The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Pope Francis: His Place in History

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

Jeff discusses Pope Francis's remarkable impact and his place in Church history, especially in light of his recent passing. He explores Pope Francis's legacy and delves into the biblical foundations of the papacy. With deep scriptural references and historical context, Jeff highlights the continuity and significance of the papal office. Snippet from the Show "What we have in the Catholic Church is a line of custody, all the way from Peter to the present-day Pope." Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit https://media.ascensionpress.com/?s=&page=2&category%5B0%5D=Ascension%20Podcasts&category%5B1%5D=The%20Jeff%20Cavins%20Show for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is show 427. Pope Francis is Place in History. Welcome to the show, my friend, what a difference a week can make. all the way from last week with this tremendous celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, Easter, a new day. And the day after that, the Holy Father, Pope Francis, passes away.

I know that a lot of my friends woke up that Monday morning and it hit him. The first thing they heard on the news was that Pope Francis had passed away. A lot of people were expecting it at some point here in the near future due to his health. but like anyone passing away, particularly a family member and a family member in the church, the Holy Father, it always comes as a bit of a shock. And then we go through a period of thinking about it, assimilating it, figuring life out, looking forward to the future. And so I thought this week it would be appropriate to spend a little bit of time talking

about Pope Francis, not only talking about Pope Francis, but talking about Pope's in general, going back and looking at scripture to see the biblical foundations of the papacy, you know, some people, they will say to us as Catholics that, well, you kind of made that papacy stuff up because it's not in the Bible. I used to think that myself until I really studied the Bible and found out that it's actually in there in spades. And we're going to take a look at that today on the show. But I also want to take a look at the place of Pope Francis himself. in history and where he would fit in and his contribution, his legacy, and where do we go from here? By the way, if you do want some show notes for this one and all the upcoming

shows, all you've got to do is text my name, Jeff Kavins, one word, Jeff Kavins, and text it to the number 3377. That's 3377. We'll get you on board. We'll give you everything we put out here on this weekly podcast, the Jeff Kaven show. By the way, I want to thank you for taking time every week to spend with me. And I enjoy spending time with you and talking about the faith. You know, we typically talk about studying the Bible. We talk about discipleship or how to share Christ with people or dealing with life's problems and situations.

We stay right there in that lane and don't veer from it too much. Well, the topic of the papacy is not only biblical, But it has to do with life and overcoming difficulties and obtaining direction as disciples from the Lord. Because the Pope, the position of the Pope, is a position that brings, it brings certitude to our life. It brings nourishment to our life via the Pope, and that is in the Eucharist and all the priests that we have. It also gives us, this position gives us direction in our life, consolation, a lot of beautiful things. and it's very central and always has been central in the church's teaching. And I want to welcome my Protestant brothers and sisters who may be a bit curious about this

when you find out that the place of the Pope is actually in the Bible. Maybe it piques your interest, and that's good. And I hope that you would come to this show, this episode 427, with an open heart, an open mind, listen to scripture and listen to what the church teaches. Because if you do, I think it's going to be a tremendous blessing in your life. So we're going to take a look at that. But I do hope that you had a blessed Easter and that your family, you were able to get together with them and share some good times and some good fellowship with one another.

Truly, he has risen. There's every reason to be very optimistic and very joyful about the future. And as we mourn the passing of our Holy Father, we also, deep in our hearts can feel the rumblings of joy, excitement, and anticipation. as to what God has for us in the leadership of the church. We'll talk a little bit about that too today and how we go about getting a new pope and it sounds like we're going to be on this topic

for a couple of weeks because the conclave will be gathering and electing by two-thirds majority out of the 135 cardinals they're going to be electing a new leader, a new father. And boy, everybody guesses, right? They've got their Vegas cards, I think, on who the new pope's going to be, but I don't think it's really worth guessing.

