Facing Crises in the Church and Society | Fr. Gerald E. Murray | Franciscan University Presents

why is there so much confusion about what is true and how do we navigate the crisis we face not just in the world but also in the church how do we know who or what to trust join us today as we answer those questions with father gerald murray author of calming the storm navigating the crisis facing the catholic church and society i'm father dave ivanka and i'm president of franciscan university in steubenville ohio and you're watching franciscan university presents stay with us [Music] welcome to franciscan university presents i'm your host father dave pavanki and i'm president of franciscan university of steubenville and today we're discussing how to face crises in the church and society i'm joined by our regular panelist dr regis martin professor of systematic theology here at franciscan and dr scott hahn the father michael scanlon professor of biblical theology in the new evangelization here at franciscan we are happy to welcome our special guest father gerald murray father murray is a canon lawyer a media commentator a parish priest in the archdiocese of new york and he is also the co-author of the book we're discussing today calming the storm navigating the crisis facing the catholic church and society welcome father thank you very much great to be here it's a great blessing to have you here so why this book at this time well this book actually started with the man next to me professor scott hahn contacted diane and myself and said would you be willing to do an interview book and diane had done an interview book with bishop athanasius schneider called christus vincit and that was dealing with his life but also his apostle as a bishop and then particularly dealing with secularization in western society so that was a good book both scott and i endorsed the book and then when he approached us and said will we do the book i knew diane already i said sure so that's where it got started but i guess the background of that is i've been doing tv commentary fox ewtn for a number of years so uh i've gotten used to try to explain in understandable ways how a catholic should approach both crises and society and in the church and then you know what is the positive answer that the church gives when a crisis occurs right beautiful i think that is the key the positive answer you know we're not ostriches bearing our heads you know and ignoring the bad news but we have to recognize that the good news is all surpassing and you know we had uh done a book with ralph martin church in crisis and that was a lay perspective that was giving us a prophetic perspective that represented a supernatural outlook and it just struck us it struck me at the time we had given you the defender of the faith award up in new york city a year or two before but the the positive the supernatural that approach that is much more constructive than just tearing down right and and criticizing although there's a place and a time for that as you point out throughout the book you know but giving hope and at the same time making sure that hope is realistic yeah the book is filled with admiring reviews of your work and let me just paraphrase one that struck me that you bring a certain clarity of conviction and confidence plus uh it's all informed by charity in truth i mean that conjunction is really indispensable we have to speak the truth say what is but it has to be seasoned with the ample amounts of of charity amen no it's true yeah i agree that's i learned that from my parents we're both lawyers and you don't make your case by simply getting angry you know you have to convince the judge of the jury that you're in the right and you're a canon law you're yourself yes indeed you come back naturally well father maybe maybe just the title calming the storm um what is the storm it's obviously from scripture where how did this come about and sure how do you give us that clarity to be able to see what's going on yeah diane montagna actually suggested that we use the incident in the life of our lord when he was asleep in the boat as they're crossing the sea of galilee and then was awakened by the apostles so it's sort of a applicable to the life of the church because for the last 50 years in microcosm but really we could say in the western world since the protestant reformation of the renaissance christianity has had to answer a critique that is rather devastating uh devastating in the sense that many people who were calm believers historically in the past now feel that they're intimidated you know christianity it doesn't match up uh to modern man's expectations so the storms that we're facing do have a history but the answer of course is what is the nature of revealed religion because everything else that it critiques is a philosophical or a political critique have their place in life but a supernatural religion a religion that is revealed has an authoritative basis that goes beyond anything you and i can say so we try to say what did the lord reveal how was the church taught that and then how does that answer modern critiques and you would say that that's really at the heart of the problem is this no sense of divine revelation no sense of understanding of the objective reality that if you were to kind of boil it down that's the major crisis or one of them no that actually it goes hand in hand there's a loss of faith in reality and in the intelligibility of creation and man's ability to act properly once he knows what creation is so that's on the natural supernatural level it's reducing religion to your opinion of what jesus said and not you know what the church is the truth yeah exactly you know people say that's nice for you father yeah but you don't expect me to believe that until i'm convinced of it i say in one way yes we need to convince you but number two you got to believe that being convinced is a good thing right right giving up your opinion might be the best thing that loss of objectivity i think is really the thing that subverts the faith i know as a former protestant you know you look back on historic protestantism in the 16th century and it's probably 85 percent uncommon with the catholic faith but then it's breaking apart and so by the 18th century friedrich schleiermacher and his famous work on the christian faith basically reduces divine revelation to religious experience and as important as it is to experience christ the christ event in our experience is not the anchor it's not the foundation and you know you retrieve this idea of metaphysical realism which sounds some somewhat abstract or abstruse but it's not you know it really is a description of the foundation that every believer needs to recognize it's objectively real but it's divinely authoritative and it's available to the lowest lay person as well as the highest cleric you know the title of your