Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Pope cast away idols, Remember Pacha Mama and why
are conversions rising all over the world.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
The Prayerful Posse has some thoughts.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Next, Welcome to this Arroyo Grande series, The Prayerful Posse.
Let's convene the Posse joining me Father Gerald Murray, canon
lawyer from the Archdiocese of New York, and Robert Royal,
(00:29):
editor in chief of the Catholic Thing. And I'm rayam
an Arroyo. Go subscribe to the Arroyo Grande Show channel
on iHeart, Apple, Spotify, or YouTube wherever you get your podcasts.
We don't want you to miss an episode of the Posse.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Jens.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I want to start with a big story that got
very little coverage. Most of you remember the scandal in
twenty nineteen at that Amazonian synod in the Vatican Gardens
when Pope France is blessed a Pacha Mama idol. Well,
now Pope Leo in the most elegant of way, it
seems to be putting the idle scandal in the rear
(01:05):
view mirror. In a telegram to the Amazonian bishops, he writes,
no less evident is the right and duty to care
for the home that God the Father has entrusted to
us as diligent stewards, so that no one irresponsibly destroys
the natural goods that speak of the goodness and beauty
of the Creator, nor much less subjects one's self to
(01:30):
them as a slave or worshiper of nature, since things
have been given to us in order to attain our
end of praising God and thus obtaining the salvation of
our souls. Father, your reaction, particularly to that line worshiper
of nature.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
This is a great statement from Pope Leo because it's
exactly refuting what those who brought the Patchemama statue, which
is an earth mother goddess statue. They brought it to
the Vatican to try and say that this is the
authentic spirituality of the Amazonian people, and Poblio was saying, no,
it's slavery to nature worship. In fact, that really is
(02:11):
at root what paganism is. Paganism is the darkness of
not knowing the Creator and treating the creation as somehow divine,
and the Pope saying, no, Jesus Christ is the source
of salvation and we must not confuse people by saying that,
you know, there's such a thing as an earth goddess,
or that we should treat creation as if it were God.
No creation should be respected, but it should become an
(02:34):
instrument of salvation, and pagan idols have no place in that.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
They have to be cast out, Bob.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Even Pope Francis apologized for the Patromama thing half heartedly,
but Pope Leo went on to say, this week, where
the name of Jesus is preached in justice recedes proportionally.
Talk to me about that and your take on this
subtle It is a gentle correction, if you will, of
this whole Pacha Mama episode.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Yeah, I mentioned this before, but we can see that
that Pope Leo is a different animal than Pope Francis,
that even though they may share some points of view,
he has a much more kind of peaceful, you know,
less revolutionary type pope. And so one of the dramas that,
(03:24):
of course, I think is going to be playing out
is he's going to be his own man and having
to find some way to gently distance himself from certain
positions that Francis took. And this there's a prime example
that in a way Francis was able to accept the
fact that Pacha Mama was on sacred territory in the Vatican.
He actually kind of defiantly after people pushed back against
(03:47):
this a plant that was associated with with this idol
on the altar. And you know, ever since the first
days of the Church, it's been a constant teaching that
the the gods and goddesses of other people's are demons.
They are not just kind of an expression of this
or that. Now, as to that question about justice retreating,
(04:10):
when we retreat from Christ, of course that's going to
happen because Jesus is the one through whom the world
was created. The Gospels tell us that, and of course
the order that He's built into creation is going to
follow what he, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have
put together for our sake as human beings. So if
(04:31):
we depart from that order, we're not only going to
harm nature, we're going to harm our own human nature,
harm one another. So I think that this is just
a wonderful statement that he's made. It's a subtle statement,
it's not a kind of in your face statement. But
if he continues to do this sort of thing, I
think we're going to be in a very, very different place,
(04:51):
in just a very short time.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah, no, I thought it was a needed corrective and
I wish it would have gotten more attention.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
So here the posse will give it the attention. Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Our conversions to Christianity and Catholicism specifically on the rise,
according to data by KARA, that's the Center for Applied Research.
It's to an apostolate at Georgetown and they examine all
this data about the church and its growth or its recession.
The Catholic Church in the US may be in a
period of renewal. If you look at the data, for
(05:23):
the first time in two decades, more are joining the
church than leaving.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
The adult conversions are on the rise.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
The numbers are complex, but given the role that immigration
has played since twenty twenty, births within Catholic families, if
measured by infant baptisms, is now half of what it.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Was back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
But at the beginning of the millennium, adult conversions were
about one hundred and seventy five thousand annually. By twenty
twenty that number dropped to around seventy thousand, but in
twenty twenty five it's being projected up at one hundred
sixty thousand American adults entering the church Father, what are
(06:05):
Americans searching for?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
And why are these conversions occurring?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Now, do you think, Well, adult conversions I think are
a direct result of people dissatisfied with the secular culture
that surrounds them. And then we also have a large
group of people who are Protestant evangelicals and they're looking
for a sacramental, hierarchical church. They're not simply looking for
preachers who set up their own churches, and then you
(06:30):
know they're they're basically the law.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
No.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
They want to see God's laws mediated through a divine structure.
