March 30, 2024 - The Tucker Carlson Show
34:41
| 
| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Cardinal Gerhard Mueller is one of the most important and prolific Catholic theologians alive today. | ||
| In fact, he was the head at one point of the Vatican's doctrinal office. | ||
| He was ousted from his job several years ago, but he has continued to write and think about what is happening within the Catholic Church and within Christianity globally. | ||
| He's the author of the book The Power of Truth, and we are honored to have him join us today. | ||
| Your Eminence, thank you very much for agreeing to do this. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| If you wouldn't mind, give us, and by us I mean Catholics and non-Catholics alike, I'm not Catholic, but I'm interested, in where you think the Church and Christianity in general is moving right now, at the beginning of 2024. The situation in the different continents is different. | ||
| In Africa, we have the growing Christianity, also the Catholic Church. | ||
| They are very alive. | ||
| And with a good number of good bishops and priests and lay people, but we see in Europe and the United States, there we are experiencing a certain systematic dechristianization of the political ideological elite. | ||
| With the meaning that the old continent, old Europe, has an old-fashioned anthropology, a wrong understanding of what is the human being. | ||
| But we are, as Christians, convinced that we are creatures of God. | ||
| We have the vocation to become friends of God, sons and daughters of God, and that is the very best perspective. | ||
| We have as human beings also the hope that our death will not be the definite end of us because we are of all eternity. | ||
| We have this personal vocation to take part in the divine life and therefore we hope and we work for a renewal of true Christian thinking and life in Europe. | ||
| And in the United States, the northern part of the American continent, but also in Latin America. | ||
| And as you mentioned, not all Christians are Catholics, but we have to work together in the war in favor of life. | ||
| We have a strong war against life, the real. | ||
| Wars, military wars, but we have also wars against the human life, against the unborn children, against the old people. | ||
| This functional thinking, one is saying, if they are old, they cannot take part in the life, in the economy. | ||
| This life has not more deeper worth, but it's absolutely against our Christian conviction. | ||
| Everybody has a deep dignity which never he can lose. | ||
| That is for me the situation in this world. | ||
| We have also to fight for the dignity of everybody also. | ||
| The Chinese people, we cannot say there is a communist government, they have their own culture, but we are the heralds of the dignity of everybody in every country, and we have to work for the freedom, for social justice, and for the promoting of all human values. | ||
| That is the importance. | ||
| Of the Church, of all Christians, of the old Christianity, for the world of today and for our coming century. | ||
| And I think without the Christianity, there is no real hope for the humanity. | ||
| So the basis, thank you for that, the basis of what we call the West, Europe, Western Europe, the United States, Was the idea that all individuals are created by God. | ||
| Therefore, they have inalienable human dignity. | ||
| They have value that cannot be taken away by the state. | ||
| If governments no longer recognize that inherent value, if they no longer consider their citizens children of God, then what happens? | ||
| Yes, we have this basic opinion come in common with the Jewish people in the Old Testament. | ||
| New Testament is this one. | ||
| Basic religion and belief in the one God, the creator and redeemer of the world and of every body. | ||
| And we have certain approaches in the great Greek culture, in the Roman culture, but also not European pre-Christian cultures. | ||
| There are some ways, one steps, which are going to this basic conviction because we say in our Christian faith, and St. Paul said it, also without the revealed faith and truth, everybody with his reason, he can understand that we are creatures of God and that we are responsible. | ||
| In the eyes of God, because he is also at the end our judge. | ||
| We have to have the responsibility for our life. | ||
| And therefore, we must criticize all the governments and these ideologies behind it to make another definition of the human dignity. | ||
| It depends on our decision if another life is worth. | ||
| To continue, or not, the unborn has the same dignity as we, the born people, the sick, and the healthy people in what condition ever it might be, but everybody as a person has the same dignity and the same call for the eternal life in God. | ||
| And this is the testimony we have to give in the world of Today, where we see the great political powers in Russia or China or all this, | ||
| but also in the United States, we have these wrong ideologies behind, where the political power is not functioned in favor for the commonwealth of the people, but is only the power. | ||
| For themselves. | ||
| They are dreaming of a great Russian, of the old China, or the empire of the Turks in the past. | ||
| That is not the question today. | ||
| Today, we have to work together. | ||
| Everybody respecting all the people in the world. | ||
| And that is the only way for me and for many Christians. | ||
| To overcome this danger of a so-called third world war in what form as ever, but if we will have the third world war, that will be also the last world war. | ||
