Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI200458A
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00:27 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:29 This is a program designed to bring you information 00:32 and thought-provoking insights 00:36 into religious liberty in the US and around the world. 00:39 My name is Lincoln Steed, Editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:43 And I want to share 00:44 some information on this program 00:48 that I've collected over the years 00:50 regarding some of the pronouncements 00:53 coming out of Rome and the Roman Catholic Church. 00:57 I'm a Seventh-day Adventist, 00:58 and this network 01:00 is from a Seventh-day Adventist perspective, 01:02 and Seventh-day Adventists, 01:04 of course, are Protestant Christians, 01:06 and Protestantism has 500 years 01:10 of distinct doctrinal differences from Rome. 01:13 And we pay a lot of attention to what comes out of Rome, 01:16 apart from the fact 01:18 that it represents such a large body of Christians 01:20 and it's so politically active. 01:23 The best way I can segue way into, 01:27 what I want to talk about is to tell you about a meeting 01:29 that I attended 01:31 at Catholic University about four, five years ago. 01:37 It was advertised for Roman Catholics 01:40 and very kindly when I contacted the organizer, 01:44 the professor at the Catholic University 01:47 that was running it, he agreed that I could attend. 01:51 And when I did attend, 01:52 I noticed that there were 01:53 a number of Lutherans in particular, 01:57 but it was overwhelmingly Catholic audience, 01:59 and it was from Roman Catholic perspectives. 02:03 One of the main reasons that I wanted to be there 02:06 was to hear Cardinal Dolan, 02:09 the Cardinal from New York and at that time, 02:13 recently appointed head of the US Catholic Bishops. 02:17 And few years earlier than that, 02:18 I thought that he might even be an ideal candidate for pope. 02:23 Others did too, but he wasn't elected. 02:26 Pope Francis was the result of that shift. 02:30 But Cardinal Dolan to me was a rather unique 02:33 and captivating figure because he was very... 02:36 He is very charismatic, has the common touch, 02:41 people find him interesting. 02:43 And yet at the same time, 02:45 he's very conservative doctrinally, hardly a... 02:49 I don't think I would... 02:50 Anyone would call him a liberal. 02:52 But, you know, 02:53 he said to defend the Catholic Church 02:55 and its interests as they have been 02:57 enumerated historically. 02:59 So I went along and with a couple of friends 03:03 we sat at a round table right underneath the lectern 03:07 where he was speaking to maybe, 03:09 I'd say that were 250 people at least there. 03:13 And he spoke very well on religious liberty 03:16 as was bannered, 03:17 the whole program was on religious liberty. 03:20 The emphasis was particularly on the issues 03:24 they have with the then Obama administration 03:26 on Catholic charities 03:31 and adoptions and things like that. 03:33 And so he was carrying forth on it 03:35 and his points were okay, I had no great difference, 03:38 but I noticed that he was doing what I've done, 03:41 and I think other people speaking publicly do, often do. 03:46 You know, you're getting it off your chest, 03:49 you're sort of like a computer, 03:50 have a few paragraphs or sentences buffered up 03:54 and you know what you're saying. 03:56 And behind inside, behind your eyelids 03:59 in the little compass of your brain, 04:02 you're thinking about something else. 04:03 And I could tell that was going on. 04:05 And so he reached the end of his thought. 04:08 And he just stopped, and he looked at his audience, 04:12 sort of scanned them for a while 04:13 without saying anything. 04:15 And then he said this, he said, 04:16 "You know, there was a time when Roman Catholics 04:20 would not have spoken 04:22 this way about religious freedom. 04:25 We once held 04:26 that era has no rights." 04:32 Then he sat down, that was his... 04:35 He just finished the whole thing and came down 04:37 and actually sat next to me all happy 04:39 and he's a fairly approachable guy, 04:42 and we talked for a bit, and that's another story. 