In this episode of 33 Minutes on the Lord’s Day, we delve into the profound interplay between spiritual authority and political power. As Easter’s light continues to illumine our path, we reflect on the timeless debate of rendering unto Caesar and to God. Against the backdrop of pressing global events, including the Middle East conflicts and internal U.S. politics, we explore the question of what truly belongs to God.
Praise be the most holy name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Welcome to 33 Minutes on the Lord’s Day, a sacred time, a set apart moment, a return to what matters most, In a world that moves quickly, that speaks loudly, that often forgets God, this is your invitation to pause, to listen, and to enter into the presence of the Lord. For the next 33 minutes, we will walk together through the Word of God, encounter the reality of our daily lives, and respond to the call of Christ, who speaks not only to the world, but personally to you. This is not just a program. This is a moment of grace, a moment to remember who you are and whose you are. So wherever you are, driving, working, resting, open your heart. The Lord is speaking. Welcome to our show. Praise be the most holy name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ now and forever and ever. Amen. Happy Easter season for everybody to our brothers and sisters in Orthodox Church as well who this past Sunday have celebrated Easter one week after Easter in the West and in the Catholic Church. Now that all of us have been embraced by the light of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ risen from the tomb, we want to wish everybody a wonderful and joyful happy Easter stating Christos Anesti, Alithos Anesti. Christ is risen. Christ is truly risen. In every age, power has asked for more than it’s due. Kings have asked for loyalty. Empires have asked for silence. Rulers have asked to be obeyed without question. But the soul of man does not belong to Caesar. And the conscience of the believer does not belong to the state. Today, once again, we are watching politics, religions, the ethics of power, war, corruption, media, and conscience collide. And the question before us is no longer only political. It is rather spiritual. What belongs to civil authority and what belongs to God alone? Welcome to Irrevocable, where truth is not negotiated, charity is not abandoned, and Christ is proclaimed without apology. With this, my brothers and sisters, let us begin our episode with a prayer. Today, we will pray with Psalm 37. Psalm 37. Remember in the Beatitudes, inspired by the proclamation of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, that the Holy Father, Pope Leo, proclaimed upon his arrival in Algeria a few days ago. As a messenger of peace, as a messenger of reconciliation, he proclaimed also the Gospel of the Beatitude. Remember in Matthew, chapter 5, verse 5, we pray. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. With this, please, with your Bibles before you, light your candle, if you are at home, of course, and watching the show, Irrevocable, with Father Andre, and 33 Minutes on the Lord’s Day, let us pray together before the Gospel, before the icon of Our Lady, before the power of the cross of Our Lord, and let us pray. Surrender to God, and He will do everything to you. Hallelujah. Do not fret because of the wicked. Do not envy those who do evil, for they wither quickly like a grass and fade like the green of the fields. Surrender to God and He will do everything for you. Hallelujah. If you trust in the Lord and do good, then you will live in the land and be secure. If you find your delight in the Lord, He will grant your heart’s desire. Commit your life to the Lord, trust in Him, and He will act so that your justice breaks forth like the light, your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait in patience. Do not fret at the man who prospers, a man who makes evil plots to bring down the needy and the poor. Calm your anger. and forget your rage do not fret it only leads to evil for those who do evil shall perish the patient shall inherit the land a little longer and the wicked shall have gone look at his place he is not there but the humble shall own the land and enjoy the fullness of peace glory to the father and to the son and to the holy spirit as it was in the beginning is now and will be forever amen surrender to god he will do everything for you hallelujah my brothers and sisters In today’s episode, we ask ourselves the question that the Lord asked, a political question. Should one pay tribute to Caesar? And Jesus answered with a distinction that the world still resists till today. Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. That is not an escape from public life. It is a purification of public life. Yes, authority matters. Yes, order matters. Yes, law matters. But Caesar has limits. He may collect taxes. He may govern a nation. He may exercise temporal authority. He may apply law and order. But he may not claim worship, for instance. He cannot place himself or herself in the place of God. He or she is not the priest or the priestess, nor the prophet, nor the anointed Messiah. He may not replace truth. He may not own the soul of the human beings. And he or she may not seize what belongs to God. And in this context, what does belong to God today? In the context of a major war that broke in the Middle East between Iran, Israel, the terrorist groups, the Husbalas, the Houthis, the Hashd al-Shaabi, you know, the experiment of the Christians in Africa, the persecution against Christians, and the fights here in our country, in the United States, Iran seeking to have nuclear weapons, and Israel defending itself in an existential war. What is really the truth in all of this? And what is it that does not belong to them? It’s the human person, the moral law, the conscience, and the worship due to the Lord alone. This is where every age is tested, not only by whether it has rulers, but by whether it remembers their limits. And in this episode, as we discuss, render what to Caesar to Caesar and what to God. To God, we will also look at the crisis between Pope Leo XIV, our Holy Father, and our President Donald J. Trump, the President of the United States of America. Why does this matter right now? Because in these recent days, as you saw, Pope Leo has spoken with unusual clarity, yet this clarity is somehow contestable to somebody, to some people, to many people as a matter of fact. It’s almost the Pope has entered into this field of relative truth or relative light in which the Pope decides according to topics to speak and to address a moral question. Namely, it seems that the information tells us that the Holy Father has been focused on the policies of President Trump, on the US administration behavior, the behavior of US administration and Israel regarding to the war in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Iran. And of course, at this topic, the Holy Father had a lot to say. Not only the Holy Father, three major cardinals in the United States also had a lot to say about the policies about President Trump’s approach to illegal immigration, to immigration in general, to many other areas on 60 Minutes as they appeared together speaking, and it seems in a critical way, about the way that President Trump is leading this nation. And the Pope, on his way flying to Algeria, he said plainly, I am not a politician. He also said he would continue to speak strongly against war and that the message of the Gospel should not be abused. Just days earlier, in his Easter message, the Holy Father urged those who have weapons to lay them down and called the world to choose peace. In return, President Trump criticized Poplio publicly and later said he would not apologize. So now the world sees what happens when spiritual authority and the political power, both from the same religion, both from the same great nation of the United States of America, clash in public positions about the use of authority, the moral authority, and the ethics of power. With this, my brothers and sisters, we actually must not look at this conflict as a personal conflict between Pope Leo and President Trump. Actually, this conflict is not a conflict of personalities. Both men are trying to be very faithful to their offices, one to his office as an elected president to achieve an agenda, that has to do with the law and order, has to do with the security, with the safety, has to do with the peace. And the other one, of course, has been elevated to the rank of the Supreme Pontiff as the Vicar of Christ, the Bishop of Rome, the Holy Father, or the Pope of Rome, the successor of Peter, in order to proclaim and to maintain the deposit of the faith the way we received it from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, through Peter and the apostles. So the conflicts between both the Holy Father and President Trump is actually a revelation of something deeper. Well, it’s this mingling, this relationship between politics and the church authority. When politics and somehow expects the church to remain silent over certain applications of the laws, or when religion is expected to bless power without discernment, or choose what to comment about and what to abstain from commenting about, the conscience of the faithful is put on trial. And when the conscience of the faithful is put on trial, in fact, we will see disasters happening, we will see divisions happening, and we will see a clash will happen in the ethics of a power and use of authority between the religious leader and the public official who is elected to safeguard the law and order of his people. And it’s all of this, and without moving away, me as a priest coming originally from Lebanon and looking at today on the day in which we have recorded this show for Irrevocable, and for 33 minutes on the lord’s day we actually today witnessed for the very first time the united states of america and our secretary of state marco rubio coming immediately now actually as we are recording out of a long meeting that happened for the very first time in the history of nations relations between labama and israel the two neighboring countries that both are part of the greater holy land where God promised Abraham and where our Lord Jesus Christ walked and gave his holy gospel and he went into his passion and where he died for our sins and when he rose from the dead and where the apostles and Jesus did his first miracle. For the very first time in the history of relationship between Israel and Lebanon, there are direct talks held, sponsored by the administration of President Trump in the State Department where our US ambassador to