Pints With Aquinas - Eastern Catholicism and The State of The War in Ukraine w/ Archbishop Borys Gudziak & Fr. Jason Charron

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Matt is joined by Ukrainian Catholic Archbishop Metropolitan Borys Gudziak and Fr. Jason Charron to give their perspective on the war in Ukraine. Join our locals community for open exclusive conversation and channel exclusives: mattfradd.locals.com Sponsors-- Exodus90: exodus90.com/matt Hallow: Hallow.com/matt This episode was previously available only to locals supporters, but due to its topical nature and in order to air out the heated discussion surrounding the topic we've made it publicly available. 

Ready? All right. Archbishop, Metropolitan, Boris. Did I say it right? Father Jason, Sean, lovely to have you both on the show. Matt Fried. Since we're saying first and last names. It's lovely to have you here. Thank you for your hospitality. Yes, that's an honor to have you with us. Help my Western Catholics understand your role in the church. Maybe they're unfamiliar with Eastern Catholic churches and my personal role of the role of my church.

Both. Let's start with you. Okay. So I serve as a bishop in Philadelphia. That aparchy is actually an arch-aparchy. So it's a diocese that is an arch-diocese. As Archbishop, I am responsible for the territory of my arch-aparchy, but as Metropolitan, I serve as a person of unity of the three other aparchies. So we have four aparchies, four dioceses in the United States. We have 200 parishes from coast to coast. And we struggle as best as we can to live the gospel

and share the good news. The Ukrainian Catholic Church is one of the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches. So there's the big Roman Catholic Church, which is probably at least 90% of Catholics, and the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, who have their historical origin in the Middle East, North Africa, India, or the Balkans and Slavic countries. They constitute a small percentage, but a great rich diversity. They belong to the Byzantine family. So the Bulgarians and Greeks and the Eastern Catholics in Serbia, Croatia, the Romanians, those in Slovakia and Poland, and those in Ukraine, and the Ukrainian

Eastern Catholic Church is the biggest of the 23. They're all from the Malinkars. I haven't mentioned all of them. And then you have those from the Alexandrian tradition in North Africa, mostly two churches, the Coptic Catholics, who would be in Egypt, and the Ethiopian Catholics. We have, you know, in the United States, a sense of written history that goes back, let's say 400 years or 500 years. These are churches that many of them who are apostolic in origin, founded by apostles.

St. Thomas went out to India, according to Christian tradition. St. Mark went to North Africa. Legend has it that St. Andrew went to Keefe and announced that here Christianity would flourish. The flourishing happened actually almost a thousand years later. But it's a rich two thousand year history of spiritual experience of people encountering Christ, people praising God, of people asking for the forgiveness of their sins, of people hoping an eternal life, that is expressed in many languages, in many forms, with beautiful liturgy, with great hospitality,

with liturgy flowing over to a table where the cup at the Eucharist becomes also a continuation in the cup of wine at a wedding. So it's good to be an Eastern Christian. How many of these churches have been in union with Rome from the beginning? And how many came back into union with Rome when after the Protestant revolt? So what happened to explain this to people that don't know the history? We have to think of time We have to think of time or times when there was no, no faxes. Young people don't even know what faxes are. Even that's too antiquated. Yes.

Text messages. No printing and no text messages, no telegraph, no trains, no planes. We know how easy it is in a family to separate brothers and sisters. There are some brothers and sisters that don't talk. Probably not among our audience, but there is sometimes husband and wife separate. We have miscommunication. Unfortunately, because the sin of Adam and because of our little desire to grab for ourselves in the history of the Church, the little isolationisms, the little particularisms have led over centuries to cultural and eventually even dogmatic distancing. And if the joy of the gospel was something that was spreading in the first centuries through persecution, or despite persecution, that spread also involved a certain diversification.

And diversity is beautiful. But diversity can also turn into difference and disdain. And in 1054, there was a mutual excommunication between the Greek East and the Latin West. In fact, before there were divisions as well. Discussions on the Trinity, the identity of Jesus, the identity of Mary. In some churches using different languages, of Mary. In some churches using different languages, unfortunately, historically, we now see that they were saying the same thing, but very easily by limited people, by people who insist on their own way of saying

things, this diversity became difference, and the difference could turn into disdain, and that could turn into mutual recrimination. And so divisions developed in the one family of Jesus, and some of the churches in the East lost their connection, their communion, their spiritual unity with the Church of Rome, which all of the churches recognized as the first among equals, at least. In the second millennium, some of these churches

that lost communion with Rome or parts of some of these churches, through complex processes, each different in each location, decided to reestablish communion with Rome with Ukrainian Catholic Church that happened in 1596. And if you're… I'd love to know Church that happened in 1596. And if you're... I'd love to know how that happened. Well, I've got a book on 400 pages. If you look up my name, Borys Kudzak, Crisis and Reform, the cave in Metropolitan, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the Genesis of the Union of Breast.

It was through the Union of of breast that the church in Ukraine and in Belarus, which was the part of the one key of in metropolitan eight through its leadership decided to enter or reenter into communion with Rome. It's not that simple because some of the Church decided not to do it and there subsequently is a split in Ukraine between the Eastern Christians who are in communion with Rome and those who are not. They're called Orthodox. Now because of Russian occupation in different centuries, in the 18th, in the 19th, in the 20th century, every time there was a Russian occupation,

the Eastern Catholic Church in that newly occupied territory was sooner or later wiped out in the 18th century, in the 19th century, in the 20th century, and we're seeing it in the 21st. Just four weeks ago, two redemptorist priests were arrested by the Russian occupation authorities, and the information is that they're being tortured in order to force them to admit that they were intending to be involved in terrorist anti-Russian activity. Why is the Ukrainian Catholic Church a threat to Russia? Or is it a threat to Russia? There's many reasons for that. And there have been different reasons in different times, but often there's a commonality in that rationale.

