IRREVOCABLE - Reflections and Conversations with Father Andre

How do Catholics remain faithful to Jesus Christ and His Church while confronting scandal, confusion, and the misuse of sacred authority?

Fr. André Y. Sebastian Mahanna welcomes canon lawyer Msgr. Ricardo Coronado-Arrascue and Prof. Julian Dunraven for a searching conversation about divine justice, faith and reason, conscience, obedience, and the responsibilities of Church leadership.

Following the series’ examination of financial stewardship with Mary Flynn, this episode turns to another sacred responsibility: the stewardship of ecclesiastical authority. What must canon law protect? How can the faithful distinguish legitimate authority from the misuse of power? And what happens when the right of defense and meaningful accountability appear to fail?

Msgr. Coronado-Arrascue shares his account of the canonical proceedings he contests and his perspective on contemporary theological and pastoral controversies. The conversation also examines questions surrounding Fr. Chad Ripperger’s reported pause from public speaking and interviews, the lessons of Church history, and the relationship between fidelity to Catholic teaching and institutional reform.

At the heart of the discussion is a pastoral concern: How do we help families and young people preserve their faith without concealing wrongdoing—or allowing bitterness to replace prayer, charity, and hope?

“Canon Law must protect the flock of Christ—never become a weapon against it.” — Fr. André

The episode includes the Mission of Hope and Mercy’s ministry video and concludes with prayer, returning to Christ’s call to courage amid the trials of the world.

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When God’s people give in faith, how should the Church honor that trust?

Join Fr. André Mahanna, special guest Mary Flynn O’Neill, and Prof. Julian Dunraven for Part Two of a candid conversation about generosity, stewardship, and accountability in the life of the Church.

Stewardship is more than money. It includes the time, talents, prayers, and sacrifices through which the faithful sustain their communities. Drawing on Mary’s experience in parish life and administration, we examine the relationship between those who give and those entrusted with receiving, managing, and distributing these gifts.

From parish collections to wider Church responsibilities, the conversation explores donor intentions, transparency, responsible oversight, and service to the poor. How can the faithful remain generous while becoming better informed? How can Church administration remain faithful to the sacred purposes for which these gifts are offered?

With Our Lady of Fátima’s call to conversion and fidelity as our spiritual backdrop, our purpose is to encourage faithful stewardship, honor the sacrifices of God’s people, and strengthen service to Christ’s mission.

Be generous. Be informed. Remain faithful to Jesus Christ.

When God’s people give in faith, how should the Church honor that trust?

Join Fr. André Mahanna, special guest Mary Flynn O’Neill, and Prof. Julian Dunraven for Part One of a candid conversation about generosity, stewardship, and accountability in the life of the Church.

Stewardship is more than money. It includes the time, talents, prayers, and sacrifices through which the faithful sustain their communities. Drawing on Mary’s experience in parish life and administration, we examine the relationship between those who give and those entrusted with receiving, managing, and distributing these gifts.

From parish collections to wider Church responsibilities, the conversation explores donor intentions, transparency, responsible oversight, and service to the poor. How can the faithful remain generous while becoming better informed? How can Church administration remain faithful to the sacred purposes for which these gifts are offered?

With Our Lady of Fátima’s call to conversion and fidelity as our spiritual backdrop, our purpose is to encourage faithful stewardship, honor the sacrifices of God’s people, and strengthen service to Christ’s mission.

Be generous. Be informed. Remain faithful to Jesus Christ.

Part Two continues Wednesday, October 21, 2026, at 7:30 PM MT. Subscribe and share this conversation.

EDITORIAL NOTE

This recorded program offers historical, theological, and public-interest discussion. Guests’ views are their own and do not necessarily represent the Mission of Hope and Mercy. Personal recollections, interpretations, and reported allegations should be distinguished from established facts; an allegation or question is not a finding of wrongdoing. Discussion of particular persons, institutions, or events should not be understood as an accusation against Catholics generally. We welcome documented corrections and responses from persons or institutions discussed. Our purpose is to encourage informed generosity, transparency, justice, and faithful service.

A presentation of the Mission of Hope and Mercy.

MISSIONOFHOPEANDMERCY.ORG

The Stewardship of the Temporal Goods of the Church

The Catholic Church & Christianity Case — Part IV

What does the Catholic Church actually own? Where does its money come from? Who controls it—and what is it ultimately supposed to accomplish?

In this new episode of Irrevocable with Fr. André, Fr. André is joined by Prof. Julian Dunraven for an introductory investigation into one of the most misunderstood dimensions of Christianity:

the stewardship of the temporal goods of the Church.

Beginning with Scripture and the early Church, the conversation examines the difference between ownership and stewardship, the biblical warning about God and mammon, Saint Lawrence and the poor as the “treasures of the Church,” and the reasons the Church historically came to possess property, institutions, endowments and investments.

