We Have a New Pope

Welcome to the parish podcast for the parishes of Saint Charles Bormeo in Whitefish and Saint Richard in Columbia Falls. This podcast is made possible with support from the Columbia Falls Council of the Knights of Columbus. And now, here's Father Raftis.

I'm father Sean Raftis, and I'm pastor of Saint Charles Borromeo in beautiful Whitefish. And at Saint Richard Parish in Columbia Falls, which is just a hair's breath away from the glorious Glacier National Park, which will be getting very busy after Memorial Day. So there are a lot of, things noteworthy bits of news that I wanna pass on to you. Maybe a couple theological principles. First, we're very grateful and blessed to be, looking forward to having Bishop Vedder visit us on his February and Deanery visit.

And so what Bishop Vedder is going to be doing is coming into the area to visit various parishes. Now what's a deanery, d e a n e r y? It's a term that priests use and administrators use in the parishes and staff. A deanery is a geographical area which is comprised of a number of parishes. Simply put, we're in the Northwest part of the Helena diocese.

That's the most simple way to put it. So we have parishes all the way up in Troy and Libby and all the way over in Plains and Knox and all the way to the southern portion of Flathead Lake, Bitches by the way, one of the five cleanest lakes in the world in Polson and in Ronan. And we have parishes up near Glacier Park at Saint Richard. And so bishop also includes, bishop will visit Saint Matthews grade school, Montessori school, and Saint Matthews parish, risen Christ, Saint John Paul the second, if I'm losing leaving some, parishes out. My apologies.

But a deanery is basically a geographical area, and it helps for the administration of the, diocese to be able to have regular meetings with the deanery representatives and the priests and the administrators and staff so the diocese can more effectively communicate, the gospel. And, bishop oftentimes sends people up from the diocese to explain to us new programs, new opportunities, new resources, all for the for the good and the sanctification of the faithful. So bishop is coming up here and I'll give you an overview of the masses with the bishop. And this is, starting Saturday, May 17 at 4PM at Saint Joseph in Charlo. Six Pm at Immaculate Conception in Polson.

On Sunday, May 18, he's going to be at Saint Richard for the 10AM mass and at Saint Charles in Whitefish for the noon mass. On Tuesday, May 20, Bishop will be at Risen Christ in Kalispell, which is in Evergreen between, Columbia Falls and Whitefish and Kalispell. And on Wednesday, May 21, my sister Margaret's birthday. Happy birthday, Margaret. 9AM at Saint John Paul the second in Bigfork, Friday, May Twenty Third at 10AM at Saint Joseph in Libby, Saturday, May Twenty Fourth at 04:30PM at Saint John Paul the second in Bigfork, and at 06:30PM at risen Christ in Kalispell.

And finally, on Sunday, May 25, he will be celebrating the 9AM mass at Sacred Heart in Ronan. Other notable activities and opportunities to visit with the bishop, There will be the Holy Spirit's Holy Smokes casual gentleman's gathering. It's a barbecue with Bishop Vedder. It will be Friday, May 16 coming up here 02/2025 this year, the year of our Lord. And it will be from 5PM to 07:30PM at Risen Christ.

So bring your own meat to grill, bring your own spirits and cigars. Bishop likes cigars. He also, likes I don't know what kind of things he likes to drink, whiskey, I think, pretty much or bourbon, but, mostly, bishop likes good company, and good conversation. Bishop will celebrate the baccalaureate mass for the class of 02/2025 at Saint Matthew's Catholic Church, and that will be on Tuesday, May 20 at 7PM. Again, the baccalaureate mass at Saint Matt's Tuesday, May twentieth at 7PM.

And you can contact Nikki McClain if you have any questions. (970) 710-9630. Also, on Wednesday, May 21 at 12:15PM, Bishop will be celebrating at Saint Charles Borromeo in Whitefish, a mass of remembrance for those who have lost a spouse. It'll be followed by a luncheon in the parish halls as an opportunity for widows and widowers to remember their loved ones, called in Christ and marked with the sign of faith back to our Lord, and to pray for consolation in the love of Christ, which bound them together in the holy sacrament of matrimony, which is a most noble sacrament. And, there's gonna be a confirmation mass at Saint Richard in Columbia Falls on Thursday, May 22.

We have quite a few people being confirmed. The Knights of Columbus will be there providing an honor guard. There will be 80. That's 80. Eight zero candidates and their sponsors.

So it's gonna be very, very crowded. We hold about, I think, 500 or 600 people at Saint Richard. So get there early when you can, and, there will be a light reception to follow. Taking into account the local, again, at Saint, Richard. Again, there will be mass at 10AM with the bishop at Saint Richard and mass at Saint Charles on May 18 at noon.