In totalitarian times, which ended for me in the middle of my life, you know, 33 years ago, the big difference or two big differences was one that the Ukrainian Catholic Church was in communion with Rome. It had a center of orientation outside of the Soviet Union and it couldn't be totally controlled. And totalitarianism wants total control over your person, over your thoughts, over your

emotions, over your family, over your education and over your church. Fair enough. So what about the Orthodox in Ukraine? How does Russia view them? And what are they referred to as the are they Russian Orthodox in Ukraine? Or what are the Orthodox Christians called in Ukraine? Who is their patriarch? There are different Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, and they've had a different nomenclature at different times.

Today, there are two big basic groups. The official nomenclature, and this will not make it easier for our listeners, is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. And the other one is called the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is actually under Patriarch Kirill in Moscow, who is blessing and encouraging an Orthodox jihad, a so-called Orthodox jihad. There's nothing Orthodox, there's nothing Christian in it, in the killing of children, the destruction of cities, the castration of POWs, the serial rapes of women that appear, that get caught in the occupation. This is- Mason, when you say his, did he use that language? What language did he use?

He used the language that our soldiers who go in this war against Ukrainians will be absolved of their sins if they die. Yeah, I did see that. This is a war, it's a holy war. It's the kind of language that is used by radical Islamists who say, go, you can die, and you will go to heaven. So the, okay. So the Orthodox who are under the Russian Patriarch are not seen as a threat. No, they are. They are.

Yeah. They are precisely the ones that there's a big question, you know, how can you be under the Patriarch of Moscow? I see. Who is proclaiming Yes. a Russian Jihad. And be with the Ukrainians. And say that you are preaching the kingdom of God.

I guess the analogy would be here in the United States, you know, at the time of independence, is you had the Anglican church, and there were those Anglicans who did not want to break from the King and they kept the name and the ennomenclature of the Church of England. And then those who broke off and they kept the same theology and structure and worship, but they called themselves the Episcopal Church, which we have today. So their ecclesiology and their tradition are one and the same,

but one was a question of governance, and they wanted to be directly dependent upon the King of England. And that's the same with Orthodoxy in Ukraine, is that there's a school of Orthodoxy which says we don't want to be dependent upon Moscow, we are our own church and we're in communion with Constantinople Patriarch Bartholomew. Those that are under communion with Kareel in Moscow are what we would call here the Russian Orthodox. Well, I guess that's what I was asking. The Orthodox in Ukraine who are under Kareel not being persecuted or in Ukraine, I guess everyone in Ukraine.

Right now what is happening is since this war is so devastating, since it has genocidal intent, Putin says there was no Ukraine, there is no Ukraine and there will be no Ukraine. And we see what most people outside cannot fathom is the fact that Ukrainians have a vivid memory of the fact that 15 million people were killed in Ukraine in the 20th century. And a large part of that is the different policies of rulers from Moscow. I might not be being clear one more time. So you've said whenever Russia has occupied Ukraine, the Ukrainian Catholics have been expelled or crushed. Well, but what orthodox in Ukraine

are the Russians happy? Why do they let them exist and go about their business and open churches? happy? Why do they let them exist and go about their business and open churches? RL So where they occupy territory, they favor and let function those under their jurisdiction. The others, for example, Jehovah's Witnesses are outlawed in Russia. Crimean Tatars in Crimea who are Muslim are persecuted. Greek Catholic priests are arrested. Now this might not be from, you know, Monday to Tuesday, but if you look historically, whether it's in a day or a year or 10 years, every time there's an occupation Ukrainian Catholics get crushed and any Orthodox Church who aren't under Karel or Moscow also gets the taste.

Are there Western Catholics in Ukraine 1% of the population, the Roman Catholics. And they also do not usually fare well under Russian occupation. Since they are small, they're not the first target. since they also generally are of Polish background of Hungarian background they don't represent the Ukrainian threat but there are now many Ukrainians who are Roman Catholic and there are great Patriots and the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church also are against this war and support the defense of the innocent. So Kirill is a puppet of Putin then? Well, it's a Russia when Putin was nobody.

Kirill, already in the 70s, was sent out by the Russian Orthodox Church, which means, with the blessing of the KGB, to represent the Russian Orthodox Church in peace talks. For example, peace talks or congresses where American armaments and nuclear weapons were criticized. So Kirill has been somebody, he's part of the Russian Orthodox Church, which claims to have a millennial history, although its early history is actually in Ukraine, whereas Putin comes from the KGB. Putin was a functionary in the Soviet period. Kirill, in the depth of his mind, would look down on Putin. We are the carriers of the tradition,

the Russian Orthodox Church. You were a functionary mid-level in Soviet times. In the early 90s, Putin carried the briefcase of the mayor of St. Petersburg. He was a mediocre person, but the tables have shifted. Putin has become a totalitarian ruler, and Kirill's church today is also under that cloud.

The unfortunate thing is that Kirill is a Christian, a preacher of the Gospel. A supposed representative of Jesus has taken on the language of empire, of power, of war, of bloodshed. He is sold out. These are strong words from a bishop about a bishop. He is sold out. These are strong words from a bishop about a bishop. Well we've had bishops sell out in the Western Church too, so it's not something unique to – Yeah, and I hope I don't sell out.

