Ep 1185 | Catholics Get a New Pope This Week. Here’s Why It Matters | Guest: Michael Knowles
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00:46That's fellowship homelones.com slash alley, term supply, see site for details, fellowship home loans,mortgage lending by the book, nationwide mortgage bankers, DBA Fellowship Home Loans,equal housing lender, NMLS, number 819382.How will the Catholic Church pick the next Pope?Whom will it be?Also is Pope Francis in purgatory.We are talking about all of this and more with one of my favorite Catholics, Michael Knowles,the host of the Michael Knowles show on The Daily Wire on today's episode of Relatable.
01:20This is not a Catholic Protestant debate.I've had plenty of those.You can go back and watch those.This is really just getting informed and educated about a really,big moment in Catholic church history right now, whether you are a Catholic or whether you are aProtestant like me, I know you're going to learn a lot and really enjoy this. This episode is brought to youby a new sponsor, Olive App. I love this app. I've been using it. This is how you can seewhat is really in the food that you are eating. They are on a mission to make America truly healthy
01:53again. Download the Olive app today in the app store. Michael, thanks so much for taking the time tocome on, one of my favorite Catholics, and I brought you here to explain some Catholic goings on.Can you explain to us what the conclave is and what is going on with the Pope, how all of this is done?Yes, I mean, just to get the obvious question on everyone's mind out of the way up front, I am eligible to be Pope.True.Any baptized Catholic male is eligible.I haven't gotten any calls from Rome yet, but I think I would look.very nice in the red slippers and the mitre. So anyway, we'll see how that goes.
02:43I just found this out. I had no idea. My assistant told me that like any Catholic male iseligible. That's crazy. Didn't know. It's, it is. Now, it's been some centuries since anyone otherthan a cardinal was named. And cardinals are a special kind of bishop who are, you know,kind of advisors to the Pope and they, you know, they have special clothing and all the rest.But, you know, the Pope is the bishop of Rome.So he has this special role in the church as the vicar of Christ.He's also the bishop of Rome.And, you know, all of these bishops are the successors to the apostles.
03:18And then there are the cardinals.And then they're the cardinal electors.Those are the cardinals who are under the age of 80, who are eligible to vote in the conclave.So Pope dies.There's a period of mourning of about 15 days or so.And then there's a conclave.The cardinal electors fly in from all around the world.and they go, they have a mass for the election of the Pope,
03:39and then they go into the Sistine Chapel.And that's when we stop hearing anything,because they sweep the Sistine Chapel for bugs.They have military-grade signal scramblers that go on.I mean, this is a really serious business.And it's serious business because the Catholic Church is the central institution in the West.It doesn't matter if you're Calvinist, Jewish,Muslim, atheist, which is what a lot of people are these days anyway. The Catholic Church is this
04:11institution that has existed from antiquity, made it all the way up through the present. It's the onlyone that can claim that. And so there's a lot, you know, that really hinges on it, even if you'renot Catholic. And the cardinal electors know that. So there are a handful of candidates who haverisen to the top of being considered papabili. You know, they're popable candidates. And some areconsider more conservative, some are considered more liberal. It might be a guy that no one's evereven really heard of. But as of right now, the candidates who are really being talked abouton the more liberal side of things are Cardinal Taglay. He would be the first Asian Pope. He wentviral for singing Imagine by John Lennon at karaoke. Oh, no. He would definitely be in the more
04:57liberal side of things. Then there's Cardinal Perilyn. He's the Vatican Secretary of State. He's beenconsidered a favorite for a long time. Also, more liberal, probably would continue some of theFrancis initiatives and pontificate. Then you've got the candidate that a lot of people are talking about.He's the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem. That would be Cardinal Pierre Batista Pizabala. I think peoplereally like him because he has a name that's fun to pronounce. Though when you become Pope, you take aregnal name. So if he chose the regnal name John, he would of course go from being Pizza Bala tobecoming Papa John. Then even a little bit more to the right, you've got the Cardinal in Hungary,Cardinal Urdu. He is considered a little more conservative. A lot of the more conservative Catholics
05:41really like Cardinal Sarah out of Africa. He would be the first African Pope, which the liberalswould probably get a kick out of until they realize he's more right-wing than almost anyone onearth. But he's a little bit older, so he's probably less likely. Cardinal Burke in the UnitedStates would be an amazing choice. Also,maybe a little too old, maybe a little too conservative. That remains to be seen. So those are thecandidates right now. But again, I wouldn't necessarily bet on anyone. There's an old saying,which is the guy who goes into the conclave of Pope walks out a cardinal. The conclays have ahabit of surprising people. Okay. So what exactly? You mentioned age and you mentioned that some
06:22of the candidates like Cardinal Burke might be considered too conservative. So what exactly are theylooking for. Like what is the standard that they say, okay, if you meet this, then you will be thenext pope? Well, you have to remember that the issues top of mind for the cardinals don't map exactlyonto the issues that are top of mind for American citizens thinking about politics. Because we'retalking about liberal and conservative cardinals, but if you take, let's say, the immigration issueaside, and you just look at every other political or political adjacent issue,every single cardinal, including the most liberal cardinals, is far to the right of just aboutany American politician, including the most right-wing Republican. So it's not like there's any debate
07:10over abortion, for instance. You know, plenty of Republicans, even conservative Republicans,are kind of in the middle on abortion. Even the most liberal cardinal in the Catholic Churchis extremely pro-life and there's no debate whatsoever. So the issues that are going to play a biggerrole, I think, are evangelization. I was just talking to my friend Bishop Robert Barron,who many people know, a bishop not only in Minnesota, but also the bishop of YouTube.He said evangelization seems to be really top of mind for people. The liturgy is a big issue.What kind of mass we have? I'm an attendee of the traditional Latin Mass, which was the massthat we had substantially in the same form from the eight year 600 until just after the Second
07:52Vatican Council. Then there was the new mass.Pope Paul the 6th, that's the one that's a little looser and has a lot of variety in it.Sometimes it's not celebrated in a reverent way.A lot of people think the difference between the old Latin Mass and the new mass is just the language.That is not true.In fact, the new mass normatively should be celebrated in Latin.And the differences are just often the orientation of the priest.Is the priest facing the altar with the whole congregation?
