A Conversation Between Scott Hahn and Ralph Martin

I'm Scott Hahn and I'm with a friend of mine a friend of many years dr. Ralph Martin you have been a pioneer in Catholic spiritual renewal for many decades I can think back to when I was a Protestant in the 70s with the Institute for pastor renewal getting your newsletters and feeling challenged and inspired but it was one book in particular that came out in the early 80s crisis of truth that really stands out in my memory because a lot of people now are waking up and recognizing that we're facing a crisis of truth and for many people it's like a first-time experience but in fact what you show in your work is that it's anything but new and so I just wanted you to reflect back on what it was like to write that but also to discern in a certain prophetic way what the Spirit was saying to the Church of Christ yeah no that was an important part of my life I was living in Belgium for four years and came back in 1980 and while I was in Belgium I had a chance to travel with cardinal sins and meet a lot of theologians and bishops and read a lot of theological literature and I was becoming increasingly concerned about what what I was reading both on the popular level and the academic level which seemed to be drifting from the faith shall we say you know it was sort of in that spirit of you know we're in this brave new world where doctrine is developing and let's see how far it can go and that type of thing and so I felt almost like I got a commission from the Lord you know which I've had several times since but this was one to kind of address it and so I ended up giving a series of talks in Minneapolis st. Paul I think five or six talks and the title was a crisis of truth the undermining of morality faith morality and mission in the Catholic Church and those are the areas I targeted you know particularly also Scripture even though I wasn't a scripture scholar even though I didn't have a theology degree I heard chapter saying the authority of Scripture is being undermined if that's undermined where it were adrift we don't have any our bearings anymore and then morality that was the day when the Catholic theological Society had commissioned a committee to work on sexual morality and I issued a document that you know was very wobbly and it basically said well it's certain circumstances you know there aren't really any objective absolute evils you know in this area certain circumstances what people are calling adultery if it's real love could be okay type of thing and same with other sexual sins I say I don't think so well and then with mission it was also a time when the missionary effort was collapsing like missionary orders were saying you know we shouldn't really be imposing our faith on people we should be helping them to human development you know it's the time when the church was rightly becoming more sensitive to the social implications of the gospel and the need to care for people's you know well-being in this world as well as their eternal salvation but pretty soon the eternal salvation was dropping out we were just working on well-being of people in this world that got very very involved with Marx's politics in Latin America and a very aggressive form of liberation theology began to become very powerful in the church so all those things I just felt like I don't know why but I felt like the Lord was sensitizing me to this and giving me insight into it and even though I didn't have a theology degree I just felt like you know I was understanding these things and so I gave a series of talks and they were videotaped and a group of people became so convinced to the importance of the message that they kind of arranged for it to be shown all around the country so there were lots of like lots of places where the videos of my talks in Minneapolis were being shown and people were responding really strongly and that was the same time I felt like I needed to do something to continue this mission in the Catholic Church I was part of an ecumenical community but when I came back from Belgium I said I feel like the Lord's calling me to serve the Catholic Church they said well we can't support you because we're an ecumenical community so if you want to do this you just got to raise money in your own so I wrote to about 25 friends that's I feel called to address this crisis of truth and would you be willing to help just you know support it and so that's how renal Ministries began and that's also how I met father Mike in a more significant way we had both been involved in the Catholic Charismatic renewal but we could see each other at conferences so we felt a spiritual kinship but one day he called me up he said Ralph I've just been listening to your crisis of truth tapes and I feel like the Holy Spirit told me I'm supposed to stand with you in this and I'm supposed to cover you and give you protection he says I've got a theology degree I went to Harvard Law School at this time retro seminary and president University and I feel like I'm just supposed to travel around the world with you and endorse your message what a humble thing for the president of the university to do - to stand behind the layman like he would introduce me when we'd speak in Australia we speak and you know all around the world type of thing and he would say I just want to tell you that this message has sound I I'm just taking my reputation on it and so this was very this touched me deeply obviously because I knew there was going to be opposition as a matter of fact I got banned and speaking in several diocese one of which was the Archbishop of Milwaukee you know who didn't want this message spoken in their dioceses