I love, 'Catholic Unscripted' . This video , I believe, is by far the best they have ever done. It takes real courage to swim against the flow and tell the simple unvarnished truth.
https://firstthings.com/the-church-after-francis/ The Church After Francis Charles J. Chaput April 21, 2025 Share Article I have personal memories of Pope Francis that I greatly value: a friendly and generous working relationship at the 1997 Synod on America when we were both newly appointed archbishops; his personal welcome and warmth at Rome’s 2014 Humanum conference; and the extraordinary success of his 2015 visit to Philadelphia for the Eighth World Meeting of Families. He devoted himself to serving the Church and her people in ways that he felt the times demanded. As a brother in the faith, and a successor of Peter, he deserves our ongoing prayers for his eternal life in the presence of the God he loved. Having said that, an interregnum between papacies is a time for candor. The lack of it, given today’s challenges, is too expensive. In many ways, whatever its strengths, the Francis pontificate was inadequate to the real issues facing the Church. He had no direct involvement in the Second Vatican Council and seemed to resent the legacy of his immediate predecessors who did; men who worked and suffered to incarnate the council’s teachings faithfully into Catholic life. His personality tended toward the temperamental and autocratic. He resisted even loyal criticism. He had a pattern of ambiguity and loose words that sowed confusion and conflict. In the face of deep cultural fractures on matters of sexual behavior and identity, he condemned gender ideology but seemed to downplay a compelling Christian “theology of the body.” He was impatient with canon law and proper procedure. His signature project, synodality, was heavy on process and deficient in clarity. Despite an inspiring outreach to society’s margins, his papacy lacked a confident, dynamic evangelical zeal. The intellectual excellence to sustain a salvific (and not merely ethical) Christian witness in a skeptical modern world was likewise absent. What the Church needs going forward is a leader who can marry personal simplicity with a passion for converting the world to Jesus Christ, a leader who has a heart of courage and a keen intellect to match it. Anything less won’t work. Archbishop Emeritus Charles J. Chaput Archbishop Charles J. Chaput was born September 26, 1944, in Concordia, Kansas, the son of Joseph and Marian DeMarais Chaput. He attended Our Lady of Perpetual Help Grade School in Concordia and St. Francis Seminary High School in Victoria, Kansas. He joined the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, St. Augustine Province, in 1965. After earning a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from St. Fidelis College Seminary in Herman, Pennsylvania, in 1967, Archbishop Chaput completed Studies in Theology at Catholic University in Washington D.C., in 1969. He earned a Master of Arts in Religious Education from Capuchin College in Washington D.C., in 1970 and was ordained to the priesthood on August 29, 1970. Archbishop Chaput received a Master of Arts in Theology from the University of San Francisco in 1971. He served as an instructor in theology and spiritual director at St. Fidelis from 1971-1974 and as executive secretary and director of communications for the Capuchin Province of St. Augustine in Pittsburgh from 1974-1977 In 1977, Archbishop Chaput became pastor of Holy Cross Parish in Thornton, Colorado, and vicar provincial for the Capuchin Province of Mid-America. He was named secretary and treasurer for the province in 1980, and he became chief executive and provincial minister three years later. Archbishop Chaput was ordained Bishop of Rapid City, South Dakota, on July 26, 1988. Pope John Paul II appointed him Archbishop of Denver on February 18, 1997, and he was installed on April 7 the same year. As a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe, Archbishop Chaput was the second Native American to be ordained a bishop in the United States, and the first Native American archbishop. He chose as his episcopal motto: “As Christ Loved the Church” (Ephesians 5:25). Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Archbishop of Philadelphia on July 19, 2011. He was installed as the 13th bishop and ninth archbishop of Philadelphia on September 8, 2011. On January 23, 2020, Archbishop Chaput became Archbishop Emeritus of Philadelphia upon Pope Francis’ acceptance of his letter of resignation written when he reached the age of 75. Until February 18, 2020, when his successor was installed as Archbishop of Philadelphia, Archbishop Chaput served as Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese. He is author of four books: Living the Catholic Faith: Rediscovering the Basics (Servant, 2001), Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life (Doubleday, 2008); Strangers in a Strange Land: Living the Catholic Faith in a Post-Christian World (Henry Holt and Co., 2017); Things Worth Dying For: Thoughts on a Life Worth Living (Henry Holt and Co., 2021); and numerous talks, articles and pastoral letters. His writings, discourses, and homilies are available at www.archphila.org.
I like Catholic Unscripted too. So reasoned and precise. Gavin Ashendon is my particular favorite. But they are all wonderful.
I listened to some wise advice. Whoever is named Pope we should not rush to judge and criticise him even if he happens to have a terrible reputation. To give him time. That seems so wise.