It's up to the Lord and the prayer of these cardinals, and we can support them in our prayers. So let's take a look at this. The Holy Father, Pope Francis, he was the 266th Pope, since the first pope, which was Peter. And we're going to talk about Peter in just a little bit. But what we have in the Catholic Church is we have a line of custody, if you will, all the way from Peter to the present day in Pope Francis, the 266th Pope. The next one will be 267, and we'll continue this custody of the authority, the Eucharist, the teachings of the church that are preserved and passed on from generation to generation. Be honest with you, that's one

of the things that really attracted me. When I left the church and then became a Protestant pastor for 12 years. And it was this chain of custody that really attracted me that God had a plan oeconomia in Greek. He had a plan, a fatherly plan for the family. And part of that plan was to take care of us, to ensure that we were fed and that we were taught, that we were corrected and consoled. And that comes with Peter and the responsibility that he was given by Jesus. Without that, it's every man for himself and i mean every man for himself in terms of figuring it all out we know that god didn't go on a break until guttenberg printed the bible and said here you go figure it out from the very beginning jesus the master builder had a plan and that plan was to secure the teaching

that he gave to the apostles to secure the meal that we were to celebrate in the new covenant, that is his body and blood, and to secure authority, authority to ordain, authority to correct, authority to establish the teaching all throughout the years. Without the papacy, you've got a mess. And you can see that a little bit in the Reformation. This isn't a talk on the reformation or a lecture on that by any means, but I can tell you this, that once we lose the papacy and once we lose the sacred tradition that was passed on from generation. to generation, we are stuck with Sola Scriptura. F, that is, scripture alone is the only means of divine revelation.

Well, we know how that worked out. We have over 30,000 different denominations as a result of scripture alone. Now, they all can't be right. And so we have to take a serious look at what did Jesus put into place, to lead us and guide us and to ensure that the deposit of faith that he left with the disciples would stay secure and untampered with from generation to generation. Well, thank God he gave us a leader in the church. After all, he is a master builder.

He's a better builder than Bill Gates. He's a better builder than Steve Jobs. He's a better builder than any politician in the world today. Jesus, the master builder, even greater than Solomon. And he brings that point out in the gospel. You know, John Paul II, who I know that you are fond of him, he was such a great pope he made the comment in his document tertio millennio adveniente and this new year you know the new millennium he uh he made this comment in that document as we

turned to the year 2000 and he said that all of life is a pilgrimage to the father's house and it truly is all movement is to the father's house and uh that's true for you and that's true for me and we know that that is also true for the role of the pope is that he's leading us all on this pilgrimage, ultimately to the Father's House. Well, he has made that pilgrimage now. He's hopefully, and prayerfully, we pray for him that he's actually experiencing every aspect of that now. Wouldn't that be beautiful?

And that's the goal for all of us, the beatific vision, to see God face to face. Well, you know, Pope Francis began his pontificate on March 13, 2013. and he took on the name Francis. And that was the beginning of something new from John Paul II and Pope Benedict Francis, a name not used before, a name that is synonymous with simplicity, synonymous with austere, very simple life and, you know, everything that we know of of St. Francis, particularly that simplicity. And certainly Pope Francis began his pontificate with this real focus on getting

back to the basics and simplicity and trying to bring things down to an earth view of the faith. We'll get into that here in a moment. But he began his pontificate, and over the last number of years, he has certainly etched his name in the history of the church. And I've already been asked the question, people asking the question, what do you think his place is in history, in light of, for example, Paul the 6th, or John the 23rd, or John Paul 2, 1, John Paul 2, John Paul 2, I mean, and then, of course, Benedict. So I want to take a look at that. You know, T.S. Eliot wrote a poem years ago about the church, and he called it the hippopotamus. kind of a funny name for a poem about the church.

But what he meant by that was that the church is very big and it's very, sometimes very clumsy, but it's very powerful. And it moves, it moves with purpose. And it's not going to be brought down, hippopotamus. Now, whether the church is like a hippopotamus or not, that's for you to judge, but I can say this, that it is big. It is powerful. It is something that's going to be around all the way to the end. We haven't even been able to destroy it from within. It's just so marvelous.

