Hello, I'm Robert Moynihan, the editor of inside the Vatican magazine on Friday, August 11th. And I'm privileged to have with me, Mario Enzler, a retired guard of the Vatican Swiss guard who knew Pope John Paul the second particularly well and has from that time till today continued to follow Vatican affairs very closely. Thank you for joining us, Mario.

Thank you very much, Robert. Always a pleasure for me to have a, a chat with you. Yes.

Well, I, I begin by saying, uh we seem to have a connectivity issue here. Um hm Well, I was going to explain who Mario is and he's connecting to the internet and joining me and his connection failed and he's about to reconnect, I believe there. Yes, you are back. Wonderful.

I'm sorry, Robert. I'm sorry.

Ok. You maybe you have some chick unks gnawing away at your wires in your mountain cabin.

Yes, I am in the mountain cabin. You're right up in New England and uh uh the connection, sometimes it's a little windy outside and uh, and chilly as a matter of fact. And so I suspect that some chipmunk working on the wires.

Well, I, I always enjoy speaking with you and with, with all the Swiss guards because you are in some way, noble men who protect the Vatican and uh uh protect the Pope. And uh there could occasionally be someone who uh uh steps forward and tries to rush forward sometimes just to say hello, but sometimes they might even have a, even a knife or something with them. So

for me, if I can, if I can say, for me, I had two experiences, obviously, uh I would say sometime this individual are not very dangerous per se, you know, not very aggressive, but maybe emotionally unstable. I will never forget the first episode because I was at the uh Patria gate, you know, the Santio gate, right? The one next to the, the building of the doctrine of the fate. If you look at Saint Peter outside the colonnade on the left side for our listeners and was there were two of us there, there is always a senior guard and a younger guard, right? And that's where a lot of the workers they drive in, right? There are the two main accesses Santana and piano where a lot of cars comes in and was an afternoon and a gentleman really looked homeless arrived and he had a syringe in his hands, right? And uh when he came, he, he, he didn't speak Italianos or, or German, I don't know, probably a Slavic language. And uh you know, he kind of threatened the two of us and we kind of look at each other thinking, what, what is he trying to do? W right. There are the two of us here fully trained in the top of our physical shape and strength and these poor men. So, you, you know, it kind of came and then we didn't really have to run any risk. And then there were the Polizia outside, you know, they still are. right, they witness and we didn't have to do any physical contact. But then the Polizia came and, and, and took him away, right? So that was no Pope. There, there was not only father, but another episode instead was at the Arco de la Campane, you know, the other access, which is if you are facing the basilica on the bottom side and uh one gentleman and you spoke English to me came to me and all of a sudden he says I really need to talk to the only father. It's very important. I have a message for him and you know, we are trained to deal in situation like this. And I try to stay very calm and ask him, ok, I don't think that I can call his holiness for you right now. But uh if you can give me your message and he said, no, you don't understand. I need to tell him that he can go now because I am back. And when he said that, Bob, I immediately realized again, you know, he was mentally unstable. And I said, oh, you are Jesus and you want me to tell the holiness that you are back and so you can just retire. And he says, yes, exactly. Will you tell him? I said, absolutely, count on it. Right. So those are funny anecdote that in the life of the Swiss Guard, either a syringe or, you know, a gentleman that claims being Jesus, right, Uh wants to meet with the only father. So this is part of the backstage life as you were saying before of these young men.

Well, you, you wrote a book about your experiences and your feelings and I appreciate you telling us these anecdotes and that book is available for readers. I wonder if we might show that. Uh Here it is it a Saint reflections of a Swiss Guard in honor of the Centenary of the birth of Saint John Paul the second by Mario Enzler. And there you are, Mario, you're actually a little bit taller than the Pope.