08:21That gives you some kind of a sense of worship.or is the priest facing you like a ham actor in a dying vaudeville show?That gives you another sense of worship.The number of prayers, the participation of the laity.So this seems like we're getting really into the weeds here,and we're all just arguing over smells and bells.But I think the liturgy is going to be really, really importantbecause there's an old Catholic expression,
08:44Lexerondi, Lex Credendi.The way that you worship is going to affect the way that you believe.You know, if I, there was a study that came out a few years.years ago showed that only about 30% of American Catholics believe in the real presence of Christin the Eucharist. Now, that's a pretty big deal. That's one of the distinguishing featuresof sacramental theology. It's really at the heart of Catholic worship. So if you've got most AmericanCatholics not believing in that, man, something's gone really wrong, right? However, how did we getthere? Well, it might it be because, you know, if I receive the Eucharist kneeling on the tongue,
09:23in a really solemn mass, that's just going to affect the way that I think about it.If I receive the Eucharist walking by, you know, in my hands, maybe it falls on the groundgiven to me by a lady wearing Birkenstocks or something, that's going to affect the waythat I believe about the Holy Communion.So I think that's going to be a really important issue.Pope Francis, this was a really strange part of his pontificate.At this period where a lot of the churches are emptying out, there's thebeen a lot of growth among the traditional Latin Mass, especially among young people, especially
09:59among people who have lots of babies. The median age in a lot of these Latin Mass parishes isabout eight years old because of all the kids they're having. And Pope Francis severely restrictedthe Latin Mass for whatever reason. I think that's going to be a big issue here. Bringing insome wayward bishops, especially the bishops in Germany who've gotten a little bit lib and a little bitweird. That's going to be a big issue. Unifying the church after Francis's pontificate.which most everyone agrees was pretty divisive.I think that's going to be a big issue.And also the fact that we've understood that Francis's health was very bad for a long time now.
10:35So I don't think this is going to be a conclave that goes on for days and weeks and months and years.I think this is probably going to be sorted out quickly.But who exactly gets it?That remains to be seen.Quick pause to remind y'all to sign up for Share the Arrows,whether you are a Catholic woman or whether you are a Catholic woman or whether youYou're a Protestant woman, I want you to attend this event.It's October 11th in Dallas, Texas.
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11:57You had a tweet pretty soon after he died where you remarked that we really can't judge a Pope,or I would say really any Catholic or any Christian, according to the left-right politicalspectrum in the United States, that he kind of transcended that.And yet I have heard you say, and a lot of people say he was more liberal or this guy ismore conservative.And so would you assess him as a more liberal pope restricting the Latin mass, maybe some of the other comments that he made?Or do you think that he did his very best to try to do his job apolitically?Well, since we're bringing up old Latin phrases here, I'm glad you're asking me this question now and not two weeks ago because there's a good old Latin expression,
12:51de mortuis nil nisibonum, you know, of the dead we say nothing but good as we're mourning.Well, the period of mourning is over.Now we have to start to assess the pontificate.We're picking the next pope.And it was a tough pontificate.There's just no two ways about it.I mean, you can't just call Pope Francis a liberal or a leftist.Because on the one hand, the media report that he's saying all of these things about LGBT
13:18and opening up the liturgy to LGBT people.And in some cases was issuing papal documents, opening up the process.of blessings for LGBT unions, maybe, but not marriage.But then on the other hand, Pope Francis said that gay marriage is a machination of thefather of lies that seeks to deceive and confuse the children of God.When asked about gay marriage, quote unquote, Pope Francis said, God can't bless sin.One of the most famous lines from his pontificate, according to reports, was this phrase,Shee jat, tropafrochejine.
13:53And I don't want to scandalize your viewers, but to give an English translation.translation of that, it's, um, yeah, there's already too much faggotry. Yeah, okay, so I, you canbleep it. You know, anyway, it's very difficult to pin him down. But I would say by historicalperspectives, which for a lot of people who don't pay close attention to the Catholic Church,the oldest pope they can name is Pope John Paul II, you know, from 25 years ago. But thepopes go way back, millennia back. And by historical standards, Francis was a liberal pope.and there was a lot of confusion during his pontificate.One of the cardinals I mentioned, Cardinal Burke, along with a number of other cardinals,
14:33actually raised formal dubia, formal questions about whether or not certain things the Pope was sayingmight even be heretical.Those dubia were not really answered.So it was rough.I think there's a reason we've only had one Jesuit Pope in 2,000 years.And I think that even many of the considered moderate to even more liberal cardinals,I think they've had enough of that.They've had enough of the confusion and the division.