And the workmanship of Jesus is so meticulous and so powerful. But I got the question. Here's the question I get. What do you think Pope Francis's legacy is in light of the other popes? And to answer that, I would say this, that when we look at the papacy as it is, and we're going to look into scripture here in just a few minutes, but when we look at the papacy, I don't think it's a good idea just to take one particular pope and take a look at that and say, well, now here's the church, here's the church. And why do I say that? Well, I say that because as T.S. Eliot talks about, the church is big, it's slow, and the plan of God is not. just a one-time plan for one generation. Typically, we see that the plan of God is not recognized as quickly up close as it is by taking a big step back and looking at it over decades to see what God might be doing. Now, if you're over, say, 50, let's say you're over 50, you have that rare ability.

now to take a look back, to look at several papacies. You know, you got John Paul II. You've got Benedict. And then you have Pope Francis. And now if you back up, you can get a better idea. Maybe what God has been doing. And so what I like to do is typically start with Pope John the 23rd back in the early 60s. Pope John the 23rd, what was he known for?

Well, he was known for reading the times that we were. in back then in the early 60s with a technological revolution, sexual revolution, social communications, on and on. The world was changing politically, education, marriage, everything was changing. And he made that observation. And he said, you know, what we need to do, we need to call a Vatican, a time to get together and to discuss all of this, a council. And it was called Vatican Council, Vatican II, actually. There was a council. There was a council. We're it was a Vatican one, but a Vatican two. And the purpose for it was to figure out how do we remain relevant in a changing world. So much is changing, but what about us in the church?

Are we going to stay relevant? That doesn't mean are we going to be relative to every truth in the world? No, but are we going to have a place to speak into this world? And if so, how do we go about doing it? And so he called Vatican II and he died, leaving it to Pope Paul the 6th. And Pope Paul the 6th was the one that presided over Vatican 2, which was a council like none other. It had a lot of things in it that were rather unique, for example, an entire document on the laity. And a document called Gaudium it spes, the church in the modern world. And that is, for me, that is the launching point for Vatican 2 is this document that talks about what's our role as a church in the modern world today? Well, Pope Paul the 6th, as you know, he passed away.

John Paul I first became the next pope relatively small. Just not too long. He was pope, and that gave way to John Paul the second. And he became, I would say, probably the greatest pope in modern history. Now, what was his role? Well, in order to understand his role, you have to understand Catholic philosophy and Catholic theology in general all the way back to St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, way back. And that is this, that good theology is built on a solid foundation of philosophy. So if your philosophy is all screwed up, chances are your theology is not going to turn out too well. And so philosophy is very important. That's what John Paul II was, as he was a philosopher. And he laid down such a foundation of philosophy.

in many areas, phenomenology and also a theology of the body. And he was unlike any other pope. And he was the first pope to travel the way he did and established World Youth Day. And he named more saints than all the ones before him. And so he did so much in these modern times to lay a foundation. And then he passes away, leaving us with the next pope. and that's Benedict. Pope Benedict was the next pope, formerly Cardinal Ratzinger, and what was he? Well, he wasn't a philosopher. He was a scripture scholar. And so now we have

a scripture scholar building on the philosopher's foundation. Perfect. This is what the church teaches. So you wouldn't see that if you just took a look at Benedict or just took a look at John Paul or just took a look at John the 23rd. But when you stand back, you see the mosaic. And that's what this is. It's a mosaic. And so Pope Benedict builds on that as a scripture scholar par excellence. I mean, his series on Jesus of Nazareth is unparalleled. And so you have Pope Benedict. All right.

So you have John Paul II, the philosopher, lays a foundation. Benedict comes in and he's the scripture scholar and he builds on it. And then we get this guy from Argentina. And he is elected pope with a two-thirds majority of the cardinals. in the conclave, and his name is Pope Francis. Never been a pope with that name before. What's up? What's God saying to us? And it seemed to be rather evident at the beginning, and that was that he had a proclivity toward the marginalized, the disenfranchised, those who wore what Mother Teresa would call hideous disguises. And he loved him. And he reached out to them.