04:46 But after the break, they had a break 04:48 between that session and the next, 04:51 then they reassembled. 04:52 And I don't remember the topics that were on the program, 04:55 but I know 04:56 that there was a Catholic charities person, 04:58 there was a Catholic theologian, 04:59 and a historian that was sitting up front, 05:04 and they each had an assigned topic. 05:06 Before they could begin, 05:09 the crowd started spontaneously calling out 05:12 "What was the Cardinal talking about? 05:15 What was he talking about?" 05:17 And so for the rest of that session, 05:20 they never got to that topic. 05:22 They dialogued on what the cardinal 05:25 was talking about. 05:26 And here, a predominantly Roman Catholic audience 05:29 had to be tutored 05:31 in the recent history of their own church. 05:33 First of all, they had to be reminded 05:35 as the Cardinal had done succinctly, 05:38 yes, indeed, that was, 05:41 and has long been the default doctrinal setting 05:45 of the Roman Catholic Church. 05:47 In its worst phases, it described the inquisition 05:50 and the persecution of the medieval era. 05:53 But it had not been, and to be honest, 05:55 has never been repudiated, but what they had to be told. 06:00 And it was accurate 06:02 is that there's been a shift from the '70s, 06:06 I believe is when it happened. 06:07 I mean, the actual date. 06:09 But Vatican II, 06:12 the second great church council called by Rome, 06:16 you know, with the hubris 06:18 that any council they call us for all Christians. 06:21 Well, in reality for Catholics 06:22 but still a very significant council 06:25 that went over several years called by Pope John, 06:30 as I remember. 06:31 And out of that came a number of reforms or changes, 06:35 you know, not all good, 06:37 but generally liberalizing things. 06:40 For example, before Vatican II, 06:44 the mass was in Latin. 06:46 Why? 06:48 I understand that but why that's such an inflex... 06:51 Had been such an inflexible whole thing escapes me. 06:54 You know, Latin is not the language of Galilei. 06:57 Latin was the language of the Roman empire, 06:59 but it had become orthodoxy 07:01 that you couldn't depart from that 07:04 but now the masses and the vernacular 07:06 and, you know, 07:07 I think Catholics are the better for that, 07:09 the Catholic parishioners. 07:12 But the most significant change 07:14 from the point of religious liberty 07:15 is that the Cardinal basically was alluding to 07:20 was a document called Dignitatis humanae, 07:24 the dignity of man. 07:26 And for the first time, this document was accepted, 07:30 it was put forward by an American Jesuit priest, 07:34 Father MacMurray. 07:38 And for the first time, 07:40 they stated what is the standard position 07:44 of all the beliefs in a religious liberty. 07:46 They stated that each person 07:48 has the right to choose their religion, 07:52 to change their religion, 07:54 and to be free from coercion in any case 07:56 and free to share their religion. 07:59 Full religious freedom. 08:02 It is at odds 08:04 with many dogmatic statements around through the ages, 08:09 which have not been directly repudiated, 08:11 but it is overlaid on top of the church practice, 08:14 and it is the operative principle now. 08:17 And, you know, you need to give honor 08:20 where honor is due. 08:21 That explains why in many ways, in many countries, 08:25 the Roman Catholic Church has a new openness. 08:28 It explains even the simplest thing 08:30 why while in prior years and centuries, 08:35 the Roman Catholic Church even discouraged its own members 08:37 from reading the Bible. 08:40 It's much more open now. 08:42 Catholics are studying the Bible. 08:43 There's a relative flaring of faith 08:47 within Roman Catholicism. 08:48 We have to acknowledge that. 08:50 But what they didn't tell the attendees 08:54 at that conference 08:56 who received very nicely 08:58 the news of Vatican II in this document 09:00 to explain their interest in religious liberty. 09:03 What they didn't tell them 09:06 was that shortly after Vatican II, 09:09 a number of the principals started to have second thoughts 09:13 about Dignitatis humanae and some other aspects 09:16 of this openness. 