I am uh 62. And I think it's only as uh I know maybe 5, 9.5. I don't think he arrived at 510. You remember it, right? And uh and um yeah, that picture was uh it's one of my favorites because uh we were talking and then, then he pointed to something that we were talking about it and Arturo Mari. Do you remember Arturo Mari? Right? The photographer, we always take good pictures of the Isolines with us. And then it will let us know to go to the observatory Romano to get these pictures and we couldn't afford them, right? But we will go there and Arturo will always put them in an envelope and give them to us for free, right? And I have a good collections of some of those very intimate and precious moments so that I can show to people when I talk about my time. And I can, you know, I've been sharing them with my Children because, you know, I have three boys but my boys, you know, they have dual citizenship, American and Swiss. And unfortunately, because there is not a treaty between Switzerland and the United States, they are not gonna be able to become Swiss Guards because they will have to renounce the US citizenship, right? And, and so it's kind of sad for me that none of my three boys will be able to leave the experience that I went through. And so that's why I share stories with, with them every time they, they want. And yes, of course, somebody of our listener might say why they don't renounce that us citizenship and just be Swiss. Yes. Well, they could. Right. But uh it's up to them right to choose what they see fit best in their life.

All right. Well, that's interesting. I didn't realize it's, I would take it as a uh testimony that you went through this experience and you would like your sons to experience it. You think it's something valuable in some way, something maturing, something that deepens their lives, could you?

Absolutely. Yeah. It's a, it's a school of life. Right. No matter if you spend two or three or four years or, you know, the current commander that, you know, Christoph, he's been there since 1987. Right. So, he's been there 36 years. It's very rare. But, right, because as a guard, especially in my time, you know, we were working 100 hour a week and there are 100 and 68 hours in a week. So that means you only have 68 hours to sleep and to try to have some fun. You're so tired that you don't really have a lot of fun and the pay is very little, right? And it's a sacrifice that young men from Switzerland, according to tradition, they choose to go through. It's becoming a little problematic as you and I discussed this in the past already to constantly find young, strong qualified men from Switzerland to, to go down and to put everything away for, you know, two or three years. But uh it's a school of life, at least that's the way I went through, right? I always say I got my graduate degree in human behavior, you know, staying there and witnessing his holiness, spending time with mother Teresa learning how to smoke a cigar with Blessed Alvaro Del Portillo. You know, I was very close with few cardinals, especially Cardinal Bernardine Gin. You know, so all of these anecdotes are in the book and as a young man, a young soldier, when you have that opportunity, you try to make a treasure of them.

Well, I'd like to ask just uh for quick snapshots of some of the Vatican officials that passed by you that you saluted and that maybe you came to know uh Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, very pious, very humble man, very shy. OK, very gentle with the guards all the time. And uh often I will go for a walk on Saint Peter's Square. So not on duty, but you know, sometime you will finish and then you will go out for an espresso. Ok. Before going into service again, uh experience examinant will walk from his apartment. Examinant will walk from his apartment to his office crossings Peter's square four times a day, right morning and then afternoon, always carry a briefcase, right? And, and when it was cold, he always had a coat on top of his casso and a hat, you know, and many times I will be there and he will recognize and he will stop and he will exchange few words most of the time in, in German, right? Asking how are you, are you going into service today? Uh Is it your day off? Are you gonna go and play soccer. OK. And many, many times, Bob people will then recognize him and gather around us, especially young. I have a very clear image of a young family from the United States of America and they were alumni of a small college in California called Thomas Aquinas College T AC. And they started speaking with his eminence and, you know, I wanted to just leave but he kind of kept me there. You know, he grabs your arm and you know, it's a sign like don't leave me, don't abandon me. I need you here and you are a soldier and you stay there and that, you know, young couple with two little kids, they wanted to say that they read his book and he blessed them and he put a cross on the forehead of the two little kids. Then the family left and he thanked me d thank you for, for being here. And you know, I said, always your eminence. So Cardin Joseph Ratzinger, a wonderful man, spiritual man, humble man, a little shy. But when he came out on 2005 on the balcony, I feel there is shyness left completely.