So when they find the Catholic Church, that answers that question.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Now.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
The problem, of course with all these statistics is that
it's very evident that the percentage of Catholics attending Mass
has gone way down. So, you know, I was looking
at statistics recently about, you know, how people practice their faith.
It's a sad statistic the percentage of baptized Catholters get
married in a church wedding that's gone way down. So
(07:03):
it's sort of a battle of statistics. And I won't
get into because I'm not a statistician, but I can
say there are a lot of adult conversions in an
era when we're challenged in our culture. But the people
who are practicing people are Catholics and baptized, they don't
seem to be getting the fire. I think we lose
ninety percent of baptized Catholics by the time they graduate
(07:23):
from college. That was one statistic I saw. So conversions
are great, but we need people raise as Catholics to
take the faith seriously.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, you know, I'm going to I pulled up some
of those statistics, Bob. While the growing converts in Catholicism,
number baptized Catholics who still identify is about sixty two percent.
That's down from eighty four percent in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
But as father mentioned, the number of cradle.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Catholics who attend Mass each week is around eleven percent.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Now what do you make of that?
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Well, you know, I look at these numbers and I
want to be encouraged by don't let me start by
saying that. But I sometimes feel, and I'm sorry to
be cynical about this, It's like, you know, if you've
ever had a family member die or a friend die,
you kind of look for signs of health and you know,
something good happens and this fever goes down and they're
eating again. And this, to me is simply not robust enough.
(08:21):
I welcome it. I hope it continues to grow. But
there's a larger battle that's going on in the culture,
and we see it, as Father rightly says, kids graduate
from college. And if you've lost ninety percent of your
Catholics when they graduate from college, which is a large
percentage of our people in America these days, I don't
know how you do anything about that, except I think
(08:44):
the church has to really dig deep and begin to
teach again. I mean, begin to teach at the grade
school level, at the high school level, at the college level,
and authentic teaching. You know, we basically have a public
school system in the United States now that is a
propagator of atheism, of LGBT rights, of all those things
(09:04):
that militate against the faith. The Church has to find
a way to protect its people, growing up form them
so that they can oppose what the rest of the
culture is trying to impose on them.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah. Father.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Some commentators have attributed this rise in conversions that they
call it the Francis effect.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I call it the COVID effect because.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
It after COVID when I think yet all these people isolated,
they came out and they were looking for something to
fill the void, to fill the loneliness, to fill all
the questions that they were encountering, you know, while in
lockdown your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Yeah, it's I mean, it's hard to attribute it to
pot Francis specifically because we don't see a wave of
people saying that or identifying. If anything, I think the
Latin Mass Group inspired a lot of people. I think
the Evangelical to Catholic movement, you know, Scott Hahn and others.
This has been a forty now almost fifty year wave
(10:02):
of former Protestants who are serious and religious people, but
they become Catholic. But you know, back to Bob, I agree.
I want to be optimistic, but I'm a pastor of
a parish and I look at the percentage of people
in the parish who are active on Sunday to Sunday basis,
and there's a whole generation missing. People between ages twenty
(10:24):
to forty are not proportionally represented, as are people from
ages sixty to eighty. That makes me nervous because that
I think is the fruit of those people in the
younger group not having a solid Catholic education. If you
don't learn the seriousness of doctrine, prayer and charity in
school as a kid, how are you going to pick
(10:46):
it up later. That's a real challenge for us.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Now the schools have to do it. I mean, Bob
touched on this.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
The catecasus is critical, but explaining the why behind the what.
You know, they see the mass, but do they understand
the movements and the historical connections of what it means
to the larger salvation history story. And I'm not sure
that's being imparted, but you do see. I got to
tell you in my local parish and where this Latin
(11:17):
mass community is here in New Orleans, for sure it
is packed out with young people. If Orthodoxy sells and
that's what people want more of, why not give that
to them with a robust catechetical program.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
Bob, Yeah, I agree with you entirely about this. I mean,
there are multiple pieces to this. One is that kind
of almost flight into health. That's an old psychoanalytic term,
but you know, people kind of they're so they're feeling
so awful that the only only alternative left just to
become healthy again. But you know, the people who have
(11:53):
studied this problem kind of globally. One of my one
of our researchers, Mary Aberstad at the Faith and Reason Institute,
has done a very interesting book about how the West
lost God and one of the reasons it's lost God.
One of the primary reasons is that she says, we've
lost the faith because we've lost the family. That it's
important not only to hear about the dogmas, not only
(12:17):
to have the explanations, but to actually live in your
home in a community where a mother and a father
show you what it's like to live as a Catholic.
