you’re listening to the sspx podcast, and
welcome to episode 4 of the crisis in the church series. this week, we’re welcoming
father steven reuter, who is the prior of saint dennis in calgary. he’ll be our guide
for the next few episodes as we dive into the errors of liberalism, which is something
that has infected everyone living today, and even those living in the early twentieth century,
including archbishop lefebvre. this week, we will learn how that happened, and how the
archbishop in his seminary years learned to fight this heresy. we’ll also explore what
liberalism is, and how we can prevent ourselves from falling into it. if you’d like to go
back and revisit some of our earlier episodes, find out more about this series on the crisis
in the church, or to find out how to support this project, please visit sspxpodcast.com
- now, we’ll turn to our conversation with father reuter. well we are back with another episode of the
sspx podcast on the crisis in the church series and very happy to welcome for the first time
for this series and to the podcast itself father stephen reuter hello father how are
you well andrew how are you doing very well and uh we were saying just before we started
recording this is maybe the one of the first times that you and i have met and certainly
uh the first time you've been on one of our series so uh for those of our listeners viewers
who don't know who father reuter is could you give a brief introduction so i was ordained
in winona minnesota in 2012. okay then i spent a year in the dominican republic and then
seven years at the seminary teaching ethics dogmatic theology and acts the magisterium
okay and this year i was transferred to calgary canada where i am now fantastic and and side
note difference between the seminary and going back to you you're at a priory i assume back
in more of a parish life the difference between being a seminary professor and priory uh is
there i mean obviously it's different um but do you tend to like one life more than another
or maybe you want to be diplomatic and not answer that father so the jury is out in here
one month okay fair enough well i hope i hope the calgarians are treating you well so far
very good well we are going to be talking with you about uh liberalism father and we're
gonna be breaking our conversation up into probably two different episodes uh and then
later on we'll be talking with father luke about americanism and that will kind of broadly
encapsulate this larger uh concept of liberalism uh so what is i guess we start with liberalism
is this what we hear all the time on tv in the news that you're a liberal you're not
a liberal so certainly a word that we use quite frequently and often hear and generally
it's associated with for example the left of a political party or the radical left or
in the church we'll hear it in regards to the progressivist so it is a term which we
we often hear and those who are on the progressive side of history are certainly liberals yet
i think what we fail to understand is that even many conservatives today are what we
could call small c conservatives and are in fact still what we could call capital l liberals
because they still embrace the liberal philosophy and liberal doctrine which has been condemned
so forcefully by the church so we were talking with father father wiseman the last couple
episodes about the origins of of liberalism and and so forth and and kind of where it
all began and the subjectivist philosophy you know nominalism naturalism all that all
that kind of stuff um so liberalism as a whole um you're basically saying that we are all
liberals just by virtue of kind of being alive today it's probably very difficult to not
be liberal yes we're certainly very influenced we're social by nature aristotle gave that
definition man as a social animal so being that we're social by nature we're very influenced
by the society in which we live and the post-revolutionary world is a revolutionary therefore a very
liberal world and in fact even the archbishop he was born in a very catholic and holy family
he was born in france in 1905 so there's still remnants of christendom and christendom is
when the doctrine permeates the social order there are still remnants of christendom and
yet when the archbishop went to the french seminary in rome he discovered in his own
words that he was a liberal so we see that even over a hundred years ago a very holy
and pious young man found out that he was a liberal and the reason was because he accepted
the principle that is good for the church to be separated from the state which the prince
which most of us just take for granted as being the norm and as being a very good thing
so in that sense yes we're all very permeated by liberalism and so he he found that he was
liberal in a sense and and the roman seminary at the time was still very anti-liberal or
or not liberal i side note here on the on the ecclesiastical side of things or on the
moral side of things what would be the opposite of big l liberal would it be conservative
or would it be um so yeah a conservative in the modern sense is somebody who wants to
basically preserve what exists but they're not willing to go back to the true catholic
principles which is to restore all things in christ so many small c conservatives they
say the revolution has gone as far as we want it to go or maybe too far but we're not willing
to go back to the principle right which christ is the king and society the church the home
the individual must submit themselves to christ's kingship which is the only true principle
of order in society so most conservatives don't accept that principle and therefore
they're still capital l liberals so at this at this seminary he was able to preserve that
that conservative uh sense that was still very present in the church at that time is
that correct yes thanks to his seminary rector father leflak father flock was what we can
say a true catholic and by way of consequence and anti-liberal and father leflock explained
the teaching of the church and notably the in the last two centuries the 19th and the
beginning of the 20th century the doctrine of the church on kingship of christ and the
archbishop really soaked in this doctrine and in fact father the flock told the seminarians
that they had to make a choice either accept the catholic doctrine and fight for the catholic
doctrine or leave the seminary as he says the church can't afford to have more or to
have any liberal priest and so the archbishop had to make that choice very early on the
seminary to accept what the church teaches on christ the king to repudiate the liberal
doctrines of separation of church and state and therefore to dedicate his life to the
service of the church and so at that time how was how was liberalism uh showing itself
in in culture it was it was probably not you know we're talking about france and italy