| This will be the end of our human community on this planet because the power of the weapons today are so... | ||
| Brutal and they can finish our human existence. | ||
| And that is absolutely against the will of God. | ||
| We are, in spite of the differences in our faith and our religions, we are on a basic element. | ||
| We are brothers and sisters of one God the Father. | ||
| The concept of brotherhood. | ||
| It's deepened in Jesus Christ and the Christian revelation, but with the beginning of the creation of our human existence, we are brothers and sisters, and everybody of us has his father and his mother, grandfather, grandmother, and so they're running along all the generations, and there we are biologically and culturally, we are linked in the one. | ||
| Mankind, and we must make the step-maker for a good development of mankind. | ||
| Also, we as Christians, we have to be the witness of the gospel in Jesus Christ. | ||
| It's good news. | ||
| It loves everybody. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| The world is on the brink of a global war, closer than it's been in our lifetimes, and yet I'm surprised by the lack of Christian voices opposing it. | ||
| Christians believe the incarnation of God, Jesus, said repeatedly in the gospel that turn the other cheek against war, against violence, against hurting your fellow man. | ||
| That's the Christian message. | ||
| So why have so few Christian leaders said anything, including, I have to say, your church, said anything about the war that is so clearly looming in the background or foreground? | ||
| There is a certain danger that the bishops or the Christian leaders or the lay people, they want to interfere in the politics. | ||
| They want to make politics. | ||
| What we have to do is to criticize the politicians and to remember them in their true office. | ||
| They have to work in favor of the people, but not for their own interests, for their own power or for their own ideology, which is behind. | ||
| And this, the Christianity must speak with one voice and be very It's clear not to play, interplay with these politicians, with the rulers of the world. | ||
| Jesus said among us must be different, not like the rulers of the world who abuse their power for their own interests, Herod, Pilate and all these rulers of the time of Jesus, but between us, among you, the disciples of Jesus Christ, Christ be different. | ||
| We have to be the servants of everybody to give a good example for the world. | ||
| Also the education of the politicians, young politicians. | ||
| We must make the universities, Christian universities. | ||
| We have to teach also the young people. | ||
| What is the importance of the politics? | ||
| What can we do if you go into politics? | ||
| Only for your own interests? | ||
| Or do you reflect that all your talents, all your gifts you have received by God, not only for you, but for your brothers and sisters, for your family, for your nation, for the culture in the world, for the exchange and change? | ||
| Cooperation in the diverse cultures and languages and to develop this understanding that we are belonging together and to have a responsibility one for another. | ||
| And we must teach it but also give a good example to be the model of the world. | ||
| The church must be the sacrament. | ||
| The sign and the instrument for the unity of mankind with God and the unity of mankind of everybody, all the people among themselves. | ||
| From the outside looking in, and I am, as I said, on the outside, I'm not a Catholic, but as an observer of the Catholic Church, the leadership of the Church seems to have changed quite a bit under the current Pope and does seem much more aligned with the global political movement, with progressive politics than at any time in the past. | ||
| Do you think that that's true? | ||
| That's also the history where we look 2,000 years back is what not the best Times and epochs when the popes or the bishops were too close to the politics and in the Middle Ages there was this understanding of the prince, bishops and so. | ||
| But I think that is not that what Jesus wanted. | ||
| He sent the apostles like... | ||
| Sheep among the wolves in this world without political power, only with the power of the word of God and the power of the grace of God, only God can change the heart of the people. | ||
| And with the word of God, with the holy sacraments, with the liturgy services, with the Christian education, with the Christian life, we can convince. | ||
| The people to live a moral life and not to abuse the political power. | ||
| And surely the Pope is a moral authority all over the world. | ||
| And he has some meetings with this so-called elite or the politicians, the leaders of the state. | ||
| But I think it's more important. | ||
| To admonish them and to say what is right and what is good and what is bad. | ||
| And therefore we must keep a certain distance to the political leadership and we must give a big contrast to the wrong ideologies which are behind. | ||
| The ideology of power, the ideology Of the denying of the difference between men and women, a wrong understanding of sexuality, of human anthropology. | ||
| And therefore, we have the better answer for all the challenges of today. | ||
| And I think It's not so good to give these people the impression they could use and abuse the papal authority for their ideas, | ||
| the so-called New World Order and the Agenda 2030. I think nobody is able to make a New World Order only with money and with political I think the so-called self-appointed elite, | ||
| they have not the intellectual and moral instruments for reshaping the world. | ||