Me too. Maybe the Lord will judge me and say, buddy, you know, your sins aren't so small. But Kirill's status is, or position is egregious. It's public. It's undisputable. And it's scandalous. And today, thousands of Orthodox intellectuals, 2,000 Orthodox intellectuals have signed a statement, a theological analysis of Kirill's ideological construct called the Russian world, which is really the manipulation of the gospel for empire it's something

that around the world these 200 intellectuals 2000 intellectuals they've said this is heresy this has nothing to do with the gospel of the patriarchs no these are mostly intellectuals mostly yeah. Mostly, yeah, Orthodox theologians, priests, etc. Most of them outside of Russia because those in Russia dare not. The Russian Orthodox Church has only about 300 clergy members out of 40,000 who have signed a petition condemning the war, condemning this violence, this bloodshed, this genocide. So out of 40,000 clergy only 300 have signed a declaration condemning. Approximately 300.

Within Russia? Or only half of them are in Russia the others are outside Kirill clamps down on Russian Orthodox priests that speak against the war they are relieved of parishes and are subject to other forms of persecution. This is, it's almost inconceivable. We heard Pope Francis divulge somewhat later what he told Kirill in a Zoom conversation. He said, you cannot be the altar boy of Putin. When that became public, Kirill basically stopped the so-called dialogue with Pope Francis. And Pope Francis has been increasingly explicit. Yesterday he broke down crying in the middle of his talk in front of the Spanish steps.

There's, for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, there's a special prayer before a statue in Piazza di Spagna in Rome and he started speaking about the children in Ukraine who are being killed, who are suffering, who are becoming orphans, and he just started crying and for 30 seconds he couldn't speak. Kirill is not crying. Kirill is speaking about a jihad. And this is what is being examined by the Ukrainian authorities. The church that is under Kirill, that is not breaking with him,

that is not saying Kirill, what you say and what you do is killing our people, is being examined because there are collaborators. And the real paradox is that a plurality of the people that are being killed, if they belong to a church, they belong to the Moscow Patriarchate Church, they were baptized in that church. A plurality of the people being killed by the Russians are Russian speakers because the invasion, as everybody knows, is in the east and in the south. Mariupol, the city of Mary that was devastated, a city of 400,000 which was besieged, deprived of, you know, water, electricity. And this was at the tail end of the winter this year,

where between 20 and 100,000 people were killed. Nobody knows because the Russians brought in incinerating cremation machines. They would just put the bodies into these mobile crematorias. So nobody will ultimately ever know how many people were killed. And they would just put the bodies into these mobile crematorials. So nobody will ultimately ever know how many people were killed. This city was the most Russian speaking city of Ukraine. And the Russians came to liberate them, liberate them from life, liberate them from their homes,

liberate them from their homes, liberate them from their very city. It's really unfathomable. And the big difference is there have been genocides throughout human history. This sin of Adam, Adam grabs, God gives. He said, Adam, you got it all. It's all yours. Live and live with me forever. Just Adam, don't grab for the fruit from that tree because it'll kill you.

And what does Adam do? He turns away from the word of the Lord and makes the grab. That is the typology of sin, doing this instead of living like this. This is empire. This is colonialism. This is slavery. When I say I own you, you have to live as I say. Whereas God does this. This is the gesture of the Father to the Son in the Holy Spirit. Communion and giving.

It is unfathomable that a Christian leader, a Christian church today in the 21st century Christian Church today in the 21st century is preaching the grab and saying, you belong to us. The Russian world, everywhere the Russian army is set its its boot, this will be the territory of the Russian Orthodox Church. And people are rebelling about that, against that. And that is what is stimulating the investigation of the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. And this is where Mr. Carlson, Tucker Carlson, who has a big pulpit is... I missed this. What did he say? Tucker Carlson said that President Zelensky, in moving against the collaboration of the Orthodox Church that is allied with Kyryl, who is proclaiming jihad against Ukraine.

Zelensky is a dictator. Zelensky is persecuting Christianity. Now there's a lot of Christians. There's about a hundred different groupings, many Protestant groupings, the Eastern Catholics, the Roman Catholics, the big two Orthodox jurisdictions. There's Jews, they're Orthodox, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and the confessions get along in Ukraine. There's the all Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations,

which has been in existence for 25 years, which almost does not have a parallel in other countries The churches get together every six months the head of one of these religious confessions is is the leader I Think it's I think it's the Armenian. I'm not sure but right now the head of the Armenian Church Orthodox Church and But I could be wrong, sorry, check, check, fact checkers. And they don't talk about doctrine, they talk about the social issues. There's great, great plurality, great diversity,

but great solidarity in Ukraine. The problem is if one of the churches abets the aggression, if one of the churches historically, for centuries, and in recent decades decades and in recent years has paid allegiance to Moscow, that can be tolerated if Moscow is neutral. But if the head of the Russian Orthodox Church is blessing the killing in Ukraine. There's a big, big problem, which is a spiritual problem, and it's also a state problem.

So what is it, in fact, that Zelensky did with this church? So Zelensky has said that we need to move in the direction that churches that have their administrative center in Moscow cannot have a legal existence in Ukraine. Okay. And from all you've shared with me, that sounds more than reasonable. And so Carlson is, in your estimation, twisting this to make it seem like Zelensky is going to war with Christians, which feeds into the larger narrative of Ukraine being a leftist, westernized.