we're talking about europe in the early 1900s uh there wouldn't be the liberalism or the
progressivism as we see it today uh in the states here in 2020 there was not abortion
and those kinds of things but uh what was what was what was the liberalism that was
uh so hated by this seminary professor and by the young by the young father lefeve at
that time well even pope pius the 10th makes the comment early on his papacy in 1904 where
just the apostasy of nations where nations no longer accept the teaching authority of
christ and no longer construct a legal system which reflects the natural law and the divine
law no longer promote the law of the church in their country because we are what the laws
make us to be in a certain sense and when the laws become atheistic or indifferent man
becomes atheistic and indifferent so what happened in the 19th and 18th century is a
preparation for the complete decadence we see today very interesting and this was again
this was this banishment of christ the king that this separate like you said at the very
beginning the separation of church and state this is really a hallmark of capital l liberalism
theory that started back in the french revolution and continued all the way yes and in fact
at the french seminary the archbishop was was taught by his professors there that there
was really a three-fold plan or three steps in the plan of liberalism and the archbishop
he says that it's a a free masonic agenda he says the liberal agenda is a free masonic
agenda and there was a famous freemason in belgium who actually said that our philosophy
is the philosophy of liberalism the archbishop learned there's three points to this this
agenda and the first is to separate church and state to secularize the state because
we're creatures of habit we're we're subject to a state and when the laws do not reflect
the law of god when the laws do not reflect that christ is god and king we easily get
swept away by our passions or by the errors of the time so the first step in the liberal
agenda is to separate the church from the state to banish christ the king from the constitutions
and that is working yes so first step is banishing uh banishment of
christ that came from from government and then you said there's there's two more steps
yes the second was to suppress the mass by whatever means possible and so of course we
see this in the communist revolutions or the different persecutions the mass is always
persecuted or suppressed we see it of course the vatican do by changing the mass making
it into the gathering of the people of god rather than the sacrifice of calvary and so
really suppress the mass because the mass is is really the source of christ's kingship
we see that we know from the liturgy that christ reigns from the wood of the cross so
all of the kingdom of christ hinges on the fact that christ purchased society by dying
on the cross and the mass expresses that and continues the grace necessary to ensure that
the laws of the nations and the people are able to conform themselves to god's god's
plan for order so this is central this is this it's it's not just separating the church
from the state but it is all right now let's go after religion you know to use more colloquial
terms let's go after religion itself let's go after the liturgy itself exactly separate
people from the source of all grace which is the mass and then finally we have the the
third goal the third goal is really to to separate the souls from the source of grace
which is very closely linked to the second because the mass is the source of grace so
really to make souls secular to alienate them from the sacraments to alienate them from
the laws of god so whenever we see any of these three things happening we know there's
some type of of liberal agenda behind it which is seeking to destroy christendom or the remnants
thereof so separate the church from the state suppress the mass bring people away from the
sacraments which are the channels of grace the first point we see happening we've seen
it in the united states we see it in the constitution of the united states the separation of church
and state uh and we're gonna be talking about americanism more with father luke so i don't
wanna jump ahead and talk and start talking about the united states too much but this
is what most of us understand second is you know separation of the mass but the third
one you know i was just thinking could we could we say that uh you often hear catholics
or nominal catholics catholic politicians say well this is what i believe but i don't
want to impose my views on someone else for instance a catholic politician who is okay
with abortion for instance would that be that third goal of of the liberals of those free
masonic ideals trying to separate the person from the beliefs that's classic of liberalism
where there's no real consequences to your ideas and so for many politicians today is
privately they're pro-life or privately they believe in the eucharist or whatnot but has
no influence in the rest of their life that's really just a classical trademark of a liberal
they don't they don't see the link between ideas and practice very interesting so this
is this is not just a consequence of human action and time this is this is you're saying
this is a plan this was i don't want to say conspiracy but it really was it was a conspiracy
it was a plan to try to arrest the people away from their faith yes whenever you see
an effect there must be a proportionate cause that's how the ancients came to know anything
they would you know you see a tree fall over there must be sufficient cause to make that
tree fall over and so you need to investigate what caused what caused was sufficient to
produce this effect so when we see this effect which is um societies the church and all the
people of the world today so influenced by liberalism we do have to wonder you know what's
the sufficient cause in fact the archbishop himself he asked himself that question and
he said that it's not possible so it's impossible to understand the present crisis in the church
so of course we're in this crisis which is clear it's not possible to understand the
crisis in the church or to know the true characters of the people who are involved or to know
the attitude we must have in front of them without investigating the cause of the crisis
and the crisis was caused by he says liberalism he says liberalism was a plan of freemasonry
in order to separate souls from god and so this crisis you know continues to develop
we're often deploring the effects of the crisis the different moral doctrinal liturgical abuses
but unless we go back a couple centuries and see what the church actually teaches we're
not unable to contribute to the restoration of the church because there'll be no restoration
until jesus christ is the king of the church of society of our families of our souls of
