- Welcome back everyone to the front line with Joe and Joe. Joe Bessilow and Joe Resinello, you're exactly right, Joe. - We work for the man upstairs as you do. - You're setting me up quite well. You just gave me an alley, you... - The greatest revolutionary act to commit right now is to open your mouth and speak the truth. - Whether you're an academic or you're a regular guy, you have to be fearless. - And once more, dear brothers and sisters, let us go into the breach. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Hello again, everyone, and welcome back to the front line with Joe and Joe. Joe Bessilow, as always joined by Joe Resinello. And once more, dear brothers and sisters, let us go into the breach on the Veritas Catholic Radio Network 1350 on your AM dial 103.9 on your FM dial, spreading the truth of the Catholic faith to the New York City metropolitan area. Please download the app and share it with your friends. You'll have access to all of our station's content. And wherever you see Joe and I on social media, please YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Rumble, particularly Twitter and Rumble, please help us out. Smash the like button, subscribe to our channel. This way you'll be up to date on all of our interviews and all of our content. And more, most importantly, please share our videos. That would really help us out. So today, we're very pleased and honored to be welcoming back to the program, a friend of the show, Father Jeffrey Kirby. Father has a new book out from Tan Books, a year with the popes, daily meditations with the vicar of Christ. So Father Kirby, welcome back to the front line with Joe and Joe. - Thank you, Joe. Both of you, it's good to be with you. - It's always good to be with you. Quick bio for Father Kirby. For those of you out there who are not familiar with him, Father is pastor of our native grace Catholic church in the diocese of Charleston in Indian land, South Carolina. He's the author of several books, including Kingdom of Happiness, Living the Beatitudes in Everyday Life, Doors of Mercy, Exploring Gods, Gods Covenant with You, and Lord, Teach Us to Praise, appeared on EWTN, Salt and Light Television, BBC, as well as on Catholic radio in 2016. In recognition of his widespread service to young adults, he received the Order of the Palmetto, South Carolina's highest civilian honor. And Father is an adjunct professor of theology at Belmont Abbey College and Pontifex University, Holy Spirit College. As I said, Father, welcome back to the show. And with that, I'm gonna hand it over to Joe Russinello. - Father, would you lead us in prayer before we begin the conversation? - Yes, thank you. Name the Father, the Son of the Holy Spirit. Heaven, Father, be asked to pour your Holy Spirit upon us when you open our minds and hearts. Help us to receive your heavenly wisdom. May we generously give you all to ask of us the Christ our Lord, amen. Name the Father, the Son of the Holy Spirit, amen. - Well Father, I think a good place to begin. I have the book and I can't, to be honest with you, my reading list is huge. I did peruse it. I can't wait to read it though, because this is such an important book. But there's 2,000 years of popes. I mean, how did you pick, like, let's be honest. I mean, there's some big ones, obviously, that you could grab Peter, being one. I mean, but how do you pick popes to write? You could write like 50 books on this. - Yes, that's a great question, Joe. And I have to tell you, when I originally started talking to Tam Books about this book, the original proposal was actually a year with John Paul II. And then in discussion, Tam came back and said, "How about we broaden it and just go year with the popes?" And it made sense. So I thought, okay, but just to give you an idea, like my heart initially was to try to highlight the teachings of Pope St. John Paul II. But once it was broadened, I started looking and saying, okay, well, obviously I wanted to do a strong foundation at the beginning. So going back to Isaiah and the prophecies of the key bearer. And then, of course, the life and the ministry of St. Peter in the gospels. And then actually the apostles, which is particularly rich, oftentimes overlooked, but highly developed and very rich theology really of the papacy of St. Peter. And then I wanted to go through his letters because we really neglect the first second letters of St. Peter and the New Testament. In fact, people are often times shocked when they're like, wait a minute, the first pope wrote two letters. Oh yeah, they're part of the New Testament, right? So I wanted to do a lot there just to build a biblical foundation to show people how really biblical and how the papacy, how people can bridge the papacy is and how it really is a part of planet salvation. After that, and to your question, Joe, then I'd really just kind of just started highlighting things throughout church history. So I looked at maybe major events or movements where oftentimes the church's voice hasn't been heard or I will highlight certain spiritual teachings of the popes that especially pivotal moments or spiritual responses to crises or difficulties. And really it was just walking through that and then trying to highlight aspects or clarify aspects that people might have heard or not heard just for some random examples. I wanted to make sure that Catholics understood the constant papal denunciations of the slave trade. I wanted to give the actual homily of Pope Urban when he called the first crusade. Like what was the point of the crusade? I wanted the pope to say to have his own voice as he was explained why he asked the heads of state of Europe to do this. I also wanted to address some of our bad popes and explain how we approach those. Like how we supposed to understand these corrupt men who ruled the church for generations depending on the length of their papacy. And then I wanted to highlight again the spiritual thing. So for example, the battle of La Ponte. This was of course the major spirit, naval battle between Catholics and Muslims. If La Ponte had been lost, we would have lost faith in Europe. Major battle of Christian forces were greatly outnumbered and the pope called all Christians to pray the rosary. And this is a few decades after the reformation. And so major called all Christians to pray the rosary. And so I actually give that request, that actual decree of the pope, of Pope I is the fifth when he asked Christians to pray for the battle that was going to happen on your La Ponte. So these are some examples we're just selecting things or highlighting things that I thought might be of interest to people that might help people to understand the papacy better, have greater effects for it. And also aspects that will help us in our own discipleship. So areas that we might struggle with, whether it's human dignity or that you're praying the rosary or whether it's understanding like sending up or what is right and defending others that gets wrongdoing and so on. So these are some of the aspects, some of the principles I tried to use in