Now, you might not have agreed with everything that he did or said, and that's okay. You're not called on to agree with every comment that a pope makes. You are required to follow the teachings of the church, but if Pope makes some comments and you think, I don't know if I like that or not, that's between you and the Lord and Pope Francis someday. But I can tell you this, that it seems to me, as you look at the mosaic of John the 23rd, Paul the 6th, John Paul the 1st, John Paul the 2nd, St. Benedict, the 16th, and then Francis, that his role was to take this gospel, this message out to the highways and the byways, the peripheral, if you will. And so I have this image in my brain that I cannot get out and I don't want it to leave of him holding several people that

were very disenfranchised. They were very much in the margins. And he held them, loved them, he kissed them. He prayed for them. It's such a beautiful demonstration of love and fidelity to the teachings of Jesus. And so I see that as his place. His legacy is he was living out, John Paul II and Benedict, and he was doing it in his way, right? He was doing it in his way. Now, was he controversial? Oh, yeah. Absolutely he was. Not everybody always liked him, whether you are on the left in the center or the right. And that's okay. That's all right.

That's not the goal that everyone likes someone, but the goal is to stand back and look at the mosaic and ask yourself, what do you think God is saying to you in your life? And what do you think that God is introducing to your life, right? And so when I see all these together, I'll tell you what I think. Lord, what is next? What is next if we had a philosopher in John Paul, second and a scripture scholar and Pope Benedict the 16th and then Pope Francis is the one who goes

to the highways and byways. What is next for us? And who's this man going to be? Who's number 267? Whose likeness will be put up on the walls of St. Paul outside the walls? It's going to be an interesting couple of weeks, isn't it? And so our job today, to be honest with you, is not just to sit on the sidelines and wonder about this. Our job is to pray, is to enter into prayer and ask God for his will to be done. For these 135 cardinals that are going to be gathering together for the conclave, many of them appointed by Pope Francis, many of them have never met each other because they are cardinals all over the globe. You know, there used to be a time when the majority of them were all in Italy. But today we have these cardinals coming in now from all over the

globe and they're going to have to put their prayers together and determine who the next leader is. And our job is not to just sit back and look at the Vegas odds and watch CNN and Fox. It is to pray. It's to get involved in the process. Seek the Lord. Now, why is this position so important? I want to go through that with you from Scripture and build a simple argument for why it is so important. I'm going to try to make this as simple as possible. This very well could be something that you pass on to your friends and family who are not acquainted with the process and certainly not acquainted with the biblical foundations for the papacy.

So we'll get into that. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. I'm Father Mark Mary Ames with the Franciscan friars at the renewal. My brothers and sisters at the service of becoming saints and falling in love with Jesus and Mary in the Most Holy Rosary. The team here at Ascension Press have put together. the Rosary in a Year podcast. Each day, we're going to have a 10 to 15 minute episode where we're just going to work through the basics of the rosary. Who is Jesus? How do we encounter Jesus? Who is our lady? What does that mean for us to be in a relationship to her?

We're going to go through the Hail Mary, the Our Father, each of the different mysteries. And then we're going to bring in some saint writings on the mysteries and some sacred art that speaks on the mysteries and all of this to help enrich our prayer, to renew our prayer, to help us fall in love with Jesus and Mary and to fall in love with the rosary again. If you want to join us on this journey, you can begin by going to ascentpress.com forward slash rosary in a year to download the prayer plan and by listening and praying with us through the Rosary in a Year podcast. All right.

Look forward to the journey with you. Welcome back. We're talking today about Pope Francis and in the first half of the show looking at his place, his legacy in line with the church, from my perspective. I'm not saying that I am the one that has the inside track there. But to me, that seems to be what his role was, is to carry out this foundation of the philosopher, John Paul II, and the biblical scholar, Pope Benedict. And so let's take a look at this. Now, we know that the papacy goes all the way back to the New Testament and the antecedents, the beginnings of it, really go back all the way back to Egypt with Joseph, the 11th son of Jacob.

