(LifeSiteNews) — Father Charles Murr and Frank Wright once again joined John-Henry Westen on this week’s episode of Faith & Reason. They discussed Pope Francis’ call for a “global financial charter” at a Vatican climate conference, his pan-religious blessing to prisoners, the gender-confused hermit in the Diocese of Louisville, Kentucky, and more.

Last week, Pope Francis spoke to a climate conference called “Climate Crisis to Climate Resilience” hosted by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, in which he called for a “new global financial charter” by 2025 that would recognize an “ecological debt” that the Pontiff said could “be of great assistance in mitigating climate changes.” Francis’s remarks came towards the end of his keynote address at the conference. He further outlined a three-point action plan designed to combat the “planetary crisis” that must be centered around financial action.

Wright noted that Patrick Moore, founder of Greenpeace, said he is certain that history will recall “climate change” as a hoax, and that industrialization helped the planet when it suffered a deficiency in carbon dioxide. Wright also observed that any “global financial initiative” would require control of “global financial instruments,” and that for those in the “reality-based community,” it is good news that that international control will shortly cease to exist, making Francis’ plan impossible to implement.

Fr. Murr noted that papal infallibility does not cover the weather, and that Francis has opined on many things that are not of Catholic faith. Because of Francis’ opining, a “growing number of Catholics simply have stopped listening.” It used to be, the priest observed, that when the Pope would say anything, people would stop to read about it. Now, Murr believes, the majority of priests he knows have stopped reading Francis’ encyclicals for the past five years. “He’s lost our attention because he’s not speaking to Catholicism,” he said.

Turning his attention to Francis’ “60 Minutes” interview, Murr noted the confusion on blessings caused by Fiducia Supplicans, with the Pope saying that the blessings need to be to the individual. Murr, meanwhile, said that “if it has to be to the individual, why in the world did he write the document? We did that all along!”

They then turned to Francis’ remarks during the interview about conservative bishops, where the Pope called a conservative “one who clings to something and does not want to see beyond that.”

“It is a suicidal attitude,” Francis continued, adding that it is “one thing to take Tradition into account,” but another to be “closed up inside a dogmatic box.”

Murr recalled a conversation his friend Msgr. Mario Marini had with then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, where the cardinal presented himself to Marini as a conservative who wanted to “reestablish” the Jesuits. “When I listen to [Francis] right now, this is exactly the opposite of everything he told Marini, and not just Marini, he told this to other people, too,” Murr said.

“This is what he told people,” he continued, “that he was conservative, that dogmas never change, that the doctrine of the Church never changed. This doesn’t change. That doesn’t change. And all of a sudden, he’s Pope, and … he no longer holds to that anymore.”

Wright regretted that Francis may be correct on conservatism. Tradition, he pointed out, is not conservatism, and that the Church is not conservative. “Conservative is a form, if we’re going to use the term accurately, politically speaking, of a right liberalism,” he said, “and it’s typified by the fact that it always complaints, or clutches its pearls, about effects, but is never really interested in exploring causes.”

Borrowing an illustration from William F. Buckley, Wright opined that if people attempt to stand before history and yell “stop,” only to see that it does not, then to complain about problems without investigating their causes is to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

A similar point, Westen noted, was made by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò about conservative Catholics and the Second Vatican Council. Viganò attributed the present problems in the Church to Modernism stemming from the Council.

Murr looked at the issue from the perspective of the liturgical changes made, the priest noting that “as far as the Mass goes,” the outcome is in many places a “disaster.” He recounted a recent visit from an American family who said that of the few parishes within a half hour’s drive from their house, no two Masses are the same, and some are not identifiable as Masses. Murr said that “if the Holy Father wanted to, how simple it would have been for him to let people have the Latin Mass.” Meanwhile, the priest observed, clown Masses are allowed.

Wright interjected, asserting that “the source of this madness” is “easily identifiable” as the Modernism warned of by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis, where the saintly pontiff discussed the causes of Modernism and warned the faithful to “guard against” the evils of Modernism and what it would bring about. The situation we find ourselves in was brought about by that very heresy having “subverted the Church,” conservatives perhaps attempting to preserve – he thinks mistakenly or misguidedly – something already subverted. Murr, meanwhile, agreed with Wright that we are living the result of Modernism.

The priest noted that St. Pius X called Modernism the “synthesis of all heresies,” adding that “every heresy that you can imagine is floating around somewhere, not just floating around, [but] have adherents, and quite a number of adherents to it.”

Later in the episode, the trio discussed the attempt on the life of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, an outspoken critic of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) pandemic agreement who was shot five times in public last Wednesday. The attempt on Fico’s life follows his announcement that the country would not support the WHO agreement, calling it “nonsense” that “could only be invented by greedy pharmaceutical companies” last year.

Wright said that the situation is “extremely murky.” Fico is an “anti-globalist” described by the media as a “populist,” which Wright said is “basically an anti-globalist politician who happens to be popular with the public and thereby threatens the liberal managerialist globalist elite.”

Wright further observed that Fico warned of such a possibility four weeks ago. Fico holds that the mainstream media has fomented a “culture of aggression and intimidation,” according to Wright, that could end with the death of a leading government politician. Wright also noted that Fico’s security team were not equipped as they usually would, nor did it behave as security teams normally would, allowing the would-be killer to get close to their charge and shoot Fico before they responded.

The Slovak interior minister stated that the gunman did not act alone, with Wright adding that there are reports Western intelligence agencies are attempting to get involved in the investigation to “prevent the narrative emerging that this signals a tide of political violence against … anti-regime politicians.”

Murr highlighted Fico’s assertion that the media frenzy is focused on those who “dare to hold an opposite opinion,” commenting that the whole world is living in such a way. “You are told what to think,” he said. “We are all told what to think constantly. And if you dare to hold a contrary opinion, there are grave consequences.” He also agreed with Wright that what happened to Fico was “calculated,” though gave credit to Fico for knowing the consequences of dissent but speaking out anyway.

For more from Wright and Murr, tune into this week’s episode of Faith & Reason.

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