selecting the passages. - Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned slavery. Joe and I actually did an interview. Father Jeffrey Kirby's joining us here at the front line with Joe and Joe. Father Jeffrey Kirby, we did an interview with Paul Kenghor and he wrote a book on slavery. And I'm glad that one of the things you're pointing out in this book are the lies that are really told about the Catholic church and slavery. No, no, no, we actually we were the first to the game. If you wanna go buy pure history, the church was the first to the game. One of my problems is people say, well, the leadership didn't do enough when Catholics weren't involved in the slave trade, but they wouldn't say that about those who support abortion. You see they don't apply the same standard. Here's one thing I wanna ask. A lot of people, maybe some people who are thinking about coming into the church, obviously this seems, maybe you could correct me, seems to be a bit of a confusing time in the church, maybe for the last several decades, where the men in the church, let's be clear, not the church, but the men in the church are somewhat feckless, not all of them, of course. There are many brave, you know, prelates out there and courageous prelates out there. Let's get back to Peter for a second. Peter wrote two epistles and Peter and Jude are strikingly similar. When you read their epistles in regards to warning about those who have come into the church, who are not friends of the church, if you know where I'm going with that. Correct me if I'm wrong. Peter and Jude both do kind of like a one, two punch to warn us that this is gonna be the state of the church. There will be, and even Jesus talks about we in tears. Talk about that a little bit. - Yeah, so actually we keep him broadened the point and say that, you know, the 21 apostolic letters of the New Testament. So we consider all the letters of Paul, all the letters of the other apostles, the two main themes that we see throughout these 21 letters from the New Testament, the two main things are avoid bad teachers, false teachers, and do not cause division, principally doctrinal division. Right, so do not challenge what we have received from the Lord Jesus. So constantly so St. Peter, St. Paul, St. James, St. Jude, St. John, in all the apostolic letters of the New Testament, these are the points, be careful of the false teachers, they're out there, and false teachers, these are teachers within the Christian faith. So these aren't just false teachers from outside. These are teachers recognized within the community, be careful of these false teachers, and do not cause division by teaching something contrary to what the Lord taught. And I want to clarify that because we hear division now, it's like, well, if you stand up for truth, well, you're the one causing division, right? It's like, no, no, the division's already been caused by those who are teaching what is false. We are simply standing up and exposing what's already happened. So we're not causing division, we seek the unity of the church, we want the bond of unity of the spirit to be preserved, but there's already division because someone is taught falsely. Then highlighting that or pointing that out, it's not the one, we are not the ones causing division. In fact, we're trying to heal the division by acknowledging what has been done or what is false. So definitely the absolute letters highlight that. And let me just say this to, just in terms of bad or lukewarm leadership in the church. If we go even to the absolute letters and to the early church, there's an occasion where, say, Paul tells us in Galatians that he had to correct Peter. Because Peter, St. Peter's first pope, was engaging in hypocrisy. He was kind of backsliding a little bit in his own discipleship when it came down to defending the Gentile Christians against the Jewish Christians. And St. Peter called them on it. And that is important because even within the scriptures, we see that the men who hold these offices can be weak, either in their own discipleship, which we see in some of our bad popes throughout church history, weak in terms of how they teach, weak in terms of their pastoral decisions, which we hope are done in good will, but end up being foolish or to actually cause harm to the teachings to the doctrine of the church. So we've had bad popes, we've had 266 popes total, and bad popes are under 10. That's pretty good, right? - It's not a bad baton average if you ask me. - Exactly. And here's something else just to tell you a story that kind of leads into a point. When I was in Rome finishing my doctorate in multiology, one of the documents I quoted from Pope St. Paul VI was the document called "Populorum Progressio." And it was one of, you know, Paul VI, we could say more liberal-leaning documents, you know? And I quoted it in my research, and one of the theologians who was on my board, my review board said, "Oh, Populorum Progressio, "did you read that?" You know, and I said, "Well, yes." And he laughed, he said, "Oh, you're the one, right?" And basically no one reads "Populorum Progressio," right? And I tell that story because what happens in sacred tradition is when we have a bad or lukewarm Pope, the tradition just absorbs them. And the imprudent or liberal or hurtful aspects of a pope's teaching, a bad pope or lukewarm pope, that just gives absorbed by sacred tradition and it fades away. You know, for example, no one talks about "Populorum Progressio," right? Unless you're a doctoral student, you have to quote something in a footnote, right? But otherwise, it just, it just absorbs it. So if we're looking at time and people are saying, "What's going on? There's some confusion. "There's, you know, there's a lot of imprudent decisions. "There's a lot of decisions that can hurt the faith." You know, I feel it. I think that, you know, it's gonna cause some people to choose ways of life that are against the gospel and that's regrettable because we can lose souls. And the shepherds who have created that arena will answer for that. But in terms of the health of the church or the well-being of the church, one of the things I point out in "View of the Popes" is this is not the church of Pope Francis. This is not the church of Pope St. John Paul the Second. This isn't the church of Pope I is the 12th. This is the church of Jesus Christ, guided by the Holy Spirit. And no one pope has any claim over the identity of the church. And so if we live in a time where we're scratching our heads and we're confused when trying to figure out things, I tell people, look, in terms of the health of the church, we're gonna be okay. And this too shall pass. And sacred tradition will just auto-correct and absorb what was bad or lacking or imprudent. - Absolutely, I'll get people encouragement. - Yeah, well, and the thing is too, I mean, this is one of the reasons why Joe loved doing these interviews. Joe and I loved doing these interviews and getting them getting the message out there, why it's important that someone like you is writing books like this, so that