He's applying the standard in civil and free societies during peacetime that we would expect to Ukraine during wartime. So basically the liberties that we would accord to any denomination, you know, the Seventh Street Baptist Church in Allentown, Pennsylvania, you know, that they would have the same liberties accorded to them as the Orthodox and the Baptist Church in town. During wartime, if it turns out that Seventh Street Baptist Church is an active collaborator with the Communist Party of China, well, they can expect to have some of their liberties rescinded and there's going to be some visitation from the police. And that's the same thing that's happening in Ukraine, that it's a nation at war and not just at war,

but it's fighting for its very existence. The dishonesty of Carlson is he doesn't explain it all. He doesn't say that Kyrgyz is blessing the war. He doesn't say that Kyrgyz has said, listen Russian soldiers, if you die attacking Ukraine, you will go to heaven he doesn't speak about the fact that all these atrocities are being accepted and encouraged implicitly by the center of the Russian Orthodox Church. And it's as if it's as if, you know, we're on equal footing. Ukraine is a peaceful country.

It declared its independence in 1991. It was a plebiscite over 90% of the population, 91 point something percent of the population voted for independence. In 1994, Ukraine, with Belarus and Kazakhstan, became the first countries to ever give up nuclear weapons. Nobody's done it before and nobody's done it since. Ukraine had about 900,000 soldiers in 1991. 900,000. 900,000. Okay.

By 2014, that was down on paper to about 150,000, of which 10% were battle ready. So when Russia annexed Crimea and invaded Eastern Ukraine, there were only 15,000 battle ready troops. Now those who have been in the army or are in the army, veterans who can still continue defending the country and those who are on the front or otherwise in dislocation, it's a million people because Ukrainians are flocking to their defense of the innocent, of the cities, of their families, of their businesses.

Ukraine does not want one square inch of Russian territory. Ukraine has no interest in. Keeping Russians from speaking Russian. Orthodox being Orthodox. But Ukrainians today have said empire is over. Colonization is over. We're not going to be slaves. The Russians are not going to tell us what to do.

No matter how many nukes they have, no matter how much oil they have, we have God-given dignity. We are loved by the Lord and we're recognizing this dignity and we're not going to bow our heads before a slave owner. Can you imagine Americans becoming a colony of Britain, Algeria,

France, Peru, of Spain? Can you imagine blacks saying we will enter into slavery again, Ukrainians are saying it's over. It's over. And it's liberty or death. We fear Russian occupation more than we fear nuclear war. Nuclear war might not happen, but we know what Russian occupation is. In the 20th century, it was one genocidal waiver after another. Millions of people killed in the 30s, in the 40s. That's why the resolve is so strong and that's why the solidarity is so strong. But it's also so strong

because Catholics have been a yeast, they've been a salt in this bread. It's a question of Catholic social doctrine. Do you know the main principles of Catholic social doctrine? From Pope Leo XIII? Starting with Pope Leo XIII. It's God-given human dignity, it's solidarity, it's subsidiarity, and it's a common good. And the Ukrainian Catholic Church, the head of which who was particularly close to Pope Leo the 13th,

as a young man, he met with him. Metropolitan Andrei Shiptitsky, Andrew Shiptitsky, who was head of the church from 1901 to 1944, systematically in a way that you would do, little bits, little three-minute sections, you know, you do it on video, he did it with pastoral letters, proposed the verities, the truths, the life-giving message of Catholic social doctrine. He created collect, what do you call it, cooperatives. He encouraged people to recognize their own dignity because Ukrainians didn't have a free state at that time. In over subsequent decades the Ukrainian Catholic Church from 1945 to 1989 was the biggest illegal church in the world, suppressed by Russian

communism. When it came out of the underground it came out with incredible moral authority because it didn't collaborate with the with the Soviets And so in the 90s 2000s and in the last decade Slowly, but systematically it has been proposing God given human dignity solidarity Subsidiarity, you know what subsidiary is. Yes now for for the listeners and viewers You know what subsidiarity is. For the listeners and viewers, subsidiarity means making decisions at the lower level.

Not saying, oh, somebody up there, a Tsar, a president, a CEO is dictating down what we do in Steubenville. Because when you work in a manner of subsidiarity, it gives responsibility and authority to everybody. Yes. I mean, you see this in your own family. I want my children to sort things out amongst themselves. If I was to sort everything out for them, they would be malformed adults one day. And this is why David is standing up to Goliath in Ukraine.

The Russian military budget five years ago was 20 times as big as that of Ukraine. They're over armed, but Ukrainian soldiers are working in a way of subsidiarity. I didn't, you know, Father, I didn't realize this until I came to New York. I went to Ukraine five times since February. I went to Ukraine five times since February. And after the fourth time, I landed in New York, walked the streets, I said, wait a second, I didn't see this in Ukraine. There's no people lying on the street corners in Ukraine. There's 14 million people that have been forced out of their homes,

but nobody is lying on the street. There's nobody dying of hunger. The poor are sharing. People are opening up their houses. We heard that Poland accepted four million Catholic Poland. That's an effective Catholic social doctor. I got to be there on the border of Ukraine. Where was it back in last March or May? Yeah, beginning of March. This March.

And seeing how many people showed up from all around Europe offering car seats to take people. It was very sad, but very beautiful. We were visiting a Catholic in Poland and he received a phone call from someone who said, you know, I need a place to put up this family of four. And he said, well, give me give me a couple minutes and I'll call you back, I'll find someone. And two minutes went by and he called the person back and said, I think I found someone.