14:59And I think there is going to be a real call for a more unifying pope to serve in the next pontificate.Yeah, I'm interested as a reformed Protestant.I mean, I think that I have an interest in who the next pope is.And I want my fellow Catholics, or not fellow Catholics, my Catholic friends to be led by a pope that is, in mostalignment with scripture. And I know we don't agree on Sola scripture, but Catholics do believe thatscripture does have authority. And I would think that they would believe that the Pope should be inalignment with scripture. So that's what I want. I don't want this kind of equivocating, what does he reallybelieve? What should Catholics really believe? Because if Catholics look to the Pope as an authority,
15:44and he's not offering clarity, but he's offering confusion on very serious moral issues,like the LGBTQ issue, I just imagine that that's clear.going to cause more division. Would you say that he was trying to be seeker-sensitive in some of those?Like, that's probably what we would say in the evangelical world. I don't like secret-sensitivechurches that are trying to appeal exclusively or primarily to the non-believer. Like, would you saythat was maybe his motivation in trying to restrict the traditional Latin Mass and doing some of theother things he did? That's a really nice way to put it. And I will put it that way. I'll say thenicest thing I can, you know, in sincerity and truth about it. Pope Francis's defenders and
16:29Pope Francis of itself, I suppose, emphasized a pastoral approach, which, you know, a good pastoralapproach should not contradict a good doctrinal approach as well. But that's the way he put it. And so,and obviously there's a very important role for pastors and prudential judgment and all the rest of it.But we don't want our doctrine to get fuzzy.We don't want our liturgy to be fuzzy.We want the truth.And I think this is a big generational shift that you're seeing among Catholics.And actually, I think among Protestants and maybe even among Eastern Orthodox, which is in the 1960s, the age of Aquarius, everyone was interested in innovation and changing everything and keeping up with the spirit of the times.
17:18The late Pope Benedict the 16th actually pointed out in an essay that he wrote after he resigned the papacy, which was unusual in itself.He said, you know, the Catholic Church, too, found herself brought about by that spirit of the age after the 1960s.He said the Catholic Church, in some ways, helped to cause the spirit of the age with some of the innovations that took place.I talked to Boomer Catholics, and I talked to older Catholics, and they're much more important.interested in Lucy Goosey, let's change some teaching, you know, let's change practices.When I talk to young Catholics, they want the truth. They want orthodoxy. They want reenchantment.They want tradition. They want smells and bells, not as idols in themselves, but they feel, I think,robbed of the great tradition that made so many saints and that also built our civilization, you know,
18:16that built the great cathedrals, that invented the universities, that created the culture that we feel we're losing.And so I did not grow up with the Latin Mass.I grew up before I apostasized at age 13.I grew up with a kind of lucy-goosey, feel-good, let's call it seeker-sensitive kind of liturgy.And when I first discovered the traditional Latin Mass, I felt, as many young Catholics do, as even the New York Times, I think, is reporting right now.many young Catholics feel that I'd been robbed of something. Something had been kept from me.You know, I, one of the benefits of an institution that has existed for 2,000 years is they've reallydealt with a lot of the questions, but pretty much all of them. So you can find the deep,
19:05the profound intellectual engagement of say St. Thomas Aquinas. You can find the beautifulartistic engagement of all of the great painters and sculptors and and architects of thethe Catholic tradition, the great musical tradition, the great scientific tradition.I mean, even, you know, so much of modern science comes from the Catholic Church, includingin recent years.You know, the Big Bang theory comes from a Catholic priest, Father George Lemaître, the moderngenetics comes from Mendel.Copernicus himself might have been a priest, he was at least a canon.
19:35So you've got this wonderful tradition that has been kind of ignored for a while.And Pope Benedict, I think, was really, really good on this, as he was on most issues.He said, it's not that we don't change.It's not that we don't develop.We're human beings.We grow and we change and we develop.That's how our nature goes.However, when we're assessing something in modernity,
20:01we should see it through the light of tradition,going all the way back to the apostolic age,to our Lord's sojourn on earth,and to Holy Scripture, which is inerrant.It shouldn't go the other way around.And I think some of the reformers, so-called,they've tried to do it the other way.They say, you know, history began yesterday.
20:18Anything that Catholics did for, you know,1,950 years, if it contradicts the spirit of this age,we'll forget about it.But there's a great line that's alternately attributed to a Protestantor a Catholic, Dean Inge or Fulton Sheen,which is if you wed the spirit of the age,you will find yourself a widow in the next.That's good.
20:38And when you say reformers, you're talking about Catholic reformers.You're not talking about Calvin and Knox.Yes, yeah. I'm not talking about Luther.I'm talking about the recent people, you know, some of whom, you know, would consider themselves reformers who are in this conclave right now.And so that remains the question.Are we going to get more of the Francis pontificate?Or are we going to get something a little different?Okay.
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22:25Good Ranchers.com, code Alley.Now I noticed that you didn't mention one candidate whose name just keeps coming up over and over againwhen it comes to the papacy.And that is Donald John Trump.I mean, he's the top contender.I think he's already tried on the outfit.It looks good.It complements him well.
22:49will put up this picture beautifully done. Now, Michael, I have a lot of Catholics in my audience and I had a very mixed reaction. I haven't talked about this on my show. I know you have, but I talked about it on Instagram. And I was kind of surprised. I was both surprised at the level of offense that some Catholics had and even some of my Protestant followers had on behalf of their Catholic friends. But I was also surprised at how many shared what I think is your sentiment that, no, this is not offensive to me.It's a funny joke.And no, this doesn't make me question or regret my vote at all.There were a ton of Catholics in my DM saying, no, this did not bother me.So tell me, as a Catholic, what is your take on this AI-generated image?So I want to establish the principle, at least, a little via media between these two reactions.We should not reduce religious things to jokes.In fact, when Catholics go into confession and we examine our conscience, a lot of
23:49of examinations of conscience will include, did you joke about religious things? Did you,did you reduce the religious and the sacred to something vulgar and profane? You really don'twant to do that. You know, that is an extrapolation from taking the Lord's name in vain. And youdon't want to do that. However, I think we have to examine Trump's joke here. Because first of all,just about every conservative Catholic I know has made this exact joke in some form or other. I haveI've heard from Catholic friends for years.And they say, well, you know, the next pope, maybe Dinaldus Magnus wouldn't be a bad idea.You know, we could make the Vatican great again or something.