Have other friends who live as Catholics have communities in
which they're supported. So there are many different pieces to this,
but I think you're exactly right that one of the
reasons why that boost and the young people is precisely
(12:39):
because they know that anything else is simply inadequate. The
Southern novelist Walker Percy once was asked, well, why are
you a Catholic? And he said, what else is there?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Another New Orleans boy? Thanks for bringing it all home, Bob.
The real story here is gen Z and the Malays. Okay,
all over the internet you see young people eighteen to
twenty year old guys particularly drawn to faith, especially the
mass Barna found that thirty million more adults professed a
(13:14):
commitment to Christ in twenty twenty five. Now that's a
broad question, but over in the UK there's an interesting
shift going on among young adults there. Based on Yugov stats,
belief in God has more than doubled in the last
four years, along with a similar increase in church attendance. Now,
admittedly the data is not specific to Christianity, but father,
(13:36):
there's clearly a shift among young people in Europe and
the United States. I mean, you saw a million young
people coming to see Pope Leo this summer. What do
you think they're reacting to and what are they searching
for that they're discovering in these churches across the UK
and the United States.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Well, I go back to the perennial questions. We're all
faced with, where did I come from? Why am I here?
What am I supposed to do? And what happens when
I die? And only religious faith can answer those questions?
And only I maintain as a Catholic brief, only the
Catholic faith can give that answer. Other religions get partial answers.
(14:18):
Now the questions are asked, of course, by people who
are sated with diversion and entertainment. And you know, I
love entertainment. I like a good opera, I like a
good orchestra, I like going a baseball game. But in
the morning, when I wake up, I don't think am
I on this planet in order to go to entertainment venues?
You know, No, that's a distraction necessary, but it's supposed
(14:42):
to be something that motivates me to enjoy the main
part of life, which is fulfilling my responsibilities. And modern
Western man, you know, is in flight from responsibility in
so many ways. So people realize that you're not satisfied
simply by watching videos all day. There's got to be
something more. And that's where the Catholic Church comes in.
(15:02):
And that's precisely where I think a lot of young
people are saying, I need more in life than what
the world is selling.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
It's curious, Bob.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Young people are finding the church via the internet, you know,
they're listening to these discussions of history and dogma tradition,
and it's fascinating to them. But studies are also showing
and getting back to the UK. A decline in membership
in the Church of England, Okay, there's a steady increase
in the membership in.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
The Catholic Church.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
In fact, the Catholic population there is expected to surpass
the population of the Anglican Church for the first time
since Henry the Eighth broke away in the sixteenth century.
What are the drivers here and what does it mean
culturally to England.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
Well, look, I don't want to criticize the Anglicans, because
there is an Anglican tradition that is quite lovely to
beautiful liturgy is I think that that sacramentally in theological
however they're wanting and as we know, they've been extremely
progressive in recent years or ordaining women priests, women bishops.
(16:09):
There may even be a female Archbishop of Canterbury before long,
which would be quite something. And they basically stand for
nothing in nothing solid in British society other than a tradition.
So I'm not surprised that these young people who find
no solidity anywhere around them turn to a place that
is asserting something that they can embrace and stand on
(16:30):
and it'll help them through their lives. Now, I want
to be a little cautious about this, because I do
know a little bit about the situation, at least in London,
where some of my friends, their priests and others tell
me that part of the number, these larger numbers that
we're seeing are propped up by immigrants. They're immigrants from Poland,
they're immigrants from Vietnam, And when you go into churches,
that's a lot of what you see in addition to
(16:51):
the older people. But in any event, it's an interesting thing,
and no doubt that energy that begins to be generated
in those churches will begin to spill over into other
things in the society. And let's face it, England faces
a very very serious Muslim challenge right now. There are
some people that claim that they are headed for civil
war because they have militant Islam that is kind of
(17:14):
imposing itself on the society. And so the British people
in general are going to be looking for something else,
and it's going to be the only body in Christendom
that has stood up to Islam in the past, and
I'm quite confident that that's going to help the church
in that country as well.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Father, you want to mention anything there before we move on. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
No, the Church of England, their leaders themselves are kind
of writing their obituary because they know that they are
not in a position of growth. And sad to say,
the Church of England is functions as a government department.
I mean it depends on the English monarchy and the
Parliament for the nomination of its bishops and the like.
(17:53):
And the doctrine, as Cardinal Newman saw when he converted,
the doctrine is not the fullness of Christianity. So all
of these things lead to an inevitable wash out when
you stop talking about Jesus and start talking about, you know,
community organizing. And we have to be careful of that.