And the person said, no, we've got about three or four other families here that are willing to take them in. There's no central organizing committee in Poland that's why it's here. Yeah. It's subsidiarity. It's solidarity. It's a recognition of God given human dignity and it's the common good. And you can see this in Ukraine, Poland accepted 4 million. There's a million in, in, in Germany, 300,000 new immigrants in Italy, 200,000 in England. But what most of you don't realize is that Ukrainians have accepted 7 million.

There's 7 million internally displaced people, 14 million people who have been pushed out of their homes, that's one-third of the population. That's as if 110 million Americans had to leave their homes. And this is blessed by Putin, not blessed, but this is instigated by Putin. This is blessed by Kirill and Tucker Carlson has become an advocate of this, a defender of this. Tucker Carlson is the most quoted television journalist in Russia. Now, to be fair, is he advocating the direct invasion of Russia into a sovereign state, or is he misrepresenting what's taking place in Ukraine? He's misrepresenting what's taking place in Ukraine, which means misrepresenting what the Russians are doing.

He's not speaking the truth, the full truth, and nothing but the truth. Do you think he's unaware or do you think he's lying? Both. I think- I don't know if that's possible. Well, how is it? Well, you can be unaware of some things and lie about others. I see.

I think I think the man is is a big problem for this country. Can I ask you to try to steal man some of the arguments you've heard? I know you feel very strongly about this and I'm not trying to push back to be antagonistic but there are many conservatives in the United States who think that Ukraine somehow directly or indirectly incited Russia or if that's not true and if Russia is ultimately to blame that we shouldn't be pretending that it's as clear cut as Russia bad, you know, Ukraine saintly. Whatever your actual opinion is of this, do you think you could steal man? Do you know what I mean by that?

Give us the best argument. Yeah. Because my, my fear is if you're unable to do that, then not me, but others will think, well, then you haven't really taken the argument seriously. Right. but others will think well then you haven't really taken the argument seriously. Right. I think that the best steel man argument that the other side presents is that Ukraine provoked this war by cozying up to NATO. Yeah. I don't think that is a strong argument because in a society, in a world in which there are free people and free nations who are able to decide their own destiny, that that is what happens. Isn't the point of NATO to withstand Russia?

Isn't that one of the primary points of it? It is. It is. And I think there's my response to the steelman argument is that there's a good reason why Russia's neighbors would like to join NATO. I see. And if the people who are arguing against Ukraine are people who are living in the comfort of their homes in Atlanta or Milwaukee,

um, they happen to, uh, enjoy the benefit of a, of a free and sovereign nation here. Why do they not extend that same standard to Estonia, Ukraine, other countries. So I think that's the best argument that can be put forward on their side, but I don't think it stands up. Especially when you take into consideration the history of persecutions from Russia into Ukraine, which maybe we don't realize, we don't remember. You've talked about these genocides that have taken place. This isn't something that's just now happened,

but the history's been rosy up until now. I'm just looking at Father Jason and you know, we know each other decades. And his wife was a student of mine. They have seven sorry if I speak about a brutal hypothesis. They're beautiful young ladies. And these beautiful young ladies, not with any immodesty, walk down the street, and because they're so beautiful, somebody decides to rape them.

walk down the street and because they're so beautiful somebody decides to rape them. That is the provocation that Ukraine offers to Russia. It is a country of black earth, the most fertile land in the world. It is a country of high education. When it became independent in 1991, the illiteracy rate of the United States was higher than that of Ukraine. It built the biggest airplane in history. It had the biggest ballistic missile factory. It was advanced in the sciences and engineering. Yes, it was crippled by a communist ideology, by genocidal waves, by the total control of the humanities, of

philosophy, of history, of journalism, but it was a country with great riches, a great market. And if you can imagine this being the Soviet Union, Ukraine would be under my two fingers here in the corner. Russia is 28 times as big as Ukraine. It's got 11 time zones. Can you imagine four time zones of the US? Four time zones and then you imagine four time zones of the US? Four time zones and then do it almost three times. What is so insatiable in the Russian cultural identity, that pathology of empire that says, no, we want that 29th part. We've got all those tundras, the tigers, the oil, the gas, but we're going to grab Ukraine. And if they don't want to be part of us, we're going to kill them. We're going to call them

Nazis. Because if you call somebody a Nazi today, they're a monster and monsters can be killed. Yeah. What are they saying? What's the kind of standard talk about why Russia is taking over Ukraine? Presumably it's not because we want all their cool stuff. Can I answer that very briefly? I went down to Crimea back in 1999 and I got to know a Russian who was vacationing there and he was speaking with my wife and he didn't hide any of his views towards Ukrainians. And he said to her that they hate the Ukrainian farmer and he was very honest, simply because they had more

Think about that it's just pure envy is the Ukrainians never had Lived under a system why shouldn't say they never had it but the czars exacted enormous costs out of their peasantry the Ukrainians had this opportunity that was unique to them, and that their farmers, who they later called the Soviets called the Kulaks, farmers could do well for themselves and they could prosper relative to their counterparts

in Russia. And I think there's just a deep spiritual, a spirit of animosity and envy. I don't know if you would share that view, but his honesty to me, this man, this Russian man back in 1999, has always stayed with me. There's a pathology of lording it over, that sin of Adam, that typological sin of grabbing something that is not yours. Deep in Russian cultures, most Russians, 70% of Russians support this war. And I told you what the statistics are of the clergy. Less than 1% has spoken out against this war. And the top clergy is gangbusters behind it.