24:27And it's not a joke made in an irreverent way.It's not a joke meant to, you know, mock the Episcopacy or anything like that.And I don't think that that's what Trump was doing.I don't see any malice in Trump's joke.Was it a little inopportune or something?Yeah, maybe would I have made it?I wouldn't have because I'm a Catholic.and I take it seriously.
24:49Trump's not a Catholic.But he's married to a Catholic.He is the most pro-Catholic president, I think we've ever had, in a country that has not always been extraordinarily pro-Catholic.And then I have to think, okay, let me look at the levels of offense I should feel.Because Kathy Hockel, the governor of New York, she said, as a Catholic, I'm terribly offended, Mr. President.You need to take this down.Kathy Hockel, governor of a state that permits murdering babies up until the moment of birth.and Kathy Hokel, who celebrates that.
25:20Kathy Hockel, who makes a mockery of marriage,ratifies a purported redefinition of marriage, marriage,which is the symbol of Christ's love for his church.I look at the predecessor to Trump,who calls himself a Catholic, Joe Biden,who supports slaughtering millions of babies a year,who makes a mockery of marriage,who denies sex as a gift from God
25:39and an aspect of our nature given to us by God.And furthermore, Joe Biden, a president,who was vice president of an administrationof an administration that sued nuns for being Catholic.Joe Biden, whose FBI spied on Catholics and likened us to domestic terrorists,Joe Biden who imprisoned pro-lifers, many, if not most of whom were Catholic, for prayingand demonstrating at infanticidal mills.I don't know.
26:06I mean, call me crazy.I'm much more offended by that president than I am by President Trump, who was makinga lighthearted joke with no ill intent whatsoever.ever, and a joke that many other people have made.I don't, I think that the, there are plenty of Catholics who are sincerely offended by it,and fair enough, but I think the public hand-wringing over it is almost entirely disingenuous.Yeah, we've got Anna Navarro, too, you know, devout Catholic.She's very upset about this.
26:35Here's what she had to say on the view, that one.Him tweeting out an AI-created image and the White House official account of him posing as the Pope is disrespectful.It is frankly disgusting and it is outrage.Mr. President, it's his holiness, the Pope, not his oiliness, the dope.What?What?Okay.Your thoughts?
27:00The view needs to hire much better comedy writers than all that.No, this is what you get when you substitute politics for your religion.Because I don't know Anna Navarro's relationship to faith.I don't know the state of her soul.I don't know how often she goes to confession.I don't know how often she goes to the Holy Mass.But I have noticed disproportionately that the people who are making a big deal about this publicly,they don't take the faith all that seriously.
27:32And the people who say, ah, you know, I wouldn't have made the joke, but, you know, look,it's not the biggest deal in the whole wide world.And Trump has been really good and it was right for Catholics to vote for him.in part, just on the basic point, that a Catholic really cannot, I mean, this is according to bishops,cannot in good conscience vote for pro-abortion candidates in almost any circumstance.So, you know, I don't know.I hope that Anna Navarro takes this as an opportunity to really take her faith seriously and live out her faith.What a wonderful turn of events this would be from Trump's AI-generated meme.
28:09But when Joe Biden was making a mockery of the religion he professed to hold, I don't remember any harangues from Anna Navarro, do you?Yeah, I don't.And she's been a big advocate for abortion as well.I remember it was back in, I think, 22.She was advocating on abortion because she said that her family has a lot of special needs kids.And she has a relative who is 57, who has very rudimentary motor.skills because of his special needs. She used her own flesh and blood as an example for why we needto be able to kill babies inside the womb, which I have a question about this, and I just don't know
28:50this as a Protestant. So if someone were advocating for abortion like that, as you said, the way thatKathy Hochel does, the way that Anna Navarro does, I would say, I would look at the fruit of what thatperson is saying and say that person is either not a Christian at all. They don't have saving faith becausethat would produce the kind of wisdom and holiness that comes from being saved by grace throughfaith, or I would say maybe they're a very baby believer. Maybe they have been justifiedand they truly believe, but they simply have not been sanctified. But it would be,I would be very skeptical of whether that person is a Christian at all. As a Catholic, when you lookat someone like Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden or Kathy Hochel, like can you say that person is probably
29:37not a Catholic? Or do you still consider them a Catholic because they've gone through all of theofficial steps, even if they deny very fundamental parts of what it means to be a Catholic?So if a person is baptized, he or she is a Catholic, there was an ancient heresy early in thechurch, and I always forget, it's adonatism, dosatism, I get some of these isms mixed up.But it was a heresy that was debated at councils, which is, is the baptism, uh, is the baptism,efficacious by virtue of the holiness of the priest who baptizes, or does the holiness of the priest notreally matter? So, you know, the way that this was resolved many centuries ago, millennia ago,was that, no, you could have a dirty, rotten priest, but the efficacy of the sacrament comes from
30:27the Holy Spirit. It's not about the personal feelings of the person being baptized. It's not aboutthe behavior of the priest who does the baptize. It's really God who acts in the sacraments.And so if you have a sacramental theology, as Catholics do, then you say, no, okay, the baptism isefficacious. God does what he does, and he doesn't need you to be perfect in order to do it.However, we sin, we continue to sin even after we're baptized. And as St. John tells us, some sins,all sin is really, really bad. Some sins are mortal, though. And so this is what creates the distinctionbetween venial sin and mortal sin, venial sin, which weakens sanctifying grace and mortal sin, whichit. And so whenever you sin, you should confess your sins. And Catholics get this from the
31:13Christ giving to Peter and the Apostles the power to forgive sins, to loose and to bind,whose sins you forgive or forgiven, whose sins you retain are retained. So the priest has areal authority here to say, okay, ego to absolvo, I absolve you of your sins. You're seriouslypenitent and you're going to go do some penance, but God forgives you of your sins right now.or the priest can say, you're not really penitent.And so the priest would withhold the absolution from you and then could withhold the blessedsacrament from you, which Catholics believe confer real races because it's the real presenceof Christ.
