Posted on 07/17/2023 3:31:55 PM PDT by ebb tide
On this week’s episode of The Bishop Strickland Show, Bishop Joseph Strickland states that he is willing to suffer martyrdom, red or white, for defending the truths of the Catholic faith, and comments on the departure of about 500,000 Germans from the Catholic Church in 2022.
Bishop Strickland began the episode by responding to accusations of being a “rad trad,” explaining that all he ever does is “talk about Catholicism” and “read the Catechism out loud.”
“They use these things to shoot people down, because [most of] the people that are using the language of ‘rad trad’ … are saying all this Scripture needs to change, or the Catechism needs to change, or we have to develop beyond this,” he opined.
“The Truth doesn’t develop into some new entity, because the Truth is Jesus Christ,” His Excellency declared. “And that’s all I care to talk about, is Who He is, and the Light that He brings to the world.”
He further connected the discussion to St. Irenaeus of Lyons, a second century Father and Doctor of the Church, who wrote the book Against Heresies. “It really hasn’t changed,” said Strickland, comparing the second century Church’s fight against the Gnostic heresy with the current crises in the Church. “The labels change, the tactics change. But the Truth doesn’t change, and really, the false messaging … doesn’t change either.”
“I will die like Irenaeus if I have to, for proclaiming [the Truth of Jesus Christ],” Strickland stated. “Ignatius, Irenaeus, so many of the great martyrs that were threatened, and they were told, ‘Be quiet, or change your teaching, or you’re going to lose your life.’ They couldn’t change their teaching, neither can you [or] I.”
“I don’t expect to be martyred,” he continued. “It could happen, I guess. Anything could happen in this crazy world. But a bit of a white martyrdom is what we all have to be ready for.”
Later in the episode, Strickland offered comments on the loss of 500,000 Catholics from the Church in Germany in 2022.
Connecting the exodus with the heretical Synodal Way pushed by most of the German episcopate, His Excellency opined that most of the losses were not because of strictness in Catholicism, but because of the changes present in the Church, saying “they don’t want any part of it.”
“[The Church is] not going to change,” Strickland observed. “And that’s what we have to hold the line on.”
“Yes, we reach out to everyone, and we seem to have lost the idea [of] love the sinner but condemn the sin,” Strickland continued. “That’s just basic to proclaiming the Christian message. That’s what the missionaries did.” Connecting the discussion with the work of St. Junipero Sera in California, Strickland observed that the pagan Native Americans to whom Sera preached heard the good news of attaining Christian virtues and denying oneself as opposed to observing pagan practices.
“Take up your cross,” Strickland said. “Yeah. It’s going to be some suffering. It’s going to be hard, but follow Jesus. And that’s what we’ve got to continue to do. That’s what the Church will continue to do.”
To watch all previous episodes of The Bishop Strickland Show, click here to visit LifeSite’s Rumble page dedicated to The Bishop Strickland Show.
Ping
God bless this holy Cathonlic man!
I have heard he is the subject of a rare high-level Vatican investigation - the previous ones all ending in removal of the Bishop. Don’t have a reference.
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