And I think that's we talked about pab Leo him
(18:13):
mentioning the centrality of Christ in the Amazon. That applies
everywhere England, US wherever.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
No.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
And you see when we hear this talk of ordaining
women in the Catholic Church and they're doing these study groups,
I always say, well, there's.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Already a communion that's done this. They've tried all of this.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Look what's happened to the Anglican community, to Episcopalianism. It's
a shattered communion at this point, you've got people, you know,
exercising different strains and finding their own theology as they go,
because there's no unity around the ancient doctrine of the
Church and what Christ established. So this is going to
(18:54):
work itself out, but I think it will have seismic
impacts upon the future true of England and the monarchy,
as you mentioned, Father, because the Church of England and
that monarchy is so tied together.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I want to talk about something.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Cardinal unders Arborellius of Stockholm in Sweden, he's warning his
flock against attending liturgies by the Society of Saint Pius
the Tenth. Now they're sismatic traditional mass community. He's calling
for unity in the diocese since the canonical status of
(19:28):
SSPX is still questionable, though we acknowledge that their sacraments
are valid. Bob, why is the cardinal making this distinction?
And I mean if Pope Francis hadn't all but banned
the traditional at mask, might this have not been a
problem at all?
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Yeah, I mean sadly, you know, Sweden, which is a
highly secularized country. The believers in a country like that
are in battle to begin with, and so I think
part of it probably is he's just trying to protect
Catholics from inauthentic or schismatic groups that it might be
around them. But look, Francis actually showed some uncharacteristic generosity,
(20:09):
I would say, toward the SSPX at certain points in
his papacy, and so it may be possible in other
contexts that some of that problem with the SSPX can
be resolved. I'm hoping that Leo, who's got a more
gentle and interesting touch in these matters, I think we'll
be able to do something about it. But of course,
(20:32):
why not When the SSPX came in, as I understand
this story, they came in and without any permission, celebrated
a Mass. If I were the bishop of a small flock,
I'd be very worried about, especially in the state of
the education that most Catholics have, as we talked about earlier,
that they not be confused about what's going on, and
(20:52):
we keep them close because I think, as he said
in that statement, the Church is one because it's in
unity with the Holy Father and with.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
The universe Church.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
And you want to send that message in a place
like Sweden to your Catholics.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, well, Father wouldn't the better way to send the
message be, Look, guys, I'm offering the traditional light mass
here at the cathedral.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Come here, this is the fullness.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
That would be a good thing. But let me put
my canon law head on and say the Pious the
Tenth is no longer excommunicated. You know the bishops where
the ex communicants were lifted. One of the reasons they
were excommunicated was because it was called a sismatic act
to consecrate bishops without papal permission. That was taken away.
So I don't think it's fair to call them sismatic
(21:34):
group anymore. On the other hand, the Cardinal Arberellis is correct.
They are not in full communion with the Church. They
are canonically irregular, and under post Francis they were given
more permission. They were given the ability to hear confessions
and to perform marriages, so they were given they were
treated as if they're not canonically irregular for some of
the sacraments, and so this poses a problem for bishops.
(21:58):
But I would say this, if the society at Pious
the Tenth is interested in fostering true Church unity, they
should seek to full submission to the Roman Pontiff and
these problems will go away. There were discussions under Cardinal
Ratzinger and Pope Benedict to have this thing resolved. They
didn't do it. I hope and pray that Pope Leo
will restart those negotiations. But make it clear this is
(22:20):
not going to take forever. I would say, give them
six months, come up with an agreement, and if they
can do it, then we can regularize all this or
eliminate the problem. But in the same time, Pope Leo
can also say, and by the way, anybody else wants
to say, the old Latin Mass is given permission. I
think there's an easy solution here. I hope it happens.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
In a related story, the Society of Saint Pious the
Tenth had their own Jewbilee event at the Vatican this week,
and here's the procession of their gathering there. There were
some reports that this was a Vatican hosted event, but
the Holy See Press Office clarified that while the society's
pilgrimage was listed in the General Jubilee Calendar, it was
(23:03):
not listed on the official Jubilee calendar. Bob, your reaction,
I mean this sends all kinds of mixed signals, I think.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Yeah, I mean, and they're far from being the worst
group that shown up on that list. And plus, you know,
one would think that in a church will like ours,
it so highly values the truth, consistency, dogma, unity with
the Holy Father globally in spite of all the cultures
(23:31):
and languages and whatnot, that they would be quite careful
about distinguishing between people who are kind of officially part
of what's going on in the Jubilee and others. It
just seem to show up. I mean, there are some
gay groups that are scheduled to have certain events we
want to talk about, and it just seems to me
if you think that everybody can come and be part
(23:55):
of the Jubilee, will find they can come if they
want to be in with what the church is doing
by celebrating that jubilee, which is basically to say it's
twenty and twenty five years of Christian existence in the West.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Well, I think if you looked at that procession, I mean,
they're singing the Credo and marching along, and you know,
they seem to be holding up the tradition of the Church,
not trying to undermine it.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So that's a good thing. Father.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
It's also being reported that Pope Leo may be hosting
the Catholic Reform this progressive group we are Church therefore
female ordination and married clergy, the whole nine yards, that
they'll have a jubilee celebration in October eight. Representatives of
this pro LGBT group will attend a jubilee of sonatyl
teams and participatory bodies from October twenty fourth to twenty sixth.