Yeah, he, he did say that he and and everyone said about him that he was a man of study, a man who liked to sit at a desk and read through a book and take notes and compare it to another book and then think through the ideas that he was working on, uh, about the history of the church, the Nature of Jesus. He wrote as a Pope. He wrote the three large volumes on the Life of Jesus. One of the most little know, I mean, people know this, but they forget this right at the center of his pontificate during those years from about 2006 to 2009. He was devoting quite a bit of his time to writing three volumes about Jesus. And uh he didn't really uh appreciate in the same way as John Paul the second, the large crowds.

Yes, I miss him. I miss him much. And when he passed away, I wrote an article that uh uh narrates a little anecdote backstage. So as as as as as as I said before, one of my closest, closest friend and spiritual father was Cardinal Bernardine Gin.

So I, I from the knee. Yes, I I met him also and he was an impressive man. You know, him better. I asked you to talk about him, but I believe he would have been in a sense, a chief of some sort in a tribe in the uh old African tribal culture. And he came up through the church and became a cardinal and some people spoke of him as the type of man with his inner strength, his courage, who might even have been possibly AAA Pope.

So Cardinal Gin, just to tell our listeners, OK, came into my life because he confirmed me in the seventies. You're thinking, how is it possible that a Swiss guy remember, you know, I was born and raised in Italy, right? How is it possible that a African cardinal confirmed him rather than his os were very simple? Um When my uh when our pastors in soul Monte announced that we were going to be confirmed our class, he said that there was an Ameri uh there was an African cardinal coming from Rome because he had a sister, a religious sister living in the nearby pa and he was stopping by. Ok. And uh uh and then the my parole, my pastor had asked the sister if the cardinal wouldn't mind to do the confirmation. That crazy me, right? And uh the cardinal said, of course, as long as the bishop, the ordinary doesn't mind. So to cut the story very, very short, he confirmed me in 1979 Bob. Ok, 1979. And he was a cardinal two years because he was elevated to the cardinal eight on June 27 1977. Wh Joseph Ratzinger. And the two of them were very, very close. Ok? And so when I and I get to the story of me and Ratzinger and Gin, but to let our listeners know when I went to the Vatican and I was outside of Cardinal Casaroli office and they told me that Gin was arriving for his weekly meeting with the Secretary of State I thought this is my chance once I greet him to let him know who I am. And so when he arrived, Bob and it was a little early, I gave him my greetings and then in Italiano, not in French, which was his mother tongue, but I introduced myself. And I said to him, your eminence, I just want you to know that you confirmed me many years ago. And he looked at me, Bob and this should give you goosebumps. He looked at me and then he said, Don Achille Angeletti, that was the name of my pastor in Soho El Monte. And I looked at him and I said, yes, your eminence. How do you remember? And he said, because that's the last time that I gave the sacrament of confirmation. You know, Mario, I create many praise bishops. I do a lot of ordinations, but I don't get to do confirmation anymore. And that was my last time. So he invited me immediately in house, used to live in San Calisto. You know that, right? And so here is the um the legal anecdote. Here is the legal anecdote on 2005 when the funeral of saint Pope John Paul, the second had just finished. Cardinal Gin was already 83 years old. So he did not enter the conclave. But Cardinal Gin, you remember he was the dean of the College of Cardinals until he turned, until he turned 80 in 2002. And he asked, never happened before. He asked John Paul the second if he could be released because he wanted to go back to Benin and who was, who was the vice Dean Joseph Ratzinger. And so Ratzinger became the dean of the College of Cardinals and Gin, the Dean Emeritus. So here is the anecdote. I am having lunch with Cardinal Gin. This is the day before the conclave starts. OK. On

April, April of 2005, it must have been, must have been the 17th, 16th or 17th of April because Benedict was elected on the 19th.