| They are only interested in their money-making. | ||
| And if these people are in the first places in the Forbes list, that will not say. | ||
| That they have a special qualification for running the world. | ||
| Thank you for saying that. | ||
| Just because you're rich doesn't mean you're qualified to run the world, I think is what you're saying. | ||
| Just Jesus said it. | ||
| It's not my own personal opinion. | ||
| Jesus said a little bit in distance to the... | ||
| Only these people, not because they are rich, is not a problem to become in a good state. | ||
| We wish for everybody that he has a good position in this world, not suffering hunger or anything, and is able to give a good education for their children. | ||
| But we are in a certain distance, so these people... | ||
| Which are thinking because we are rich, we have more importance than the normal people of the middle classes. | ||
| And we can make the description and then we can say what they have to think, how they have to speak, what vocabulary they use, what they have to eat, and all this. | ||
| Tentation for these people to manipulate the world. | ||
| And that is against our culture, the democratic culture. | ||
| America must be the leadership in democracy for the free world, but with a moral renewal. | ||
| Also, the United States is very needed, a moral renewal and not only a struggle for the power, for the own power, but also a moral renewal against drugs, against all this abuse but also a moral renewal against drugs, against all this abuse of minors and all these wrong things of | ||
| And the change of her sexist agendas is absolutely stupid because God made an error. | ||
| When he created you or me or everybody as men or women in our personal, individual body, and that is a gift to be born as a man or as a woman, with all the possibilities for later, for the marriage and to become fathers and mothers, to live in the family. | ||
| And therefore, it is very important to teach the young people of the importance of their existence. | ||
| Everybody is loved by God and everybody is loved in his situation, in his condition as man, as male, female condition or in whatever condition he is born in Asia or Africa. | ||
| America, Europe, everybody has the same closeness, is the same closeness, friendship to God. | ||
| And that is the highest criteria for us, our personal relation to the personal dream God. | ||
| You said that the United States, as the country that's been the most powerful on earth for 80 years, Has a special obligation to behave in a way that's righteous, that's moral, and not to export evil around the world in the form of gender confusion or war. | ||
| That's obviously changed. | ||
| The United States is exporting those things. | ||
| Do you see a spiritual dimension to that? | ||
| Why do you think that is happening all of a sudden? | ||
| I have grown up in the time after the war. | ||
| But there were a lot of American soldiers in our region and also in our house. | ||
| They lived in American families and had the possibility also in the school to study the importance of the United States in the First and Second World War against all these dictatorships. | ||
| This tyrannies in Germany, in Russia, in Japan at these times. | ||
| And therefore, for us in our youth, America was a big example for the democracy. | ||
| Today, you say American first, I think it's a good word, but not in an egoistic sense, but America must take over. | ||
| His role in his own country, developing anthropological development of the young people and all the population, but also to take over his role in this world because we are threatened by anti-human powers where the party or the ideology is more important. | ||
| and the wealth and the good of their own people they want to make big expansions of their power all these wrong things which are leading to wars and to sufferings of millions and millions of people and therefore the united states has a historical mission to be the leaders of the Free world, | ||
| but not a domination in this, but with a good alliance with all these people who are living in the democracies, but all those who are looking for the life in a democracy, where the state works in favor of the population and not instrumentalize. | ||
| The population is making wars. | ||
| They are not interested in how many soldiers must die. | ||
| They are wounded and so. | ||
| Human beings cannot be instruments for some wishes to become bigger and richer and more powerful. | ||
| And we must be very, very clear. | ||
| And this conception of what is the human dignity and I think the United States with military power but also technological power with the good democratic ideas, values and to fulfill this mission in the free world that we are not living anew. | ||
| Under dictatorships and these totalitarian systems, but also it's a great task in the United States to overcome these tentations to become an Orwellian state, when one party wants to dominate with their ideology. | ||
| We all penetrate all the universities, all the mass media. | ||
| We need the diversity, we need a free discussion. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And not the slandering of the others. | ||
| They are from these ideas and so. | ||
| And ideology is always there. | ||
| The role of a true religion is not so understood. | ||
| And the substitute of religion, religion as a real friendship with God, but to think my ideas, my personal ideas must be the absolute point of absolute orientation. | ||
| That cannot be that One human being is dominating the other human beings. | ||
| We are brothers, we're on the same level, and we accept only one God above us. | ||