700 university presidents in Russia have supported this war in a petition. Of course it was organized by the government. Of course they're forced, but is there nobody that's willing to swim against the current? There are some, but they've been quashed. They're a marginal minority so far. That could change because people are losing money, oligarchs are losing hundreds of billions of dollars, people's lives in Russia is getting worse because of this war. That's what I hear. I was just in Rome and chatting with a young Russian woman and she said our culture was beginning to thrive again and now everything is being decimated.

Because totalitarianism does that. Sin does this. Killing, bloodletting eats you up. It cannot be a way of developing, of flourishing, of progressing. It's not the Lord's will. And what Ukrainians have to do at this point, because it is now or never, they have to help Russians free themselves of the pathology of empire, the pathology of colonialism, the pathology of slavery, because it is bad for Russians. But the price for Ukrainians' therapy of Russia is tens of thousands of deaths, and all of us have friends who have been killed.

Six of the students of the Ukrainian Catholic University graduates have been killed and six fathers or brothers of our staff or students. If you go to Ukraine, and as I said, I went five times, every time you come into your hometown or your city, you see the rows of graves multiplying. It's throughout the country and yet nowhere throughout Ukraine or in the nine other countries that I visited refugees in. Poland, I was there five times, Romania for a week, France twice, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Canada, nowhere in the US. And I've been coast to coast in these last

months, did I meet a Ukrainian that said, we've got to make a compromise. We've got to give up some of our territory because people realize that Putin and those who think like him, if they're giving a respite, if they have a pause, they're just going to rearm and do it again in a year, in five years, in 10 years. And this problem needs to be solved once and for all. How does the war end in your view? What's going to happen? In the defeat of evil, just like World War II had to end with the defeat of Nazism. And what didn't happen after communism fell in the Soviet Union, because it didn't fall

in China. What didn't happen with communism as it fell in Western Europe was a Nuremberg trial, where in a legal and historical way, the atrocities, the war crimes, the crimes against humanities were named, they were judged, and there were sentences given. Not for everybody, not everybody was embraced. But just look today, nowhere in the world can you present yourself as a Nazi and progress in business, in politics, social life, culture, education. You are a pariah if you are a Nazi. That should be the case with communism. It should be the case with Russian imperialism. There are 193 ethnic nations and groups according to Wikipedia in the Russian Federation in those 11 time zones. Some of them are quite small. Some of them have been reduced to great humiliation by great humiliation like American native tribes.

Some of them are quite sizable. Turkic nations, Islamic peoples. All of those have been living under empire and all of those have God-given human dignity and all of those have a right to speak their languages, practice their tradition, pray to the Lord in the way they choose. This is something that Empire squashes, Empire amalgamates and people in Ukraine are saying we're not going to be subject to that anymore. A quick question, Your Grace, is that this war ends today and let's say, you know, Russia implodes. Ukraine turns to Europe. Is there a danger of the the church and culture in Ukraine carte blanche

accepting the secularism of Europe, perhaps in gratitude for Europe's assistance in overcoming this unjust war? And are people in Ukraine aware of the danger posed by secularism of the EU? The correct question. So Ukraine is, you know, kind of a complex society and they're, you know, not all Ukrainians go to church. Most Ukrainians are believers. Most Ukrainians have some kind of allegiance to one church or one religious group or another, uh, more so than in Russia. For example, in Russia,

the practice of the Orthodox in Russia, the regular practice of the population is one to two percent. Wow. In Ukraine, it depends on which areas it's between 10 and 30 percent. Wow. One or two percent. That is looking at the optics. You wouldn't think that. Well, the optics is people like Tucker Carlson won't clarify for you. Putin has been in power for 22 years.

And Russia at the beginning of Putin's reign and at the end today is the leader in abortions in the world. Wow. Russia has by far the highest number of abortions in the world. Russia has by far the highest number of abortions in the world. Putin, the defender of traditional values, has done nothing. Russia is the leader in divorce, in alcoholism, in suicide, in depression. I mentioned divorce. Putin announced his divorce during the Year of the Family in Russia.

He is known to have mistresses. And conservative Christians in the United States think Putin is a defender of traditional Christian values. It's really easy to have the wool pulled over your eyes if you want your wool, the wool pulled over your eyes. And especially have people like Tucker, I'm really going after him because it's a question of life and death for millions of Ukrainians. But it's also a question of the rest of the 21st century. And this collaboration, this spouting of Russian rhetoric in the land of the free and the brave in the United States is simply scandalous. We're only waking up to the magnitude of the struggle.

But it is, it is people right here in Pennsylvania who feel it. They've got a gut sense. Most Americans have a gut sense of where the truth is and where the battle lies. And I want to express great gratitude to Americans in the name of Ukrainians. And they tell me when I come back to the states, say thank the Americans, thank them for their support, for their humanitarian aid, for the economic support,

and particularly for the support of our defense. We understand that Americans know we yearn for the best in American tradition, for that freedom, for the democracy, for the responsibility, for the solidarity that has been part of this culture. Yes, there are problems in America. There are problems in Europe. There are issues. But my voice on the big revolutionary stage, the so-called Maidan, the square in 213-214,

where sometimes a million people assembled, was, listen, brothers and sisters in Ukraine, we want association with Europe because we want to move away from the totalitarian legacy that Russia represents we can enter Europe the European community we are European Ukraine Jack or geographically is in Europe but the question of the European community we can enter only as contributors, not as those who have an outstretched hands and say, you know, we want better roads, we want better hospitals, we want the non-corrupt judicial system. No, we've got to come and give something.