31:49The priest would withhold that from you.At an extreme, the priest could excommunicate you or bishop could excommunicate you,not just to punish you, but for your own good.Because St. Paul says, if you eat the body unworthily, if you eat the Holy Communion,without discerning the body, you are eating your own damnation.So it would not be the priest punishing Anna Navarro just to get back at her or something.It would be for her own good.And so in that instance, a Catholic priest should seriously consider withholding the sacraments
32:20so that someone who is in a state of mortal sin does not create even more problems for him or herself.There have been a few examples of this.You know, Nancy Pelosi has been denied communion on occasion, a wonderful bishop,Bishop Cordillione, talk about Nomenest Omen. The name is heart of a lion. He made this point prettyclearly within the last few years that, you know, we really need to take seriously our responsibilityas pastors not to create scandal by allowing people to just, you know, say and do these thingsand, you know, seriously harm people as in the case of abortion. We have a role as pastors to bring our flockback. So you wouldn't say she's not a Catholic. In a way, it's worse. If she were merely a pagan,
33:11you could say, well, she's ignorant, she doesn't know. She's a baby Christian. She's trying to learn.She's doing her best. But in this case, she has received the sacrament. Catholics believe that isefficacious. And she is turning away from God. You know, St. Augustine in sermon 116 or 118 sayssomething like somewhere around there. Don't quote me on the exact sermon. But somewhere, I think it's118 or 116, it says, God made you without your participation, but he won't save you without yourparticipation. In other words, you can turn away from God if you really want to. Some versions ofProtestantism don't buy that, but that's what Catholics believe. And so it's painful to see aCatholic who has been given all of these graces, you know, this opportunity for eternal life
33:55with our Lord, who just gives it away for what, to go shill for Democrats and to try to score a pointagainst Donald Trump. Not worth it, buddy. All the kingdoms of this world are not worth it,as our Lord proved in the wilderness. Next sponsor is Field of Greens. It is a USDA certifiedorganic greens powder, a superfood supplement that contains a blend of fruits and vegetables,leafy greens, antioxidants, minerals, prebiotic fiber. If you're anything like me, it is reallytough to get your full servings of fruit and vegetables into your diet every day. I can tell you thatabout zero percent of the time. Do I actually eat enough vegetables? Field of Greens is the only waythat I am getting an adequate serving of vegetables in my day. I love that it also gives me a nice
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35:11It is awesome.And it actually does taste good.Go to fieldofgreens.com.Use code Alley.You'll get 20% off plus free shipping.Field of Greens.com code alley.You know, we don't really have a comparisonwhen it comes to talking about,
35:31like, you know, Catholics might call it blasphemyor certainly sacrilegious that Trump did something like this.You're not saying that, but some Catholics are.We don't, as Protestants, have anything that's similar.I saw that Babylon B said that Trump is dressing up like, if he dresses up like Bible Man,that we're going to have a really big problem.And Bible Man has been pretty influential on the Protestant faith.But I said if he dresses up, you probably don't even know what this is, Michael.
36:00But if he dresses up as Salty the songbook, then we're done.salty was first he was like a character, a man, kind of like in a Barney suit, but it was, you know,it was a salter. Oh, and then he turned into a cartoon, which is what I remember. And also howI memorized a lot of scripture and a lot of Bible stories. And so if Donald Trump dresses uplike this, I'm done. I'm done. Is he then formally excommunicated? Is he from Calvinism?Is he, he's out? Well, if he were a Calvinist to begin with,Then, yeah, I would probably have to come up with some kind of mechanism for him to be excluded.I think he might be, I don't know what he is.
36:44He might be Episcopalian.Y'all may be able to win him over.I'm not sure.The evangelicals have tried.In my mind, for some reason, he was raised Presbyterian or something like that.But this is also, I think, why a little grace should be offered to President Trump here.Does anyone seriously believe he posted that in malice or because he hates the Catholicchurch or that he was mocking the Catholic Church? I don't think that at all. President Trump, one of the
37:09iconic photos from that first term, he goes over to St. John's Church, right? And he holds up that Biblewhile the Libs are trying to burn it down. Yeah. Trump goes and visits the national shrine of St. JohnPaul II. That's an amazing thing. How many presidents have ever done that? I think he was actuallycriticized by a liberal prelate for that, a Catholic prelate, unfortunately. But this guy, you know, he'she's having a sort of a lighthearted moment here.So is it, would you say, if you were a Catholic and you really took this seriously, wouldyou say, I'm not going to do this because that's sacrilegious?Yeah, you probably would.
37:47But I do think we also have to, you know, judge the man a little bit on what he's intendingto do.We were talking earlier about the distinction, which Catholics take quite seriously, betweenvenial sin and mortal sin.For someone to be a mortal sin, you have to do it with full knowledge.It's got to be grave matter.you've got a fully consent to it.I don't think anyone is accusing Trump of that, okay?
38:08And if we can have the most pro-Catholic presidentwith, arguably, the first ever practicing Catholic vice president in J.D. Vance,I'm good, guys. We're cool.You know, I don't have feds spying on me in my parish anymore,and nuns getting soon and elderly Catholic women thrown in the slammer.I think we're okay with a few memes.Okay, here's a question.Sorry to spring this on you, but I truly am curious.