(24:47):
We are church as long criticized church. Teaching your thoughts
on this again, this may fall into that general as
opposed to official calendar.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah, well, I mean which list is it? I mean
is this going to the supermarket? Were the manager's specials
only open to people come every week? Or is this
the general public invited, you know, to have the sale
at the super Come on. These distinctions are meaningless, but
what is meaningful is that dissident groups, people who deny
Catholic doctrine and morality, would be invited to be part
(25:19):
of anything. And my understanding is looking at this issue,
this invitation did not come from Pope Leo. They got
a form letter. It was eight members. As you say,
so the group in and of itself was not invited.
It was members who sought to go when they opened
up participation.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
I don't think this represents any Vatican shift on anything,
but it does represent the problem of the what is
the meaning of sinidality? I mean discidality?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Mean?
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Is sinidality mean? People who don't accept Catholicism are viewed
as partners and trying to figure out what Catholicism is.
I hope not, because you know, don't We don't call
up Mormon theologians as ven as Mormons are, but we
don't call it the theologias that will explain to us
the meaning of the creed. We don't do that because
we know that Mormonism is not a true religion. We
(26:08):
respect Mormon people. Same thing with people are promoting dissidents
in the church. We respect them as people. We call
them to conversion. We don't tell them us on need
to tell us.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah, Father and Bob.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
This may be a holdover from you know, the old
Pope Francis sonadl days. It looks like these eight members
of this We Are Church were probably members of the
Senate or consultors to the Senate who were invited to
this sonadl Jubilee, and now they're saying, oh, our whole
group has been invited and we have a papal audience.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
That may not be the case here. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
I looked at some of the remarks by the spokesman
for that group, and he almost kind of claims a
certain infallibility, if I can use that term to himself.
He says, you know, but the fact that the church
is opening up to the way it's excluded people in
the past, right, No one's excluded anybody and coming to
the church, they've excluded themselves by the positions they've taken.
(27:04):
And he says it's good to see how they're correcting
the errors of the past. So in other words, he's
got some kind of pipeline into God that's correcting the
dogmatic and moral positions of the Roman Catholic Church. I mean,
I don't know where a guy gets this authority to
do such a thing, but that's the kind of thing
that happens when you're unclear about who is in and
(27:26):
who is not in the fold. And I'm sorry to
say that Francis I think encourages this confusion by meeting
with people. And it's okay to meet with people, but
not giving the impression that he was then evangelizing them
and asking them to come into full communion with the
Catholic Church. I mean, we're all sinners, and if you're
following certain sins, fine, but you have to be willing
(27:49):
to try to be overcoming them to become more and
more united with the Church and frankly with Jesus Christ himself.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Well, as I always said, you know, when the sonadel
stuff first bubbled up, you know, Jesus encountered and interacted
with punchest pilot in the Sanhedrin, but he didn't invite
them into the fold and call them a part of
his church. They didn't embrace him, so they couldn't enter
into that communion. And you're right, the Sonadyl model created
(28:16):
a huge amount of confusion because it seemed we were
voting on doctrine and that anybody, whether you're inside the church,
outside the church, or despise the church, you could come
sit around a little small table group and decide the future.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
That's not reality. It just never was.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
But Father, getting back to this Jubilee pilgrimage business, there's
another Jubilee pilgrimage on September sixth, that's being billed as
an LGBT Jubilee pilgrimage, which is also not on the
official calendar, but it's being billed as a Vatican event.
It looks like it was organized by a local LGBT
(28:52):
group in Italy. Your reaction to this and trying to
sort of it seems all of these groups are trying
to glomb onto the Jubilee.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
No, absolutely no, it's disgraceful. The Vaticans should not invite
groups that contradict Catholic doctrine as a group to come
in and participate in events trying to promote the Jubilee
of Salvation. Remember, the Jubilee year is not just like
in jamboree for the Boy Scouts where we get together
at a camphire. This is not about socializing with fellow Catholics.
(29:21):
This is about worshiping Jesus Christ, the savior of the world. Now,
people who say that Jesus's moral teaching has to go,
you know that sodomy is now good and legitimate. People
who say that, which is what these groups do, they
shouldn't be invited as a group because it gives the
impression that the Vatican has no problem with what they're
(29:42):
teaching their members. So this is a very serious offense
and this nonsense. We're back to, you know, the manager's specials.