Ok. So I am with Cardinal Gin inside at the, it's called Palazzo San Carlo where the Collegiate anyway, inside of the building. OK. And we are

the this uh Teutonico

not past past the Teutonico, there is the Santa Marta and then there is the the other building where the gas station is. There is a building that, that's called Palazzo San Carlo

and didn't, didn't Cardinal Bertone have a rooftop apartment there, correct? So just so people know if you walk towards Saint Peter's Basilica from the Piazza and you look up and you go to the left which is the arch of the bells because the bells are on one side only of Saint Peter's Basilica and the other side uh is not the big bell is there on the left side which sounds, I think only three times a year on Christmas and on Easter and,

and Peter and Paul.

Ok. So you go through there and along the side of the basilica and you continue all the way to the back of the basilica. And then you look to your left and you see Doma Santa Marta where Pope Francis lives and you look diagonally to your left. There's a gas station where the Vatican employees and on seniors can get gas. Uh Actually I've never been allowed to get gas there. I've driven by there many times but, uh, I don't know, it's cheaper price. I don't know how much cheaper it is. Anyway, uh, uh, behind the gap

about, uh, it's about 30% 25. So,

so the price of the gas in the Vatican, it's the only Vatican gas station. It's only two pumps there, I think. And, uh, the, uh, the people who work in the Vatican and live out in Rome will drive their cars in, they'll park, they'll go to their jobs. And, uh, yy, you know, which includes making sure the roof of Saint Peter's is ok. All the tiles, nothing is falling down. Uh, taking care of all the, uh, the US, they're taking care of letting people in and out and, uh, in that building next to the gas station, the Palazzo San Carlo. You were having lunch with Cardinal Cantin. Correct? And just before the conclave,

correct the day before. And, uh, and so we are there and he baptized my Children So after I left the guards, we kept the, the, the, the friendship and he came to our house several times and he baptized all of my Children, right? And he lost my wife. So I, we were talking about the field, showing the pictures and we were at the dessert which was Canthi Vin Santo. You know, the, the, the, the Cantu cheeses, the art almond. You know what I'm talking about, right. The almond cookie that you dip in the Vin Santo, right? So that they soften up and all of a sudden the doors open without knocking or anything in the little room in the ref and was his eminence, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger that when he opened the door, he was not expecting to see his eminence with somebody else, right? And so he said, oh, I'm sorry, Ritorno, I'll come back and Cardinal Gin said, no, no. I mean Enza Vianni come, come. And so Cardinal Ratzinger sits down on the table with us and, and I say your eminence, can I offer you some of the biscotti? And we have the bottle of the Vin Santo and I pour it in and Cantin says, oh, I mean, so do you remember for Mario? And I can tell you that Ratzinger, you know, was being polite, right? Ok. I've seen so many Swiss guards in my life. I don't really know who this one is. I have to put them into a specific contest. All right. But, you know, he, you know, we were there, we talked a little bit and he asked me what I was doing. I was in banking at that time and blah, blah, blah, showed him the picture of the family of the cardinal blessing, the baptism of my Children. And then Ratzinger stands up, you know, maybe he was there less than 10 minutes, right. Stands up and he says to Gin Alora Chiao, do, I'll call you later. We'll talk later, right? So when Ratzinger leaves, you know, I stand up and I shake his hand, actually, I tried to kiss his ring, but he didn't want it. And, you know, just shook his hand when I sat down, I looked at Cardinal Gin and you know me now a little bit, Bob, you know, I'm very simple and trying to be funny. And I said to, I mean, did I just have dessert with the future Pope? And Gin laughed at me and then he put his right hand on my arm and I'll tell you in Italiano and then I'll translate it in English. And he said to say, you know, FB and you know, meaning, yeah, you are really sharp, right? And I didn't comment anything. He didn't. Yeah. But 48 hours or 60 hours later, Ratzinger came out as Pope Benedict. So I have to share that anecdote. And on his funeral, somebody asked me to share an anecdote and I wrote the story of the Canthi and the Vin Santo with the future Pope.