| And no power of human beings over other human beings. | ||
| May I ask you, you just said that we should fear... | ||
| Anti-human forces. | ||
| I think that's the phrase you used. | ||
| And I think that most people who are paying attention can feel, can intuitively understand what you're talking about. | ||
| But as a theologian, I'm wondering where you think these forces come from. | ||
| Could they be human? | ||
| If they were human, how could they be anti-human? | ||
| Where do you think these are from, these anti-human forces? | ||
| Yeah, we have a great interpretation of the revelation. | ||
| That God created all good in a good way. | ||
| The human being is a good reality, participation of his goodness. | ||
| But he created us all with our free will. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And made the proof. | ||
| If we have not only accepted the free will, but we have to realize our free will in the direction of the good. | ||
| And that is a great challenge. | ||
| For us, we can also fail. | ||
| And the internal tensions become more powerful, to live only for the money and all these temptations. | ||
| The Bible is speaking over these temptations. | ||
| They can overcome us. | ||
| And therefore, we need the grace, we need the word of God and our inner education. | ||
| Jesus Christ, the teacher, we are speaking also about the original sin, and the mankind in the beginning, then this wrong way, and we are living in this wrong heritage, but Jesus did overcome it, the redemption, and therefore he gave us the grace and the spiritual power in the Holy Spirit to live as good. | ||
| Humans and as good Christians. | ||
| And there's always spoken of the devil, an angel, a person created by God, but as fallen became the devil, and all the evil is coming from the devil. | ||
| And Jesus himself suffered this temptation. | ||
| By the devil. | ||
| And he said, I will give you all the richness of the world if you go down your knees and adore me. | ||
| And this is the situation of everybody, not to look to the goods of the world as such, but to look at the Creator, to love more the Creator than the creature. | ||
| And we can have to use. | ||
| The money for the development of the world, technological and the medicine, that all can overcome all the problematic things, illness and so, and sufferings. | ||
| But we have to use the things of the world for making the world better, to make better the conditions. | ||
| of our life. | ||
| We have all the great developments in the technology, but we can use these instruments for doing good wars and the super weapons, but we can use the same energy for developing a good industry and a good Economic system, | ||
| educational system, better to build a university than to make atomic weapons, nuclear weapons. | ||
| With the same possibilities, you can do good and do good bad. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's what we are saying, that the moral principles are above of the technological possibilities and they must rule it for the good of the mankind, for the wisdom of that the moral principles are above of the technological possibilities and My last question to you, clearly you think a lot about where the world is going and why. | |
| What do you think the West, that is, Europe and the United States, will look like a hundred years from now? | ||
| I'm not a prophet in this sense. | ||
| I cannot say what will be the future, but we can say God gave us enough reason and intellect to do in this moment the best that we can do and looking with great responsibility for a better future of the coming generations. | ||
| And I think Only with a renewal of a Christian understanding, which is our culture, without Christianity, the West is nothing. | ||
| It's only a territory, but without culture, without spirit, without identity. | ||
| And therefore, it's very important to look to the roots of our culture, The Greek philosophy, the Roman right, and together, | ||
| the New Testament, Christian and Jewish create a tradition, in spite of the differences we have, but the basis for this Western culture is the same. | ||
| The rest of the world, they have their own cultures, but we have great Christian culture in Asia, everywhere in Africa. | ||
| And now the number of Christians in Africa, I think, is bigger or the same, like in Europe. | ||
| It's not more Europe-centered, geographically Europe-centered world, but with the values coming out from our In the Oriental, in the Egyptian and Persian world, | ||
| in the old world, in the Christian world, that is the basis, the best basis for going to a better future. | ||
| And this is a question for us, if we are... | ||
| Tired and this will be the end, the apocalypsis of the Western Christian world. | ||
| That must not be. | ||
| With the help of the grace and with the gospel, the good news, we can prepare the way of the Lord. | ||
| And this is the salvation of the world, for the world. | ||
| To work for the unity of mankind and to give for everybody the hope that the bad things, the suffering, the death and the injustice of the richest and powerful against the poor and the normal people will not be the last word. | ||
| But the first word is a creation, and in Jesus Christ we have the last word of God, and he is our Savior. | ||
| Reminence, thank you very much for talking to us. | ||
| Cardinal Gerber. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| My pleasure for you all. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Free speech is bigger than any one person or any one organization. | |
| Societies are defined by what they will not permit. |
Export Selection