Bishop Strickland Breaks Silence on the "Usurper” Charge Against Pope Francis

In a rare and unfiltered exchange on WarRoom, Bishop Joseph Strickland explains exactly what he meant when he read a letter describing Pope Francis as having "usurped St Peter’s Chair,” and why the real issue was never legitimacy, but faithfulness to Jesus Christ.

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This clip aired on December 29, 2025. Transcript begins below and may contain minor errors.

BEN HARNWELL (HOST): Harnwell here at the helm on Steve Bannon’s WarRoom. Welcome to the show.

A very important show today over the Christmas New Year holiday period.

A guest that I’ve long admired, I think, to my mind, to many people’s mind, the most courageous American Catholic bishop. A heroic witness to the faith. A heroic witness to what a pastor of souls should be, not abandoning the flock to the wolves. I am, of course, talking about Bishop Joseph Strickland.

Bishop Strickland, welcome onto the show. Thanks for coming on today over this period. You were 10, 11 years bishop of Tyler in Texas. You’re Texas born and raised.

And I think some of the Texan fire is evident in your charism and how you approach being both a priest and a bishop. I would say that you’re so heroic as a bishop because you are well formed as a priest. And that is the bedrock, I think, of how you approach the speaking truth with charity.

Let me ask you, if I may, start off with this question because I know a lot of people were commenting on it. You read a letter out at a conference in which you quoted the view that Pope Francis was a usurper, that he had usurped the throne, the chair of St. Peter. Can I ask you to explain to the audience what you meant by reading that out and whether the reaction to that was what you had expected it to be?

BISHOP JOSEPH STRICKLAND: Well, thank you, Ben. That was, I guess, two years ago, approximately, the end of October in 2023, really shortly before I was removed. Some people pointed to that and said, "Oh, that’s why they removed them.” But, you know, long before that, the decision had been made that I was a disruptor and that, you know, they needed to silence me.

But I’ve done my best to not be silent, to joyfully proclaim Christ and his truth. He is truth. But using that word usurper, that was actually quoting a letter that I received from a dear friend that I deeply respect.

So I believe what this friend meant, and the reason I quoted it, is not some, not to get in the question of was Pope Francis a valid pope. But really the deeper question, I believe, was he validly and responsibly acting as, speaking as, living as the Vicar of Christ?

We’re talking about now a man who is deceased. So as Catholics, we pray for the dead. I pray for Pope Francis. We should pray for all who have died, whether they’re believers or not. Whatever they did in life, we all end in death, and that is the Church’s mission, the salvation of souls.

So I pray for Pope Francis, but I used that word because the pope is the Vicar of Christ. Christ is king. The Church is about Jesus Christ. It’s not about any worldly agenda. And I saw too much of what Pope Francis was promoting. That was not the message of Jesus Christ.

It was either outright contradicting Christ’s message, or it was making it confusing and muddled and unclear.

If you read the Gospels, Christ is very clear. Beautiful language at times that is something that you really have to pray over and focus on. But especially when it comes to calling out evil, calling out sin, and speaking truth, Jesus Christ is very clear.

And his Church has been clear. That clarity has been hard won through 20 centuries before Pope Francis became pope and before I was a bishop. For 20 centuries, the Church had been proclaiming the truth that is Jesus Christ.

More and more in my lifetime, I was born in 1958 toward the second half of the twentieth century, and since my birth, really, certainly their issues have started earlier, but things began to truly unravel. And I think the unraveling is because we haven’t been as clear and as strong in proclaiming Christ as the Church of the Ages, through the ages, was.

There were difficult times. There were popes that were on the wrong path, but the Church always corrected that path.

And so here we are two years later. That word usurper is not really what I meant. And I believe what the friend that first shared that message with me was getting at was usurper in the sense that he’s not being faithful to Christ, not getting into whether the proper election happened and all of that. That is really another issue for history that in many ways was not the most critical issue.

Are we being true to Jesus Christ?

And I’ve become known for being willing to speak up. And you talked about being a Texan. Plain spoken is what we need. And Texans tend to be fairly plain spoken. Not in sophisticated, sort of obscure language, but, you know, call a spade a spade, speak the truth clearly.

And that is something I believe we’re desperate for in the nation, in the world, and in the Church. Jesus Christ is truth incarnate. So we need to speak of him clearly. And the greatest love is to speak Christ clearly.