book uh intrigued me uh i grew up in the 1950s so i've got about 10 years on you but many of our experience is sort of dovetail we were in rome i've been to dartmouth i'm also irish but not 98. some german blood running through me but when i grew up it was understood that one of the rights of the catholic christian was to remain secure in his faith but since then we've witnessed the routine and egregious violation of that right so there is a storm it's everywhere but we shouldn't be surprised i mean this is prophetic jesus told us there will be tribulation but be of good cheer because i have overcome the world but that that's that's sort of uh comforting to know it's just that us complacent catholics from a long time ago never thought it would be this bad no it's i you've got an excellent point there and you know one of the things i think about going back to the protestant reformation is the notion of private judgment that some of the reformers their basic doctrine was the holy spirit will inspire each believer to read and understand the scripture correctly and that's a direct contradiction what the church teaches that it is the church who authoritatively explains things and corrects and guides but private judgment has morphed into our uh time as what the dictatorship of relativism right so if i think it's true it's true for me right and then what do you have people say jesus meant this he meant that or i don't even care what jesus said one of the notions that strikes me nowadays is people accuse the church of pride by saying we know the truth right yeah and they basically say a humble church which would be like a humble jesus would never impose or propose definitively anything right that's a caricature of reality and that's really if jesus didn't say i'm the way the truth and the life maybe you're right but he didn't but he did that right it's a two minutes i mean the claim that christ makes is absolutely unprecedented yes you know before abraham came to be i am he arrogates unto himself the very words that we assign to god the i am who am i that's arrogant it would seem to me at a human level where does he get off making claims like that he's either blaspheming or he's a lunatic but in fact it turns out he's the word the logos of god believe him i love the scene from the gospel that the title is based upon and the subtitle too navigating the crisis facing the catholic church and society my only regret as editor and publisher was that we couldn't get that artwork because we had just published a book with the exact same artwork but this is also i think illustrative but when you go back to that gospel scene and you meditate upon it you realize okay on the one hand he's asleep in the boat and so when he gets up when they awaken him before he rebukes the storm he rebukes them you know because of the storm that is going on inside of them but you know on the other hand the inside of that boat where he was sleeping was not dry i am sure there was a lot of water coming in there was a lot of natural reasons for agitation and anxiety and so if jesus just simply said you know he says be not afraid but he doesn't say you have no reason to be afraid you've got a better reason to not be and not give in to that fear right in that they were with jesus and there was still the anxiety so how do you how do you speak to that that in the midst of in the midst of the storm it's where we find ourselves right and and how does one approach that how does one be confident that jesus actually is there in the boat with them yes well it's natural to have anxiety when um you know a situation in which faith was flourishing is now a situation in which faith is diminishing right so people who are older like ourselves and my parents generation you know they often say to me the catholicism i experienced in the 50s is unrecognizable today you know we have bishops in germany for instance teaching opposite what the scriptures say opposite what the church magisterium says not just saying well we have to try to explain this better saying we have to deny what was formally and change the truth we have to rewrite the category so when when that comes up you say yeah you say to yourself okay is this the same catholic church and the answer of course jesus is uh with the church we're we should be upset when people do wrong things but what do we do we turn to the lord which means we reaffirm his doctrine and then we have confidence well somebody will hopefully convert back to the faiths others might not i always meditate on judas when i'm thinking about crises in the church the one jesus picked as one of the twelve what did he end up doing betraying and then killing himself so there will be tragedies in the life of the church that shouldn't undermine our faith that christ is with us all right and i think to your point regis is that there's never been a time that there wasn't something that's never been classified right now i don't want to anticipate the march of your argument but it does strike me that as shocking and really obscene as events are in germany perhaps equally so is the fact that so little seems to be done about it that would have been unheard of during the reign of pius xii well and this is you know my mom always talks about pius xii you know as someone she grew up in that era uh he it was clear the the duty of the papacy was to teach the truth and to refute errors and then to explain see the catholic church doesn't simply say you're wrong and then walk away right we explain philosophically the premises and then the scriptural references the theological points so what happens now is that pope francis thinks and he said this quite clearly that we have to make a mess he says you know leo in spanish let there be controversy let there be division in in opinions let people speak freely he's making a calculated gamble in my opinion saying that the truth will defend itself right i would say we're not all theologians grandmas who tell their grandchildren you know don't engage in homosexual activity even if a bishop says so uh you know they're they feel very uncomfortable sure when the pope doesn't back them up so that that's a problem i think what you're saying earlier father what's really important is this idea that your truth is your truth but we're seeing that within you know conferences of bishops right that the german bishops are saying this and we just there was the document that just came out recently from 120 some odd bishops that signed it right that challenged that which was welcomed welcome necessary and necessary right so but there's even this division that's like well what bishop are you going to listen to this bishop says this bishop says the holy father says this i think we're in the middle of a storm that's a storm and you know we we look back to the aryan crisis we look back to different periods in church history uh when bishops uh were