we can encourage other Catholics not to look on the surface, look a little deeper. And what you'll find is a lot of hope, okay? In a time of confusion, any time of confusion, any point in history, if you look at a little deeper and what the church is all about, like reading your book, okay? You know, you'll see, this ain't our first rodeo. We just happen to be living at this particular time. Father Jeffrey Kirby is joining us here at the Frontline with Joe and Joe. Please go out and buy his book at Tan Books, a year with the Pope's daily meditations with the vicar of Christ, Joe Rissanello. - Father, I want you to talk a little bit about the authority given to the papal office. Now you mentioned just a segue into it, Paul VI. - Well, I didn't know about that in cyclical and fairness, you know, I learned something. I always learned from our guests, particularly from you, but he also wrote Humani Vite, you know, okay. So like, that's to be fair. He's also a saint. Like, Paul VI is a saint. And I think, and I could just speak for me, there's an infused grace in the office of Peter. There's also an infused grace in the church and I trust the church. I trust the church implicitly. In fact, I trust the church infinitely more than I trust myself. (laughing) Infinitely more. So with that said, talk about the authority given to the papal office from Christ himself, not a pope, the office itself. - Exactly, so the very authority of Jesus Christ as we see in the gospels and as we see exercise and the acts of the apostles was given to Saint Peter and then subsequently to his successors, you know, and this authority is the authority of Christ himself. And the authority has three aspects to teach, to govern and to sanctify. So those are the three, we call Munurah, the three duties of the pope, of every shepherd of the church, of every baptized person. So as the baptized are called to go into the world and to teach, govern and sanctify. But the pope, especially in terms of the church, is to fulfill these three duties. And it's been given the authority of Christ to do so. So we talk about the vicar of Christ. Vicar, of course, this means ambassador or representative. So he is the vicar of Christ. So he speaks on behalf of the Lord Jesus here in this life. So he got it by the body of bishops, by his brothers, the success of the apostles. He interprets and applies the deposit of faith, the teachers of Christ, the words and deeds of God, to our life today. And he is guided by the Holy Spirit to do that. Now, once we speak about this authority, we have to realize when that authority is being used. And this is where our theological tradition is helpful because they're different people. So for example, Pope Gregory, the last Pope Gregory, when he first saw a steam locomotion, locomotive, so the train, he was completely just taken it back by it and he declared it was a machine of the devil, right? And people are like, is this doctoral teaching? Is this his opinion? Like, well, how are we supposed to understand that? So right after that, the First Vatican Council was the one who, the council who gave us a very ideologically defined understanding of the callability. Now the Pope speaks in faith in morals when he speaks ex-cathedress or from his chair. When he tells us, the Pope has to let us know when he's speaking to that level of authority. So we know that that level of authority is infallible. It cannot air in terms of faith in morals because that's a direct teaching, something that intimately is connected to the dogma and the teachings of Jesus Christ. And then we have other aspects, different levels. Of course, the lowest level is just theological opinion. It can surprise us to think that the victor of Christ might just have a theological opinion. So for example, the Pope might say, I don't like flying, right? Or I don't like jelly beans or something, right? Or something more serious, he might say, I prefer the priority of Matthew's gospel over Mark in terms of the chronology of the gospels, right? So which gospel came first? So he might say, I prefer Matthew over Mark. I think Matthew was first. And it's a big debate in theology, by the way. And someone can listen to this and say, that's wonderful and respect the person, but say, yeah, continue to disagree with that, right? And we can. And so there are different levels in terms of religious assent of intellectual will that we are bound to give. When it's ex-copter drug, we have to give, of course, our obedience of faith. But there are some other methods that we are not bound to. - Father Kirby, let me ask you this. Let's stay there for a second, okay? You talk about, let's say, papal infallibility. One of the criticisms that you hear, let's say, from our Protestant brothers and sisters, well, they just made that up in the 19th century, okay? But it was something that was understood a long time before the 1800s, the same with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, okay? It was declared ex-cathedra in the 19th century, but it's something that was going on for a very, very long time. Talk about the, now let's stay with the Pope. Talk about how the role of the Pope developed over the centuries. Obviously, it started with Peter, but then the office itself had to have undergone development as time went on in different circumstances and everything else. - Yeah, and this is Rich, when I hear people say, you know, papal infallibility, that's something that was, you know, created or invented it in the 19th century and so on by, you know, the Vatican Council, First Vatican Council and so on. I set the laugh because I said, let's go back to the scriptures then. And by the way, in the book, I made sure I did this and every quote in the book has a kind of intro paragraph that leads into the quote. So people understand why it's just quote important, you know? So it can be a lot of spiritual help, but also like a lot of catechesis, a lot of teaching pertain to the quotes as well. 'Cause we'll go back to the actual apostles. I love in the council of Jerusalem, so all the apostles are together and they're debating whether the Gentiles can be brought into the covenant of God and if they are brought into the covenant of God, are they bound to the Mosaic law, to the law of Moses? And there's this huge debate there in the council of Jerusalem among the apostles and so on. And then we're told in the Acts of the Apostles, St. Peter stood up and said in a loud voice. I love it, right? He stood up and said in a loud voice, the Holy Spirit and we decide. That's it. He summarizes a decision and that's it. Everyone's accepting it, okay? We debated, we talked, Peter has spoken, decision has been made and St. Peter associated the Holy Spirit with himself when he made the decision. And he was the one who was able to stand up, who had the authority, was uncontested. No, James didn't say, "Oh, shut up, Peter, sit down." And who do you think you are, right? Or Jude didn't say, "There's Peter again." I was thinking he's the boss, right? No, they all accepted it. Father, correct me if I'm wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong. Not only was it accepted, but if I remember specifically, it's the decision was accepted with joy. Exactly. If I remember correctly. Yes, exactly. And that's a great point, Joe, because when Peter spoke, there was joy because they saw that as God's answer. That's it. Like that we have an answer now. Well, the only way you can have joy in that is if you have the confidence that that is authoritative. Oh, man. What he's doing. Like Joe always says on the show, what I think means nothing. I hope that doesn't affect somebody involved in the synodal process that is going on now. What I think matters nothing, okay? But I do have joy in knowing when I see clarity on any particular church teaching, okay? And if I put myself in a position of one of the early Christians and that teaching came down, great, I'm happy. And now I know because I have confidence in that authority. So I'm sorry, Father, but I cut you off. Great, Joe. That's a great point. There's confidence and so when a decision is made and to realize that the Holy Spirit has spoken through Peter and that's marked by joy. And then after that, the entire rest of actually the apostles is the living out and was decided by Peter at the Council of Jerusalem. And so again, we see a clear understanding of the authority of Peter. And then, yeah, I love the endearing account that we're told about in Acts where the Christians would line the streets when Peter would return from prayer with the hope that Peter's shadow would fall upon them. Because even his shadow, the man's shadow, had the power to heal the sick. So this is a man who held Christ's own authority and it was uncontested. It was accepted with confidence and joy. And this is the mark. I mean, Peter's the one who told the early church, okay, you know what? We don't have to follow the law of Moses anymore. We don't have to follow the dietary laws anymore. And they accepted it. I mean, you read the Old Testament. This is like what the Maccabees died for to defend the dietary laws. And Peter says, yep, God says it's fulfilled in the body of Christ. I said, okay, we can, you know, start cooking up some bacon, right? (laughing) - That's what I would have done. - Yeah, exactly. So I mean, you think about it, he suspends and basically he says the Mosaic law, the law of Moses has been fulfilled. He moves the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. You know, he officiates over the election of the successor of Judas. So we see the apostolic call of Matthias. Anyway, so anyone who reads the scriptures objectively can clearly see that what was done in the 19th century in Vatican I was just a theological explanation of what was very clear and very understood, very much accepted with confidence and joy in the acts of the apostles. Now, to your point earlier, was there have there been developments? Of course there have, like we clarified things as things are challenged. So take for example, Peter saying to the Lord Jesus and Caesar, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Awesome. In one sense, nothing else has to be said. (laughing) Well, until you enter the Greek world, right? And suddenly, all the prophecies and the language doesn't mean the same thing. So what happens? Well, you have the Council of Nicaea and then you have the Council of Ephesus, then you have the Council of Chalcedon. And then you see the Council of Chalcedon has this extensive summary that's really just clarifying all the different points that were challenged by what Peter said, your Christ, the Son of the Living God. And here's the Council of Chalcedon, you know, giving this formal declaration. Why do they have to develop all that? Well, because things are challenged, things are dismissed. There's loopholes, people think. And all this stuff happens. So that's why we have a theological tradition. Incidentally, just the realm of the example of Chalcedon in terms of the identity of our Lord, when Pope Leo the Great read that summary, it's called the Tomb of Leo, the summary that the treatise of Leo, the Tomb of Leo, when he read that at the Council of Chalcedon and there have been huge debates during the entire Council. When he read that, we are told in the accounts that all the Council Fathers stopped. They stood up and started raising their hands and praising God that joy again and so on. And they yelled out that Peter has spoken through Leo. Peter has spoken through Leo. And again, just we see this development, of course, with theological development. We see an identity of Christ. We shouldn't be surprised when we see that same development in terms of the understanding of the tapestry of his vicar. So yes, we look at the decree of Vatican I. It's very thorough. But it's basically saying the same thing that we see in Acts and the Apostles. - Well, that's the thing, Father, is we try to be charitable to a lot of our Protestant and evangelical brothers and sisters. But sometimes I think they read Scripture with blinders, man. Because like you said, if you read it objectively, again, what really gets me is that what you hear is, well, it's always subjective interpretation of the Bible. Okay, well, okay, if it's all subjective, then guess what? Then I believe Peter was the first pope. And what standard are you gonna use to judge me to be wrong when I say, well, I think Peter had authority. Oh, and by the way, their succession, because you mentioned Matthias. So they had to replace Judas and you got Matthias. Father, you go ahead, you were gonna say something. We got about a minute before the break. - And I'll just say just, when we look at, for example, Peter and then we see his successors, Pope Clement, his third successor, the fourth pope, and we see a clear exercise of authority when Simon was asked to basically teach the Corinthians, like John the Apostle was still alive and was closer to Corinth. But the ousted Bishop of Corinth appealed to Clement because he was a successor of Peter. So even within the early church, beyond actually the apostles, we see this clear, the authority being clearly recognized. - Absolutely, Father Jeffrey Kirby. So where can folks buy the book a year with the Pope's daily meditations with the Vicar of Christ? Where can folks buy it? - So 10 books, the publisher, or it's also available on the EWTN religious catalog, and of course, to any of their local Catholic bookstores I can order for them. - Yeah, and Joe and I say on the show all the time, please encourage your parish bookstore to buy a few copies of the book. Put it on their shelf because the parishioners are gonna love it. So if you're just joining us here at the front line with Joe and Joe, Father Jeffrey Kirby's with us, a friend of the show, we're discussing a year with the Pope's his new book that's daily meditations with the Vicar of Christ on the Veritas Catholic Radio Network, 1350 on your AM dial, 103.9 on your FM dial, spreading the truth of the Catholic faith to the New York City metropolitan area. If you're listening to this or you're watching it, please share it with