and father Mike just was such a it was such a consolation to me it was like Oh Lord how could you love me so much that you gave me a brother to stand with me I mean like I just felt so loved by God and so loved by father Mike that he would he would stand side by side with me as a real brother in the Lord you know as we carried this message which is you know a form of spiritual warfare addressing things you know I think there are parallels between the confusion that we face today and the confusion that came into the church back in the 70s you know I think a lot of people found themselves somewhat bewildered and a spiritual paralysis set in nobody knew exactly what to say or how to respond and this is what I think the Holy Spirit really did not only for you individually in calling you out of an ecumenical group but really to work with Catholics I'm just reminded parenthetically of a time that I spent with dr. James Dobson in Colorado Springs and after about an hour or so this line that he he looked at me and he said where would we be without the Catholic Church and and that's true today but that was true back then but to see the Holy Spirit not only enable you to speak to the crisis but also to enable you to partner with a priest so you could see the clergy and the Laius yes but to enter into this kind of communion but in collaboration yeah that just showed how the church is meant to operate yeah yeah and it's just well yeah and it's really it's very surprising to me to see the same issues reappear today you know you know I felt like john paul ii but i think we're making a lot of progress in dealing with these confusions and this undermining of truth you know i felt like they had pretty much kind of recovered the ground you know and then it's been quite surprising to me and and i first became aware of it when i was asked to give a paper at georgetown university to celebrate the anniversary of vatican ii and it was uh it was being run by people who felt like we're gonna get another chance to kind of push things forward like we haven't been able to do for a while and lots of uh publicly admonished dissenting theologians were there Cardinals who were advocating a different approach to morality were there and just saying wow you know what's going on here is like they're back know like like I thought these things have been Telus it's the same old modernist heresy isn't it it's the same old thing the church that's been fighting now for a long time and it looks like it gets dealt with then it comes back and that's why Catholics have to be so grounded in the Word of God and the confidence in the truth of Scripture and the teaching of the church and even even in Rome now where there's you know confusion of people need to have their bearings about what the true tradition of the church is I need to know what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches I need to be grounded in the truth or they're gonna be mislead right you know you just use the M word modernism and I think a lot of people haven't heard of it before if they have they're not really sure what it is but it indicates a crisis that really goes back over a century and it was rooted in the 1890s in what was called like west yonder bleak the biblical question because it was the undermining of the authority of God's Word taking place in the church but mostly through scholarship that was sort of being done in a way that was supposedly scientific and critical but it really did undermine the foundations on which the Church's teachings rest yeah as well as natural law natural reason natural order that was also being undermined and the tradition of the church and distorted understandings the development of doctrine that wasn't developing at all but was repudiation and so at one level it appeared to be defeated in the first decade of the 20th century but it would it really went underground yeah and in another sense after vatican ii when it really came back again and then it sort of was driven out by the efforts of john paul the second and then pope benedict as well you know and here comes pope francis and I want to state this with discretion because you know he grew up and was formed as a Jesuit in South America and you know if you study the context you recognize what a moderate he is given Latin American liberation theology much of which was Marxist violent revolutionary and so looking at it from that context you realize why he himself is sometimes bewildered by how his comments are taken out of context yeah you know but but I think we do need the Holy Spirit to guide us now with a clarity and a courage like we did back then like never before yeah and I think the Lord is showing us that it all doesn't depend on the Pope but the whole church needs to be alive with the Word of God and not power the Holy Spirit I think the Lord has been raising up ministries like st. Paul Center like we knew him in history is like many other ministries to be able to bring a clear voice of God's Word and a time of confusion so I feel like it's for a time like this that we've been we've been pruned we've been called we've been you know we've been prepared right like Mordecai to Esther you've come to the kingdom for a time such as this were you already mentioned father Mike Scanlon who was the president of the college's Steubenville back in the early 70s and it was a kind of second founding through the Catholic Charismatic renewal but then also through the consolidation the partnership with you and others and if you don't mind me mentioning this you served on the board of trustees at Franciscan University of Steubenville and your son-in-law teaches with me in the theology