went astray and the faithful you know saint athanasius was exiled right uh and a lot and his fellow bishops didn't come to his support so um and he stood contramundum yeah so there's no shame in saying i'm willing to contradict those who oppose the truth of christ i'll explain to them why they're doing it if they don't care to listen to me i'm just going to remain faithful and if they punish me for instance if i were a priest in a german diocese the chances are the bishop would step on me because i'm saying don't do this right but so be it you know what's the worst thing that can happen uh people get mad at you yeah yeah you know i'm locked in on this gospel scene because i think it's just even more appropriate than i realized uh you know some people describe the the drama of history and in particular church history in terms of a pendulum effect to me that's facile i think the boat that is rocking back and forth taking on lots of water facing the storm after you had experienced the calm is a more apt metaphor because you know you do look back to the 50s and i i find myself fighting a nostalgia for a time that i wasn't catholic you know in terms of pius the 12th and all of that but i also have good friendships with church historians who indicate that given what they know about church history that's actually an exceptional period you know where you have fulton sheen and you have you know people playing priests you know on the bells of saint mary and it's all so favorable you know that is actually a kind of arthurian period like camelot for catholics in america when in fact you know you go back a century and the the struggle between the italian catholics the irish catholics and the german catholics over you know turf in america you know the josephinum is founded to protect the germans from the irish and all of the rest you know but the one thing that you don't see even in those turbulent periods is this questioning of of truth of doctrine of morality of the natural law you know and this strikes me as being perhaps more reminiscent of 1789 the french revolution where the eldest daughter of the church you know the most stable of all of the european catholic countries is suddenly declaring all-out war against the very faith that gave it life you know and you i don't want to over you know dramatize this but i do think that those disciples had very sound reasons for being agitated you know one remembers john paul ii his frequent pastoral visits to a place like france and he would ask insistently what have you done with your baptismal promises you are the eldest daughter of the church and it looks as if you've betrayed her yeah yeah well that's pretty sobering well stay with us we're just beginning to get into the topic thank you so much stay with us and francis university presents [Music] the way out of the crisis of the church is to teach the fullness of the faith and to do so with confidence and conviction and to express the life of catholic prayer and charitable living in a way that is consistent with our faith calming the storm navigating the crises facing the catholic church and society by father gerald e murray and diane montagna walk in the footsteps of saints and martyrs on a franciscan university pilgrimage you'll explore the treasures of your catholic heritage in the holy land poland france austria italy and more destinations find out more at franciscan.edu pilgrimages [Music] and welcome back to franciscan university presents we're discussing how we can deal with the crises in the church and society one of the things you talk about father is a loss of a sense of reality and maybe speak to that what does that mean yeah well um it's basically the idea that modern man has come up with which is that everything is subject to his changing it or his designation in other words reality doesn't exist until we decide what it is the church teaches the exact opposite god created everything and when he created man in his own image he gave him the ability to understand that creation and put it to good use so you know the command to go out to prosper uh to multiply you know to dominate the earth to you know bring it under cultivation all of that was an indication that god put rationality into man so that he could cooperate what do we have now we have people who say i'm a i was born a man but i'm really a woman i just read an article this morning and the author was saying that the individual who he was writing about was assigned at birth male 1 but his right i mean if if those basic things that we need right yeah yeah but this chaotic this is if a supreme court justice doesn't know what the hell it means to be a woman without consulting a biologist right then i i think we're in we're in deep doo-doo sure and the ironic thing is the reason she was there is because the president said he wanted to appoint a woman so he knew what a woman was when he when he named her uh to that position but you know the idea is that the way creation is is an obstacle to human pride so human pride can overcome it by claiming everything is malleable plastic changeable and you know we we do this particularly in the age of the sexual revolution to try and pacify people who have serious psychological problems and then moral addictions immoral addictions i mean their their moral sense has been stunted by sin to try and pacify and make them happy but you talk to any good psychologist who deals with people this is just another flight from reality and confirming people in that is only going to make their condition worse it's so much more than a hallucination though it feels more like a cultural tsunami you know and when you're facing a tidal wave it's probably a good idea to trace it back to the underground earthquake i remember as an undergraduate philosophy major i was an evangelical protestant wrestling with hegel and kant and marx and nietzsche and this idea that everything is really based upon a will to power a will to pleasure that the will and then the second year i took a course in medieval philosophy and read aquinas those like wow the clouds had passed and he expresses so well the idea that the soul has intellect and will but to coordinate what you know and what you choose and love you have to subordinate the will to the intellect the intellect knows reality as truth and then feeds that to the will that chooses goodness because truth and goodness are convertible but if you flip that around and you begin with the will then your will is going to force your intellect to basically transform reality to conform it to what you want and it's like all of a sudden everything fell into place it's like i could trace the tsunami back to this philosophical earthquake that occurred in like we've got to get back to a kind of supernatural common sense well the genius of st thomas is that everything begins with the senses what do you see smell touch taste hear the