your friends. Very, very important conversation. So stick around, we're gonna be right back with Father. (upbeat music) Catholic Radio works, and now we have it here in Connecticut and New York. It's been seen around the country that there's no better tool for evangelization. Where there's Catholic Radio, the folks who listen deep in their faith, families are strengthened, parishes and communities flourish. So let people know you're listening to Veritas, tell your friends to tune in, and let's make an impact here for Jesus and his church. This is Steve Lee for Veritas Catholic Network. - Welcome back everyone to the front line I'm Joe and Joe, Joe Pacillo, and Joe Rassanello. We are way in the breach. We're Father Jeffrey Kirby, we're discussing his new book, A Year with the Popes, The Only Meditations with the Vicar of Christ. And that is available at 10 books and EWTN book catalog amongst other places, Joe Rassanello. - Father, on the other side, you mentioned that we have 260 plus popes in the history, 2,000 years, and that only about 10 were considered bad. Pretty good, if you ask me. In doing research for this interview, I always learned something. You mentioned this, and I thought this was fascinating, that one of those 10 popes was about to proclaim something, which was contradictory to the faith, and he dropped dead the night before he was to do it. The part about that that I knew previous to doing research for this interview was, even the bad popes have never written anything that has been contradictory to the faith. I knew that. I also knew that worldly popes, and there were worldly popes, historically speaking during the Medici period in Rome, were more concerned with worldly things than opposed to religious things. So their focus was different. So they're not writing teachings. They're not talking from the chair. They're buying some lands and putting people here and there and doing that. Talk about that, because I think that is a very important piece of information. Why do I say that? Because the chair is protected by God. This is something I know in my heart. No matter who the pope is, this is God's church, and he's not gonna let anyone screw it up. Not even me, Father, not even me. - It reminds me of the story of Pope Pius, the seventh, who was taken prisoner by Napoleon. And Napoleon wanted him to sign away the right to the church and the pope refused. And so Napoleon imprisoned him and beat him. And the pope actually later died from wounds and from the fatigue caused by this treatment. But in one occasion, Napoleon grabs the pope by the throat and says to him, "You will sign this concordant." Again, dismissing the rights of the church. "You will sign this, or I will destroy your church." And Pope Pius, who was known as a very holy man, almost like a Padre Pio and had a keen sense of humor. When Napoleon said to us, "I'll destroy your church." The pope laughed and said, "Go ahead and try." My priest and I have been attempting this for 1800 years and we get it to be successful, you know? So it's in a sense of, you know, people can think that, well, you know, one priest or one bishop or one pope can somehow destroy the church, and it's impossible. Like it cannot be done, and it's got about the Holy Spirit as the church, and Jesus Christ. - Father Kirby, let me ask, let me, I just want to jump over there. Let me, talk up for a second along those lines about the pride of some of these people. If Nero couldn't do it at the earliest point when the church was most vulnerable, what did Stalin think in his mind, or Napoleon think in his mind, or Hitler think in their minds, to think that they were going to do something? Nero actually had the power to do it. He could have just erased them all. Okay, and the church survived Nero. My attitude is if the church survived Nero, the church could survive anyone. Sorry to cut you off, Father, but that's what comes to my mind. - Absolutely, and we see the worldly attacks on the church and outside, and in terms of bad popes, like, you know, bad popes come, bad popes go. And, you know, again, regrettable because they can do a lot of damage in terms of, you know, particular souls that might be misled. But in terms of like, you know, we look at these bad popes historically, and, you know, I will say this, what's interesting about the time of the bad popes, during that time period is when we've had our greatest saints. So our greatest saints, look at their time periods, and it matches the time of the bad popes. So it's almost as if the Holy Spirit said, okay, well, you know, this shepherd's not doing what he's supposed to be, so I'm gonna raise up all these other saints in order to bring more holiness into the church. So the Holy Spirit's gonna guide the church, and bad popes, it's a scandal. It shouldn't happen. One bad pop is too many. Thanks to God, we've only had, you know, less than 10. But you look at their time periods, you look at their lives, and it scandals. It scandals, it's shocking. They were corrupt men. They failed not only in their office, their duty as a pope, but they failed as disciples of Jesus Christ. And, you know, we should look at that and say, that's shocking, however, to Joe's point, none of these popes ever taught error. They never taught error. You know, even now as we see just questionable things coming from Rome, a lot of these are classified within pastoral judgments. So the Vatican, you know, trans people can be God-parents, or, you know, gay couples can be blessed, and these type of things. This is gonna come, and this will go. These are pastoral judgments. They don't share in the infallibility of the church. At best, we can say that the pope and his advisors are trying somehow to meet people where they are, and bring them back to a greater converted understanding of the gospel. At worst, we can say it's a type of sell-out to the ideologies of the world, and we've seen that before, and it will come, and it will go, you know, and sacred tradition will just absorb and out of correct. The only grievous thing about this is we might have some souls that are lost. The idea that because of a bad pope or lukewarm pope, there might be a whole number of people who are damn the hell, because they didn't have clarity, they didn't have encouragement. Things were not taught, you know, as it should have been, right? That's the loss. But in terms of the law-- - But let me just jump in. When you said that, what I immediately thought is from Scripture, and I'm paraphrasing this Jersey style, is those who know get beaten worse, those who don't get beaten as bad. And that's what I think about. I mean, I didn't go to the Gregorri, you know, but I did go to Harvard on the Hudson. I am from New Jersey, so I do know a fair amount. Anyway, but at the end of the day, if I know something, and I teach it to someone who doesn't, that's on me, God's gonna deal with me. But if they don't know, he'll deal with them, but in the way that he deals with them. Am I wrong with that? - No, that's a great point. And we pray for that type of mercy and what we call invincible