And I think people are understanding what Ukrainians can give. They're giving courage. They're giving sacrifice. People who are ready to give their lives for values, for principles, do not think that this is the end. People who are willing to give their lives believe in eternity. They believe in God. They believe that there is something bigger than just my little body, my short little chronology. And that is inspiring people in Europe. It's making people think. I lived in Western Europe in Paris, serving Ukrainian Catholics in France,

Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Switzerland from 2012 to 2019. And I saw the disintegration of many things. Today that Europe is mesmerized by this stand, by this courage. Are all Ukrainian saints? Of course not. Are all Ukrainians to be Ukrainian Saints? Of course not. Are all Ukrainians to be canonized? Of course not. Tucker Carlson attacks President Zelensky. I hope Tucker Carlson sometime could grow to the stature of a man that stands for his people with courage, willing to sacrifice his life. He was the first on the Russian hit list.

But I don't canonize Zelensky. He's a man. I'm a man. I'm a sinner. But the people in Ukraine are saying in the 21st century when we've deconstructed almost everything, first century when we've deconstructed almost everything, when there's a dictatorship of relativism, when everybody says, well, there's your perspective and my perspective, Ukrainians saying, oh, no, no, buddy. It's not all like that. It's not all relative. There's truth and there's falsehood. There's good and there's absolute evil. And you know what? I'm willing to risk my life for it. And tens of thousands have already given up their lives.

And Mr. Carlson and all those who think like you and spout the hateful Russian rhetoric, you just think about that a little bit. Think about it. What are some things that Americans do practically to help Ukrainians? Three things. Very clear. First of all, pray. Prayer moves mountains. There's a God over us. Don't us worry. We need to do what we can, but the Lord and his truth will prevail. And we need to be open to God, to his grace, to his truth, his strength, his power, his presence, especially now before Christmas. So the first thing is to pray. On that point, did you tell the archbishop about what my daughter was doing no I didn't.

So when I went to. Poland earlier in the year I was telling my daughter's what father Jason was doing my beautiful Chiara put on a little bracelet to. Pray for the Ukrainians every day and she said she won't take it off until the war ends. Fast forward to about two weeks ago, so this is months and months after, she was getting a photo shoot for gymnastics and they said everyone's going to take off there if they have anything. And she said, I can't do it. It would be a sin. I had totally forgotten. I said, what do you mean? She had made a promise to God that I wouldn't take it off until. So you got a beautiful 12 year old girl, Chiara

Luce praying for the Ukrainian. So prayer is number one. You know, the Soviet Union fell apart because of moral strength, moral factors of the spirit. And God's truth will prevail if we allow God's truth to be part of our lives. The second thing is to be critically informed, to know the facts and to form others.

Where's the best place to go do that? Well, there's many sources. It's hard to trust any news outlet these days to be objective. Well, you know, I might challenge some of your readers. I will tell you that the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post have been very good on this issue. And just because they might be wrong on many others it doesn't mean they have to be wrong on this one. That's right. But there are many many sources and maybe I can give you you know a list of links that you can share with your audience. So be informed and inform others. And the third thing is

help. 14 million people have been forced from their homes. There are refugees who are looking for sponsors to receive them in the United States. You can become a sponsor. A few people or a community, a parish, can become sponsors. I asked each of the 196 Catholic bishops, ordinary bishops, those who are head of diocese, to accept at least one family in their diocese We can send aid there's a Plethora of organizations in the u.s. There that are assisting we have a metropolitan

humanitarian fund We've sent over More than six million dollars of aid and we do it quickly. We know people on the ground. There's three thousand Ukrainian Catholic parishes and the priests are there. The bishops are there. Even in the occupied territory, as witnessed these priests that were arrested two and a half weeks ago. Did you say they were passionists? No, they were redemptorists. So these are Western priests? as witnessed these priests that were arrested two and a half weeks ago. Did you say they were passionists?

No, they were redemptorists. So these are Western priests? No, these are Eastern. The redemptorists have an Eastern branch. Please pray for them, because they are in horrific circumstances, and they're being tortured, because there's nothing that the Russians would want more than to have a Ukrainian Catholic priest admit that he was involved in terrorist anti-Russian activity and so they will do everything to get that kind of forced confession I say in quotes. But your solidarity is much appreciated, dear fellow Americans, dear fellow

people throughout the globe. The Anglophone world has been particularly responsive to what is going on in Ukraine. And it's really amazing. It's the 10th month and the world is still talking about it. There's 20 wars in the world. So when the war began, there was a lot of coverage. There's less so now. Is that because the war has slown down at all or is that because we're moving on to other things? No. In fact, the devastation has escalated since October 10th when Putin moved into a

new stage of just bombing the infrastructure of major cities. So he's trying to make the winter his weapon. If you knock out the electricity, if you knock out the big heating centers because in in certain countries Whole burrows of apartment buildings are heated by central heating systems So if you heat that heating system, you can knock out the heat for 10 to 15 thousand people If you knock out the electricity, first of all people cannot use the internet, people cannot wash their clothes with their washing