every element of our life every faculty of our body is under the dominion of our lord
jesus christ and that's denied by the liberals and so we are finally and i say finally getting
to the meat of of the matter understanding the crisis and its and its causes uh the first
episode we did with father mcfarland you know we went through is there a crisis and we went
through all the statistics and all the details and and at the end i sat back and and i was
just well thanks father for that rosy picture of society and um and i wanted to explore
with like i kept wanting to well okay but then what can we do to fix it or what was
the cause so here we are today finally able to say all right what was what is then the
root of the of this crisis uh and so what did the archbishop see what what did his investigations
show father so he wrote in his his book they haven't crowned him which is certainly an
excellent reference and a very important book today he wrote that we have to go back to
history in order to discover the primary cause of the evils today so look at history what's
the primary cause and then he tells us the primary cause is that liberalism which was
which was condemned by the popes for two centuries so the archbishop identified liberalism as
the cause of the current crisis in the church the cause of the evils which we see today
and so liberalism is is the problem it is kind of the i i think i was talking with father
frank's earlier uh and he referred to it as the grandfather of all heresies it is kind
of the the hydra of of a lot of different heresies yes in many ways at least proximately
sure to get to liberalism you need the you know the philosophy of nominalism and martin
luther which we'll touch on but really it's the substrate of of the errors which come
and the two points which the archbishop makes which are so important is liberalism is the
problem but we also have two centuries of magisterium to know what the church teaches
and to know the evil of liberalism so we don't need to you know recreate you know something
out of nowhere we have the church telling us for two centuries what is liberalism what's
the foundation of liberalism what's the consequence of liberalism and through that we can come
back to a certain restoration in the church very interesting uh and can i pause you for
a second father um is there a way to turn off maybe the sound effects on the computer
without do i do that without turning off the volume i don't know are you on a mac or a
pc you're on a mac um go up to the little uh up on that should be up on the top right
the little speaker icon or the little sound icon and then see it's
strange i don't see it or if you um or if you have that uh like gear wheel looking icon
that says system preferences in your dock so open up that okay and then click on sound and then once that opens up you should see
an option for sound effects and you can just turn down the alert volume sound effects alert
volume all the way down yeah and that'll turn those off without turning off everything else
okay sorry because i had to off then i turned up to hear you yeah no that's most of the
time those two are tied together but you can yeah we need to refilm anything are we okay
no that's fine there was just a couple little things that's totally doable oh yeah it's
fine um all right is everything okay as far as the volume and quality and yes everything's
good yep uh so liberalism this is like like we just
said it's it's the it's the large most identifiable part of the crisis but there's something even
a little deeper than that and that's one of the things you wanted to talk about today
father right yes the link is an important link to make between naturalism and liberalism
and in fact again we always look to the popes the magisterium for light and from pope pius
the sixth all the way through benedict xvi they speak not only of liberalism but they
do speak of the errors between which the link between liberalism and protestantism and that
protestism is founded in naturalism so we can say naturalism is more fundamental even
than liberalism it's really the grandfather of liberalism in many ways naturalism okay
so this is distinct from nominalism which is what we've been talking with father wiseman
about and so what is what is naturalism then father so naturalism is not so much a special
system a special philosophical system it's more of an attitude which permeates many systems
and unfortunately an attitude which permeates all of us we're all very influenced by naturalism
and we'll certainly can speak about how it influences us later on as well but in broad
strokes if you're going to talk about three different mindsets which are which are naturalistic
it's one is the materialist the pure materialist who deny any transcendental being any first
cause distinct from creation and for them the the entire cree the entire existing order
is co-extensive with the natural world so the natural world stands on its own there
is no supernatural transcendental being which holds this world in existence and therefore
they're not going to believe in a supernatural end which is heaven grace as a means to get
to heaven but this material world itself is the cause of itself so that's you know really
fundamental materialism which is necessarily naturalism there is no supernatural transcendent
order so that would so we would say that someone who is um who sees the world according to
naturalism uh one example might be the atheistic evolutionist someone who is you know this
is this is the way things are this is how things go we have no idea how it all started
but we know it did start and that's it the only laws are the laws contained in the material
being which come from themselves they're the source of of their own being which if that's
the case then there is no law higher than man right no man's freed from any transcendental
order any dependence therefore any accountability right and it's very convenient when you deny
a transcendental being well you're no longer responsible to him you can do what you want
yeah absolutely so a i use the example of an atheistic evolutionist but there are people
who adhere to naturalism who do believe in some sort of god higher power whatever they
want to call it um how do they square those we even see that for example in our founding
fathers and much of the enlightenment where a first principal a distinct creator is admitted
but they don't believe that this first being this creator in any way intervenes in the
world so you in a sense you can say the first group of materialist don't believe in a creator
the second group will admit there's a creator but they don't believe this creator is providence
i don't believe that he actually governs the world he has an interest in directing all
things towards their final end which of course is god himself so likewise you have this group