BEN HARNWELL (HOST): In charity, the truth in charity. So Bishop Strickland, let me ask you this, because I know it’s an issue that has exercised and is exercising Catholics. Not necessarily traditionalists, but certainly traditionalists, because you mentioned it, about the validity of Pope Francis’s pontificate.

Do you think he was a valid pope?

BISHOP JOSEPH STRICKLAND: Yes, from every indication.

BEN HARNWELL (HOST): Do you think that there’s, how convinced are you in your response to that? Is that a sort of you tend towards that response, but there’s room for doubt, or in your mind, in Bishop Strickland’s mind, there’s no room for doubt whatsoever on that issue?

BISHOP JOSEPH STRICKLAND: Well, I think there is room for doubt just because there has been so much confusion. But every indication is, you know, I would have to say plainly, it’s above my pay grade to make that assessment.

The cardinals that were there that elected Pope Francis are the ones that would have to raise a question, and there was no question about that raised. So as a Catholic bishop and as a Catholic faithful, a disciple of Jesus Christ in his Church today, I accept what the Church said. They said, okay, this is the pope.

And again, I think the question really goes deeper. What is the job of the pope? To guard the deposit of faith, to promote the message of Jesus Christ, to proclaim the Gospel.

And so when a duly elected pope, and there have been popes in the past, not so much being unclear about the dogma and the doctrine of the Church, but popes in the past, there were many that were deeply sinful men, living lives that were duplicitous and immoral. And so in that way, they were failing to be what the pope is.

Certainly, we’re all sinners. And the pope needs to be the first to acknowledge that we all need repentance. We all need to grow closer to the Sacred Heart of Christ.

But we have to proclaim the truth that is Christ. I think one thing that we need to be very clear on is the pope is the earthly representative of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is head of the Church. He is king of the universe, head of the Church. It’s his Church. It’s not ours to mold and shape according to our desires. It is to be faithful to Christ because it’s his Church. That is what every Pope is called to do.

BEN HARNWELL (HOST): And yet, Bishop Strickland, Pope Francis acted as if the Church belonged to him, to change according to his private political viewpoints. And that ontologically is such a great change in the history of the Church.

And as you point out, you know, we’ve had bad popes before. But Pope Francis is bad in a very different way, a different quality of being bad as a pope.

I just want to pick up one thing that you said here, because we have a lot of, you know, our audience is primarily evangelical. And from the Protestant community, from the evangelicals, there is a misunderstanding as to what the role of the papacy is. But it’s not only a misunderstanding held by Protestants. Ninety nine percent of the Catholic Church seems to be unaware of this.

The role of the pope is simply, the charism of Bishop of Rome, is very simply to protect the integrity of what has come down to us via Christ and the apostles and say, this belongs to the authentic teaching, that does not. And that’s how the pope exercises infallibility.

He doesn’t just make up dogmas according to whim and then oblige hapless faithful to believe it. We’re not a cult, right? That’s the reason the Catholic Church is a faith, divine inspired faith, rather than a cult, because we don’t believe what a single man imposes. The substance of what we believe comes down from Christ and the apostles.

And yet, you know, you said you were born in 1958. That’s a rather key year for traditional Catholics, certainly those of a more militant disposition. Because from 58 onwards, there’s been an increasing tendency in the popes from John the 23rd down to the present day to invert that role, basically, and to use the authority they have as pope not to defend the integrity of what has come down to us, the deposit of the faith, but to undermine it and replace it with novelties.

Give me one minute, if you wouldn’t mind, as your response to that, and then we’ll go to the break.

BISHOP JOSEPH STRICKLAND: Well, I think you said it very well, Ben, that the work of the pope is to proclaim Jesus Christ faithfully. They are not the head of the Church in a spiritual sense. They are the earthly Vicar of Christ, and to proclaim the truth of Christ always, and calling all of us to repentance as Christ did. Repent and believe the Gospel. That’s what we’re called to.

BEN HARNWELL (HOST): Can you just give me 30 seconds and say what would your word be to confused Catholics right now on this question mark that doesn’t seem to go away as to whether the pope is really the pope? If you can answer that in 30 seconds.

BISHOP JOSEPH STRICKLAND: Well, I would say look to Christ and his teachings. Learn those teachings well and pray for the pope, whoever the pope is, to faithfully be the Vicar of Christ and proclaim that truth. But we need to know our faith, and people aren’t well catechized. We need to be better catechized and know what the truth actually is.