machines, people cannot use telephones, and hospitals don't work, and you can really depress the population, but even worse, the heat that is projected through pipes with hot water is stopped because the water can't be pumped because there's no electricity. And if it gets way below zero, those pipes can burst. So Putin beginning October 10th when the cold season more or less begins he started hitting the infrastructure and he's damaged over 40% of the energy infrastructure of the country. People are importing generators, the emergency crews are working overtime and hats off to them because they repair almost as quickly as the Russians destroy. And then in many cities there

are these emergency centers where people whose houses are no longer heated can come and warm up. They can charge their telephones, their battery packs. People are resourceful. And in these circumstances, this new phase is only hardening the resolve of people. They say, this is what Russia is. This is what Russian occupation stands for. No, we're resisting to the end. Father, it looks like you might want to promote that book,

or at least you've brought it here. Well, the Metropolitan gave this to me back in August and it's a great primer on the history of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. I know someone who grew up not Eastern and that was me. And when I first encountered the Eastern Catholic churches and the Orthodox churches it was very it was puzzling to me you know there's so many of them they're kind of esoteric and weird and it's they have a long complicated history different languages and so just reading this book it peels away a lot of that confusion and he does it and it's only Babinski I

think he's a graduate of the Catholic University, he does it in 170 pages. With pictures. With pictures. Is that available online? Yes it is. I think it's, in Philadelphia it's available, isn't it? We have some copies. We got to work a little bit better with the distribution, but we'll give you an address

to put up where people can write to receive this. Final question, I guess, and feel free if you have more to add afterwards, but what can Western Catholics learn from the Ukrainian Catholic Church? You talked about the Ukrainian Catholic Church coming out roaring after the persecution, and it seems like even though the persecution is much different and much less in some sense. How how can we be faithful to Christ during a time of persecution well the persecution is less in free Ukraine it's bad in occupied Ukraine but it's only a small part that is at this point occupied by Russia. I believe that Ukrainian Catholics are among those who won the gold medal of the 20th century.

They stood up to the greatest challenge. The greatest challenge of the 20th century was totalitarianism and particularly communist totalitarianism. Other totalitarianisms were just shorter, less successful. You know that the Soviet Union was the first country to legalize abortion and make abortion a state policy already in the 1920s. Uh, the whole intent of communism, how disgusting, I mean, abortion's barbaric, but we get to hide it with our fancy machines.

I wonder what an abortion may have looked like or an abortion procedure looked like in the 1920s. God, it has the same results. Yes You know Pope Francis calls it hiring a hitman. That's right to solve a problem. Yeah, that's exactly what it is The evils the millions tens of millions of deaths the collaboration of Stalin and Hitler the collaboration of Stalin and Hitler, which led to World War II. If Stalin had not supported Hitler, World War II would not have occurred as it did. All of this was something that the Ukrainian Catholic Church stood up to. Totalitarianism

wanted to take the human being created with God's dignity, the dignity to live a divine life, to aspire to eternity and create the Soviet man. It had almost limitless resources, merciless control, a slogan, a policy, a modus operandi saying we're going to make you happy even if we have to kill you. We're going to lead these nations to happiness over the dead bodies of millions. And in all of that, the leaders and rank-and-file members of the Ukrainian Catholic Church said, No, we're going to stand against this current. We're going to swim up the Niagara Falls and we're going to proclaim God's truth.

And even if we're crushed, we know there's eternity. We know that there's the kingdom of God. We will not be guided by fear. We will not be terrorized. Were people afraid? Did people suffer? Did people have qualms? Of course. But as a phenomenon, this church stood up. And I find encouragement with that. I spent 20 years interviewing people from the underground. We did a project. We interviewed over 2000 people. It's 150,000 pages.

Pete Slauson A little longer than that one. Richard Lutz Yeah, this covers a thousand years of history. This is just about the 40, 45 years. It's 500 volumes of 300 pages each. It would take you five years to do nothing else but read it. It was a great inspiration for me. I hope that at least by 1% I could live up to that inspiration that was given. But this is something the world is only discovering. This story is not universally known. We're grateful to John Paul II, who in 2001 beatified the first 26 martyrs

of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. And this history is still unraveling. It's unraveling in what we're seeing before our eyes. My contention, unbeknownst to him, President Zelensky, who the world today is admiring, and millions of Ukrainians have been taught in this school, the school of martyrdom, that means witnessing. What does a witness do? A witness stands up for a truth even if he's going to lose.

It's not a business proposition. It's witnessing. That's a total different modality. Uh, and these witnesses before and after are carriers of Catholic social doctrine. What are those four points? Dignity, the human person, subsidiarity was third, I think. Yeah. Common good. Fourth. And solidarity. Those are the top points. There's many more.

I think it's locked in there. If anything, if the readers take that home, and if we can really integrate those principles into our life, we will make for a better world. It feels appropriate to close with a prayer. Would you mind leading us? Yeah. God, our father, we thank you for your generosity, for your gift of life, for our lives, for the life of every human being. We thank you for creating us in your image and likeness. We thank you for creating us in your image and likeness. And when we fell, we thank you for your Son whom you sent, who's coming now, whose advent we prepare for.

We thank you for his life, his death, and his resurrection. And we thank you for the Holy Spirit. Cover us with the mantle of your Holy Mother. Encourage us with all your saints. Help us have courage and wisdom to do your will in our daily lives, in our work, in our witness in society. We ask you to bless Matt and all of his listeners, all the audience. May God bless your families. All the audience, may God bless your families. May God help you receive Jesus who comes in his nativity. May God give you peace and quiet joy.

And may God bless you, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ. Thanks for being here. Thanks for being here. Thank you.