material world it's real it's palpable god made it i mean that's the the prime metaphysical truth upon which i think all of sacred scripture opens the world is a created place therefore it's meaningful it has logos inscribed in it and we live in a society today that says actually ignore that i mean literally what do you see i see a male standing in front of me but the person wants to identify so we if we can get away those i mean that's why it's okay chaotic is those basic things that we've all even if you didn't have faith you could agree on right but now it's everything is gone sure and this point you make is absolutely crucial that all knowledge enters through the senses because the new theory is there's special knowledge that some people have right yeah which is it i have to buy into that yes and the only way that you get the special knowledge because i'm telling it to you now and if you don't agree with me then you're causing problems we're gonna have to arrest you or something else or cancel you cancel you they only apply this though in certain areas no one says when a child of african-american parents was born he was assigned black as his race no he's a black child i'm a white person i was a white child yeah i can't pretend to be black and someone who tried to do that was called out a woman you know got in trouble because why because god made people white god made people black god made males females we respect that if you want to play games do that in your own house don't try and force it on the public square i remember a student coming to franciscan for the graduate program in theology and he had graduated from a public university in canada and his first semester was really difficult he he said about three weeks into the course he raised his hand and looked around at the students and looked at me said you keep speaking of reality but i think what you mean is your reality right right and i'm like uh yeah i mean i want to own it it is my reality but it's our reality because it is reality and i mean he was looking at me like a museum fossil or something he's like we had heard about this kind of thing up in the public university where i came from but i i didn't imagine that you know intelligent people were still saying these things in catholic schools like this he ended up staying but he ended up feeling like the rope in a tug of war the undergraduate formation that he got then the graduate formation but through friendships with fellow students he was sort of like awakened to a reality that is not just objective the merely rational yeah it really does lead to love and so reality ceased to be sort of propositional it becomes experiential friendship is real it's not just a social construct i'm not just making this stuff up people really do care about me and and they want to welcome me into this real world i mean as chesterton says there is and is and the ising of it is intelligible yeah i mean even when you say that gender is a social construction construction workers will tell you you don't work with nothing right right you have bricks you have lumber you have the senses you have the organs you have the body imagine treating gravity as though it were a social construct yeah and you step out of the the 15th well that's insane and you end up here we are at the bottom the idea that gender is merely a social construct that idea is a social construct merely again you can't call that out like you stated earlier father you can't call that out you follow the science but only if the science affirms what you were trying to get across one of the things that maybe just for a moment or two these are all much of the cultural things but the the church has participated in this and priests and bishops have participated in this some way so maybe speak to that how how have you seen that have you seen the priests and and maybe us not stepping up the way we should or driving as faithless yeah it's a very good question it's disappointing when a bishop will not defend catholic teaching in the public realm with the excuse that it's going to hurt people's feelings and this particularly comes up with the case of communion to pro-abortion politicians and the bishops made an attempt a year ago to address the question of president biden and his reception of communion and i've studied this question i've written on it i've studied the canon law canon law has provisions which say people who publicly and clearly knowingly reject certain reject doctrines of the faith and particularly about the sacraments they are in an objective status that they should not be given holy communion because the scandal given to the community is well the bishops must not disagree with him because they're giving him communion right and the bishops tried to you know approached this but there was division and some of the cardinals in the united states went to rome and they were able to basically get their way that the statement would be very anodyne meaning not that strong and the president would not be called out on it and it's very disappointing i i pray for the president i pray for all catholics this is not personalities this would apply to anybody you know and the analogy would be during hitler's reign if members of the nazi party who were you know proposing the execution and killing of jews and others were receiving communion to give a good appearance to others it would be scandalous to give them communities so that's an area precisely where this relativism uh is engaged in bishops have to be courageous like priests like it's an exercise of truth in charity in love because we care so deeply about your soul mr president and you stand in peril of losing it forever that we need to tell you what you advocate is wrong that's right but that very premise that we care about your soul that we live in a world in a culture that finds that antiquated it's the idea of this soul but again it goes back to your initial thing is that there there there is a reality there is a human soul there is an eternity and then there's a hell too yes exactly which is the basic premise behind all of this nothing you do in this life will endanger your eternal salvation right so basically let's all get along because god is giving each other's god god is nice and then you look at jesus on the cross did he really go through all of this just so that everybody could get along no no he wanted as he said you know all men he's calling all of us to follow him where did he lead us to you know the cross the most basic example of church discipline is found in first corinthians and the result of that is in the opening chapters of second corinthians in chapter five of first corinthians paul recognizes okay there's a man who's having relations with his stepmother even the pagans know better you know and so even though i'm not there i hand him over to satan for the destruction of the flesh that in the day