Well you're you know here you are you're a group,
but you're not really a group. And you're on our list,
but you're not really on our list. I mean, what
is this? We don't sure people don't play these games.
This is not how people. If you're running a corporation,
(30:04):
you don't do this. You have a product, because it
does you sell your product, not other people's products.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, it does bestow some officialdom on it when you
call it a jubilee of whatever. Fill in the blank, bob,
what is a jubilee year? Very quickly for those who
might not know the term.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
Well, you know, this is first started around the time
of Dante by Hooponificeity eighth. I think in thirteen hundred
was the first jubilee, and it builds on the jubilee
idea that existed back in ancient Judaism, where debts are
canceled and where land gets returned to the people who
traditionally owned it. It's a thing that even for the Jews,
was a hard thing to manage. If truth be told,
(30:43):
but it's deep in the tradition, and we have that term.
In more recent times, you know, there were jubilees declared
a little bit more frequently. John Paul the Second had
the famous one in two thousand, which was of course
also the beginning of the New Christian Millennium, the third
Right Millennium, and so Pope Francis decided that he would
repeat that here in twenty twenty five as a kind
(31:06):
of a periodic thing, and I think we're likely to
see for the rest of this century every twenty five
years something like that happened. I want to get to
I just want to make one more point about this,
this inviting of different groups and whether they're invited or not.
I mean, I don't really know if that's the case,
but it is the case that I don't think the
(31:29):
Vatican has sufficiently appreciated the difference between individuals and activist groups.
That it's one if it's one thing if a trans
person meets with the Pope and comes there and says,
you know, I'm troubled, I'm transing. It's another thing if
the Church decides to meet with a group that's promoting transactivism.
(31:50):
Because as we know, from the political and the secular sphere.
A lot of these activist groups are just relentless. They
just never quit. They believe believe they're right. They believe
even that the things that they are following that are
contrary to Christianity and used to be universally held by
all Christian groups, not just Catholics, but they believe that
(32:11):
they somehow have some sort of different revelation that trumps
the Christian revelation. So if I were if somebody from
the Vatican were to come to me and say, wait,
you know, you guys are talking about all this, what's
the solution here? Understand that activism is different than meeting
with people. Activists are there to get their point of
(32:31):
view and their activity across to you, and beware of
that unless you really believe that they're right. And in
that case, of course, we have an even deeper problem.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Yeah, but they're using the jubilee here as a platform
for their own agenda, and that is problematic if it's
not the church's agenda, if those two things don't combine
and overlap. In a story we've been following really since
it broke, a grudging reversal in the Archdiocese of Toulouse
in France. Over two months ago, Archbishop Guy de Carmel
(33:03):
appointed a father Dominique Spina his chancellor in the diocese. Well,
this was despite Spina's two thousand and six conviction for
raping a sixteen year old boy. He spent five years
in prison for that act.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Father.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
The archbishop apologized sort of on August sixteenth to victims
of sexual abuse for the harm and the anxiety the
appointment caused them, but at the same time, he continued
to justify his initial decision, insisting it was quote a
sign of hope for abusers.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Your reaction, Yeah, the bishop caved into pressure from the
French hierarchy and in fact said that that he wanted
to promote peace among the bish fellow bishops. So he's
got to realize this is not a question where you
simply cave in because the people around the table don't
like what you did. You made a fundamental error. You
do not put child rapists in high office in the
(34:01):
diocese and expect that people are going to recognize this
as a good act, because it isn't a good act.
This man effact should be thrown out of the priesthood.
I don't know why he wasn't they The bishop said
that his case had been presented to the Vatican. I
present it again. I have no animus against the man himself.
I hope he dies in the state of grace, lives
a good life from now to that point. But I
(34:23):
do not want him being a shepherd of souls for anybody,
because he's disqualified himself. What do you have to do
to get yourself thrown out of the priesthood in that
diocese question? I mean, this is ridiculous. No police department
would ever put a convicted rapist as the desk sergeant
at the precinct. Why in the world would you make
them the chance or of the diocese and then pretend
(34:45):
I'm only doing this because unfairly I'm being pressured. No,
this is a matter of justice.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Yeah, Archbishop Caramel, Bob said, quote echoing what father said.