of naturalists which just don't think god intervenes at all in the world that notion
of a clock maker where he just sets the world in motion steps back and what happens happens so they they they have that that notion of
a god but very very distinct uh and then there's that third group of naturalists and and where
do they fall in so here we'll have people who admit and this is danger for all of us
in fact we do admit a supernatural order we we know we're called to it but we have this
idea that somehow through our natural power through our natural strength we're going to
reach it on our own this is a real problem even in often in traditional circles people
ask themselves what did i do right to deserve you know faith or tradition or whatnot and
the simple answer is nothing i mean everything is grace if we have any gift it's because
god loved it into us not because we merited it now of course we have to cooperate with
grace but the first grace the prevention grace always comes from god and so that really you
know really touches all of us it's this notion that by our nature we're going to do it on
our own without god we can do nothing right so we need to live in this absolute dependence
on god's grace which is always available but with but we must cooperate with this grace
so really there's three tiers of of naturalism one you know basically atheist all the way
down to a trap that we could ourselves easily fall into well you probably do many times
in a day in fact sure subconscious we lean on nature because it's more tangible than
grace sure um is naturalism something that popped up at any certain point in time can
we trace its origins back to someone or something uh like we can with with some of these other
uh philosophical ideas or probably not you said it wasn't really a philosophical idea
but more of an attitude attitude yes in fact um we could even look back at lucifer he was
given all these natural qualities the most perfect nature he has sanctifying grace but
lucifer was given a test except the supernatural order given by god except that your happiness
comes from submission to god's order and therefore the beatific vision and be eternally happy
or lean on your own natural qualities choose yourself as your last end which of course
became a third of the angels fell in hell because of it so naturalism we can trace back
to lucifer and in fact father sarda in his book liberalism is a sin he tells us that
even liberalism is nothing more than lucifer's plan applied to our century it's liberation
from god the separation from god which is what naturalism ultimately is a rejection
of the supernatural order a rejection of our essential dependence as as creatures upon
god so lucifer in a very real sense is the first naturalist and and the consequences
of course unfold throughout history adam and eve rejected you know the order established
by our lord because they wanted they wanted something that was right okay that starts
to make sense and then and then there were thinkers throughout throughout history as
well um yeah an important i think an important person to consider because of influence his
thought has on us i think in a certain sense and has on the second vatican council is pelagius
a british monk of the fourth century whom was condemned by the local council of carthage
and and re and by saint augustine but he had this idea that he had a misunderstanding of
original sin this misunderstanding of the distinction between grace and nature and and
he thought that the first step toward sanctification towards heaven was thanks to our nature an
act of the will by which we put ourselves on the path to salvation rather than recognizing
know that first grace comes from god so that's a a real a real clear instance of somebody
not understanding the distinction between grace and nature and man's dependent upon
grace in order to get to have in order to get to god that's very interesting and then
we we have naturalism again throughout throughout history i'm thinking here the my major in
college was art history so obviously i know about the renaissance uh and that was that
was a big that was probably a watershed moment for naturalism yes yes really the renaissance
is extraordinary because it's this rebirth of the classics the graco roman culture there's
extraordinary art music it brings out the the perfection of the human form there's really
an extraordinary movement on on that level but unfortunately there's a bit of a humanism
it's a focus on we can say the beauty of human nature without the need to be redeemed so
all this focus on the beauty of man is is preventing people from understanding yes we
have a good nature it's integral but we're in need of redemption our grace must our nature
rather i'm sorry must be healed by grace in order to to to live as god wants us to live
as there was a bit of a lack of heart a lack of of proportion in the in how much the the
beauty of human nature was promoted and the archbishop spoke about this in regards to
michelangelo and whatnot he said this art has a place in art galleries or outside the
churches but bringing all this greco-roman art into the churches did set a precedence
that people no longer understood the need for grace to be beautiful as god wants us
to be beautiful to be restored as god wants us to be restored so there was a movement
which was was dangerous in the renaissance of taking the focus of our need for redemption
and glory in man's natural beauty i didn't know you were an iconic class father i'm just
kidding i'm very happy to see the art yeah yeah absolutely
uh and then uh and then luther took naturalism and really ran with it didn't he yes in a
very different way and it's in fact it's it's paradoxical because we have the renaissance
which gloried in the beauty of man how beautiful the proportions of man thanks to god's creation
all the harmony but luther on the other hand is a naturalist in a different and more insidious
way for him rather than looking at the beauty of nature for him nature is intrinsically
corrupted and can't be healed so again it's this naturalism in so far as we know us catholics
that grace builds on nature grace heals nature for luther grace was something purely extrinsic
nature was so evil it could not be healed therefore man can can do nothing but wallow
in his natural misery which really separates man from god if the renaissance separated
man from god in the sense that he didn't see his need for redemption luther is the opposite
we're so miserable that we can't be redeemed anyway so luther really pushed for this naturalism
and luther we can say is a pivotal point in in many sense the father of liberalism because
luther on many levels started the liberalism as we know it today it's interesting father
that you know you talk about how naturalism is is something very easy for us to fall into