department as you look back I mean the st. Paul Center is affiliate of the University and that partnership runs as deep as the ocean and so I'm interested in hearing your reflections on your the experiences that you had in watching father Michael scans sort of lead Franciscan University of Steubenville and what the Holy Spirit has done through that institution yeah through the years and maybe even bring us up to date with father Dave Ivanka our yeah resident yeah well father Mike asked me to be on the board of Franciscan and I served the three terms that people can and then I asked them to be on the board of renewal ministries which he stayed on until his health started to fall so we really were involved in each other's ministries in a significant way when father day when father Mike couldn't any longer continue on our board fathered a provocative his place when he's on our board today and he says he wants to stay on the board even though he's now has the added responsibilities of the president of Franciscan so there's been a long link with Franciscan father Mike with father Dave with everything that's gone on at the University and quite frankly Scott you know that you've been a major part of what's going on at the University and you've really put the theology department and the scripture studies here on the map and I'm so grateful for your own leadership I know father Mike was thrilled about you and I think it's very fitting that you have the father Michael chair in the New Evangelization and I think both of us in different ways are trying to carry on the legacy of what we experienced in our relationship with father Mike and what he did for Franciscan University the whole concept of dynamic orthodoxy is so important like I was saying in my talk today you know orthodoxy is not enough we need the dynamic living presence of God animating what we're doing we need the power of the Holy Spirit as well as correct understanding of Scripture and doctrine and that's what he was all about making Franciscan really stand for that and that's always been somewhat in the balance I mean you know kind of assuring the legacy assuring that dynamic Orthodox it is really kind of healthy in both those dimensions is always a challenge and I know be a challenge for a part of the day too and for all of us you know but uh it's just having it's a great model to go by it's a great vision to have dynamic worth or actually it's really what the Catholic Church is supposed to be it's supposed to be dynamically Orthodox I mean it really is sort of pictured in the body that has a soul that animates and when you look at orthodoxy it can be dead if it's just a letter it's just stuff you learn and memorize doesn't spit back and likewise at dynamism you know I'm thinking of Ronald Knox and his study on enthusiasm yeah and he was very wary somewhat skeptical about any sort of enthusiasm especially in religion you know and so he spent decades working on this for the purpose is sort of relativizing or demeaning it yeah but in the end what he concludes is that while nothing was ever accomplished simply by enthusiasm nothing meaningful or lasting was ever accomplished without it yeah and so the dynamism of Orthodoxy is not really something that you're adding to the doctrine of the faith the doctrine of the faith is so true it is so real it is so beautiful it is so powerful it really is sort of like a lion in a cage you know you can defend it but perhaps it would be better to let them out of its cage yeah fed itself and unleash the dynamism that is implicit or latent in the beauty of the truth of the Catholic faith in its photos well you know some people say you know some Protestants say that the authority the inspiration the inerrancy of Scripture is self-evident we know it isn't really self-evident in that sense but you guys a st. Paul Center it is close to making a self evident and you finding the the new and the old and the old and the new you know the I mean you guys have just really like have become as close as anybody ever imagined could come to making the inspiration and inerrancy of scripture self-evident really thank God we have the Magisterium thank God we have the canonical books of Scripture thank God we have the history of interpretation of church but you and John Bergsma and the others at the st. Paul Center are providing an incredibly valuable service to the church and what's happening a st. Paul Center I just thought it's a joyful experience yeah sure my heart is strengthened you know you know how I'm so concerned about the authority of Scripture and I talk about it almost every talk I do but you guys are providing such a resource here for the evident evidence that well I appreciate that I mean we do share that passion but also the conviction that it is much needed today you know you mentioned father Mike as well as the Saint Paul center and I just want to say that the establishment of the st. Paul Center probably wouldn't have happened without him I was working with the Institute of Applied political studies within the university but the administration of bureaucracy of the school was such that father Mike sort of opened the door and suggested that we established something independent of the University but very closely affiliated with you and so when we established the st. Paul Center for biblical theology he basically got the board back then to vote unanimously to affiliate with the University where we are now and I think that's what makes it so exciting to see the art our efforts are multiplied exponentially the symbiosis between the University and the center yeah it's it's human but there's something also super nice yeah yeah no it's a