The discussion then moves into the modern financial structure of Catholicism:

Who owns parish property?

What belongs to a diocese?

What is the relationship between dioceses, bishops’ conferences and Rome?

Is there really one worldwide “Catholic Church fortune”?

What are the Holy See, Vatican City State, APSA and the Vatican Bank—and are they the same thing?

Can financial power influence religious mission?

Can the Church receive government money without becoming dependent upon government?

The episode also introduces the financial-reform work of Cardinal George Pell and the larger question of transparency, institutional resistance, justice and due process.

This is not an attempt to accuse the Church—or to defend every institution blindly.

It is an attempt to ask the Catholic question:

Are the temporal goods entrusted to the Church actually serving the purpose for which the Church possesses them—divine worship, ministry, apostolate, charity, and ultimately the salvation of souls?

And one principle will guide the investigation:

**The money belongs to the mission.

The mission must never belong to the money.**

Special Guest: Prof. Julian Dunraven

Host: Fr. André Y. Sebastian Mahanna

Broadcast: Wednesday, October 7, 2026 — 7:30 PM Mountain Time

IRREVOCABLE WITH FR. ANDRÉ

In Episode 3 of The Exploitation of Faith — The Catholic Church Case, Fr. André is joined by Prof. Julian Dunraven and Romanian pastor Ioan Peia for a powerful discussion about Christianity, government, persecution, and the freedom of the human soul.

After examining Constantine and the dangers of political power enforcing religious belief, Irrevocable now turns the question around:

What happens when Caesar becomes atheist?

Through the experience of the Church under Communist Romania—from the suppression and control of religious institutions to imprisoned Christians, underground faith, the Ceaușescu era, and the events surrounding the Romanian Revolution—the discussion asks how Christianity survives when the state attempts to control the conditions under which faith may exist.

Can government control conscience?

What happens when churches cooperate with oppressive governments simply to survive?

What can the persecuted Church teach Christians living in freedom today?

And the theological debate continues: Who is Jesus Christ, why does the Cross matter, and can faith ever be imposed by political power?

Join us for another important chapter of Irrevocable with Fr. André.

On this special episode of IRREVOCABLE with Fr. André, recorded in the spirit of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Fr. André welcomes Prof. Julian Dunraven and Dr. Regan M. Alpert, a former Episcopal priest, for the opening investigation in The Exploitation of Faith — The Catholic Church Case.

Did Christianity lose its way when the persecutions ended and the Church entered into a relationship with the Roman Empire? Did Constantine and the Council of Nicaea create a new Christianity—or did Constantine encounter a Church that had already been proclaiming, worshipping, suffering and dying for Jesus Christ for nearly three centuries?

The discussion examines the Roman persecutions and martyrs, the Resurrection and Pauline Christology, the pre-Nicene witness of the early Church, Alexandria and its intellectual world, Arius and Arianism, St. Athanasius, the Council of Nicaea, Constantine’s vision of the Cross, religious freedom, and the dangerous relationship between spiritual authority and temporal power.

At the center of the investigation is a crucial distinction: the Faith of the Church can remain intact even when Christians and ecclesiastical institutions become vulnerable to corruption, ambition and the misuse of political power.

Can the Church keep the Faith while renouncing compulsion? Can Christian authority be earned through truth, holiness, witness and persuasion rather than imposed through the machinery of the state?

And above everything stands the Cross:

The Cross of Life.

The Cross of Victory.

The Cross of Mercy.

The Cross of Miracles.

On this special episode of IRREVOCABLE with Fr. André, recorded in the spirit of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Fr. André welcomes Prof. Julian Dunraven and Dr. Regan M. Alpert, a former Episcopal priest, for the opening investigation in The Exploitation of Faith — The Catholic Church Case.

Did Christianity lose its way when the persecutions ended and the Church entered into a relationship with the Roman Empire? Did Constantine and the Council of Nicaea create a new Christianity—or did Constantine encounter a Church that had already been proclaiming, worshipping, suffering and dying for Jesus Christ for nearly three centuries?

The discussion examines the Roman persecutions and martyrs, the Resurrection and Pauline Christology, the pre-Nicene witness of the early Church, Alexandria and its intellectual world, Arius and Arianism, St. Athanasius, the Council of Nicaea, Constantine’s vision of the Cross, religious freedom, and the dangerous relationship between spiritual authority and temporal power.

At the center of the investigation is a crucial distinction: **the Faith of the Church can remain intact even when Christians and ecclesiastical institutions become vulnerable to corruption, ambition and the misuse of political power.**

Can the Church keep the Faith while renouncing compulsion? Can Christian authority be earned through truth, holiness, witness and persuasion rather than imposed through the machinery of the state?

And above everything stands the Cross:

The Cross of Life.

The Cross of Victory.