of the lord his soul may be saved and so christ our passover has been sacrificed and expunged the leaven get rid of him for his sake and so in the opening chapters of second corinthians the corinthians are asking him what do we do we got rid of him and now he's repentant it's like what do you do you know that was the purpose that's the point you know and so a little discipline can go a long way it can go an eternal way absolutely amen yeah the hesitancy on the part of our lord's spiritual to speak truth to power i mean here is a guy who persists in saying well i believe the baby is human because that's an article of faith when in fact it's a datum of biology and he's not called out on that i mean great big bishops allow this to go uncorrected and that to me is scandalous laity too lay voters let it go uncommon no it is a scandal everybody recognizes it but it's you know the the the challenge here is to say the mission of the church is the salvation of souls and one of the great means for doing that is instructing people in the truths of christ and one way you instruct people is you say when important people violate church rules which are based on divine law we don't pretend they're not doing it right do you think and maybe this is more we can deal with this a little bit how do you deal with somebody like the president who who knows what the church is teaching but just doesn't care i mean is it instruction or is it i think there has to be something that has to be done right well there's a charitable rebuke you know which is you basically say mr president stop coming to communion if you do we're going to not give it to you and don't pretend that you as a great catholic that he likes to talk about how important catholicism is don't pretend that catholics can support the killing of our unborn brothers and sisters and then goes all the way to rome and has a private interview with the vicar of christ and lies about it by saying he told me i'm a great catholic just continue to do what you are doing unless the pope really said that well we'd like to know and we will be back with more francis university presents please stay with us the surest way to stay faithful is to frequent the sacraments pray a lot study the bible in catholic teaching live a sacrificial life extend yourself for the benefit of your neighbor and do not worry inordinately god is good and helps us at all times calming the storm navigating the crises facing the catholic church and society by father gerald e murray and diane montagna what if you discovered a university with unmatched science faculty and programs a place where you didn't have to choose science over faith at franciscan university of steubenville you'll find faith-inspired student-focused research-driven programs leading to satisfying careers in medicine scientific research engineering computer science and many more science and health fields at franciscan university of steubenville education is more than just a word it's a discovery [Music] welcome back and thank you for joining us you're watching franciscan university presents which we record here in the comm arts studio at francis university our students are operating the cameras and the equipment and our theology professors dr martin and dr han and i are discussing how we deal with crises in the church and society with our special guest father murray um maybe father murray to help just the the individual who's watching this because i think that there's in some ways a sense of helplessness what are we supposed to do how are we supposed to deal with these these are issues that you guys have to fix but it's the reality it's the person in the pew that often deals with this so how do we how do we speak to that person how do we help that individual and that's the whole goal really behind writing this book and you know the apostle that i tried to do with the media one thing i'd say people first of all need to be men and women of prayer because we have to remember we depend on god for everything and the fact that he's left us on the planet today to to praise him is a sign that he loves us number two we have to study his word the scriptures the doctrine of the faith uh and then thirdly we have to live lives of charity and one of the most difficult things is to love people who hate you and we certainly encounter that in society when i read uh you know these proponents of homosexual liberation and transgenderism and all they actually hate people like you and me because we say no to what they want to do we can't hate them back we have to say no we love you listen to us if you won't listen i'm still praying for you but we we're proposing a root of happiness because in the end you know rack to aristotle people are all searching for happiness and the lord made it quite clear where that's to be found and that's what the church proposed so happiness prayer study and charity uh you'll be you'll be more calm in the evening after you read the news you know you know in the sermon on the mount jesus just states the obvious and that is if you only love those who love you you're no better than the gentiles right you know and there is a kind of neo-paganism i think is what you describe it in the book but it seeps into not only the church but my parish and my own psyche because you just end up feeling so surrounded so embattled you know i'm reminded of what austin roose says you know let's face it we're outnumbered we're surrounded what can we conclude that there's never been a better time to be a faithful catholic yeah if and only if we cultivate through prayer that supernatural outlook you mentioned the jesuit you know courage and confidence is that how you get his letters you know and that's what we need but we don't have it i don't know i mean even if you have a positive rosy outlook and a disposition you know that like my wife i'm gonna ask you a tough question father what does that mean to love i mean i i appreciate that in charity but it doesn't mean that we never say something that's critical of another individual so what is it what does it actually mean to love that person that you fundamentally disagree with or even in the church that the priest in your parish your pastor who who never speaks boldly about morally what does it actually mean to love that person well to love means not to reject and to uh you know put someone in a position where you say you're irredeemable and i'm not going to talk to you anymore uh so to love for instance to love the gay liberation leadership means to tell them the truth and then be willing to accept the recuperation as part of the price you pay people it's hard to love people for instance who uh you encounter in life who don't want to take sides you know just want to say well i'm glad you're a practicing catholic but i'm not going to get in the way of anybody else and you know don't try to influence me too much no and the way