever will ever fully come out and we should you know we should place that place plenty of caveats on what we're saying you know in terms of there but there's good reporting on this and there's real reporting on this and there are there you know we know we know enough even though we don't know everything to know that there are such deep and horrifying problems with this pope we're in an impossible situation as catholics we can't want him to resign because if we do that and we have two popes in a row resigning the papacy becomes a political appointment we will begin to see the emergence of factions and ultimately political parties you know among cardinals which would be a catastrophe by the same token we can't wish the guy dead even though we might have you know those dark fantasies we have to control in ourselves we certainly can't wish for him to you know as we wouldn't wish for anybody to come to miss fortune but we're in an impossible situation where the only right answer seems to be to ride out the storm but i hold this pope personally responsible for a lot of the worst things that have happened in the church politically to do with abuse um and also you know china he is personally responsible for enough wickedness in this church that i i quake for the future of the magisterium uh if he does if he if he's not replaced relatively soon right well we can do one thing still we can still pray for his conversion and we do that at life site every day you said unforgivable and um i don't know if you really meant that because no i don't but no i don't but um but but i i think that um it's okay to use uh casually casually i i think if he were to unlikely to be forgiven is perhaps more accurate since i don't think that the man is capable of the kind of introspection self-awareness and contrition that would be necessary for you know for real forgiveness i don't think the man is prepared or remotely willing or motivated to admit what he's done wrong and attempt to make it right uh i think that he will continue to get away with whatever he can get away with as long as he can get away with it until he is in a coffin um and and so i think perhaps more accurately it's more accurate to say um that is he is unlikely to be forgiven makes me sad i mean i'm i'm i'm i'm on a i like to think of myself as on on a better path now although i think of myself as as you know think of myself as a man with great talents and correspondingly great flaws um and and that's a complicated and difficult place to live but i expect better from my church and when i am speaking on college campuses with more vigor and vim and even fire and brimstone about abortion than any bishop in the united states has ever spoken in public about abortion i expect better i expect a lot and the funny part is here you are still in the church you've looked at the most horrific things in the church um and you describe a lot of people young men having looked at it and left run maybe the other way yet you've not only stayed you've embraced it in a more real way even even now well things don't stop being true just because um just because the you know the church is in a bad place is in a bad way um i mean let's face it the church has always been in a bad way this is the rickety arc on which we said we sail right and there are beautiful brand new 300-foot gleaming white yachts everywhere around us with pretty girls and hot tubs and champagne and it would be easy for us to dive off and and and go to one of them but after the tempest after the storm after um the hurricane this rickety you know stinking hideous looking arc is the only one that will still be afloat uh and you know you only have to look i think people with short memories sometimes um you know they get caught up in the hysteria and that's certainly something that anyone involved in american politics is vulnerable to i mean you only have to look back to the borgias and the medicis to realize that the papacy has always been a mess the catholic church has always been a mess but somehow it endures and i think the only way that it could possibly endure is that it it for all of its grievous faults envelops a truth that can never really be suffocated a light that can't be extinguished if you like and um that's the only thing that keeps it afloat and it doesn't really deserve to be a float but it is it is a float because of the truth that it it holds in in trust um and this is you know that that i guess makes the you know makes pope francis a absolutely no need to bash the vicar of christ you don't know what you're talking about you have no idea milo and i have indirectly reached out to milo so you can come on my little show i don't think it's gonna happen i don't even know if my invitation will get through it went through a couple of different people hope it ended up on his email but i don't think it'll happen because he he doesn't have time for small potatoes like me but if he did come on i would the pope his attitude toward the pope the attitude of right-wing so-called catholic media toward the vicar of christ because it's very very disgusting and horrible and anti-catholic and i don't i don't understand how someone that claims to be so righteous and so on fire for the faith i'm not talking about milo here because he doesn't make claims of being self-righteous in a religious sense he's very self-righteous probably when it comes to his political ideology but i don't know enough about that ideology to say where he lies on that the list of saints uh conservative not conservative but i think he's humble enough to know that he's a great sinner and that's part of the reason he's back at the church but is he part of a schismatic breakaway church for his sake but it wouldn't surprise me it definitely wouldn't but all of this to say that this conservative catholic friend of mine who sent me this cartoon he made it clear to me that he thinks that he and those others who speak out against pope francis are doing may be painful but it's necessary just like saint paul didn't want to correct the first pope saint peter but he felt he had to because the truth matters and because it's a grave responsibility and if we're silent the face of error this in if we're silent in the face of evil any then we're culpable and i agree but there's my one detail that my conservative catholic friend failed to recognize