In order not to provoke division among bishops and not
to remain at a standoff between those four and against,
I decided to reverse my decision. I mean, it seems
he's missing the point here, Bob.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
Yeah, Like we've talked before him many times about this
overweening mercy that is supposed to trump everything else. And
I agree with Father. I mean, look, if this man
is repented and he is sincerely trying to follow the
right path right now, then good. Let's all pray for
him and hope that that happens. But there are certain
(35:30):
things that you do in life to disqualify you from
other positions, and not to recognize that. I forget the
differences between the French bishops. I think that this bishop
himself should have just acknowledged he made a mistake. It's
okay to make a mistake. We all make mistakes. He
made a mistake of judgment. It's to me an inconceivable mistake,
(35:51):
because I don't know how you take someone who's convicted
of a crime like that and then put him in
any kind of position in the church. But at least
acknowledge that and say, you know what, Mercy is great,
but so is truth, and truth has to be followed
in its fullness, means respecting that if you did something,
it means that you can't serve in certain offices.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
I agree with Father on this end.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
You, Bob, I mean, when you're talking about the shepherd
of souls and a chancellor is the man essentially running
the diocese. I mean, that is a major official in
a diocese. Why you would empower someone with this record.
Haven't they learned anything.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
From the sex abuse scandal.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
I mean, whether it's a priest who's fallen in this way,
and look, I'm all for personal mercy. Fine, archbishop, go
meet with him, convert him, bring him back, find him
something to do where he can repair is get to society,
to these victims, and to God so he can make
restitution and find his way to heaven. Fantastic, but that
(36:55):
doesn't mean you have to put him in a place
of leadership.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I feel the same way.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
There's an influencer I'm not even going to get into
it who was basically grooming young girls who were in
his ministry and this thing blew up, and I see
people saying, oh, he should be back, and this is wonderful.
I don't think that's a good idea. People need to
make restitution, but to be the public face and a
leader in some way, I think it's a very bad
(37:20):
thing for the church to do. Twenty something years after
the sex of these scandal exploded, one would hope people
would learn some lessons and this is just another sad
symptom of what we keep seeing. I've got to get
to this Republica is reporting the Pope is returning to
the Apostolic Palace to live. The last pope to live
there was Benedicta sixteenth, twelve years ago. Father, Why is
(37:43):
this so important to live in the Apostolic Palace. You've
seen the coverage where Pope Francis decided to live in
the hotel where the cardinals lived during the conclave, and
that was fun as the humble thing to do.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Well.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
I think it's important for a number of reasons. Number One, one,
that's where popes have lived for a long time, So
that's the pope's house, so he's going back to his house.
Number Two, it takes the focus off of him as
a person and puts it back on the office. He's
living where all the popes have lived for many, many generations. Likewise,
when you Pope Francis drew undue attention to himself, I
(38:21):
think by living in the hotel, saying he didn't want
to live in a palace, because that implies that, well,
everyone who else has lived in a palace somehow, you know,
was not conscious enough that they should not have been
living in the past. Now that's pope is free to
do what he wants. I would I don't agree with
what his decision is, so I think this is important.
The other thing I hear, I don't know if you're
going to talk about it, but I'll mention it. There's
(38:43):
talk of some Augustinian priests, which is the religious order
that he lives in, that they're going to come and
live in the papal apartment area in the Apostolic Palace
so they can have a little religious community there. And
I think that's another good thing he's doing because he
is a religious order man, so he was used to
common prayer, common life, you know, eating meals together, recreation,
(39:04):
So if he's going to reconstruct that, I think that's
a very good thing.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
I agree Bob your reaction to this.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
You know, the Pope there was a lot of speculation
as to whether he would return to the Apostolic Palace
or continue this new trajectory that Pope Francis set the
papacy on living in the penthouse essentially at the hotel.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
I think unfortunately the secular journalists and even some Catholic
journalists have misunderstood this situation.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
To begin with now.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
Francis did not say that he was going into the
Santa Marte guesthouse out of a desire for humility. He
didn't like being isolated, and he felt that the Apostolic
Palace was isolating. He just said for his own mental health,
he needed people around him. But Leo has obviously come
up with a solution to that problem. And it's not
(39:55):
as if the Apostolic Palace is lavish. I've seen that
word used in some news report. I mean, we've all
been up there, and you know it isn't exactly. I mean,
it's really quite humble.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
When you get up in the hallways. The hallways are lavish,
oh yeah, in the beautiful No.
Speaker 4 (40:12):
You walk up the staircase and you think you're coming
into a palacific king and then you get up up
above and the offices and the bedrooms are really quite simple.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
But I think this is great.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
I mean, I think the idea that having people around you,
but still at the same time, as father says, you know,
identifying with a long history of what the papacy has been,
this is this is a step in the right direction,
and who knows what kind of consequences it can have.
We're trying to reroot the reroot the church in its
own tradition, even as we're trying to reach out to
(40:43):
other people. All that to me is to the good
and praise to Leo for doing it.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
No, I think it's a wonderful restorative after years of
kind of dislocation. And there's also, I know there's also
a security issue, which you know, Bob, the Swiss guards
have said it's so much easier to tech the pope
in the Apostolic Palace as opposed to the hotel situation
where they had to block off floors beneath him and
above him, you know, to protect the floor that he occupied.