we love them say well you know there's a bigger picture here you may not see it but i see it we'll talk about it whenever you want but love means to desire the good of the other and i think you know that's to do it effectively we have to raise those people up in prayer and make sacrifices for them but then also keep telling the truth because in the end if there's a famine in the world today it's a famine of truth people just they hear on the media nonsense and lies right and we have to respond you know the people that you describe as defense sitters the pro-choice catholic politician if you read dante in the early cantos of the inferno he treats them in a witheringly dismissive way he says they've lost the good of the intellect he describes that as coming from aristotle but then he says they're not good enough to go to hell so they have to be somehow sequestered in this other place the vestibule of eternity they have no sense of desire for heaven they don't want joy they don't want god but the devils don't want them because they would somehow i don't know lower the tone of the place they're not good enough to join us in hell so they're stuck in this middle place and their punishment is to have these wasps chasing them around this circle this endless circle and they're stung repeatedly by these wasps and it's a conditioned punishment because all during their life they refuse to take a stand they wouldn't stake themselves on anything at all they are the tremors and so their punishment really does fit the crime now they're going to be punished forever and because the wasps are certainly resolute about you know taking chunks out of their flesh all the time and this is exactly where these people are going and not if we don't love them we don't say that to them love is giving the best that you've got to promote the best good that they have so you want to tell the truth and let's say this contradicting someone can be an act of love if you contradict with the truth and with an encouragement to moral reform because we also have to remember the blinding and weakening effect of habitual sin and that's what we're often dealing with people so people are addicted to sin their their thought patterns get altered and they don't really know how to change that's where a contradiction that says look what you're doing has no justification that's going to result in eternal loss and you need to get on board here quick that can be uh wake up one of the stories you tell fathers is that was beautiful was just the you know the mother who comes and says you know my son has come to me and and he says he's gay and there's been a lot of people that have had to deal with that and and the the things the same things you said to deal with that person in charity but that's got to be and to be able to call that that's got to be so difficult for the mom and dad so maybe speak to that just that that suffering and that pain and that confusion and almost sometimes a guilt that what what did i do wrong that this is what my child so maybe speak to that yeah i do remember a case where a mom asked me to speak to her son and he came to see me and i we had a nice discussion in the end he said well that's a clear presentation what the church teaches thank you but he wasn't convinced on the other hand the fact that he came was assigned either you know respect for his parents or curiosity so in the end you just say speak the truth show that politeness and charity you know i think of mother teresa i think of john paul ii they were doctrinally strong but they were approachable so you know if you can do that as a priest uh you can parents you know parents who know their children so well can express and need to more vehemently their disappointments but never do it to the sense that you say you failed me right no say the lord is the one we have to live up to right i'm praying for you right okay yeah i think we need a sustained treatment for people like me you know courage and confidence it comes but only with prayer and a little bit of extra effort but fear and anger you know those are the things that crop up within me i'm not 98 irish you know mostly german but you know i must admit that the more i read uh current events either in the in the culture the state the world or the church you know i i i can really relate to the people who are fearful and thus afraid to speak out even when it comes to speaking the truth in love and on the other hand angry you know this is justifiable anger but you know at the end of the day and really at the beginning of each morning you've got to recognize that giving in to anger in my experience is just throwing fuel onto the fire and not only is it going to burn hotter and destroy things it's also going to empower the very people i want to disagree wow you know and so you've got to say to the lord take control of this boat calm the storm in my soul and in the world no i think that individual who's able to have that conversation without becoming angry without becoming better without making it so personal and condemning the individual the possibility exists for that person to bring about you well the distinction i think that augustine draws is instructive you have to love the sinner but you don't love the sin you must abhor it and do your best to try and disabuse him of of committing it yes and we do we believe in rationality that's the whole thing you appeal to the better you say look right we we share a common language and a common understanding let's talk yeah try to convince me of your position i'm willing to listen that's good yeah yeah but i think the other part is that we're by the media in the culture we're the bad guy because we're speaking what's true but my experience has been in maybe similar to yours and in walking with you know students and alumni who've graduated that have struggled with these issues that ultimately um this sounds weird but they've walked away from me you know that they've stopped dialogue with me and i can always kind of tell how they're doing by whether or not they'll reach out to me anymore whether or not they respond so it's a choice and a decision that they made and i like to think i'm approachable but somewhere along the line they realized the way that i want to live is i can't reconcile that with my faith and then i kind of represent faith for them so people are going to walk away from us children are going to walk away from their parents and it's profoundly difficult i mean the number of moms and dads i've had in my office in tears tremendous pain of which you can maybe speak better as a parent but that is going to be the reality isn't it it is and um that's recognizing we're made in god's image we've we have free will we can make bad choices you know that's uh freedom just doesn't mean that i that i'm always right um and as a priest you basically have to have the attitude it's lord i'm gonna cast