and that that is and he's not any of the other saints that he cited to me saint catherine of siena saint john the baptist all these great saints who were courageous enough to even to those in authority even to popes and it's true it is true but you my conservative catholic friend you are not a great saint how do i know that because i know that because you are not in a position to give eternal corruption to the pope because fraternal correction cannot be given publicly it has to be given privately and respectfully you're not obliged to give fraternal correction to your superiors and no one is more superior to you and there are several other absolutely necessary conditions for for someone that's in your position you are not obliged to give fraternal correction and you are forbidden from giving fraternal correction in the way that you're doing it because it's not fraternal correction what you're doing what you're doing is you're publicly disparaging the vicar of christ that's what you're doing that's what these talking heads are doing when they bash the pope that's what milo's doing that's what lifesight knows does that's what these people on the right claim to be so steeped in tradition but they don't even understand what fraternal correction is it's a very very delicate thing human dignity we cannot trample on the if we do so it's always a grave sin this is what it says on pope francis's it's part of the emphasis of his pontificate don't trample on the dignity those on the right don't seem to understand that and yet my conservative catholic friend ironically that i'm insensitive to him that i'm misjudging him that i'm judging his intentions and judging his heart he had only the best intentions when he shared this anti-catholic propaganda cartoon with me only the best intentions just pointing out what those in the world think well those in the world don't think this it's people on the right who want to be called catholic it's people call themselves conservative catholics who who create and promote this sort of and that's a very very very small population percentage-wise on planet earth these so-called conservative catholics make up a very small percentage so this is not an image that represents the reaction of the world the interpretation of the world just of the cold heart facts what what pope francis says and does and what the effect is at the end of the day on those that are struggling with their same-sex attractions this is not a good picture of how the world at large sees cause and effect pope francis and the loss of souls that's not accurate but that's what my conservative catholic friend was claiming it's just an objective fact this is how it's seen by the world at large generally speaking it's nonsense so my friend was unable apparently he claimed to be unable to decide how a future historian would view this image and that he's sure pope francis has only the best of intentions well there are only two ways of looking at this criminal negligence either you're stupid to give a high five to someone who's drowning or you are evil you can have good will and think that someone reaching out of the water drowning in sin is just looking for a you could be stupid and have good will it's true but that is maligning the pope you're placing yourself above the pope intellectually you're supposed to submit to the pope intellectually or he could be evil which means ill will so he his will is inferior his will is defective so you're superior to the pope so you're not submitting to the pope with your will because you're you're superior to the pope but you're supposed to submit to the pope with your intellect and your will completely so you cannot be superior intellectually you cannot be superior and call yourself a catholic so you cannot maintain your position that this is a neutral cartoon and that you nothing to get upset about i shouldn't be making such a big deal about this it's just a cartoon it's just a fact he's always praising uh gay people in same-sex civil unions apparently so it's just a fact everyone knows it the whole world agrees with this cartoon and why are you david making such a big and he has more than once gone so far as to say that he thinks i'm under demonic attack because i take this so seriously that i'm in that i am perhaps exaggerating the role of the pope in the church i don't exaggerate the role of the pope he's the vicar of christ he is worthy of our respect and honor i'm not asking i'm not sitting the bar here i'm just saying don't give me anti-catholic anti-pope francis propaganda and that's clearly what this he's accused me of being a coward because i won't speak out against pope francis where he's clearly teaching error and leading people astray or where he's being ambiguous when he but at the same time my conservative catholic friend accuses me of a lack of charity because i misunderstand him i'm not compassionate enough to look deeper beyond the surface of this cartoon and to look into his good intentions and to believe him when he tells me that he has no ill will toward the pope and that he doesn't ascribe any ill will to the pope he's not denigrating the pope's intelligence or anything like that he feels hurt that i lack charity in that way that i'm very cold in my defense of pope francis and that i'm condemning him for something that he's not guilty of so i like charity but to help my friend understand how just how easy it is to see that this propaganda's anti-pope francis i sent him another political image which was pro pope francis very clearly pro-pope francis if you can see the screen here now you can see this second cartoon which i sent to him as an example of something that is not clearly anti-pope francis that is clearly pro-pope francis and you can see the heart-shaped crossier the heart-shaped shepherd's hook and this of course conveying the very simple but powerful message that our good shepherd on earth the vicar of the true good shepherd jesus christ his vicar on earth the visible head of the church for the time being is a good and loving pastor of his sheep very simple message a very powerful message this is propaganda it's political propaganda i found it on a website called political cartoons okay so it is political propaganda someone was pushing this image of the pope as a good and saintly and loving and charitable man a good shepherd