uh and and you talk about these two you know luther on one hand and the renaissance on
the other it's not two people but two groups you know two aspects uh again totally opposite
but they both fell into naturalism through very different paths and that kind of shows
how i guess predisposed we are as humans to to fall into this naturalism trap exactly
because because grace is a free gift from god which we can't see we can't taste we can't
touch we know it by faith so when we're not constantly in contact with grace through our
prayer meditation spiritual life it's easy to live as if grace doesn't exist or or to
create a false notion of what grace is and what the supernatural order is so how how
is it that naturalism played a part in in this personal salvation doctrine that luther
had what was it about naturalism that made him so because i i can understand you know
i'm so bad i i am uh i i'm have to be separated from god but how did that uh how does that
follow the idea that our nature is so corrupt that we can't be elevated we cannot in any
way please god so if you live in this state where no matter what you do it's a sin there's
no reason even to try to live up to the natural the natural law for example we just can't
be good our nature is corrupt and therefore it led to this idea that well if my nature
cannot be healed by grace if grace does not penetrate the essence the soul would make
me pleasing to god i must liberate myself from the church right so the purpose the church
is to be our mother and to teach the truth and to channel grace to our souls to elevate
us so once our soul can no longer be elevated by grace there's this complete liberation
from the teaching of the church we're no longer going to accept what the church teaches on
scripture for example in scripture of course the church teaches that scripture is inspired
and the church tells us what scripture means because she is the spouse of christ for luther
the notion of inspiration is i'm inspired while i read scripture it can tell me whatever
it wants to tell me or i can tell myself whatever i want to tell myself to justify my behavior
and therefore i need to be liberated from that authority of the church which tells me
what to think and what to do so we see already here the fact for luther redemption was purely
personal and purely extrinsic so if it's purely personal there's no reason to have a social
order which reflects christ the king because our our salvation is just act of blind confidence
so there's no social order needed to have a act of blind confidence that i convince
myself i'm saved right for the protestants you know they're convinced they're saved but
they don't know what they believe whereas the church says no this is what you must believe
if you if you believe it and live it you'll be saved so luther liberated himself from
that whole idea of the certitude of faith with the lack of certitude of salvation therefore
a need for the sacraments to keep us in the grace of god and so when you said that luther
is the kind of the the father of liberalism in a sense uh it's because he really uh gave
everyone else who followed permission to be totally individual yep completely liberated
liberated from the church you know liberated from any authority outside of themselves every
person becomes their own authority if you have the right for example to decide what
scripture says then why don't you have the right to decide what the natural law says
or what any law or any mandate tells you everybody really becomes this this rugged individual
who has no accountability to anybody outside themselves it's very interesting so there's
there's no there's no authority in matters of faith and morality um you can do whatever
you want so this is now rolling um how did the popes respond well the popes of course
the question of luther was luther was condemned and we have the council trent to try to to
bring order and stability back to the church which of course they did you know condemning
his notion of of of original sin of of grace and all these things so the council of trent
did of course a marvelous job in in bringing you know the church back to to stability um
but of course by that time you know half of christendom was separate from the catholic
church it was a tragic moment history and it kind of set the stage for the next big
movement towards the crisis which is really the enlightenment now since you know luther
is separated from the authority of the church all these free thinkers are now going to be
separated from from the existential order separated from their dependence on reality
and create their own philosophies all liberated in a certain sense and free to promulgate
their air down the centuries and leading to the crisis we have today and it's is it at
this time father where during the enlightenment where we have some of these tenets of of liberalism
starting to kind of get into the get into the church get into the hierarchy i would
say they get into the institutions as such okay so luther's you know liberalism was was
very religious in nature it was based of course on nominalism as as you said you spoke about
with other wise men but it was really in a certain restricted sphere but now with the
enlightenment the philosophy and the enlightenment takes these nominalist notions for example
for luther redemption was purely external grace was external we couldn't even know really
grasp the essence of what it was and now you have an enlightenment where all truth becomes
subjective and we can't even access the truth so everybody makes their own truth according
to to their own their own desires and of course emmanuel kant and and descartes are all big
figures in this movement of a man unable to get out of himself for example for the tomist
for the same philosopher you know truth is the conformity of my mind to reality right
so i have the truth when my mind is conformed to reality when i understand reality as it
is well modern philosophy comes and says we can't even get out of ourselves and therefore
we see this notion of truth is the conformity in my mind to the needs of human life and
this is of course maurice blondel a french philosopher who's very influential and in
fact this idea that truth is a conformity of my mind to life well as life evolves as
people need divorce or whatever other you know thing is needed today well they can do
it because i'm just conforming my mind to the needs of human life so all this was set
with content a cartoon their inability to submit themselves to an order outside themselves
the truth exists my intellect is it is made noble by knowing the truth my will is made
good by pursuing the truth that was broken with the renaissance very interesting and
so it's like you said it's it's an easy easy in air quotes uh step once you have severed
truth from reality or once you have severed your your idea of what is real from yourself
