Bishops Offer To SELL YOU Access To The Pope

0:00Brought to you by CharityMobile. Now more than ever, it's important to buy the way you believe. Switch to the phone company that supports family and life. Use promo code Tradition at charitymobile.com for a special offer. You remember? Several days ago, I broke to you the absurd story. Caused an international scandal when I broke it and I wasn't the cause of the scandal, but by the time I got to it, it was. Talking, being talked about in secular media and in European Catholic media, it eventually made its way to a state-side media, and it was this. It came out that the Vatican Secretary of State's office now has set the official price for the elites to have FaceTime with the Pope, half a million euros. Yes, you can pay money to get time with the Pope. Now, the Pope will still see normal people and audiences for free. For the elites, it will charge half a million euros.

1:00This caused scandal with people asking, isn't this kind of like simmity? Maybe it's not simmity. It's all but it kind of has that whiff of to it. Others, like myself, said, hey, maybe the SSPX to get their audience with the Pope should raise half a million euros. Probably vegano, who's tried multiple times to get an audience with Pope Leo and had them canceled the last moment, maybe he should find a way to raise half a million euros to get time with the Pope. Well, the natural thing that happened with this, and by the way, this was the policy under Francis II and all the post-concilior popes. That doesn't make it okay. But the natural thing happened from this. Bishop started taking notes. We now have the first national conference of bishops checking in to tell us, hey, if the Pope can do it, why can't we? Let's go to Crook's International. Or crooksnout.com, which professes to be taking the Catholic Pulse. They're based out of America. They're from Boston.

2:01They're definitely a modernist rag. Headline, Spanish bishops offering top donors chance to meet the Pope. Pay to play. The term pay to play goes back to the 60s and 70s and I think into the 1980s in the music industry in America where the record labels would essentially hand out cash to DJs to play their radio singles, right? The singles of their hottest new acts on the radio. Or bands that the labels wanted promoted sort of astroturf popularity for them. Pay to play. Where the term comes from, and it's since been adopted for any of these things, often in politics where you'll have say a president who gives people presidential medals of freedom because they were top donors or they gave them the symbolic positions in the federal government, typically in the diplomatic core. Oh, you can become the ambassador to some tiny country that doesn't matter, right? All because you gave a lot of money.

3:04Well, now the bishops taking the cue from the Pope, decide they went in on the action. What a great way to raise money. By the way, Spain is essentially trying, they're very hardest. The bishops are of that country to become like the church in Germany, but worse. These are the details. With popular the 14th upcoming visit to Spain, in need of significant financing, the country's a pissable conference is resorting to creative methods to generate income, including enticing wealthy donors with the prospect of meeting the Pope in person. In a dossier obtained by Crux now, the conference lays out a five tier sponsorship scale with two, with top two tiers, great benefactor and benefactor, being offered to the chance to meet the Pope in return for sizable donations. The conference has sent the dossier to businesses, foundations, and individuals of significant means, and hope they will contribute to offset the cost of the visit schedule for June of this year. The great benefactor will donate between half

4:06a million to one million euros, which is about five hundred and seventy five thousand to one point one five million US dollars. And while the private meeting with the pontiff, a working meeting at the Vatican, and reserve spaces at the events during the trip, the benefactor option of between quarter of a million to half a million euros has the same benefits as the great benefactor except the meeting with the Pope won't be private. A spokesperson from the committee organizing the Pope's trip to Crux now, the Spanish bishops, are hoping by such methods to keep the taxpayer from having to shoulder the burden of the people visit. Why would the taxpayer have to pay this? Because unlike the United States, the relationship between the Catholic Church and the government in this case of Spain, but is also true in France and other European governments is very different. And as such, the state will pay for things beyond just general order and security. They will pay for a lot more than that. And so the Spanish bishops, I would say this is a positive motivation,

5:09they don't want the taxpayers to pay things for a religious leader visiting the country. I completely approve of that. However, this is just ridiculous. Requesting support in this case is our way of covering the material costs of a trip of this magnitude without these falling on taxpayers, they said, the Holy Father, like the church in Spain, will as usual show a gesture of gratitude to all of them, as well as to many others, authorities, volunteers, et cetera, in the form of a meeting, they said, as you make your way down the scale, there is the sponsor, 50,000 to a quarter million euros, who doesn't get a guaranteed meeting with the Pope, but can use the official business ambassador title and public communications. Look, here's a better solution. I got a better solution, a second collection. And then you have your donations office at the conference level, calling these donors and saying, hey, it's your Catholic duty to just make sure that we can have the Pope come and visit. Maybe we'll try to invite you over to something, but there are no guarantees.

6:13You actually make it an active faith to do this instead of quid pro quo. Then there's the collaborator, 10,000 euros, who gets inclusion in the official directory of collaborating entities and a mention in event communications and the friend of the event, who contributes a thousand euros and is given formal recognition, the form of a certificate. The launch and the actual holding of his Holiness's trip will be funded thanks to the support of donors, ranging from large companies to small individual contributions including donations and in-kind contributions, as well as the work of thousands of volunteers that spokesperson added. The estimate cost for the trip are somewhere between 15 to 30 million euros and normal Catholics in the PR, also being asked to contribute. Look, this is ridiculous on its face. Maybe, just maybe, if papal trips, papal globe trotting trips cost this much money for the host country,

7:16maybe that's enough reason. In this time of economic weirdness for the globe trotting trips to be scaled back. There was a time, not terribly long ago, when popes rarely traveled. They stated in Rome. They also heard a lot less from them because, well, these papal trips tend to involve as, you know, the press asking questions during the flight because they get to fly for some reason with the Holy Father. And then, Pope Leo has already demonstrated that he is even worse than Francis when it comes to being able to self-govern himself when talking to the press. He just has a harder time even than Francis did, and that is saying something. So maybe, just a thought here, at a time when a certain country in the Middle East is firing off rockets and was caught lying when they were told that they're the ones that the ordinance they had couldn't reach Europe. They were caught lying

8:20about that. Maybe a good idea, just for security reasons, for the Holy Father to stay in Rome. Scaled out his trips to only the most essential. But I'm very curious what you think about this. So let me know in the comments. And remember to pray for everybody who spoke about a negative way, clinical Spanish bishops. There have to be other ways that if they insist on doing this, to fund it. And that I still think would be to just go to the rich Catholics and say, this is your duty as a Catholic who has been blessed by God with great wealth because that blessing comes with great responsibility. And that responsibility is to both society and to the church. And the Holy Father is coming to visit our great country. It is your duty as a will to do Catholic to help make it possible. And that's it. No quid pro quo. Maybe I'm naive and will fashion. Let me know what you think about

9:21this in general. In the comments, please. And hit like and subscribe. If you have not, it does help as the sharing this on social media that helps too. If you've ever thought about supporting the work we do here at Return to Tradition, options in the description box below. Pat your own subscribe star, that kind of thing. Those that that support does help keep these daily messages coming and is greatly appreciated. And always pray for the church. I'm Anthony Stein.