Lebanon, who’s from Lebanese descent as well, and our Lebanese ambassador to the United States. And of course, the Israeli ambassador to United States and many members of the Trump administration were in a meeting in the State Department today on April 14, which is the day in which we recorded this beautiful, irrevocable show. And I pray that this meeting was very successful. Yet in the meanwhile, if we go to see what has been happening in Lebanon, we see that, as I say, always in Psalm 92, 12, the righteous will flourish like a palm tree and will grow like a cedar of Lebanon. Bishop Strickland actually had sent a beautiful message to the Lebanese people addressing President Trump, addressing Israel, addressing the people to pray for Lebanon because these negotiations in the United States, Secretary of State Office are happening while Lebanon actually is continuously being bombed. And of course, the optics are not good because it doesn’t show really that these optics aren’t somehow serving the cause of a peace that President Trump is trying to actually serve. And of course, it’s giving purpose and it’s feeding Pope Leo’s and somehow statements to let him stand and tell President Trump and Israel disarm, bombing the people is not the right solution to promote a peace or to seek peace. The Pope is inviting the president to go back to negotiation. But with this, my brothers and sisters, I had seen a post from Babylon Bee to bring you back in the context of the main crisis that we see between the Holy Father, Pope Leo and President Trump. I noticed and I saw that There was a Babylon Bee, some sort of an ironic or satiric post in which they positioned the Holy Father in the White House in the Oval Office. And it says, blasphemy. Pope Leo shares an AI picture depicting himself as Donald Trump. And of course, this is a satiric thing. It’s not really, it didn’t really happen. But it was an opportunity for me to send a message to President Trump and to the Holy Father. I said, in the fullness of filial love, respect and obedience to the office of the Holy Father, we shared actually this post from Babylon Bee, because there is a need to make our spirits a little lighter. admits time of confusion and the social media is really trying to abuse and throw all sorts of garbage on the Pope and on the president to try to split them as far as they can go from one another. Said at the same time, there is a great need to pray for the two most important American leaders now in the world. This is the cause of today’s irrevocable and 33 minutes on a Lord’s day. Today the world is filled with corruption, poverty, persecution, rumors, wars, threats of nuclear army, hate and distortion of information. Pope Leo has a lot to deal with in the Vatican, in the world, and for all the Christians and for humanity. Additionally, Americans expect from President Trump and the US government to maintain and to strengthen and to confirm us in a law and order, in peace, stability, justice, and security. Both leaders are head offices that affect all of life and all of existence. And the unique factor that both are Americans. We need to pray for them that they come together. Both men lead governments and institutions with long history, filled with complex realities, good achievements, good works, and necessary for the maintenance of the peace in the world. Yet both men’s governments contain in them lots of corruption, scandals, injustices and errors. And of course, in many instances, we see that they pick and choose. Sometimes they miss certain elements and they focus on elements that may not be really the most important elements. They make certain deals that they may not be seen as the best deals ever. But the Catholic Church and the United States government are irreplaceable. And both of them are two lungs that must learn how to breathe in one full body. One nation under God and one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church that represents the entire Christianity, even the Christianity that is not in unity with the Holy Church. Why? Because both of them are empires. Because both of them, for order of divinity, they actually came from one another. See, if you look at the foundation of the United States of America, we see that in our foundation, the U.S. actually comes from the divine providence. At least this is how the fathers of the United States placed it in a last statement when they wrote the Constitution in 1700 AD. 89 or something, you know, they spoke, they said, it was by divine providence and with our own hands that we wrote this constitution. And of course, in the Pledge of Allegiance, when we say this nation is one, is nation under God, it actually senses, it feels right that the United States in somehow is a nation that was aware of its Christendom dimension. Yeah, I just use this word, Christendom. And today on 33 minutes on a Lord’s day and on irrevocable podcast in this one hour, we’re introducing a conversation that we’re gonna pick up again. We’re gonna speak about it. So I want you to tune in to the work of the mission of Hope and Mercy. I want you to pay deep attention that we will have an opportunity to be educated in terms of where does this relationship, whether a conflicted relationship or harmonious relationship, is it the first time in history? I’m actually, I’m happy deep down that