And you know the story. Joseph was sold by his brothers into Egyptian bondage. Well, that didn't turn out so well for him because he was falsely accused of having a relationship with Potipher's wife. He was put into prison. But then he was exalted to the second position in the entire Egyptian kingdom. The first was, of course, Pharaoh. But he was raised up to a position that could be called the prime minister, the one who is going to carry out. the wishes of the Pharaoh or the Pharaoh slash king. Now that's pretty interesting. Now, there was a

position in the Old Testament that we see this idea of the prime minister and Joseph further developed by the time we come to King David, about a thousand years before Jesus. And in the Davidic kingdom, there was two, one of them will cover, but two special roles. One was the Geberra, the queen mother the mother of the king was the the queen mother she was an advocate and intercessor for the people we're not talking about that one right now we have a number of shows that we have talked about that but the second one that i want to talk to you about is the position that was called in hebrew the al-habayit what is that all over the ha baid house you've heard that name bethlehem before right what does that mean well that means a house of bread bait is

house lechem is bread bait lechem bait lechem bethlehem bethlehem bethlehem house of bread so this idea of the alhabayet was the prime minister in the kingdom from david on and and we see this we see this in other cultures too to be honest with you but in the bible we see this position and what is the role of the alhabait well the prime minister's role is to run the kingdom, take over, stand in the gap, be the leader if the king were gone, sick, or dead. That's when the al-habait, the prime minister, would go into action. Now, there's a description of this in Isaiah 22, and I'm going to put it in the show notes for you. And it is so descriptive. It deals with the firing, if you will, of one prime minister and the bringing in of Eliakim the new one, okay, the new prime minister.

Now listen to the description of it. It's Isaiah 22, verse 20 through 25, roughly. And as I read it, I'd like you to think about what you know about the papacy. Because the early church fathers saw Isaiah 22 as a job description for the prime minister that Jesus is going to. to name in Matthew 16. We'll look at that in a moment. Okay, let me read Isaiah 22 for you. In that day, I will call my servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe. Now, he's talking about the former prime minister and all that he had, and he's going to be ousted because of his unfaithfulness, and Eliakim will be brought in. In that day, I'll call my servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your girdle

on him and will commit your authority to his hand, and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder, get this, the key of the house of David. He shall open and none shall shut, and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him like a pagan, a sure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father's house. And they will hang on him the whole weight of his father's house the offspring and issue every small vessel from the cups to the flagons in that day says the lord of hosts the peg that was fastened in a sure place will give way and so it goes on there's even more here but that's what i wanted to read to you and so what do we have here well we've got the description of this al-habait the one who is over

the household the one who is over the the king's household and we know that he's going to be clothed with a robe. He has a girdle on him. He's been given authority. He's going to be a papa, a father to the inhabitants. And he's going to get this. Watch, a key. He's going to receive a key to the house of David. And that key is going to give him authority to open and shut. That means to allow and disallow teaching. That's where it stops. Now, in Jesus' day, that was the Sanhedron. but Jesus is going to replace the Sanhedron with the Alhabait and the disciples. Very interesting, isn't it? It's right there in the Bible, and I would have challenged anybody to disprove that.

It's right there in the Bible, and it's what the early church understood, and what the church has always understood, is that when Jesus left, he is the master builder, and as the master builder, he did not leave his kingdom to everyone's person, will and their own fanciful ideas. He had a plan, a master plan. That's why he's the master builder. Someone greater than Solomon, Jesus said, is here.

Now, I've got to ask you a question. Do you believe that? Do you believe that Jesus is the master builder and has a master plan? Or do you believe that the church is just willy-nilly, everybody does whatever they feel they should be doing? I don't think that that makes sense at all. He is the master builder. He puts someone over the household.