The Cross of Mercy.

The Cross of Miracles.

Part One identified the warnings. Part Two asks what happened when the warning became institutions, money, coercive power and regional strategy after 1979. The Islamic Republic is the case study; the exploitation of religion and faith remains the governing theme.

The IRGC is a state-security institution born from the 1979 Revolution. It is not synonymous with the Iranian people, Shi'a Muslims, or Twelver Shi'ism as a whole.

The program rejects collective guilt, but it also rejects silence: when Islam is invoked to justify terrorism, persecution, hostage-taking, antisemitism, attacks on Christians or other minorities, proxy violence, or the killing of civilians, Muslim believers — and especially Muslim scholars, clerics, institutions, civic leaders and organizations — have a positive moral responsibility to denounce the abuse publicly, to delegitimize the religious arguments used to defend it, and to lead reform from within. Proxy relationships are not identical. Some groups receive funding, training, weapons or guidance from Iran yet retain varying degrees of local agency. The show will distinguish support from direct operational control.

Terrorist financing will be traced through documented mechanisms: state sponsorship, oil revenue, shadow banking, front companies, digital assets, aviation, cash couriers and commercial networks. Narcotics and trafficking claims will be handled narrowly: specific documented cases, official findings and clearly attributed allegations — never a blanket claim that every criminal network is directed by Iran. Human trafficking is not the same as migrant smuggling. Forced recruitment, forced labor and sex trafficking will be identified precisely.

The governing standard is EVIDENCE BEFORE RHETORIC: court record → official designation/finding → attributed allegation → analytical inference.

The Exploitation of Religion and Faith

Faith • Fanaticism • Freedom

Tonight on Irrevocable with Fr. André, we continue our investigative series on the Exploitation of Religion and Faith by turning to Iran as a historical case study. More than a century before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, writers and artists associated with the satirical journal Molla Nasreddin were already confronting questions of religious fanaticism, resistance to knowledge and reform, clerical power, ideological manipulation, and divisions within Islam. Fr. André is joined by Iranian-born civil activist and writer Reza Farnood, together with Dr. Julian Dunraven, for an examination of how satire can become more than entertainment: Can satire warn a civilization about moral and institutional dangers before history reveals their consequences?

In Part One, the discussion examines the first three historic caricatures selected by Reza:

The rejection of new technology as “devilish” — raising the question of what happens when religious authority turns fear against knowledge, education, and reform. The human mind versus the clerical mind — exploring the powerful Iranian symbolism of destructive creatures and the warning against fanatic ideology overwhelming reason. The Tree of Islam — depicting Islam divided into numerous schools and religious branches, a barren and damaged tree, the owl of desolation, and an approaching demon with an axe: Can internal division weaken a religious civilization before an external enemy ever strikes? The program then moves from the warnings of history toward the structures of modern Iranian power. A recent statement by Hillary Clinton raises an important question: Who really runs Iran today? Is power principally held by the clerical establishment, the Supreme Leader, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), or by an interconnected religious, military, intelligence, political, and economic structure?

The episode also examines the Fox News report concerning the Pentagon's investigation of foreign relationships involving major American universities, continuing one of the central questions raised in our previous Irrevocable investigation: Who pays? Who influences? And at what point can foreign funding, research access, or institutional relationships become a national-security concern? Throughout the program, one distinction remains essential:

Iran is the case study; the exploitation of faith is the warning. The theme of this series is not hostility toward Muslim people. It is the investigation of what happens whenever religion and faith are exploited for political power, coercion, financial interest, ideological control, or violence.

The answer to the abuse of Islam cannot be hatred of innocent Muslims. Where religion has been exploited, reform must confront the abuse while protecting the dignity of believers. Faith cannot fear reform when reform seeks conformity with the Truth of the loving God. Faith, Truth, and Peace should produce love, justice, mercy, freedom of conscience, and coexistence — especially among the Children of Abraham.

Fr. André Mahanna is joined once again by constitutional lawyer Dr. Julian Dunraven for the continuation of this Irrevocable Investigation into one of the most consequential questions facing Europe and America.

We move beyond demographics and ask what happens when religion, migration, foreign funding, political influence and competing concepts of law and government intersect.

Who finances Islamic institutions and influence in the West?

What role do foreign governments and international networks play in universities and public institutions?

What is "Sharia", and where is the line between protected personal religious practice and a political legal order that could conflict with constitutional government?

Are Christians receiving the same protection, freedom of speech and religious liberty that Western societies rightly extend to others?

And can America and Europe preserve genuine religious freedom if they abandon the Christian foundations that helped make that freedom possible?

This is not an investigation against Muslims as human persons. It is an examination of political Islam, ideological influence, constitutional integration, religious freedom and the exploitation of faith for political power.

Faith cannot fear truth. Truth cannot require coercion.