real spiritual bond yeah yeah I want to shift over to fire mm-hmm the fire rally yeah what was a fire rally yeah you did it with father Mike yeah many where all did yeah yeah what did you see in terms of the fruit yeah well a certain point we realized that Catholics in different countries either in our own country we're feeling a little insecure inadequate because of the big rallies that they saw POTUS is carrying out you know faith healers and Protestant evangelists and filling stadiums and all that kind of thing we felt like you know there's no reason why the Catholic Church can't manifest the same dynamism of preaching and praying and healing and everything like that it's all it's all in our church and we just need to kind of let the lion loose so to speak you know type of thing so we were sitting around in my basement in Ann Arbor Michigan praying and talking sister and shields myself on the mic and another priest and we just said you know we need to do something we need to really raise the Catholic flag in a way that people who are tempted to leave the church because the Pentecostal and charismatic an evangelical experience can recognize you know the Living God you know working and moving and acting you know in the Catholic Church so right there we just try to say what was chic what should we call it well we got a scripture passage Luke chapter 12 it comes to cast fire on the earth and would that it be ablaze you know and then we said you know fire on what could that stand for her we just it just came apparent you know f is for faith is for intercession ours for repentance he is for evangelization so we we just kind of got for talks yeah yes yes yeah so those are the titles of her for talks you know I was faith you know what Mike was repentance sister Anne Shields was intercession and the other side the priests was evangelization so it's sort of like and and we went all around the world for I don't know 15 years or something and had over a hundred fire rallies and yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and all over the United States and dozens and dozens of dioceses and we had really big crowds we did fill giant stadium you know in New Jersey and you know in Yankee Stadium and you know we we really were the Lord gave us a vision that really came to pass and we were able to think they're really strengthened lots of Catholics I still have people come to me every day saying you know I really met the Lord our fire rally I really decided to stay in the Catholic Church because oh if I really the Lord blessed it and we prayed with people for conversion father Mike had people come up and repent you know right there the fire rally then we directed them to confession you know right there we prayed for God to heal people and things like that and people got healed then you know I was sort of like just sort of an example of like what the church you know is you know really you know what it can do and that type of thing so I think over three or four hundred thousand people came to fire rallies and you know so it was just sort of like a really a good thing that the Lord did and and that gave us a chance to really be together a lot like father Mike and I would you know in the Philippines we look for a tennis court try to play tennis or you know or we look for a swimming pool he liked to swim a lot you know we swam there that type of thing and you know and had dinner at night together so it was a real a chance to really grow yeah yeah they can again between priests and lay person you know you wouldn't it was sort of like it was real it was real it was a real relationship I respected him as a priest I totally honored him his priests I totally you know supported him as a priest and and yet there was just a total real Brotherhood that's how it's supposed to be between priests and lay people together you know tell you I know you say that Scott and it's really true that the only way we're going to meet the challenge of the church is be brothers side-by-side with each other respecting each other's vocations and roles but being in the trenches together fighting the battle together loving each other supporting each other knowing each other hanging out with each other really sharing our lives together you know I think this is sort of normal but it seems abnormal to so many people you know the clericalism but clericalism was a two-way street lay people easily fall into them trap was saying well that's what the priest is for let him do it all you know and I think of the priest as being a father in the family of God and really we call him father for the purpose of honoring him but recognizing that he is able to bring to us as a father the bread of life like as a dad I'm a breadwinner but not of the supernatural order and so while there's a partnership between the laity and the clergy it isn't strictly egalitarian because it recognizes the hierarchy but you know I have six kids five sons one daughter and I am NOT threatened when I see my sons growing up and getting their masters one now has a doctorate and one has acquired such an understanding of Scripture in st. Thomas Aquinas that he intimidates me but I am delighted by that absolutely absolutely come my teacher and my tutor after I've been his and I think there's something analogous in the relationship that can really thrive I I think back to the job talk and the interview I had with father Mike back in 1990 when I got here to Franciscan 30 years ago and you know it wasn't in any way condescending he was empowering me he was encouraging me he knew I don't even a Catholic about four years at that point but he laid his hands upon me and then I introduced him to Kimberly