38:35Do Catholics believe that the Pope is in purgatory right now?Well, I don't know.We don't know.I don't make these judgments.It's above my pay grade.There was a little bit of confusion, though, even among Catholics, which is they said,should we ask Pope Francis to pray for us in the way that we ask for the intercession of the saints,which comes from the book of Revelation, where the saints are holding the buckets of their prayers,
39:01the incense and it's the prayers of the saints for us. And so do we say, please pray for us, St. Francis?Well, he hasn't been canonized. He might be in heaven. But even the idea of purgatory, which is really,it's not like a place. It's not like, you know, Detroit. It's a period of ex-pergation where Christfinishes purging you of your sins because nothing imperfect can enter into heaven. I don't know.Was Francis totally perfect, you know, when he shuffled off this mortal coil? I don't know.That's not really for me to decide.So traditionally speaking, the funeral mass is a prayer for the repose of the soul of the dead.It's not, as the pagans have it, which is a eulogy where we just sing songs of praises to the dead,
39:48like Greek heroes or something like that.We say, look, we're going to pray for the dead.And we're going to pray to God that, you know, things work out,just like someone asks his coworker to pray for his wife when she's in the hospital.We're going to pray for them.I think that's the better attitude to have here.I'm certainly not saying Pope Francis is in hell.I'm not going to presume that Pope Francis is in heaven,
40:08but I think it's good to pray for the dead.Obviously, plenty of Protestants don't like the idea of praying for the dead,which is scriptural.It comes from Maccabees, but a lot of Protestants don't believe in the book of Maccabees.There are other examples of it, but I totally understand if you are in principle against praying for the dead.I kind of see how you got there.But if you do accept Maccabees, if you do accept the distinction between benial and mortal sin,if you do accept that nothing imperfect can enter into heaven,
40:39if you do trust in God and you pray for God and you accept the notion of intercessory prayer,which virtually all of us engages in to some degree or another,then I think the position of humility is probably a better idea.And to bring it all the way back to nuts and bolts people, Catholic politics,I think we need to wait a little bit longer before we start,canonizing people's saints.Used to take decades or centuries before the church formally canonized someone a saint.After Vatican II, all of a sudden, they started doing it really, really quickly, and they removed
41:12some of the waiting periods.They removed the devil's advocate, which was a position to argue against the cause forcanonization, just to make sure that we got everything right.And I think that this was in part done to canonize in a way, the Second Vatican Council, and maybeeven the reforms that followed it. But I just, I don't think that's a great idea. I think thatmakes the church seem a little bit more political or partisan or something like that. All of thatis a really long answer to say. A saint is just someone in heaven. It comes from the wordsanctors, just means holy. So it could well be the case that, I really don't even doubt that
41:48someone like a Pope John the 23rd or Pope Paul the 6th are in heaven or will be in heaven afterexpurgation. I don't really, I don't really doubt that Francis will be necessarily. Butwhen we canonize someone formally, we are saying something, not just about that person, butyou know, we're saying something really to the whole church. And let's cool it on canonizingFrancis before we see how this conclate moves. Yeah. Protestants don't, at least I don't thinkany Protestant believes in purgatory. As you said, we don't hold the macaw.bees as authoritative and in inerrant. Yes, maybe so. I don't know everything about Anglican theology.Most Protestants that I know don't believe in purgatory. How we would say it is we would look to,
42:36for example, a couple passages. One, when Jesus talks to the thief on the cross, that todayyou will be with me in paradise. We also look at Philippians one to live as Christ, to die his gain.Paul says, I desire to die so I can be with Christ. And so we do believe that.it's immediate. And it's not because we think that we in our flesh are perfect, but becauseJesus' perfect sacrifice has made us fully perfect, and that when God looks at us, he looks at theblank slate that has been wiped clean by Jesus' sacrifice, that Jesus, who stands in our steadagainst the accuser, has said that we are completely innocent. And we believe that that is enough,that is sufficient at the point of death for us to enter heaven, not because we're perfect,
43:24but because Christ is perfect.And so that's how we do.This is something that people should not misunderstand about purgatory.Because I think some people think it's like a third option.You know, you go to hell or you go to heaven or there's this like third middle option.But that's not really what Catholics believe.You know, one of the gospel bases for purgatory would be the debtor, the debtor will not get out until he pays the very last farthing.But of course, no one in hell can get out, you know, as we see also in a parable of our Lord.
43:54you know, the, when you're locked in hell, you're locked in hell.That's it.You've made a choice and that's eternal.And the blessed in heaven are there eternally too.So that the fires of purgatory are not a, it's not a torturous or punishing fire exactly, like is in hell.It's a cleansing fire, you know, the cleansing fire of our Lord.So again, I totally understand that a lot of Protestants don't believe in purgatory.But if you do believe in purgatory,
44:24and if you like Catholics or more kind of liturgical Protestants likeMeranglicans or something or East Orthodox, believe in some kind of purgatory,then your attitude toward the death of a pope really, I don't think should be just likesounding the trumpets and, you know, firing off the guns and saying,woo-hoo, he's in heaven, pray for us, Pope Francis.It really has to be an attitude of humility.And by the way, to Francis's defense, when Francis became pope,he walked out on the balcony.
44:54He said, please pray for me.So this was an attitude of humility.And you saw this throughout his papacy.He did not live in the papal palace.He lived in these apartments, you know, which was supposed to be a sign of humility.He didn't want to take the nice big fancy cars.He took these little fiats.And I think some of this might have seemed a little bit performative.
45:15You know, he wore more simple vestments.And the criticism of that is,there's a kind of performative humility, which is really just a species of pride.You know, when someone says, oh, hey, Johnny, you did a good job.And you say, oh, no, I didn't do a good job.Oh, no, I'm not that handsome.Go on.You know, that would be a performative humility, which is really just a kind of pride.