And that's someone. It's called the al-habait, the prime minister. It's an office. It isn't just words. It's an office like Secretary of the Interior or the Secretary of State. You know, those are not just words. Those are positions. And so is this. So we come to the New Testament. And in the New Testament in Matthew chapter 16, we see something happened that is very powerful. Now let me pause for a minute because I've got I got to make a point here that we believe. that all the Bible is crystal-centric, that means that Jesus is the point, is the fulfillment of all we have in Scripture. Now, if they have the prime minister in the Old Testament and he had keys to the kingdom, then do we have to look for that in the New Testament? Absolutely. Absolutely. It's not fair. Listen, it is not fair, just or right. to go on like this didn't happen and not ask ourselves where is the prime minister in the New Testament? You can do it,

but that's not a true honest Bible study. And I think after hearing this, you'll agree. The church father's taught. So I want to take you to Matthew 16 real quickly here. And in Matthew chapter 16, Jesus came into the district of Cessaria Philippi. that's up by Lebanon and he asked his disciples

who do men say that the son of man is and they said some say John the Baptist others say Elijah and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets and he said to them but who do you say that I am and Simon Peter replied you are the Christ the son of the living God

now listen to what Jesus does in response in verse 17 and Jesus answered him blessed are you Simon Barjona for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you but my father who is in heaven and I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I'll give you the keys of the kingdom of God. Pause there. Just pause there. Wow. We only know of one other place where they talk

about these keys. Isaiah 22, I read it to you earlier. The keys are given to that prime minister to the Alhaba'it, and now we see who the New Testament Prime Minister is, the first among equals. Peter, I'll give you the keys of the kingdom. And listen, he even uses the same language as the Sanhedron in Isaiah 22. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

And then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. Isn't that revealing? Maybe you've read that for years. Maybe you are my Protestant friend. And you have read that for years and it never clicked. And all of a sudden today you're going, oh, my word, where have I been? Listen, I know how you feel because I've been there. And this was one of the four things that really made my mind ask,

do I need to go back to this church? And the answer was yes. The rest is history. And maybe God's calling you. Maybe this is the time right now where God is. calling you back home. You've been away so long. You've been away from the Eucharist. You've been away from the sacraments. You've been away from the fullness that Jesus has given us. And maybe it's such a time as this with the passing of one pope and getting ready for the next one that

God is getting a hold of your life. If so, be honest about it. Yield your heart to the Lord. Don't fight. Don't fight grace. Don't fight prevenient grace that draws you in. Don't do that. give up into the arms of Jesus. It's got a bigger plan than you thought. And I know that firsthand. I'm not talking like an expert here. I went through this myself. I was gone for 12 years as a pastor.

I came back. It was humbling, sure. And I kind of gave up everything. But you know what? After I gave up everything, I found out that God gave me everything back and more. And so we have here, in Matthew 16, we have here Jesus giving the key,

to the kingdom to Peter. All the greatest theologians in the world would all agree that upon this rock, I'll build my church, and that rock definitely points to Peter. I will build my church. I will build my church. And that's what he does. And he gives the keys to Peter. You see, Jesus wants this to work.

He is not a God of chaos. From the very beginning of the Bible, we see that he's not the God of chaos. He creates this earth out of nothing. The earth was formless and void. And he did something with it. Our lives were formless and void. He did something with it. He built a church.

And he put Peter over it. That's the first pope. By the time I go through every one of them with you. Or you can go to St. Paul outside the walls in Rome and look at all of them. But we have this succession of custody of the truth and the revolution. all the way down to today. I remember studying this when I was a pastor and thinking to myself, who in the world believes all these things that the early church believed?

And the answer was not what I wanted, but it was what I needed. And that's the Catholic Church. And I came back home. And my life has never been the same since. It has been so filled with joy, so filled with purpose. That's the papacy. Now, I'm going to put that in the show notes for you, but I don't want just to go into, you know, being a multi-day podcast.