finally the Pope can no longer avoid President Trump and President Trump can no longer avoid the Pope. The Vatican and Washington DC, must work together and there is no other option for a civilized world to remain. Have you ever heard in the history of a phenomenon called Caesaropapism? Caesar and the Pope got together. In fact, the church do its existence as far as an establishment, as far as a government, as far as an institution, not like the people of God, not in its spiritual form, but in its physical form, as a geographically defined as a Vatican, as an institution, as a hierarchy, as leadership, as a constitution, as can Allah. The Pope did not found that church. It was Caesar who founded that church. Caesar, Constantine the Great in 325 was the Caesar who called for the first council. Imagine today, I hope President Trump don’t take me seriously now in this and he will call for a council for instance. Imagine today, President Trump calling the church Christianity to a council. Actually, he probably can. One could argue there is precedence. I do not know if my producers now might probably cut in this part out. President Trump could probably go to the point and he says, I wanna call for a council in the world. In fact, This is how the Caesar started the church. He called for a council, the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. It was the Caesar of Rome, the emperor of Rome. And in fact, he was not Christian at the time. He was not Catholic. He was not baptized. His mother was Christian, but it was him who called the church to the Council of Nicaea. And ever since that time, you know, the Caesar is the one As a secular ruler, like the emperor who held the supreme authority, he used his authority to call the church together into existence as a hierarchy again. I do not want people to think that I’m advocating one way or the other, but it’s unavoidable that a relationship must exist between the Pope and the emperor. This was true in the history of the Byzantine Empire, of the early Roman Empire. And of course, in this relationship, there was some sort of a clash. It went on a spectrum of working through harmony to the point that it didn’t work through harmony. I can give you an example of one of my favorite fathers of the church from the Roman church, St. Ambrose, whose feast day we celebrate every year on December 7th. St. Ambrose, for instance, you know, when the emperor went to Milano and he wanted to enter the church to receive Holy Communion after he had killed so many people, he denied him public communion. Ambrose, as a bishop of Milano, told the Caesar, you better go and repent for 40 days. and do fasting and abstinence, otherwise I will not allow you to enter to the church. He abstained them actually, gave them almost like what we call a minor, like severe penance for the Caesar, and the Caesar obeyed them. And he went and he prayed in seclusion to repent. That’s the idea, the reality. The church always operated within the realm of a nation, empire. We call this Christendom. And the relationship between the two leaders, the Caesar and the Pope, we call it Cesaropapism as a phenomenon. And a key characteristics of this historical relationship, for instance, you know, in the history of the Napolitan kingdom in Napoli, in Italy, in South Italy, in a nomination of the bishops, the Pope did not have actually the upper hand to nominate his own bishops. The King of Napoli nominated those bishops and the Pope had to approve it. Is there any recent precedence that allows little bit of frustration on President Trump’s end. But in the end, he actually came out in public and he said, listen, I have a problem with Pope Leo, and it’s time to talk about this problem in public. Well, do you recall in 2019, there was a secret treaty, a secret deal that was done between the Vatican state and the Chinese government, the big China, the giant dragon. And in that treaty, which was orchestrated by one American Cardinal, who later on we found out he was a major, major, horrible predator. You know, the Cardinal of Washington DC, McCarrick, who obviously is a patron for many bishops, many priests, many cardinals, a groomer. if you look at the hierarchy as being some sort of nepotism, nepotism, where he chose who’s gonna be bishop, who’s gonna be cardinal. He was very influential in the Vatican. And this is where the story, unfortunately, of Archbishop Vigano all began. And you know what happened with Archbishop Vigano. It led to a lot of sad stories in the United States. And meanwhile, McCarrick, was a groomer, was a predator, and he would sleep with seminarians, and he would choose bishops, many of whom are cardinals today in the Holy Church. But McCarrick also worked on something very important that brings us back to the baggage, the background of where does President Trump come from, and I’m not justifying for him. He orchestrated the entire relationship along with the Secretary of State Cardinal for the State of the Vatican, his eminence Cardinal Pietro Parolin. They both orchestrated a secret deal with China. In 2017, 2018 and 2019, and this secret deal was signed by Pope Francis and by President Xi of China. And that secret deal remains secret deal until today. And the Pope renewed this deal, this treaty. So there is an ongoing secret understanding, a deal going on between the