Ok. So I do want to ask you followed these pontificates and you, you've still been following this pontificate of Pope Francis. What is the difference uh that each pope brings as they attempt to lead the church and to carry out the the task of teaching the faith and yet facing a world which is of course, extremely of dangerous and filled with uh you know, the Soviets arrested everyone and put them in gulags. Um when war occurs, priests and bishops have to deal with uh wartime emergencies. And uh when there are famines, when there are economic crises, the church is always dealing with human misery. So the Vatican, both on the level of doctrine and on the level of uh charity reaches out all over the world to through their nun C OS and they have bishops in every country. It's a global institution and the man chosen to lead it is the Pope on each occasion. And you knew John Paul the second, you had a dessert with Joseph Ratzinger just before he was elected Pope. And then you've seen the pontificate of Pope Francis. I don't know if you know him personally well, Pope Francis,

not well, but uh I interacted with him several times and uh I was asked uh to contribute, establishing a Pontifical Commission of 2015. And so for almost four years, I will be in the Vatican uh five or four or five times a year. And so I will always interact with Isolines. And uh I was able to, you know, once I was there minding my own business and uh they told me that he was celebrating mass and, you know, there was a small group of people coming, but uh nobody wanted to, to, to be his altar server. OK. And so they, and so they said, Mario, can you please come to the mass with the only father in this alter server? I said, OK, but I'm wearing jeans right now. Let me just go upstairs at least and put a suit on. And they said, oh no, no, no, don't worry. This is just off the books. There are no cameras, nothing. And so I, I cannot say that I know him, but I can say that I got to spend some time around him.

Well, why don't you give us a summary of the leading characteristics of these three men, John Paul the second as the pope that you served under 1989 to 1993 right? In those years when the Soviet Union was collapsing, Joseph Ratzinger Benedict the 16th. You had dessert with him in April 2005, you saw him as a cardinal often. He had been in Rome for 25 years and um he served for eight years and then he resigned, resigned. And then Pope Francis, you've been on a commission I didn't actually hear the name of the commission or the subject.

Pont is, is the Tula Minor, is, was established in 2015, 14 under Cardinal Sean O Male. The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Children was a newly established commission. And uh I was asked to help establishing and launching the commission from

scratch. Well, that's actually quite an interesting thing. I'd like to come to that. But first, let's finish you. How would you summarize how each of these men led the church? The distinguishing characteristics?

Well, I think if, if, if we die to say is that being a pope is not an easy job. As a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, is not technically a job because you don't ask to do it. But you are actually ask, you don't ask to do it, but you are actually you understand. So no say so you do not ask to do it, but you are asked to do it is the tense in the English. So it's a vocation call, right? And I know that for all the cardinals that I, no and I interact, then nobody of the cardinals actually really wants to become pope because it's much easier being a cardinal than being a pope. As a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, a lot of the people, including our listener, they probably don't even know why a cardinal when he's elevated to a pope. He changes his name, but not when, why a priest, when he's elevated to become a bishop, he doesn't change his name. Well, I'll tell you, tell our listener why is because the previous life of a cardinal becoming a pope is over, right? As Jesus says to people, as Jesus told Peter, you learn where you wish to go. John Paul the second. Right. Right. So these three Pope John Paul the second Benedict the 16th and Francis, first of all men of prayers, all three of them men of prayers, they prayed, they had a love for the Eucharist, three different styles. If I may use AAA business, three different code of conducts, right? And uh I have to say the leadership skills though are very similar and I'll tell you why Bob because in their own ways with their own words, in their own styles, OK? Creating more confusion than bringing in clarity. OK? Reading more than speaking a Bracho, OK? Uh seeing rather than standing OK, going off cuffs, rather than staying on a s uh on a, on a, on a script, right? The old, the old three try to do four things, Bob and I am convinced of this and those four the way they are trying to model the way, OK. They are trying, they are trying to inspire us at the same time, they are challenging us why they are enabling others to choose, right? So they are modeling, they are inspiring. They are challenging and they are enabling us to act. So the three Popes in my heart are three very different individual from a intellectual perspective, from a behavioral perspective. But there are three individual of integrity. They all three love the w the Lord, they pray and I've seen all three of them on their knees praying. And I feel that these four skills of leadership of modeling, inspiring, challenging and enabling is kind of like a a thread that connects the three of them. If, if I can make sense of what I'm trying to say, right? I can see that that's what they're trying to say and do.