from from reality in terms of religion and in terms of morality the next logical step
is to then apply it to daily life civil life uh governments etc and that's what we've seen
yeah that was what the french revolution was is right thanks to enlightenment and everybody
is you know severing themselves they're liberating themselves from the church and liberating
themselves from reality which is in certain sense more dangerous because to liberate your
mind from reality is so destructive it's to deny the very purpose of the mind to to drink
in to to conceive ideas to conform your your knowledge your mind to what is true to what
is rather so once that's broken then you know there's basically no limit on where you're
going to go and that's what happened is the french revolution was the perfect product
of luther and the enlightenment and it was the state wanting to separate herself from
any influence of the church and it became violent because we know at the time the church
had great influence in society and so the reason the french revolution had to be so
bloody was because they had to remove really all the obstacles to this liberal agenda this
this fraternity this equality by which they wanted to bring all people to this certain
natural equality without any relation to god that's very interesting so we've been talking
about liberalism as almost abstract as a philosophical idea um then let's look at liberals themselves
so what would be some some tenets of being a liberal so we can see father um roussel
in his book liberalism and catholicism it was actually some conferences he gave a roman
was then translated into english it was published in 1926 he gave a definition which is which
is very very clear he says a liberal is a fanatic for independence he extols it to the
point of going to the absurdity in every domain so this extols it to the point to the absurdity
so this absolute independence from anything which constrains him so for the liberal the
only evil is something which constrains us something which prevents us from doing what
we want to do so you know freedom is given to us not to do what we want by god but so
we have the ability to do what we ought for the liberal liberty is given to us to do whatever
we want and our dignity comes from doing whatever we want for the catholic know god gave us
a free will and liberty is a gift from god so we're able to do what we ought so we can
go to heaven it's uh this is there's a direct tie here to life in 2020 if you're on you
know social media or email or just in conversation with friends who may be liberal the uh the
biggest sin is to make any condemnation of anything uh and and you say well i can't accept
homosexuality uh homosexual unions i can't accept abortion no no you have to accept that
and then you turn it around and say well will you accept me no because you don't accept
these exactly and so this is the perhaps everything for them there's no dogma except the dogma
of liberalism right so you can never contradict the liberal but their dogma is that anything
goes it's a losing argument for a catholic at the french revolution liberty did for all
but the enemies of liberty so as long as you play their game and you accept every error
immorality is fine but as soon as you say no there's an objective order there is an
eternal law and natural law church law we must submit ourselves to it then you're you're
evil and to be cast out you're a plague right so liberalism at its root it means liberty
right that's that's the that's the root of the word liberal in a sense uh what are some
of these liberties that that a liberal will insist on or or require so we can break it
down to a few elements based off kind of man's nature so our highest faculty is our intellect
so one thing the liberal insists on is the intellect is not subject to reality we don't
have to accept things to be true you know we you know we're not we don't only have our
own opinions but we can make our own facts so to speak we just nothing constrains us
and so this is really the the most dangerous form of liberalism because the mind is the
highest faculty by the mind we know the truth and this we call rationalism you know the
human intellect is the highest intellect in the mind of the liberals and the intellect
is not passive in regards to reality but the inflight is active in regards to reality which
is made possible thanks to immanuel kant and so the the mind is freed from the order of
being that's the most fundamental error there and and rationalism uh and correct me if i'm
wrong i'm kind of speaking off the cuff here rationalism really hit its uh hit its peak
or or really started to influence a majority of people uh during the industrial revolution
during the scientific revolution uh when we started to be able to see things with microscopes
and telescopes and understand how nature works yeah the empirical movement is very much denying
a higher order higher being we likewise see it throughout the enlightenment of the enlightenment
philosophers considering that their their intellect is the is the ultimate judge of
what's true and what's not true we see in the french revolution goddess reason you know
the notion that you know goddess reason that the reason is the highest the human reason
is the highest faculty and nothing measures it but it measures all things and of course
this is very dangerous because once we're separated from the truth we're very vulnerable
the truth sets us free right and that's what the true catholic notion of liberty is of
course we all have free will we all have the ability to do whatever we want physically
right we jump off a cliff if we want so we'll have that radical ability but for the catholic
liberty is a lack of determination in front of a particular good for the sake of our ultimate
good so for the catholic we are created by god with a purpose that purpose is to know
to love to serve god so as to be happy with him in heaven and so the catholic notion of
true liberty is all these all these in all these intermediary goods which are in front
of me do i want to be a butcher a baker a candlestick maker right all these different
things in front of me there's no determination which makes me choose one over the other as
long as i'm choosing them in light of my last and which is heaven so that's the catholic
notion of liberty liberties were free for something we're free to get to heaven whereas
for the for the liberal of the of the enlightenment is freedom from constraint nobody has the
right to tell me what to think or what to do that's the you know really the essence
of the modern liberalism is is man wants to be like unto god right who it's like unto
god i will not let somebody else determine what i have to do in order to be saved and
that's not really liberty that's not really freedom because once once you are twice yeah
because once you're caught in in lies that's that's really are not lies but well i mean
