(LifeSiteNews) — On this episode of Faith and Reason, John-Henry Westen, who is on the ground in Rome, discusses with Deacon Keith Fournier the latest chatter on the papal conclave, the shepherd the Church needs in these times, and more.

Deacon Keith opened the episode by asking Westen what the spiritual sense is surrounding the Vatican as the conclave was set to begin. Westen emphasized that he’s sensing the desperate cries of the faithful are desperately looking for a successor of St. Peter who will feed the lambs after experiencing 12 years of denying Our Lord’s teachings under Pope Francis’ pontificate, paralleling how the first pontiff denied Our Lord three times.

“And now the new Peter is being asked … ‘Do you love Jesus?’ And this is really the cry, I think, of all the Catholics right now for [the new] Peter to be chosen,” the host said. ‘Do you love Christ? If you do, feed His sheep. Do you love Christ? If you do, feed His sheep. Do you love Christ? If you do, feed His lambs.”

READ: No new pope after first conclave vote: black smoke at the Vatican

“If there’s any spiritual sense [in Rome], it’s not so much a sense of the cardinals who are from all over the world. … They don’t know each other, they don’t even know much about Rome,” he added. “But the cry that I hear is the cry of the faithful to the next Peter. ‘Do you love Christ more than these?'”

Deacon Keith interjected, “Feed my lambs, these lambs belong to Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Heal the wounded, bring clarity where there has been confusion, preach the fullness of the faith, guard the deposit of faith.”

The deacon further stressed the need for a pontiff who will guard the deposit of faith that will soon be handed down to him.

“That is what we need in the chair of Peter. Someone who’s faithful to the Sacred Scripture, someone who’s faithful to the magisterium, rightly understood, somebody who understands the deposit of faith and will defend it,” he said. “And someone who will clarify the confusion and the ambiguity that has just so confused people. And the faithful are crying out for that kind of Peter.”

Westen noted how St. John Eudes spoke about a divine chastisement in which Our Lord sends us clergy who are wolves in sheep’s clothing when He is very upset with us, and underscored that the faithful are now crying out for a Christ-like shepherd.

READ: Bishop Strickland: We must cling to Christ’s Church no matter who becomes the next pope

“We want a shepherd after Jesus’ heart, we want a shepherd who’s not a wolf,” he said. “When we think of a wolf spiritually, we don’t think of someone who comes and rips your children apart. No! … It’s someone who comes and rips the faith away from your children. That’s the true damage.”

“Despite all of the suffering of even the abuse victims in the Church, as horrific as that is, nothing is more damaging than the loss of faith, and the perversion of the faith, and the [loss] of the only path to eternal life,” he added. “And so this is the cry today.”

To hear more from Deacon Keith Fournier and John-Henry Westen, tune in to this episode of Faith and Reason.

Faith and Reason is available by video via LSNTV on YouTube, Rumble, Banned, and right here on LifeSiteNews.

It is also available in audio format on Acast. To subscribe to the audio version on various channels, visit LifeSite’s Acast web page here.

We’ve created a special email list for the show so that we can notify you every week when we post a new episode. Sign up now by clicking here.