of the sheep it's propaganda but it happens to be true there's no exaggeration there's no lie he is a good loving charitable shepherd people on the left may use this sort of propaganda to promote same-sex marriage or women's ordination or whatever they think is coming their way or at least what they might have naively thought was coming their way back at the beginning of but even if those on the left use this true propaganda to promote a false agenda it's neither here nor there there will always be people on the left there will always be people in the right and they'll always be pushing their ideas some of those ideas may be catholic some of them may not be catholic some may be partially catholic most of them are probably but only those who are in the center with jesus christ detached from the political ideologies all political ideologies not attached not overly invested in any political ideology political ideologies are not an end there are means to an end for those of us in the center who know even though we can be fooled by propaganda yes but we're on principle detached we want to be detached we do not want to invest do we invest we probably do invest a little bit even those of us who are in the center with jesus christ striving to be those of us who are in that position of being faithful catholics detached from political ideologies we can recognize the propaganda of the left and of the right and we can see truths lies partial truths all kinds of things in the ocean of competing messages there's no shame in attaching ourselves to those truths that are truly catholic for example the truth that pope francis is a good loving man the truth that he is the pope and all that that entails if it turns out and this is a completely sci-fi fantasy of the set of a cantus if it turns out god forbid that pope francis is the antichrist not a legitimate pope not the valid pope not really the pope not the vicar of i don't see how that would be possible but if it did occur that turns out he's not the pope then everything i've said about pope francis doesn't apply to him because he's not the pope he's still a human so he still has infinite dignity we still everything was due to him as a man as a human is still due to him he has a human nature unless in another sci-fi fantasy it turns out he's not human well we can fabulous all we like the reality is that here and now pope francis is a human being and pope francis is the vicar of christ every mass reinforces that prayers are being said for the pope if you're a set of accountants i don't know how you explain that if you're an anti-pope francis conservative catholic a rat trap i don't understand how you can reconcile that dumbing down the man with the keys toning it down emptying it out and you call yourself a catholic and you have the audacity to say that you are a traditional catholic the man that is pope francis and in doing so raise yourself above his is a moral obligation to offer fraternal correction to a man who's thousands of kilometers distant from you in space unknown to you completely unknown to you why because i have tradition i interpret everything that pope francis says and does in continuity of tradition using the mind of the church there's no surprise for me there was no surprise for me when this document came out saying that the church cannot bless civil unions because god cannot bless sin there was no surprise for me because i used the hermeneutic of continuity not the hermeneutic or one of the many hermeneutics of rupture paranoia fear anxiety it says not rocket science people if you want to be catholic so when i sent the second image my conservative catholic friend claimed to be unable to decide if one was more or less favorable to the church if one was attacking one was defending he was unable to say apparently he wanted me to believe that everyone knows everyone knows the answer it's not a difficult dancing in circles deflecting accusing me of mental illness accusing completely relevant i not shy to do i like charity yes am i am i wrong about you and about the pope but am i wrong to defend public disparagement no i'm not wrong objectively speaking there is no excuse am i giving pope francis too much dignity too much honor too much respect no because it's impossible he's a human being and he holds the highest office in the universe that's your tradition that you love so much teach you that have you failed to learn that from this tradition which you i just want catholics and non-catholics to understand that if you want to be catholic you're welcome just be sure of one thing before you feel comfortable calling yourself catholic that one thing is that you cannot have god for your father if you don't have the church for your mother and you cannot have the church for your mother if you don't have the pope is that you cannot have god for your father if you don't have pope francis in march 2021 you can't have god for your father if you don't have pope francis it's that simple so that's it take care we'll talk soon god bless our conference this evening is on the unusual subject of faith in christ by our loyalty to the pope in other words we are as faithful to jesus christ christ the foundation for this relationship between the two loyalties with our lord asking his disciples and they answered different people gave and then he asked them and who do you then peter speaking for the others said you are to which jesus responded and you are peter the rock and on this rock i will build my church and the gaze of hell will not be veiled before christ left the earth in visible form after his resurrection he actually conferred what he called the primacy or the supreme invisible authority on earth on peter and on peter's successors in matthew's gospel therefore our lord promised on this and then in john's gospel after peter had been duly humiliated then jesus told peter feed my lambs almost 2 000 years unless what christ had foretold raise objections in both cases i'll do my best both to answer the objections and the questions because i can tell you there is nothing in the world today that i believe more concretely and specifically needs to be understood then that for us catholics our loyalty to jesus christ is only as strong and firm and stable as is our fidelity to the vicar of christ the bishop of to the vicar of christ the bishop of rome