who just had a miscarriage he laid his hands upon her she conceived a short while later yeah we had a couple of hours in his office where we felt the bonds of partnership and friendship Brotherhood in the Lord in the Lord yeah and and then near the end of it after I had gotten all excited about sharing my doctoral research and when I was writing on and how I'd become a Catholic in the conversion process and how intellectualized it was you know there was a smile that came upon his face and it seemed like a throwaway line at the time but I looked back and realized was anything but he just said I remember hearing once - God opposes the proud even when they're right Oh like a laser beam to my heart oh thank you and lures the wounds of a friend you know oh yeah and you know it seems to me that that kind of fraternal correction could have come from a lay person but hardly ever does yeah but it really does come from a father figure in my life now who became a better friend because he loved me enough to say it in a gentle but interesting way oh that that is really good yeah and one of the wonderful he's the father Mike you just share is that sometimes he talked with people and but he also knew that he did not all have all the answers so he wouldn't he would say let's turn to the Lord together you know he would bring bring the Lord into the relationship into the conversation he said let's pray about that he would do it right there you know it was just a reminder that the Lord was here yes I did but he what he wanted to acknowledge it and have us avert to it together and so many people who bless when those little short prayers he pray you know he he wouldn't just kind of listen to somebody's trouble but he'd say let's pray about it you know he was healing in her shoulder or their head or something I just pray you know and other people have had babies after she's prayed for them many we have met so many others too one last thing I want to share and that is when I was a freshman Catholic back in 1987 I was a freshman professor in Joliet at the college of st. Francis and I had a freshman at the time taking my course on Christian morality and I had kind of thrashed about trying to find the right text and I I found two or three that would kind of do the trick but I found one called crisis of truth that I used and I wanted to introduce them not just to the church's teaching but to the timeliness and the urgency of it and years later this freshman who had me for that course his first semester I believe told me that he had an awakening and that he had a passionate desire to take God at His Word and to apply it to his own life and to open himself up his his name is dr. Timothy gray Wow he's the founder of the Augustan Institute which is a partner with us at the st. Paul Center and really a kind of kindred spirit with everything you're doing in renewal ministries as well and I think of you know st. Josemaria crisis of truth a crisis of saints we need Saints to rise up to address the crises back in the 80s now just as much if not more yeah yeah by by living our faith you know in the radical way in which we need to live it you know believe in Jesus in the way that Jesus wants us to believe him and obeying Jesus like Jesus wants to obey Him yes let's let's do it let's help each other do it let's help everybody that we're communicating with do it thank you for doing it thank you for the gift of friendship and also the role model you are to me and to many others not only in your courage and and your wisdom and your openness to speak what the Holy Spirit has shown you to but the very fact that at 77 you still play tennis that's a challenge to me I'm actually 76 but yeah yeah that was a blessing God renews our strength like an Eagles right we trust in Him and rest in him and he gives us what we need to carry out our mission as long as he wants us to carry it out indeed we do would you conclude this time with a word of Prayer yeah well I thank you for this chance to remember good and holy things and to remember the good and holy things you've done and inspired in people we thank you particularly for giving us the gift of father Mike Scanlon and all that's come through him for us Franciscan at Saint Paul Center renewal ministries and we just thank you for all the people that you're touching that you're raising up that you're calling we thank you for all the people who are saying yes to your call we thank you for everything you've done so far we know that the battle is raging even more intensely than it was many years ago and we thank you now Lord forgive us your peace and confidence and trust that you'll give us what we need to do to do what you're asking us of us in this time amen dear father I thank you for Ralph and in the name of Jesus your son I pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to come down upon him and renewal ministries so that through him as your instrument might be a source of ongoing and ever-deepening renewal conversion and transformation for many many others too we pray for father Dave Bhuvana our new president and thank you for him and for his faithful witness and as they would give him wisdom from on high an insight into how to lead us and guide us so that we might raise up a whole new generation of faithful disciples missionaries apostles for the new evangelization we ask all of these things with that peaceful confidence that comes from knowing that you hear these prayers we offer them to you in the name of Jesus amen amen

Channel: St. Paul Center

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Id: iIAM-4fsM0Q

Length: 27min 15sec (1635 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 30 2019