yeah a lie because you're not you're not ascribing to reality you're not you're not subscribing
to reality and so once you're caught in that trap that's that's really when you lose all
your freedom exactly we see it today with liberals even in the political sphere once
you're separated from truth and reality you really become just a a clog in this in the
machine you really become vulnerable and a victim and you see that in the frankfurt school
for example founded in germany and then moved to manhattan is one of their goals was to
to separate people from their families so that in time of crisis they they lean on the
state so the same ideas once you're outside of reality you no longer are in the truth
you're liable to be really exploited and destroyed by by air and lies which which what happens
to so many people today the truth alone sets us free this false liberty enslaves us it
enslaves us to the state to our passions to whoever has the you know the biggest stick
at the time so to speak right and the then then we move on to the the second mark of
of liberalism uh and for those of you who are wondering how is it that andrew knows
exactly where father's going well i'm cheating uh but there's these man is always changing
there's always this evolution there's always this movement towards something new and different
and and now that we've gone through some of this it starts to make sense because if if
there's no standard anymore if there's no original idea that is true and real then you
you can't you can't stay static as a liberal you have to keep moving forward and experimenting
and changing yep yeah so you know kind of the first point was the mind can't even know
the truth you know the next tier really is that being is always evolving you know with
darwinism for example and you know things are constantly evolving so there is no set
moral code no things don't have stable natures and therefore there is no stable set of morality
and therefore the principle the liberal is that we're just the only really dogmatic principle
morally speaking is constant progress you know there's no set code of morality we're
just constantly progressing thanks to a certain evolution and so evolution is really a landmark
of the liberals by which there is no set fixed order established by a transcendent god there
are just all these beings constantly in flux and if being is in flux then the natural law
is influx then the morality is in flux and therefore we go back to blondel truth is the
conformity of my mind to life you know now divorce is necessary now all these other sins
are necessary so truth is just conforming my mind to reality that this is where people
are and we see that very much of the second vatican council and pope benedict himself
very much adhered to that notion and and we see that again referencing the the first episode
in this in this series uh father mcfarland talking about maurice letizia and and how
uh pope francis essentially and i believe it was in one of the footnotes um saying well
we cannot expect the eucharist to be only a you know something to be treasured uh i
forget the exact quote father but basically saying eucharist is not a prize for someone
who is perfect it's it's a salve it's something to be given to someone who's um who's sinning
and you know it's just too impossible to live without sin he's essentially saying it's it's
we can't expect man to to live by these codes anymore it's just too hard this is again this
this slow insidious movement towards subjectivism really play with you know kind of the reality
because the reality is yes the whole eucharist is given as a remedy for our daily follows
right but can't be given to us when we're in the state of habitual sin right so they
take what pius the tenth and trent said is it's meant to be this daily remedy for our
vino and habitual falls which are venial and they say well nobody can live in the state
of grace so give it to anybody or especially the remarried but yeah right and then once
we are liberated once our will is liberated from from reason then there really is nothing
left for us to see as a hallmark of what is good anymore and that's really starts with
luther is if there's no authority to tell us what is to be believed and and not just
a tyrannical authority but an authority from christ the church to tell us what what the
ten commandments you know mean and what is what are the laws the church and what's expected
of us to get to heaven if there's no more authority to tell us what we have to do to
get to heaven then there's be no standard and so our morality is going to constantly
change based off the current social acceptability of whatever you know sins are most popular
at the time it's really that is our conscience is now liberated from the law right it used
to be that a well-informed conscience was a conscience which studied human nature studied
the law and said okay this is what i have to do here and now to please god but now there
is no authority to tell us what is the standard of morality and if a morality constantly evolves
in the mind of a liberal morality constantly evolves and we see it even in political decisions
in the last you know 50 years in north courts how it was something which seemed impossible
60 years ago is now just the norm today because while people have evolved their consciences
have evolved there's no objective standard to which we're tied and therefore we continually
unfold so to speak right right and even and even our own actions our own body that has
now become rested uh pulled away from from our soul as well you know this hyaluromorphic system we have
the body and soul and the soul is rational and the soul's meant to command the body and
now even there you know our body is liberated from any notion of of accountability whatever
the lower passions are inclined to do we we feel like we have to do because we're liberated
from any from any objective moral order and then towards the end where does where does
this independence end i mean i guess it really doesn't but in your mind father where do you
see the final end of of this independence being well it's the really the absolute destruction
of man i mean man by nature is dependent so a creature is one who depends upon a creator
you know this notion of creation so creation was not just an act which happened so many
years ago creation is a continual action by which god holds us in being and therefore
man is constantly dependent his intellect his will his whole being upon god so once
you try to separate that link between man and god it'll lead to the absolute destruction
of man and whether it be in philosophy where you end up holding two and two is four and
two into his five at the same time which is what the liberals do right ever since luther
you know your creed is as good as my creed and no creed is as good as any creed that's