Now, we've had of course, criticism of each of the Popes. Um John Paul was generally praised. And then once he started uh after the fall of the Soviet Union, uh he started to speak more about moral issues about abortion and about other sexual issues. And he spoke of a kind of culture of death opposed to the culture of life. He started to be attacked in the press, Joseph Ratzinger was perhaps the most attacked man I've ever seen in my life. He and and falsely attacked because he spoke clearly and kindly about true things. But people said that he's a terrible judgmental cold, unfeeling man. Now Francis has been attacked as well in different ways. More so in recent years, by some people inside the church, including members of the hierarchy and you as a Swiss guard must have some judgment of this, whether it seems to you proper or improper, whether it raises a deep concerns because the best friend of someone is the person who really tells the truth and brings those truths forward and says, uh you know, old, old friend, old buddy, you are getting off track. Uh you've got to get back on track, but otherwise we are used to a great loyalty, a great sense of uh supporting and praising the pope. And I'm speaking in particular of uh Cardinal Pell, who under a pseudonym wrote a, a letter about a year before he died saying he wrote to his fellow cardinals and he's saying this has been a disastrous pontificate. Um And then I'm also speaking of Archbishop Vigano who has become very critical of uh many of the decisions and choices of Pope Francis and some of the men around him. So, um how do we understand these things and you as a protector of the Pope and of the Popes, as a soldier, as a loyal and true soldier. How do you judge these things?

Well, first of all, we have to s we we cannot deny the fact that everybody judges us, the pope or a pope according to their own agenda or believing or perspective, right? And so it's never going to be a moment where 1.3 billion Catholics, they are all gonna be aligned. OK. Saying yes, this is it, right. So as a, as, as a practicing Catholic, as a soldier, as a husband, as a father. And now as a grandfather, every time, every time that on Sunday, we say that I believe in one God, the credo, credo. OK? If we go down debt at a certain point, Bob and I'm not a theologian, I'm a business guy, right? And when we go down there, I say I believe in one God. So the Pope is at the helm of the institution, right? And therefore, yes, we are all uh feeling that John Paul the second, I'm gonna just grab what you said, John Paul the second very uh loved Pope. And today, what is it? 18 years after he passed away, people are criticizing him because he kissed the Koran and I'm thinking what he does that mean, you know, so it's it's mind boggling or Pope Benedict, right? That he went up there and people they don't remember what was going on in 2005, right? So that's what I say before. You judge somebody, before you criticize somebody, you got to try to put yourself in their environment, in their shoes in that time. And so when Benedict was elected, that was at the beginning of the scandals, Bob, you remember that? Right? But spotlight in the United States had happened three years before two years before

my spotlight was a series of articles became a film from the Boston Globe. It covered how the globe investigated cases of abuse of Children and cover up of crimes in the Catholic church in the Boston area. And it really shocked the entire United States. No Catholic,