the seed i'm gonna speak the word i'm gonna try to be charitable uh the results are in your hands and then you'll be surprised uh in heaven you know you'll you'll see the fruits god willing we get there but on the other hand the disappointment that would say well i'm going to keep my mouth shut because i don't want any more people walking away from me that's more or less a self-serving motive and you know i i love reading lives of some of the saints who get into arguments you know and you realize yeah sometimes somebody needs to hear a word they don't want to hear and they're going to get angry and then you don't try to mollify said i didn't mean that right we see that in john 6 that when jesus proclaims the eucharist that people walk away and he allowed them i mean i think there's something about us that says i don't want anybody to walk away from the church which i don't right but the reality is i can do everything right and they're still going to walk away from the church one of the the reassuring things about the catholic priesthood is the fact that it's always there i mean the priest is always there he keeps open the confessional i'm i'm going to be here for you i can't force you to come but if you come i'm here for you and i'll do everything i can to mediate the mercy and forgiveness and judgment of god that's immensely comforting i think well it's sort of the analogy is like the bakery in the morning you know i don't go in i may not go in and buy the bread but i can certainly smell that it's cooking and you know it's attractive and maybe someday i will go into you know i remember of father grishall sharing this conversation he had with with a uh and habitual homosexual who could not quit the habit and he said look father i'm in a kind of hell but i want you to promise me two things one always be there for me and two don't change the rules keep fixed the norms against what i'm doing father groeschel taught me in the seminary is that right yes so i can imagine him saying that and it's absolutely true and it's you know it's like it's like the father you know in the the power of a prodigal son right he was there waiting he was looking out he was ready i remember him describing also what it was like when he took a kind of sabbatical he went out i believe to california where he ministered to aids patients for several months and he said you know i've heard the confessions of nuns for many many years but he said administering to these men who are on the verge of death in the last few months of their lives he said i saw growth towards holiness more rapid than what i saw in convents and so you can see the discipline of suffering comes from the god who loves as a father but it's also you know something that we have to do on the installment plan because we can't simply wait until they're on the deathbed right we have to really give them that that aroma of the fresh baked bread that they know will be there when they finally do come to their senses both of those points are so important is that is that the individual who has wandered away that there's there's a place for them right that they can come back and that they're going to see their father on the porch and he's not going to be coming with a whip to whip them but with a cloak to welcome them back and that's i think that's something that we yeah it's a good place to end good so next our panel and our guests will share their concluding thoughts on facing crisis in the church and society please stay with us [Music] to deny holy communion to someone who rejects the church's teaching on the right to life of unborn children is the most charitable thing to do it is the rebuking of a sinner and a call to repentance and a defense of the holiness of god's sacred body and blood calming the storm navigating the crises facing the catholic church and society by father gerald e murray and diane montagna there is a place where education begins and faith and reason connect franciscan university of steubenville's online programs will advance your career through an e-learning experience that's both academically excellent and passionately catholic with online degrees taught by full-time professors in theology catechetics business education and other disciplines you can earn your master's degree online without changing your lifestyle find out more today at franciscan.edu where your faith and career can connect online the loss of belief in the real presence of christ in the holy eucharist is a tragic fruit of worldliness and doctrinal confusion the remedy will come through a combination of prayer good preaching and teaching by priests and bishops penance the reverent celebration of the holy mass and above all a revival of true love for our lord who remains with us and has not left us orphans god is with us in the mass and in the tabernacle do we take that fact seriously we should calming the storm navigating the crises facing the catholic church and society by father gerald e murray and diane montagna [Music] and welcome back to franciscan university presents we've come to our final segment uh dr martin what would you like to share uh well there are so many things up what a great book that you have written or collaborated with uh i think the journalist who put the questions to you had been a student here a number of years ago very impressive young woman but i was intrigued by one example that you gave of the woman who sent the son to you she you were to hear his confession but it didn't turn out so well but he was very civil respectful deferential but he dismissed you he wasn't interested it reminded me of really the most famous confessional episode i've ever encountered i mean literary episode luigi giusani in the religious sense talks about a young man whose mother sent him to father giusani's confessional but this guy was steeped in sin and instead of confessing his sins or even having an argument with with the father giusani he berated him castigated him and said look you have to admit father that the real hero of the story is the giant capenaeus who in one of the cantos of the inferno is chained to a rock by god he has to spend an eternity there but god can't prevent him from blaspheming god and and the giant calls out you've taken my liberty but my right to despise you you have left intact and i choose forever to loathe you to scream obscenities at you and this young man says to father jussani there is the true grandeur of man and jousani says wouldn't it be even more grand if he were to adore the infinite god instead of cursing him and the guy went away and he was so torn up by that question that all summer long he wrestled with it and then came back and told father giusoni i've been frequenting the sacraments for the last two weeks because i was so unsettled by your question that i just had to think through this and the grace of god rescued me and two weeks later he died in a