Chinese communist regime and the Vatican. How do you think this makes the United States government feel? How do you think President Trump thinks about that when he comes to measure it in terms of national security, national debt that we have between us and China? Why would the Vatican as a state make a secret deal that it does not tell the United States government about? a government that supposedly represents all the principles of Judaism, of Christianity, the principles of a nation that still does not denounce God, that cherishes its identity. It says, I am a Christian nation, especially in an administration to whom many Americans voted, stating We voted for a president who wants to bring the Bible back, to bring God back, to bring Jesus Christ back, to bring the Merry Christmas back. All of a sudden, Pope Leo comes out and says, a nation almost cannot speak on behalf of Jesus Christ. And Jesus does not bless swords. And Jesus asks you to disarm. So I’m trying to explain to you calmly, quietly, objectively, historically, that the relationship and the contentious relationship that we see happening between President Trump and Pope Leo, it’s only the opening of a flood gate that’s gonna lead to either a major revelations of corruptions inside the church and the United States government involvement in that corruption or agencies from the US or is gonna have to bring both the American leaders, Pope Leo and President Trump into a table where they will have to sit down and they will have to talk it out together and solve their issues. And that’s what I hope will happen. So my brothers and sisters, for our friends who will be leaving us on this beautiful Sunday morning with KLZ on 33 Minutes on a Lord’s Day. Remember, the church does not speak as a party machine. She does not speak to win elections. She does not speak to flatter presidents. One could say that. She does not speak to protect reputations. The church speaks to the conscience of the president, of every government leader. It enlightens their behavior to call them for repentance when necessary and to influence them in a good way in order to remain good characters, morally founded and rooted in the Ten Commandments, any application of the ethics of the use of authority, any ethics of the use of power, because Christ is Lord. And the Gospel does not reflect the private opinion, but it reflects the teachings of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And on the other hand, The church must always be careful that it does not end up dressing up ideologies in sacred language. The church must not allow the use of the faith as a camouflage to advance certain coup or certain corruption to normalize abuse of authority, abuse of power, or to call for certain pastoral approaches and certain social justices that may actually end up compromising the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So we are living between the confusion of force with righteousness. And in such a way, we as faithful have the obligation and have the duty to try to understand and to pray that the church, while it may not tell Caesar what policies to pass, the church herself must make sure it did not lose its moral authority by engaging in misbehavior and by engaging in relative fights to social justices that might have compromised its holiness, its secrecy. So today we have to pray that both leaders come back in a fullness of humility to seek Light from the source of truth, from Jesus Christ. With this, I wish all our friends on KLZ Radio with 33 Minutes, a wonderful and blessed Sunday, and again, a happy Easter. Please continue to restream the remaining time of our podcast, Irrevocable, by going to the YouTube channel of our Mission of Hope and Mercy, by going to our Facebook page of the Mission of Hope and Mercy, and of course, you can stream it from our X page. And thank you so much for your continuous support for the work of the Mission of Hope and Mercy. Please continue. Go online. Visit our website, missionofhopeandmercy.org. And please pledge your support to help us through donations to care for the persecuted Christians in Lebanon and to continue with our podcast and with our awareness, our education, and our works of charity. May you have a blessed and wonderful Sunday. You just listened to 33 minutes on the Lord’s day. Do not let this be the end of the encounter. Carry the word you have received into your life. Let it shape your thoughts, your decisions, your relationships, and above all, let it draw you closer to Christ. But today, we also invite you into something more. If this time has blessed you, if the word of God has spoken to your heart, consider becoming part of the mission that makes this possible. Through the mission of hope and mercy, we are reaching souls, supporting the suffering, and standing with persecuted Christians around the world, bringing light to where there is darkness and hope where it is needed most. You can be part of this mission. through your prayer, through your sharing of this program, and if you are able, through your financial support. To join us, visit missionofhopeandmercy.org, missionofhopeandmercy.org. There you can learn more, stay connected, and make a direct impact in the lives of those in need. Your generosity, no matter how small, becomes a channel of God’s mercy in the world. God bless you. Father Andre.