right? And then in 2013, Francis is elected and we have two Popes and the pope and married to us, you know, and the pope and it's, it's so all I'm trying to say is as a soldier, I follow orders, right? And the goal of my life is to get to heaven, right? And uh I believe I was watching you with father last week when father was saying that I think that was a chested or, or somebody said that when you get to heaven, most of the time, you're surprised by the people that are there and you are very surprised by the people that are not there, right? So I, so all I want to say is I pray for the Popes every day when I say my rosary, because when you start the rosary, the first our father and then the trial Mary and the glory are for the intention of his holiness, right? And so I always pray for his intention, which automatically means I pray for him as I said, do I agree with everything that they say? And they do the way they do it? Do I agree with their appointments of individuals? Do I agree with who they surround with? Do I agree with the people that they appoint as their advisor. Of course not. I am a sinner, Bob, right? I pray I know what I have to do in order to get to heaven. And as I explained in one of our previous chat, I always said a way for us to fulfill our baptismal commitments is to rediscover the beauty of our chari conscious of having been incorporated into the church with its secular dimension. I had many conversations with Cardinal Pell and believe me, Cardinal, yes and believe me, Cardinal Pell never said a bad word about any Pope. He never, he never really uh uh uh said bad adjectives. You know what I'm saying? He never labeled anybody, especially Pope Francis with negative adjectives because he was a man of integrity. Cardinal Pell, he felt that the church was into tribulation. He felt that the leadership and the communication skills of Pope Francis could have been better and he was, yeah, felt that his contribution was on fighting corruption and strengthening the finances and that allowed him to get a grasp on the corruption and the complication of the Vatican machine, right? But all I'm trying to say is he never used a negative expression to define the Supreme Pontiffs. He did many times share his concern of the direction that the church was taken. But in one of my last conversation with him on the phone, few days before he went to surgery and then passed away was this is not our church, Mario, this is his church. We have to trust that he has a plan. We have no idea what that is, but we have to trust that he knows what's going on.

Well, a few minutes ago, you said that you couldn't make certain judgments and then you said I am a sinner. And uh all of us would have to say due to our selfishness, due to our self centeredness that we've committed sins, but it's not so much uh that you are a sinner. Uh That is the question is whether you can make an intellectual judgment about whether the doctrine of the church is being obscured or even altered in some way, uh by a very committed group of people who feel that there was a mistake made in the past or something was not taught correctly. And they've got to transform that somehow while still remaining inside the church and whether we can accept this or not. Uh It's been the belief of the fathers of the church and of the saints through all time that we must receive and pass on the deposit of the faith safely with great fidelity, not changing it. It could be that scientific developments require a certain development in doctrine. They call that the doctrinal development. But there has never been any precedent for altering, rejecting or revising the statements of scripture, the statements of Christ and the teachings of the church, the magisterium of the church. Do you think we're in danger of doing that in the things you've seen under any of these Popes or the present time. Of course, is the one that most people are concerned about. Did you hear me?