So May 18, mass at Saint Richard, mass at Saint Charles at ten and noon. So we're really looking forward to having bishop here also. The new assignments came out for the priests. So a dear friend of mine, father Eric Gilbaugh, who's been down in Belgrade in Three Forks, he's been down there, I think, seventeen or eighteen years, and he's gonna take a little sabbatical in July for four months, and he's going to be then assigned to Saint John Paul the second, beautiful church and wonderful people. They're named after, John, Saint John Paul the great.

And by the way, if you go to if you make a it'd be worthy to make a visit to Saint John Paul the second in Bigfork. When you walk in the doors, bear to the left. You know, you'll see the blessed sacrament where it should be behind the altar in the center in the place of pride and prominence. And if you walk to the left side and the left side of the aisle, there is a bust of Saint John Paul the Great, and there's also a relic, which is an absolutely unique relic, which archbishop Thomas, when he was bishop of Helena, was able to procure through the the, assistant of Saint John Paul the second, cardinal Jevic, who was with him all the times and was with him when the assassination attempt, when Ali Aja attempted to assassinate the holy father. And thanks be to god, it was unsuccessful, but it did injure the holy father, and he shed blood for the faith.

And so there's a the relic is, except usually oftentimes relics are second class relics if they're a piece of a vestment of a saint, but this is actually kind of two in one. It's a piece of his cassock, his white cassock in which he was wearing which he was wearing when the assassination attempt had, and it had occurred, and it has blood on it. So it's called ex sanguinis in Latin, the blood of Saint John Paul II and a remnant of its cassock he was wearing during the assassination attempt. He forgave Ali Adjah. It was a very famous scene of Ali Adjah and him meeting in a cell in Rome, and there's a lot of speculation about the assassination.

Nevertheless, he credits the blessed mother, Our Lady of Fatima, with saving him, and he placed the bullet that was in him into the crown into one of the hoops of our lady of Fatima at Fatima, and the bullet was a perfect fit into the hoop, and it remains to this day. If you ever make a pilgrimage to Fatima and see that statue, maybe ask somebody quietly if you could take a look at it. So, it would be a good idea. So Eric's father Eric Gilbaugh will be going there, but in the meantime, from July 1 until let's see. July, August, September, October until November, Monsignor Kevin O'Neil, the rector emeritus of the Cathedral of Saint Helena, as well as the vicar general of the diocese.

He's going into semi retired status or retired status as he deserves it very much. He's been working like nobody's business. He's done a lot of yeoman's work, a lot of work for the bishop and the diocese in general. He's pretty much done everything he can do in the diocese except be a bishop, but he has been all as a good and faithful servant of the people of God and of our Lord and the lady very devoted to our blessed mother and to our Lord, of course. And he will be the kind of he will be the interim administrator temporarily at Saint John Paul the second.

So I'm sure you'll probably get a chance to meet him as he'll be coming up to visit different parishes and just look around, and it will be great. Okay. Another assignment, father John Neneman, who has helped out very graciously at Saint John Paul the second as well as I'm sorry. He I think he may have helped at Saint John Paul the second, but father John Neneman will be, assigned to, Libby and the Mission Church up north in Troy Immaculate Conception. Libby is Saint Joseph and over at Eureka at the church there.

And so he will be there for a year renewable, I think, I hope, I pray. Father John has been great helping here at Saint Richard and Saint Charles when I was away. So, you know, it'll be really nice to still have him in the Deanery. He's a great priest. So keep father Eric and father John in your prayers also.

A local man done good, a holy man, father Kyle Tannehill will be coming to join father Stan at risen Christ, Saint Matt's, and Saint Matt's school, and it will be great to be able to welcome them. Aside from local news, including our good bishop's visit, we have some great news about the holy father, habeimus papem, which means we have a pope. So last week on Thursday, we had after, I think, the third vote, white smoke. And, Pope Leo the fourteenth is our new pope, which is wonderful. And it filled me with great joy and hope and consolation to see him come out onto the loggia.

The loggia is in pretty much smack in the middle of Saint Peter's Basilica outside is a balcony, and that is what called the loggia in Italian. And he goes out there to greet the faithful, and he gave his what's called erby at orbi blessing, the first one. So it was great, and erbi et orbi means in Latin, erbi like urban city, et orbi like an orb like the earth, and to the world. So he gave his Erbi at Orbi blessing and gave his first address kind of introducing himself actually the, there was a cardinal and he went out and read, I wanna announce to you, great joy. We have a pope and named him.

He took the name Leo the fourteenth. Leo the thirteenth, I love Leo the thirteenth. You can actually if you do a video search on the web, look it up, Leo the thirteenth footage, and you can actually see him in action. And Leo the thirteenth wrote a very beautiful encyclical called Rerum Novarum of new things. And Leo the thirteenth condemned socialism, and by the way, there have been several condemnations, and I would mean condemnations of socialism.