45:36And so getting all the way back to what the next pope is going to look like, literallylook like.I think it's important to compare Benedict and Francis.Benedict wore the regalia.He wore the red slippers.You know, they sometimes described him as Pope Prada and,Francis as Pope Pravda, the communist newspaper in Russia, a little harsh. But when a priest or apope, where is all of the regalia and follows traditions and behaves in the ordinary way,
46:10that's not so much a statement of pride as it is humility. It's not really about me. It's notabout my personality. I am serving in this position for the good of the faithful. I probablyI think there's a Protestant analogy here, which is preaching.You know, to me, good preaching is focused on, first of all, the scripture is read andideally even chanted. And then the preaching is focused and it leaves you edified.Now, in a lot of modern preaching, Catholic and Protestant, you get, maybe you get thescripture reading, you know, you often not chanted. And then it's, you know, Pastor Bob is justtelling you about his personal life and trying to make it really hip and cool. And that has a
46:54performative humility to it, but really the point of the chanting and the circumscribing the sermonsand all the rest of it is to take the personality out of it. Because, man, it ain't really aboutyou. I don't go to church on Sunday. I actually love my pastor, but I don't just go to churchon Sunday because I really like this pastor over some other pastor. I am there for God. I'm goingthere because God wants us to worship him, and I owe him my worship, and I love and should loveeven more to worship him. And so I think that's what you're going to see in some of the debatesover the next pope is, will the next pope have the humility to wear the fancy clothes and dothe old traditions and have some enchantment and smells and bells, even if he personally doesn't
47:38want that? It's a real kind of a flipping on its head of the understanding of pride and humility.Last sponsor is Range Leather. Okay. Speaking ofa Father's Day. I mean, maybe you probably won't be able to get it by Mother's Day at this point,but maybe a late Mother's Day present, but definitely by Father's Day, you should be buying a giftfrom Range Leather. They've got a lifetime guarantee. All of their leather goods are made in Wyoming.That's where Kyle and Bailey live. That's where they started this company. They just felt a call tostart a company that creates really high quality, really awesome leather goods, whether it's jewelry orbelts or custom hats. They've got all different kinds of things, wallets, purses. I've got my
48:25purse right here. I'll show you. I use it all the time. This is my range leather purse. Itravel with it and it looks amazing. It's really easy to clean and the more worn it is, the betterit looks. And then also they've got these cute earrings. This is just an example of what they have.Adorable. I've got some myself in light brown. I really like them. If you go to rangeleather.comslash Alley, you'll say 15% off your order. That's range leather.com slash alley.Okay, we only have a few minutes left, and I just saw this headline come through. So I don't know if youhave talked about it yet. You probably have already seen it. But I want to get your thoughts on it.So this is according to Newsweek, the Catholic Church to excommunicate priests for following new
49:14U.S. state law. Have you seen this story? I've not. You're reading. I've heard rumblings about this.So, okay, let me read you a little bit more.The Catholic Church has issued a warning to its clergy in Washington State.Any priest who complies with a new law requiring the reporting of child abuse confessionsto authorities will be excommunicated.So it eliminates the longstanding confidentiality of the confessional,forcing Catholic leaders and lawmakers into a highly charged standoff over religious libertyand child protection.
49:48the Archdiocese of Seattle and several bishops argue that the law not only contravenes church doctrine,but crosses constitutional lines while supporters maintain is a crucial step to protect minors from abuse.Sorry for springing this on you, but do you have initial thoughts on that?I certainly do because this has been floated for a long time.The first thing for everyone to know, especially as you read from a liberal media outlet,and you're going to see a lot of these headlines from even more liberal media outlets,this has almost nothing to do with child abuse or protecting children.virtually nothing to do with it at all. This has everything to do with weakening the church.
50:25Because, well, first of all, because not to rehash the 25-year-old child abuse scandal right now,but rates of child abuse in public schools are twice the rate of child abuse within the Catholic Church.The rates within the Catholic Church are on par with basically every other religious tradition.In fact, some are a little bit higher.So it's a targeted attack on the church, specifically on the seal of the confessional, which is inviolable.It has always been inviolable.It is essential that it remain inviolable because, for those of us who believe in sacramental theology,when Christ says to the apostles, you have the power to forgive sins, whose sins you forgive or forgive,
51:08and who sins you retain are retained is giving his apostles and their successors a specificauthority to forgive sins and to retain sins. And so we take that very seriously. We go in.We can make perfect acts of contrition in our minds, but we go because this is an incarnationalfaith. Our Lord is incarnate. He picks real people in a real time, in a real place. It makes areal church that goes out and evangelizes real nations all around the world. And we confess oursins. And our priests can either withhold forgiveness or can absolve us of our sins. The moment that you'veviolate the seal of confessional in any way, you are telling the faithful, I am no longerhaving a conversation privately with God, with a priest acting in persona Christi, I am, this is out
51:58for all the world to see. You will end confessions, which Catholics believe, and eventraditionally minded Protestants believe, is an essential sacrament in the life of our faith.So they point here, they say, well, you know, you have to report just this sin, this most egregious sin,that we're going to let a bunch of public school teachers get away with for decades.They're doing that because it's so sensationalist.It obviously tugs on the heartstrings.Practically speaking, it would have no effect whatsoever.You know, the kind of person who's going to confession to confess this kind of sin is probably, I don't know,
52:36not going to be deterred because of this little law.and furthermore, all it will do is discourage confessions and the practicing of the Catholic faith.It certainly is unconstitutional at a period where liberal politicians are abusing children left and right,notably through the gender ideology when they're not slaughtering them through abortion.It reads as completely disingenuous from the liberal politicians.And I think it's not going to stand. It will not hold up.but furthermore, as I mentioned earlier, just in the nature of confession itself, the priest can withhold absolution.So what we're seeing here is just yet another example of the state doing its best to attack religious people,
53:22and specifically the Catholic Church, which liberal politicians have been going after since at least the French Revolution.And they're going to keep trying it again because something tells me they're not serving God.I think they're serving one of the other guys.Okay, this is interesting. I didn't realize, I guess I just didn't realize that the seal of the confession is absolute. I think how most Protestants would see it is that there are spheres of authority that God has given us, the family sphere, the church sphere, and the civil sphere. And there are some things that fall under the jurisdiction of civil authorities. And one of those things would be abuse. There are things that we handle within the church. There are things that we handle within the family, obviously.sometimes those cross over. And of course, we believe in religious liberty. We don't want thestate interfering in our affairs. But when it comes to the protection of a vulnerable person,like a child, then yes, we would say that a pastor or a teacher at our church does have theobligation to go to authorities and say, this is happening because we would want to protect that
54:30child. I see what you're saying, that this would discourage confession. And that could be counterproductivein a lot of ways. But it's hard for me to see the justification. But it wouldn't just discourage,I mean, if it only discouraged confession among child abusers or something, well, you know, I mean,one hopes that they get right with the law and get right with the Lord as well. You know,we hope that for everyone. But they would be much less controversial. But this would discourageconfessions from everyone because at that point you confess your sins. And then, you, youYou're just waiting for a subpoena to come down from Governor Democrat to embarrass you or humiliate you or do anything of the like.You know, you make a good point that there are these different spheres and God appoints people for these different areas of authority.