09:20 Popes, John Paul II, and Benedict, 09:24 both of which whom 09:26 had some involvement in Vatican II. 09:29 Both of them, regretted some of it, 09:31 and we're trying to roll the clock back, 09:34 turn the clock back to prior Vatican II. 09:38 And in lesser ways, even this present pope, 09:42 you could argue he's retreating a little on it. 09:46 I remember one very telling aspect 09:51 of John Paul II's pontificate in this regard, 09:55 was how he related to liberation theology. 09:59 You know, liberation theology was closely allied 10:03 with revolutionary regime change groups 10:06 all over the world, 10:07 a lot of them in Latin America. 10:09 And again, it was tied up to the idea 10:11 of the right of the individual for self-determination. 10:16 And Vatican II meshed in nicely with that. 10:20 And the Jesuit order, in particular, 10:22 had led the way somewhat aggressively. 10:25 And I remember as early on 10:28 in John Paul II's pontificate. 10:32 He went down to Nicaragua, 10:35 where the military hunter had overthrown a dictatorship, 10:40 Samozas dictatorship, as I remember, 10:42 supported by the US, 10:44 for many and varied 10:45 and sometimes real politic reasons, 10:48 the US has supported dictators in Latin America. 10:53 And so John Paul went down there 10:56 to meet the hunter. 10:58 And I remember watching on the video 11:01 on the television, as he got off the plane, 11:03 walked down the stairs and they've arrayed in a line 11:08 away from him with the ruling hunter, 11:11 quite a lot of them. 11:12 The first two, the first one was a Jesuit priest, 11:17 the second one was a Maryknoll priest 11:19 both involved 11:21 with the revolutionary order there. 11:26 And as the pope came towards the group, 11:28 the Jesuit priest came toward him 11:30 and reached for the ring to kiss it. 11:33 And the pope pulled his hand back. 11:35 And 'cause we had no sound other than the commentators, 11:38 and he wagged his finger at him 11:40 and just admonished him severely, 11:44 bit of a sign something was going on. 11:47 Then later in that, on that same visit, 11:51 and there used to be a video footage on YouTube, 11:56 but it's vanished now. 11:57 The pope spoke to an open-air crowd, 12:01 mostly young people, 12:02 and you could see him on the stage. 12:04 And they started booing him and throwing things at him. 12:07 And he just totally lost it, just flipped out, 12:10 screaming and shaking his fist at them 12:12 and then he stalked off. 12:14 But what was known at that time 12:16 was he came back from that visit, 12:19 incensed that the role of the Jesuit order 12:22 in these revolutionary movements 12:23 and he said, 12:25 "From now on, 12:26 we're going to be on the side of power." 12:28 And he threatened to dissolve the Jesuit order, 12:32 which he did not in the end, but he replaced the, 12:35 I think the title as Father General, 12:37 the one in charge of the Jesuits 12:40 was someone with his views, 12:42 and he made each Jesuit priest 12:44 swear personal fealty to him, 12:48 which brings it back full circle 12:50 to how the Jesuit order was established. 12:53 And as I said, the pope determined no more, 12:56 you know, reflex supporting a revolutionary movement, 12:59 we want to be allied with power. 13:01 And I think it was much that same time 13:05 that Malachi Martin's book, 13:08 The Keys of This Blood came out 13:09 and revealed what was an open secret 13:11 that Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II 13:16 were working together to bring down communism. 13:19 And there was a collaboration such as never seen before 13:25 and in itself that was probably... 13:27 Well, not probably a very good thing. 13:29 But there's a seizing of power 13:32 by Rome as never before and in doing, 13:35 so they repudiated both the Jesuit ideal 13:39 and really its adoption of an attitude 13:44 that came directly from Dignitatis humanae. 13:49 And in the years since I've watched 13:52 the different documents coming out of Rome 13:54 and there's clearly some cause for worry 13:57 and some also some, 14:00 you know, check points we can give 14:01 that they're speaking correctly. 14:03 Let's take a break now, and I'll come back, 14:05 and I'll share you, enumerate 14:07 some of these documents and even a speech by a pope, 14:11 and see something significant for religious liberty. |
Revised 2020-04-29