And by the way, a socialist is nothing more than a communist with patience. So we have Leo the thirteenth who not only condemned socialism, but he also spoke of the rights of the workers in terms of just wage, getting good treatment by one's employers, one's superiors. And if you ever have chance, read Rerum Novorum. And he was a great pope, very good natured, and I think this new pope, Leo the fourteenth, is very good natured as well. And if I have a little bit of advice to give to you for what it's worth, you know, it's what it's worth.

It's probably with that and $2 and a cup you can buy a cup of coffee. Give them a chance. You know? I I know there are a lot of opinions about late pope Francis, may he rest in peace, but, you know, we have to put the as Saint Ignatius said, try to put the best interpretation on people's actions. And so we need to pray for the Holy Father.

We need to pray for his safety, his well-being, his consolation as he essentially leads the 1,300,000,000 Catholics around the world and leads them to salvation to Christ Jesus and helping us to deepen our faith in Christ Jesus. And so, he's part of that unbroken succession, and he's not the successor of Francis. And Francis was not the successor of pope Benedict the sixteenth. They all were the successors of Saint Peter. That's why they say he stands in the shoes of the fishermen.

By the way, don't watch Conclave. It's a waste of your time. It's made by people who hate the church. So if you wanna watch a good movie about how a pope gets elected and a great adaptation of a Taylor Caldwell novel, watch Shoes of the Fisherman. It's streaming.

I think you can see it on Prime, and you can get DVDs of it. It's a long movie, but it's beautiful. And it's with Anthony Quinn, David Janssen, and a number of other really good actors. Sir John Gielgud plays, Pope, the one before the new Pope. And I think you would be well served to watch it.

It was filmed on location in Rome in The Vatican as well. So the shoes of the fishermen, we have a new pope. So please pray for him. Pray for our bishop as he readies to come up that he'll be filled with energy and and, gladness and the Easter joy of the risen Christ. That's my prayer for all of you.

So thank you for tuning in, and I really appreciate, all of your prayers. Please know you're all in mine. And now we have a pope, and we have a good bishop who cares for us. And please pray for me as I, try to serve you well. And let us close with a little prayer.

Hail Mary, full of grace, Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among 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. May almighty God bless you, the father, son, and one spirit.

Amen. Just know that you're loved by our Lord and there's nobody who has been, is, or will be like you in the whole world. God bless you.

Speaker 0: In the Catholic church, we dedicate the entire month of May to the blessed virgin Mary. And this time of year, we're always we always find ourselves in the middle of the two great feasts of Easter and Pentecost. And, you know, right after Pentecost arrives in the not too distant future, we're going to be focused on a feast called Mary, mother of the church. In fact, in the decree that established this celebration, it occurs on the Monday after the feast of Pentecost, that decree states that Mary, when standing at the foot of the cross, became the mother of the church when she accepted her son's testament of love and welcomed all people in the person of the beloved disciple as sons and daughters to be reborn unto eternal life. And therefore, it's in Mary and her life of humble, obedient service that we discover the model of her own vocation to accept her son's testament of love.

From the very moment of Mary's response to the angel Gabriel through her assumption into heaven to sit in glory with her son, Mary demonstrated the importance of bringing Jesus to a suffering world, and the manner in which to do that. Whether it was her personal response to God, as at the Annunciation, or her intervention on behalf of others, as at the wedding feast at Cana, Mary demonstrated the essential virtues needed to be a faithful follower of her son and to carry out our part in the unfolding of the story of salvation. It was Mary's humility which allowed her to abandon herself to God's will and gave her the courage to follow god into an unknown future. And it was this trusting humility that gave her the strength to say yes under all circumstances of her life. Mary committed herself to following the will of God, and to bring his son into the world, so that we all might be the adopted children and co heirs to the glory of the resurrection.

But at no time in her life can we think that she fully understood all that this entailed. She, like us, wondered about a divine plan which would include great pain, bewilderment, and sorrow. It was, however, her humble obedience, her total and absolute reliance upon divine love that gave her a never failing strength to be the first and greatest disciple of her son. Mary gave birth to Jesus at Bethlehem, but she continued to give birth to his presence in this world for the entirety of her life here on earth and in heaven as she invites each and every one of us to simply do whatever he tells you. Mary is our pattern, our model of true discipleship.

It is she who teaches us to listen humbly and to act boldly upon the invitation of god with the absolute conviction that we too are called to bring Jesus to a suffering world through lives of humble obedience to God's will.

Well, thanks for listening to the podcast for Saint Charles Borromeo in Whitefish in Saint Richard in Columbia Falls. Be sure to follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. This has been a production of the Parish Podcast Project.