the notion so that's holy and contradiction and for aristotle and saint thomas these contradictions
are the greatest sins against the the mind two and two cannot be four and five at the
same time and so it leads to a complete destruction of the intellect and also the complete destruction
of morality is you can do whatever you want as long as it's consensual and as long as
you don't hurt somebody else which unfortunately is very much the moral code of the western
world today is as long as it's consensual and nobody's hurt it's perfectly acceptable
right and but to do that they have to liberate themselves very much from the past from history
you know as the marxists do as they constantly recreate history to fit the narrative so the
liberal has to find an explanation for why things were the way they were the past to
show that there's no contradiction between two and two is four and two into his five
or whatever contradiction you want to to use but by marriage between a man and woman and
now it's not they have to constantly recreate history to show how these things are justifiable
and when you when you started that that point father and you said you know man is a creature
and he's dependent on the creator i the way you i thought you were going to go was man
is a creature and he's dependent on other creatures because you know we're we're social
animals and so we we need each other we we live in a society uh and and another kind
of tenet of this liberalism is complete independence from anyone else's thoughts and ideas and
and so forth so it's not only independence from a creator but it's independence from
these other people as well in fact we liberate ourselves from the creator by liberating ourselves
from the laws of the church from this deliberating the church and the state separating the church
and state separating ourselves from our family husbands and wives now are liberated from
one another sure so it's really complete dismemberment of society because god created us as social
so in fact we depend on god through other creatures right so to be truly human we need
to depend on god through other creatures which is why we have the church the priesthood fathers
of families mothers families all these are means by which we show our dependence upon
god for example we see in ephesians chapter 3 i bow my knee to the father of our lord
jesus christ after whom all fatherhood on heaven and earth is called so god has created
man and to be an image interface between his fatherhood and souls that's why you see today
the fatherhood is totally attacked because the devil knows that the father figure is
meant to be this link by which souls are linked to god they're united to god and by destroying
these links we destroy a man's dependence on god a man is liberated to his own destruction
so we we've been talking for the last 45 minutes or so about liberalism and liberals um and
and as you started by by bringing this all up you said you know the archbishop himself
was steeped in this we certainly in in 2020 are steeped in this uh how do we defend against
that how do we keep that that liberalism from creeping into ourselves any more than it already
has yeah well we we very much are what we eat so to speak we yeah we are we drink we
are what we read so if you want to know what somebody is look what they read and what they
do and and liberalism comes to us really from all avenues today we have the media we have
social media we have magazines we have newspapers we have our friends it's constantly coming
to us but the same is very much true if you want to make an analogy with health you know
our our system is constantly accosted or attacked by viruses or different things which could
make us sick and what's the best way to make sure we don't get sick is to have a very strong
immune system proper food proper sleep proper nutrition so it's very much true today is
we're very aware i mean if if the archbishop wasn't affected by liberalism if pious attempts
spoke about how this liberalism was destroying the church were very much influenced so really
the answer is the answer of the archbishop is to drink in the doctrine of the church
that is our immune system to go back to the popes of the 19th and first half of the 20th
century read what they they wrote on liberalism read what they wrote on society and having
our mind filled with this truth will then give us this ability to live the catholic
life ideas have consequences so our ideas are constantly attacked by the media and by
the world in which we live and that's going to influence the way we behave and we're going
to constantly gradually slide into a liberal mode of behavior if we're constantly being
affected by the tenants of the of the media the social media the world in which we live
so we counter that by finding finding time every day to read the magisterium in the church
and the archbishop he said when he finally understood what the church taught he said
he was mobilized he had this great desire to bring this teaching to others so if we
don't have this great desire to live the catholic life if we don't want our countries to be
catholic then something's wrong so we need to go back to these papal documents fill the
mind with the truth and then pray to have this will this desire to work to restore all
things in christ which is the only solution to the current crisis and you said you had
a recommendation of a book or a series of books that uh that people could use encyclicals
the um the 16 papal documents the popes against modern heirs and that really goes through
all the modern eras and the different popes exposing the truth of christ the truth of
his church and the darkness the evil of heirs and it's an excellent collection to read to
meditate upon so as to really be this this immune system against the liberalism we constantly
breathe throughout the day fantastic well some some easy to follow tips on on how to
not be more liberal than we are and and thank you for the for the background information
and for explaining it also so clearly father i appreciate it and and this is going to tie
into what we're going to be talking about in our next episode uh which is uh what liberal
catholicism is that right catholicism will try to show the contradiction to be a liberal
catholic is a contradiction i think after hearing this and then speaking about what
the faith is we'll we'll see how it's a contradiction how really destroys the catholic faith okay
perfect thank you so much father for your time i appreciate it thank you so thank you for listening to and watching episode
4 of our crisis in the church series, here on the sspx podcast. next thursday, we’ll
continue with father reuter, as we explore the encyclical libertas, and continue our
discussion on liberalism. if you have a question on the topic of the crisis, please feel free
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