ignorance on the part of some people who might engage in sin. I'm thinking more, take, for example, the people in our world today who are in the LGBTQ+ movement and are not being encouraged to the celibate lives. I'm shocked that in all these discussions on, you know, homosexuality and transgenderism, that courage international, which is the largest outreach to Catholics with same sex attraction and gender dysphoria, Caribbean international was not invited to be a part of the conversation. - It's sad. - Yes, so imagine the person who has gender dysphoria or same sex attraction. They know it's wrong, they know they're not supposed to be doing it, but there's no real encouragement. No one seems to be holding the line. And the resources that could be available aren't as highlighted. And in those areas, you know, people can cause some major damage to the eternal destiny of their souls. And the shepherds are kind of, at times, appear to be sleeping at the wheel, where it's like, wait a minute, like, you know, this is what you're supposed to be standing up, whether it's, you know, with same sex attraction or gender dysphoria, or that's broadening. Those who are divorced are remarried. You know, it's shocking how many are divorced and remarried who have never even attempted in a nomin process, right? So wait a minute, like before we get to, you know, this next step, how about we just make sure that they walk to the nomin process? Before we begin to think, well, suddenly we have to start changing things or not clarifying things or allowing them to, as St. Paul says, receive all the communion and eat and drink condemnation upon themselves. You know? So this is the part where, you know, yes, there's invincible ignorance where people don't know and thanks good to God for His mercy. But when people do know, but they just need to be reminded and encouraged and given resources by the shepherds of the church. And at this point, it looks as if that's the part that's lacking. - Well, God bless those members of Courage International because they are some brave people, really brave people. Joe and I say, we go into the breach, not even, we don't even dip our toe into the breach as much as these people are way in it. 'Cause they're like you said, Father Kirby, they're not welcome. They're not welcome at the table. I thought everybody was welcome at the table. At least, you know, that's what the, you know, that's what we're told everybody's welcome. Well, what about those men and women? They're putting Christ first. Let me tell you something, they're gonna get to heaven a lot quicker than I am, all right? Because what they do is they put Christ first. Let's keep it going. Father Jeffrey Kirby with the Popes, okay? If you're just joining us here at the front line with Joe and Joe, a year with the Popes, the only meditations with the vicar of Christ, the author is with us today, Father Jeffrey Kirby. The book is available at 10 books and other places, Joe Ressinello, where do you wanna go? - People and cyclicals, Father, what's the weight of an encyclical? And many of those encyclicals have come at historic times. For instance, sexual revolution happening, 1969, 1970, Paul VI, challenged by the church itself. He comes out with humanity. 80% of the Canadian bishops, I'm not picking on them, signed against it. - Go ahead, Joe, you can pick on the Canadian bishops, go ahead with me. - But I'm just saying, like I'm just using that as an example. The church was not overwhelmingly foreign, but history has proven that to be absolutely correct. I saw a movie about Paul VI, how he defended it. And he is not viewed by many traditionalists as the most conservative guy. God placed him there, he was more of a diplomat. He tried to keep everything together as everything was falling apart after Vatican II. Talk about that, the bearing of an encyclical. How we're supposed to listen to it, why we should listen to it, maybe not to listen to it. What do you think? - So encyclicals by themselves are not infallible. We are not bound to give an obedience of faith or an ascent of our instructor will to them. Encyclicals, the word itself just means like a cyclical letter or cyclical like a dispersed letter. So all this is the pope that there's something in his mind or that he sees in life the church that he's seeking to clarify or to give guidance on. And he's providing this teaching and it can be proven to be prudent and in conformity with faith in morals such as humani vite, or it can be found to have been impruded in the course of time and to not be helpful to faith in morals. For example, popular and progressive by the same pope, Paul VI. So encyclicals have to be read in their own right and then placed in the course of time basically in service to faith in morals. So for example, a lot of people asked about the Holy Fathers and cyclical on the environment and people pop up Pope Francis and people said, well, is this binding? Do I have to believe this? No, the pope cannot bind you in something that he does have an authority over. The pope has no authority over the empirical sciences and climate control and so on. In this encyclical, he is giving his teaching. It's a little above his opinion. He's giving his teaching, but we're not bound by the teachings of one encyclical. And we're certainly not bound to something that the pope does not have the authority to teach. So I think that we should read encyclicals, be aware of them, but then I tell people read the encyclical and they go to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. And the Catechism of the Catholic Church confirms what the encyclical is saying, right? If it's not mentioning the encyclical or the teachings of the encyclical and the Catechism kind of moves on, well, you know, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, like pick up the hint, right? So sacred tradition is kind of moved on, right? So you're not going to find climate control of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, nor will you because the church is not have the authority to teach, you know, authority, authoritatively in a binding fashion on these issues. So we listen, the pope is teaching. He has some concern. We show religious respect to the man to his office, but encyclical itself, we have to place it within the tradition and see what is sacred tradition done with this to see how binding it might or might not be. - Father, let me ask you this. Let's go back again to the early church, okay? The first successors of Peter, they were killed. - Oh yeah. - They were martyred, okay? Talk about that 'cause I remember going in the Catechomes when my wife and I, after we got married, we went to, we spent our honeymoon in Rome, all right? And we went to all the different churches. One other place we went to was the Catechome. Well, the images are right there. Like you could see the images that are still on the wall where the pope is presiding over mass, okay? And the Romans go down there, drag them out that long set of stairs that I barely get back up, okay? And brought out there and just