Yes, I am concerned. Yeah. Yeah, I can hear you very well. Sorry. There was a little delay. Yes, I am concerned. Right. And, uh I see that the devil is at work, but at the same time, Don Luigi Giussani was one of my teachers growing up told, told me that the devil is on a short leash and he is allowed to do only what our Lord allows him to do. So I am definitely not an academic. All I can say to you, Bob and to our listeners is that yes, I am frustrated. I don't understand a lot of the things that I hear that I read. I am a man sometimes a little bit too bold and a expressive and uh I did even hierarchically speaking in, in the church, some high, high head individual using some time the two letters of BS saying I'm sorry. I think that that's total BS, right? Banana soap as I told my Children to say, right? But I try with in my simplicity to be, to be a man of integrity and to not be a coward. That's what I wanted to get Bob. And my message is very, very simple. I have to choose today if I want to live in anger. If I wanna let all of these cows, confusion, stress me and put me off the goal which is to get into heaven. I have the gift to choose today, Bob. If I want to live all the days, months may be years that our Lord grants me on earth as an angry man. Or if I can do something about it and what is helping me right now is in my simplicity. I can make sense of a lot of the things, right? I listen carefully to many of your chats, right? And I scratch my head because I'm thinking, whoa I never taught from that perspective. Effective. I never heard of that. You know, recently a little parenthesis, there was a, there was a reader that said that I bounced around like ping pong balls in a comment. I'm sorry to that the listener. If he thinks that I go recently, I read that uh Kara said that the churches doesn't adapt the church teaches it right? And so I re I I simply uh reread the book of revelation, right? I reread the book of Revelation. And while I was rereading it, I found a sentence that Jesus is saying that the first one that are going into the Gehenna are the cowards are the cowards. And that was an eye opening for me, Bob, right? Because in, in my growing up, I always thought, well, the first one to go to heaven are the sinners, you know, grave sinners and blah, blah blah. And so I'm trying not to be a coward anymore, Bob, right? I am trying to, I am trying to to to to to, to share and spread the good news. I am trying to, to pray for the conversion of a lot of individuals. I'm not a trappist monk or a Cartesian monk obviously, OK. But I am trying in, in, in my way to to, to help people to remember that this is, is church. And despite the rumors, the confusion, I cannot be angry 24 7, just because the cardinal said this or the only father says that and you know, look at the word Youth Day, you know, everything in the media tried to depict that with, with a phrase that the newly uh uh uh created Cardinal auxiliary Bishop of Lisbon. He said that that the world you day was not about Christ, right? OK. So that's it. Everybody got freaked out and say who's this? Bozo and blah, blah, blah. Well, but there were a lot of kids there, there were a lot of kids there and when I don't know if you watched it, but when the blessed Sacrament, the monstrous was out there, there were what 5 600,000 people there, nobody was talking Bob. So you see my point, right? This is this church and yes, I am constantly reminding myself that so that I'm not angry because I don't want to spend the rest of my life angry. We have enough problems. We need to bring people in church, Bob. We need to quench the thirst of the youngster. And that's why I accepted to have conversations with you because I am a nobody but I can share stories of my time with Saint Pope John Paul the second and maybe somebody will read of the hundreds of talks that are out there and receive an inspiration and serve as humble servants in the vineyard of the Lords.

All right, it's been uh a pleasure speaking with you and I do enjoy very much your, your, your insights and your anecdotes. You know, when we show the beginning of the program, the very first picture we show is looking out from inside the Vatican to the two Swiss guards under the um

Arco de La Campane. Yes. The Charles May. Yes.

And mo most people don't know that, that the picture was taken from inside.

That's right.

Yeah. Not too many people are allowed to walk through there from the inside who are not Vatican officials. So that's a nice.

Well, thank you. Thank you very much, Bob. And uh I am excited for your soon to be pilgrimage that you're going to do, you know to, to Lebanon. And uh and um you are always in my prayer and you know, I'm sorry, sometime, maybe I should be more bold. I'm not phlegmatic melancholic, but I believe that today we need less anger. Right. And yes, we need to be for, for the church, the church, what Cardinal Sara said, the church doesn't adapt, the church teaches it right. And every time that I go out, I give a lot of talks to youth groups, confirmation classes, seminarians, the future looks good, Bob. Because the youngster out there, they know where the truth is and they know how to find it. And as a father of five and the grandfather of one, soon two, I am very hopeful that we're gonna get out of this roller coast.

Ok. Then I, then I appreciate your optimism. It's an optimism based in faith, based in faith that it is the church of Christ, not of men that he will find a way to avoid the various dangers that face the church and to calm whatever troubles we face. And uh your position is to be brave to be a good father and to not become angry all the time. But to be an example of someone who continues forward in deep faith.

Amen to that box. Thank you very much as usually.

Thank you Mario Best to all our listeners.

Join us this September on an unforgettable pilgrimage to Lebanon, the land where Christ walked. This is a pilgrimage you won't want to miss. We'll taste world renowned Lebanese cuisine, drift through underground grottoes and explore the monasteries high above in the mountains and in the deepest valleys on our way to an encounter with the miracle worker Saint Charbel in the land where Christ walked, join us this fall September 16th through the 25th, 2023.