So I want to say this in kind of a concluding way. This biblical foundation of the papacy is both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. I'll go beyond that. And all the early church fathers. It's what they all believed. You might not have been taught that way at a non-denominational church or an evangelical church. And there's lots of wonderful people out there. in these churches. But I can tell you this

is that if you've never been taught that, then you most likely are not looking at the first four or five hundred years of the church. Had you looked at that, had you studied it, you would have ceased to be Protestant. Cardinal Newman

said that. He said, to be deep into church history is to cease to be Protestant. Does that mean Protestants are bad? No. My mother-in-law was a Methodist pastor. I was for 12 years. almost all the people that I know of that aren't Catholic are wonderful people. God-fearing people, believing people, sacrificial, merciful, merciful, kind.

And we're not talking about that. We're talking about what Jesus has established for us. And today, this week, we're looking at a new Pope. We're looking at this right now. And we just lost one, the 266th, Al-Habai. and now we're going to be praying about the next one, and that will be 267, and I don't know who it will be, but I'll tell you what, I'll be here, God willing, on this podcast to talk about it in a couple weeks. Now, what's going to happen in this process coming up is that there's going to be the Cardinal, the Electoral College, the Cardinals, 135 of them, and they're going to start by having general conferences and meeting with offices and talking and getting. to know many of them.

I don't know what's going to happen between them, but I do know this. They will eventually be meeting in the Sistine Chapel. They're in Vatican. If you ever been there in the beautiful, well, if you've been there, it's going to be transformed into the place where they're going to have their conclave and they're going to vote. And it takes a secret ballot for a two-thirds majority for a man to become the next Pope. Now, when they finally come to that conclusion, every day they'll have. have smoke coming out of the smokestack.

Black means we're still, no decision. But then when white smoke appears, it means Habemus Popum, we have a Pope. And then that Pope will make his public appearance and he will give us his name and we are off to the races. And we are on to our next chapter to see where God is leading this great, big, powerful kingdom of God. I love it. And you think you know who it might be?

There's a saying that I heard not too long ago that says, he who goes into the conclave as the pope comes out a cardinal, meaning most people are wrong. It's going to be the Holy Spirit in that conclave that are going to give us the answer. Our job, again, is to pray and ask God to give us what we need. So shall we do that? I'm really looking forward to this. I'm mourning on one point I'm mourning.

we lost a father that's always a tough thing and i've lost my dad and my mom both in the last five months and i had that sense you know and my mom's funeral of i'm alone yet i knew i wasn't alone and maybe you feel like that too i certainly did when john paul the second died it was very very visceral my wife and i sat there in the living room looking at the television and we cried but I want to remind you of this, it's Easter season. We've got a good thing coming up ahead. And there's a reason to be joyful. There's a reason to anticipate the move of God in this magnificent church.

And yes, I mourn, but yes, I'm also eagerly anticipating the future. And I can't wait to see what the Holy Spirit has in store for us. Will you pray with me right now and continue to pray over the next couple of weeks here? in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus, I thank you so much today for giving us this church to live in, this family, this tremendous kingdom of yours. Lord, I thank you for dying for us and I thank you for giving us a home, but I also thank you for allowing us to participate in your kingdom. And Lord, we as the laity, we as the priest, we as the deacons and the religious who are not going to be going to Rome to sit in the Sistine Chapel. Lord, what we're going to do is that we're going to be involved with our prayers and we're also going to speak well of the papacy. Help us, Lord, to keep our comments positive on track and such that

they would glorify you. We thank you, Lord, for all that you're doing. And we pray for your church that we will hear you and that we will respond to you in these trying days that we're living in. We ask for the intercession of our mother, the Gevera, the Queen Mother, Hail Mary. Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us, sinners, now and at the hour of our death, amen. My friend, can I ask you one more thing? Will you share this podcast with your friends and family?

I would like them to know what's happening here. I would like them to get a good look at what Jesus does as the master builder. Would you do that? I would appreciate that. You and I can work together in this and share this message with people. And I'd ask you today just to sit down and think of maybe five people that you can share this with. That maybe they don't know anything about it. Maybe they're Catholic.

Maybe they're not. But they don't know anything about this process. Well, my friend, I love you. It's a big family, isn't it? Interesting times, isn't it? God has something in store for us. God bless you. I look forward to talking to you next week.

Thank you.