basically just killed right on the spot. Talk about that a little bit. - Yeah, so, and by the way, one of the ones dragged out from the Catechome mass was Saint Lawrence the Deacon who was very beloved by many Catholics. But in terms of the papacy, the first 33 popes all died martyrs. So it was considered-- - Repeat that, Father, repeat that. - The first 33 martyrs, first 33 popes died martyrs. So it was considered a death sentence to be elected division of Rome. And men aspired to be elected. They wanted to die a martyr and they wanted to be one of Peter's successors. And it wasn't until 313 with the Edict of toleration. And I was like to remind people that it was an Edict of toleration, right? So the Roman Empire said we will tolerate you Christians, right? But up until that point, all the popes had died martyrs. And again, it was welcome. It was seen as part of the Charism, part of the graces of the office of Peter that you die for the faith. And men wanted to be elected Pope to die for the faith. - I'm glad you mentioned, by the way, 'cause that dispels one of the lies that the evangelicals tell about, you know, or some, not all evangelicals. Some say, well, Constantine created the church that we see now. Actually, no. You know, I mean, if you're gonna be critical, if you're whatever the case would be, at the very least, get your history straight. It's kind of funny, last night, I was helping my son with his homework. He's got history midterms coming up. And that was one of the questions. He goes, Papa, what was the Edict of Milan? I said, and I mentioned tolerance, you know? It was a toleration. After Diocletian, the prior emperor had just, you know, basically kept persecuting the church and keeping up that evil tradition, all right? Where Constantine said, well, we're gonna recognize this religion as a religion within the Roman Empire, all right? I wish some of our brothers and sisters who are not Catholic out there would maybe pick up the history book and get that part straight. 'Cause that's kind of a, that's a basic right there. - And just your point is anyone who wants to believe the lie that somehow Constantine created the Catholic church. Well, as you said earlier, we'll go to Rome, go to the Catacombs, go to the house churches of Rome, go to North Africa and see, you know, the additional catacombs there and the house churches. Study the ancient documents that we have, the few that we do possess, right? The seven letters of Ignatius of Antioch, the letter of clement to the Corinthians and so on. - How about did it, the diddicate? - The diddicate, which predates John's gospel, right? - Right. - And so on, so again, you know, to come to some conclusions that people have come to, you have to almost close your eyes and choose not to pay attention to history, to archeology, to the Christian monuments that are preserved from the early church, because the message is clear what the church was and what it continued to be after the Edith of Milan in 313 AD. - Absolutely, Father Jeffrey Kirby's joining us here at the Frontline with Joe and Joe, a year with the Pope's daily meditations with the vicar of Christ that's available at 10 books, also the EWTN book catalog. Please pick it up from there and let's support our Catholic publishers and support EWTN. Please, Joe Ressinello. - Father, we talked a lot about some bad posts we talked about, and sickles we talked about authority. Let's talk about not the good, but great, because there are many that are great, one of which is John Paul, the second. Michael Gorbachev said he was the greatest man of the 20th century. Now, Michael Gorbachev was not exactly a fan of the Roman Catholic church, and he said that. - My opinion, this is my opinion, I has no bearing on anything except my opinion, I think he was the most significant figure of the 20th century, in my opinion. There were others that were so impressive, whether you're religious or not, you have to just note them from a historical perspective. Gregory, the calendar to this day is noted for Gregory. I'm just throwing a few things out there. You could do it much better than me. - Yes, no, I think Joe very much like, and we have to kind of address the bad popes, but as we said, they're such a small minority, and one bad pope is one too many, but percentage-wise, the bad ones are very minute. And we look at these amazing popes, I mentioned Propius VII earlier, he was a pajepio, he levitated, healed, he could read hearts, he was a powerful mystic at a really pivotal time in the life of the church. And then we'll never talk about them. So we've had some real miracle workers and mystics in terms of the popes. And then of course you have the great ones, and there are many, many greats, and only four have only been declared greats. And when I say declared greats, it means that the people of God declared them. So when someone becomes the great, like the great in terms of the popes, that's not an official decree of the church. The people of God do that. So Pope Leo, Pope Gregory, Pope Martin, he's usually oftentimes forgotten, Pope Martin V. He was the one who brought the papacy back to Rome after Avignon, who said, you know, enough of the nonsense. We're going back to Rome. And of course, Trump, all the second. So those are the four popes who were given by the people of God, the title of the great, and it stopped. So there are some popes who received the great shortly after their death and kind of faded away. But these four are there. And Leo, of course, defends Rome against Attila the Han. He is there at the Council of Chalcedon, who gives the definitive definition of the identity of Christ. Pope Gregory, who reforms the liturgy. He is thoroughly invested in the diocese of Rome. In fact, he said that if one poor person died in Rome, then as the bishop, the father of the poor, he felt that his own salvation was in jeopardy. So he was very beloved by the Roman people. Martin, the fifth, of course, who brought the papacy back to Rome, and then Trump, all the second, who brought down communism without one single shot fired. And of course, dedicated the 21st century to the American Heart of Our Lady. And so you see, each of these four greats did massive pivotal things in the life of the church that we are still indebted to and the recipients of. - Father Kirby, I mean, if you think about it, again, this is, this requires that a serious Catholic, you know, goes more deeply into their faith. Sometimes it just means picking up a book. Leo the Great had to negotiate with Attila the Hun. - Yes. - When you think about that, okay? And I wasn't going to mention that, but you mentioned Leo the Great. And again, I'm doing that with my son for his midterms, so I had to tell him about Attila the Hun. But you think about the contentious relationship, going back to Rarum Novarum and Leo the 13th between the Catholic church and the socialists. And then later on, after the October Revolution, with the straight up, you know, the murderers, the communists, you know, the Stalin and all that, Stalin and all that. And you think about that