55:14The civil authority, St. Paul tells us, you know, does not bear the sword in vain.The civil authority is there for your own good.Our Lord obviously gives us pastors and a church.However, the overlap, I think, is much more substantial than we're letting on.If I go into confession and I say I stole a candy bar, that is a matter for the civil sphere.I've committed a crime.It's also a matter for my soul.And there's actually, it's not just that there's some overlap, but there's almost perfect overlap
55:41between all of these things because sin wounds the community.Sin, you know, it's kind of like Milton described in Paradise Lost.Sin, you know, enters into the world.And then death is born out of that sin.and it just pervades everything.And Milton gets it from a good source, which is scripture.So, you know, it's just kind of everywhere.Now, the priest could say in a confessional,
56:05I stole a candy bar, the priest could ask, I suppose,well, did you return it?Did you, what have you done?You know, what have it, how are you penitent now?What should make me convince that you're actually remorseful?It's not that he's bargaining exactly.It's not that he's making God's forgiveness of sin contingent on some human action.But he is asking, are you really penitent?
56:26So, you know, one could imagine in the same way, a priest asking, okay, you've committed this horrible crime.What is the evidence that you're really penitent?You know, okay, you say you're sorry, but can you show me a little bit more that you really believe it?You know, but this is true, of course, of all sin.We're talking about the most egregious sin here, but it's true of all sins.So if you, and this is what the liberals know.That's why they're going after it because they know if they can just make one little crack in the seal of the confessional that they've destroyed the whole thing.But then where would one draw the line?
56:58You know, if I go in there, I say, I cut a guy off in traffic.Are you committing to the crime of speeding, for goodness sakes?I mean, there's really no end to it because the civil laws derive from the moral law.That's what a law is.It's an instantiation and positive law of something we understand from the moral order.So when you violate, in our modern life, we try to pretend that there's morality in the law,and you can't legislate morality, but that's total nonsense.So when you violate one, generally speaking, you violate the other.
57:27Yeah.I mean, there's lying.There's cheating on your wife.There are all kinds of things that are sins that aren't illegal.That wouldn't be under the jurisdiction of civil authorities.But I just think...Cheating on your wife used to be.Yes, it did.
57:41And lying could be.And it should be illegal.I mean, cheated on your wife probably still should be illegal.We probably agree on that.I understand what you're saying, that they could be using this one thing to try to infringeupon the authority of the church.But, and maybe that strategy is working for me.It's just hard for me to see the justification for preventing justice for something like
58:03a child abuser.It's kind of like when they say, well, look, we need to have abortion because, in principle,a nine-year-old girl could be raped by her father and be forced to carry the baby in anectopic pregnancy that will certainly kill her.Do you want that, Allie?Is that what you support?And you would say, well, no, of course nobody supports all of this.That's horrifying.
58:27They say, right, so therefore, we have to have some kind of abortion enshrined in the law.But of course, they don't really care about that situation.What they want is abortion on demand all the time.They want to establish in principle that it is right to murder a child if there is some good consequence in sight.And unfortunately, that logic has worked on a lot of people, even though it's morally, totally specious.I think they're doing the exact same thing here.And to your point, though, they might have some success with it because, you know, the abortion argument has worked and other instantiations of it have worked.But the priests cannot go along with it.
59:02And if the priests are persecuted by the state, it wouldn't be the first time.In fact, getting all the way back to what we were talking about, the reason that the Pope wears the red slippers is not just because they're fashionable, but it's because the Pope is to walk in the footsteps of the martyrs, you know, and the blood of the martyrs is the seat of the church.Thank you so much for your thoughts and for taking the time to explain all of this to us today, Michael.I really appreciate it.Everyone should buy all of your books and subscribe to your show.Is there anything else you want people to know?No, nothing else.I just want you to know that it's good to see you.
59:37You know, we overlap.We run into each other at these events.But then I feel like we're always sort of like pulled away and there's always some.Anyway, marvelous is always to see you, my dear.Me too.Thank you so much.And tell the family I said,Hello, please.
59:49Yeah, well, same to you.Just a reminder to subscribe to Blaze TV.You get access to all subscriber exclusive content.It's how you protect us from the sensors.It's how you make sure that you can stay connected to us,all Blaze TV hosts, as well as see all of the content that we have for you.And it is just a way to ensure that even if we get deplatformed,that you are still going to be able to see our stuff, listen to our podcast,
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