car accident but his soul must have gone straight to heaven he stayed with him i mean that's that's the takeaway line giusani didn't give up on this kid even though he's blaspheming and appealing to a kind of nihilistic uh ideal he stayed with him prayed with him and left in his heart a question that just ate him alive all summer long that's beautiful good thank you dr martin dran i love the book and i'm grateful to you and diana for doing it it it helps me to find christ as i read it and there is the source of courage and confidence and at the same time there is this awareness that um well i mean god allows evil because of freedom but also because of a mysterious plan whereby he brings greater good out of the evil that he allows you know you know you think of saint dismiss you know the thief on the cross who might never met jesus unless he had stolen and ended up there on the crucifix you know and there is a sense for me you know i look back on my own thievery as a juvenile delinquent and how it took a long time it took more than a summer for me to wake up you know and then it took even longer still to find the sacraments and the fullness of faith in the catholic church but i mean we have a source of joy that the world can't rival and i think at that at the end of the day i'm always reminded that the bad news is getting horrendous faster than i imagined but the good news is so much more glorious than we've appreciated that if we can just shine the light on christ we can restore that kind of courage that confidence that peace and the joy of the lord will be our strength a thousand years ago pope benedict the ninth was simply the worst worse than alexander the sixth renault and yet he set into motion saint peter damien the gregorian reform and the transformation of the church was the result of god allowing that kind of evil and i'm not sure we have anything equivalent to that now but i'm sure that god will bring greater good out of this that's true thanks dr father murray well father dave thank you you know one of the joys in my life has been to understand that the truth that christ brought to the world is for everybody and it's unchanging and therefore anything that we teach as catholic priests is not our own it's a gift it's our job to make sure we understand it correctly but once we've understood the truth and we continue to teach it i've been inspired by cardinal sarah cardinal robert sarah who was from guinea because he was a young boy in a remote village who answered the call to the priesthood and then went on to his studies became a biblical scholar and then worked in rome for years under pope benedict as a cardinal and he's written three interview books sort of an inspiration for me and the message of those books is that there is more to this world than we see and the lord has revealed to us what those things are it takes faith but it brings joy and it brings salvation and that message is so important because sometimes people nowadays i think they think the catholic church has become too political the bishops are jockeying for approval of the world many of the priests don't talk about the things they need to talk about and cardinal sarah reminds us look let's go back to the lord let's go back to the faith he came from a village of pagans in the interior of guinea and africa and now he's one of the most influential cardinals that's a divine provincial moment you talk about dismissals how many of us who knew where we were coming from so in my own life i can say the lord blessed me with a wonderful upbringing good influences but the main thing that i want to communicate to people in this book is have absolute confidence in the truth of catholicism do not ever think that people who critique it are right and don't but on the other hand don't reject them love them and try to help them that's beautiful we have a handout you could learn more about today's topic we have for you available a section of father murray's book calming the storm navigating the crisis facing the catholic church and society this handout is yours for free simply by going online to faithandreason.com or by calling the number that you're going to see momentarily i was reflecting on an experience that my my mom and dad had many years ago and there was a pastor in their parish who who was really participating in just a lot of the confusion and and really actually aiding the confusion and the chaos and and my mom and dad were really faced with this question about what are we going to do and many of the people in the parish ended up leaving they left some left the church some left to other churches but my mom and dad said we're going to stay and and i was reflecting dr martin when you said that that the the father stayed with that young man and it was part of his conversion that that i think that that's a part of it in in the light of that i'm praying and i hear the disciples say stay with us lord you know stay with us lord and and the reality is is that the mystery and the beauty of the incarnation is that god enters into the mess he doesn't try to fix it from the outside he enters into the mess and he will always stay with us and and that's i guess that's my final thought is that is that jesus is always going to stay with us and he invites us to stay with him and to stay with those people and walk and journey with those people who are struggling and that ultimately scott your point is so so well taken is that the good news is is gooder it's good or it's better than any of the struggles or uh the calm is much more powerful than the storm so thank you for sharing that with us we have a final prayer sure father god our father we turn to you with gratitude for the gift of life the gift of faith we thank you for the catholic church for the purity of teaching that our lord gave us so that we might live as sons and daughters we ask you dear lord to bless all of our leaders pope francis the bishops and priests we ask you dear lord to bless franciscan university of steubenville and to give us all a spirit of charity and of truth and may almighty god bless you all the father and the son and the holy spirit amen amen thank you so much for being with us thank you god bless you download a free handout on today's topic at faithandreason.com you can also watch past episodes of franciscan university presents or request the handout by emailing us at presents franciscan.edu or reach us by phone for today's handout by calling 800-783-6447 that's 800-783-6447 [Music] you

Channel: Franciscan University of Steubenville

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Keywords: Franciscan University, Steubenville, Ohio, Catholic, college, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Franciscan University of Steubenville (College / University)

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Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 05 2022