relationship from let's say the time of the October Revolution up until the '70s at the height of the Cold War, the stones it took for Pope St. John Paul the 2nd to go to Poland and say mass, they could have shot him. They could have shot him right on the altar. - They did, they did, no, no, no. Yes, you're right, Joe, Joe just corrected me, I forgot. He was shot by the KGB, but go ahead, Father. - In 1981, but to your point, when he was there in 1979, he was a far easier target. I think that his election caught the communist party completely off guard. They tried to delay his arrival in the valley, they had to let him come. And that famous, the historic nine days, they call it, where John Paul visited Poland in 1979. And by the way, that visit, he celebrated Pentecost in Poland, and that's when he first used the term "the new evangelization." On the thesis of Pentecost, in communist Poland, under pretty serious threat and severe vulnerability. And of course, there was no attempt there, but then to Joe's point, in two years later, 1981, the KGB sends the assassin to St. Peter's Square. So yeah, but the moral fortitude and the clarity that he had, I think it's powerful that when John Paul II went to Poland, now that he denounced communism in the 1979 visit, but he spoke directly to the Polish Christians and said, basically, do not deny or lose your dignity and your vocation as Christians. And he gave a whole kind of thesis on the 10 commandments. So if you look at the homies and the talks he gave during those nine days, he's not just worried about taking something out. He's worried about affirming and building up what is there, the faith of the people of God. And their communism's got to go, but he realized concurrently, we have to make the Christian faith strong. We have to build up the body of disciples. - Well, see, and I'm gonna hand over to Joe Father for one last question, 'cause we're running out of time. But if the Christian faithful, and again, Joe and I are no heroes, let me be clear, Father. You know, it takes a lot of courage to do these things, but it's a very least stand-up for what you know to be right. And then when you do that, if you stand up for what the church teaches, for number one, God will reward you abundantly, okay? And I'll say that from my own personal experience. But it also diminishes the power, the powers of the world, if you know what I mean. The communists, you know, the extremists, what we see out there right now, which is totally, it's beyond evil. It's insane evil. So like, if we just stand up somewhat and hold firm to the truth, Joe wrestling alone, I'm gonna hand it over to you for one more question. - God works in mysterious ways, Father. Ways none of us will ever understand, but he works. God also raises up men. Sometimes, Popes, we think they're gonna go one way and they go another. John the 23rd was one of those men. They wrote him off. He came, he changed the church in many ways. Oscar Romero, he was in a Pope. He's a man who has a deep and made a deep impression on me. They wrote him off. He went there, his friend gets murdered. He goes off and speaks truth to power until he's murdered. God's hand is on the church and he will rise up men. Talk about that with regard to the Pope now versus the Pope that's coming. - Yes, Father, we got it, Father, we got about two minutes left just to give you a heads up. - Okay, okay, okay. Let me go to the point two that if we look at the time where we had the worst Popes or those lukewarm Popes, those are the times in which we see a great explosion of saints. So holy men, holy women who begin to bring great reform on the grass level, grassroots level to the church. And I just highlight that because the Holy Spirit's in charge and if the shepherds are sleeping at the wheel, which in the history of the church at times they have been, the Holy Spirit will raise up the ones who say yes. I'm always moved by St. Faustina who writes in her diary that God is so desperate that he will make anyone a great saint because so many people are telling God what to do, but the soul that's humble and says, Lord, what do you want me to do? God will make that person a great saint. And so yes, it's turbulent and difficult when we see bad or lukewarm Popes, but the Holy Spirit will do what is necessary. St. Paul says to make up what is lacking within the body of Christ. So whenever it's lacking in the church, the Holy Spirit will raise up in order that the mission of the church is accomplished in the world. And that should be with the papacy, with the showers of the church, but if the Holy Spirit has to, he will do so in spite of the showers of the church, which is not enviable, it's not the way it's supposed to be, but the Holy Spirit will take care of the church. - And when you think about some of the very darkest times, even within, you know, recent memory, you look at, let's say, Maximilian Colby, you look at St. Edith Stein, I think his sister Benadetta of the Cross, right? When you think of these saints, Padre Pio, and these very turbulent times where the attacks are coming both from the outside and from within, all right? We have very recent memory of some very great saints that have led to tremendous, tremendous conversions, okay? Can you imagine maybe perhaps, how many Jews converted to the Catholic church? You have to the example of St. Edith Stein, all right? Or how many men? Let's say when you listen to Maximilian Colby talk about the militia of the Immaculata, I want to be in that militia. You know what I want Mary to be my general, I want to be in that militia. I mean, and I'm glad you mentioned the saints, Father, because it's all meant to build us up. I mean, we could go on for hours. Father, final thoughts and where folks could buy the book? - Yes, yes, I just want to encourage people to please give this book a look. I think that it will help us understand the, you know, that beautiful tradition we have of the popes and help us to have a greater affection to the Victor of Christ. The book is available through the published Tam books, also available on either the TN religious catalog. And then of course anyone can ask that if you order through the local Catholic books. - Absolutely, Father, Jeffrey Kirby. Thank you as always for coming back to the front line with Joe and Joe. I know we're going to see you soon. - Take care, thanks. - All right, Father, and thank you all out there for joining us here on the Veritas Catholic Radio Network, 1350 on your AM dial 103.9 on your FM dial, spreading the truth of the Catholic faith to the New York City metropolitan area. Father, can we impose on you for departing blessing? - As I'll just pray, may the Lord bless you and keep you, may he let us face you and upon you may he grant you his peace. May the Almighty God bless you, the Father of the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. - Thank you again, Father Kirby. And remember, until the next time everyone that our conversation is your conversation and that conversation is going on everywhere. We'll talk to you soon. [MUSIC PLAYING]