I agree about the video. The discussion really gets going around the 6 minute mark. My thoughts/feelings especially echo the man on the left in the gray sweater.
The State of the Church now reminds me very much of the State of the things when Jesus was born. A corrupt Jerusalem when the religious leaders were leading the people astray and were proud, arrogant and self serving. The Sadducees, for instance did not even believe in life after death. They were in a really hopeless situation even in a purely human sense. It would not have made any difference even if they got a really good and wise high priest . Things had gotten just to bad. It was like a totally rotten apple ready to fall off a tree. But the great sign of hope lay in the Faithful Remnant. The little ones from which the Messiah would be born. People keep looking for a good, holy, wise , strong Pope to save us all. It would be good of course if we got one and please God we do. But I am very much afraid we are far far too far God for things to be reversed in that way. The only way we can be saved is if the present Church dies and is reborn. Exactly that which happened with Jesus. Pope Benedict famously said before he died , 'My power stops at that door' . Its the same with any person who became Pope at the moment. It would be like trying to clean a swamp with a duster. I think God is going to clean things Himself. Just as at the time of Jesus the way He is going to fix it is to burn it all down and start over.
Pope Francis appeared to be a man of many contradictions, which generated a lot of confusion. He did things like promote Our Lady undoer of knots, while at the same time doing a whole litany of toxic things which were in line with the globalist agenda. Many people are still having end times type dreams where Jesus is coming. I often wonder if Pope Francis was trying to resist certain things as best he could, many things in time will come out I'd imagine. It appears the CIA have their tentacles deeply entrenched in the church and that is quite a painful pressure to have to deal with. Nothing is as it seems I'm afraid.
This is true as Scripture warns us/ The Children of Darkness do their deeds in the Dark: John 3:19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. EWTN is very good. They are doing a summation of his Papacy. I have to say a lot of what they remind us about would turn your hair white. The poor man is dead now and has gone before the Judgement Seat and I don't want to sound like I am jumping up and down on his grave. But lets be brutally honest he did terrible, terrible harm. But I prayed for him every day when he was alive and I pray very much for his soul now he is dead. Despite all the odds I hope he made it to heaven.
I think it is very significant that he visited the grave of Pius x. He was on a wheelchair being pushed by non clerics. He was not dressed in papal attire, just a pants with a blanket thrown over him. It looks like he escaped from his minders. Maybe he was giving a message of regret by visiting the grave of a pre Vatican 2 Pope. I feel in my heart that Our Lady saved him. What a terrible thing to think that he might have fallen into the hands of the evil one. I'm hopeful. May God have mercy on him.l
I had something of an intuition yesterday. That if the next Pope takes the name Pius part of it would be out of respect for Padre Pio. An additional part of this would be trying to heal the legacy of the church lineage of popes in relation to St. Francis as Padre Pio is a capuchin
I want a Leo XIV but a Pius would do nicely. I have a feeling that we may get an older person rather than a young one who would reign for decades. But it’s not a deep spiritual sense, just a logical position. I feel anxious about the whole thing which I know I should NOT. Perhaps it’s selfishness because this might be my last pope and I would love to witness a rebirth of real Catholicism in my lifetime. If we get Pizzaballa then he certainly will be my last, though Taylor Marshall says he’d be a good choice. I saw a diagram of the voting cardinals and most of them are moderate liberals. How can we expect a choice like Sarah or Muller? Seems a long shot unless the Spirit intervenes in a big way. Lord send us the kind of pope we need, not what we deserve!
The thing is that this vote isn't 50% to win, it is 66%. So compromise on both sides will likely happen. That being said, we live in a time of exposure and I suspect a lot of cardinals could be making deals behind the scenes in exchange for their votes. Some quid pro quo. Notice how we don't hear anything from the likes of Fr. James Martin anymore? While they used to be put on blast. I strongly believe some kind of power shift has happened in the Vatican in recent weeks. Canadian Bishops calling out pro-abortion politicians. Communion on the tongue only recently was done by a couple of young priests at St. Peters.
Perhaps it is the result of the suffering Pope Francis endured with his pneumonia in that lengthy hospital stay.
It could've been, irdk. I also remember Pope Francis saying the church needed less "faggots" last year. I wonder if he was alluding to something. All I know is that nothing is as it seems. Vigano mentioned that there are people who suspect that Pope Francis has been dead a long time now and some kind of double has been acting in his place. Which would explain a lot if true. Video in the link below. https://x.com/ShadowofEzra/status/1914352110021288008
It's quite a paradox that the Pope who seems to have been the fulfillment of the Third Secret of Fatima was exactly the same one who fulfilled Our Lady's request and consecrated Russia in union with the bishops from all over the world. I will always wonder if the previous Popes enjoyed complete freedom not to have done the same thing, or if some kind of "ecumenical constraint" prevented them.