(41:10):
As Pope Leo's pontificate continues. Look, we're learning more about
the man. And on August fifteenth, there was something that
jumped out at me. The solemnity of the Assumption, Leo
was celebrating Mass at Costal Gondolfo, and he became visibly moved.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
During the consecration.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
He appeared to overcome, and you could see tears welling
in his eyes as he held the Eucharist. Aloft, Father,
your reaction to this and what does it tell us
about the man himself?
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Now?
Speaker 3 (41:39):
It was a beautiful scene, and I was surprised because
you know, when you've been a priest for more than
forty years, as the pope has, you know, Mass becomes
something that's just part of your every day and hopefully
say it reverently, but obviously you know the weight of
the papacy, the grandeur of celebrating the Mass, I mean,
being the Vicar of Christ, the successor of Saint Peter,
(42:01):
he sees all of this with great clarity. And you know,
when you see something beautiful, even by the eyes of faith,
tears are appropriate. So I was very moved by that.
In fact, I have to say, his whole demeanor in
celebrating Mass and in speaking to people, it bespeaks a
soul who is a man of prayer and understands that
(42:22):
what he's doing as Pope is not simply his own production.
I mean, it's not something he came up with.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Is he is.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
Conforming to a role that Jesus gave to Saint Peter
and to the apostles, and I think he's doing it well.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Yeah, gentlemen on the tech horizon. And this ties into
family Bob, which you mentioned earlier, you know, tied to
church attendance and conversion and maintenance of a faith through time.
Robots with artificial wombs could soon be carrying human babies
to term. A Chinese company is working on the development
(42:59):
of a robot that could carry a fetus for about
ten months before giving birth, providing nutrition to the unborn
baby through tubes in the robots abdomen and look. This
robot could make its debut as early as next year.
It's being promoted as an alternative to surrogacy for couples
(43:19):
or individuals experiencing infertility or just wanting a child. The
robot will likely cost fourteen thousand dollars for the surrogate,
as opposed to one hundred to two hundred thousand for
the human equivalent BOB at a time when people are
marrying their ai significant others. Is this the next step
in the brave New world robots birthing babies.
Speaker 4 (43:45):
Well, I pray that it won't. But I'm afraid that
the technological imperative, which is what some people call the
you know, just the drive that if we can do
it technologically, then we do do it. I don't think
that we've considered even the ramifications of things like surrogacy
on what happens to children. A lot of what the
(44:06):
focus is in these cases is the adults who want
a child at all costs, and look, God bless them.
It's great to want to be a parent. I'm a
father of several children and our several grandchildren. But the
fact that we're only looking at the adults as if
the desires of the adults are all that is engaged here,
(44:28):
and the consequences for the child, what it may do
to a family to have a child that's born in
that particular technological way. All these things tear at not
only the family, but they tear at our communities as well,
because there are consequences when things happen inside the family.
You know, when the family fails to form and it
doesn't discipline children, it moves out into the society and
(44:50):
the form of you know, drug use and criminality and
all sorts of other things. And I think this just
portends something further down that road. You know, we saw
things like this in novels like nineteen eighty four, and
we thought it was crazy that there are these machines
where children were farmed. Now we're actually at the point
where that technology made to take place and you can
(45:11):
see in a novel like nineteen eighty four that it
really divorces people from that sense of responsibility that we
were talking about earlier, where you really are engaged with
a child. So I hope we don't go down this road.
I hope that it's seriously regulated if people start to
use it. But I'm not optimistic.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Father.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
I guess this is the natural consequence of separating conception
from humanity and the moment.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
They could figure out how to create.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
A child outside of the natural conception between a man
and a woman.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Here we are.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
And there was a recent piece in the Atlantic where
men are now becoming single parents by choice. Here's the quote,
the growing cohort of single dads by choice.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
It tells the story.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
But forty something, your old man who made an appointment
with a fertility clinic and over a period of years
was matched with an egg donor and a surrogate. At
forty nine, he became a parent too, and now he's
got a seven year old and a two year old daughter.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Father.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
The focus of all this is, Bob said, is the
parent and the child is getting lost here. Doesn't a
child need a mother?
Speaker 3 (46:20):
Absolutely child needs a mother, a father needs to be
born of his mother and raised by his parents. Now,
when you violate the divinely created order, this is what happens.
You get disorder, and this is frightening. I agree with Bob.
What people now, whatever they can do, they're going to do.
And it's very frightening because now you're going to have
(46:41):
you potentially governments are going to create whole races of
people who are going to be subservient to them. I
can imagine that this is going to be like the
Nazi Laban's Born program, where you had access officers impregnating
women just to produce a chure children of the state.
(47:01):
This is very dangerous and yeah, we have to as
a society step back and say is the purpose of
life to be rich and powerful and do what we want?
Or is the purpose of life to find out what
God expects of us and to do that. If we
don't find that second answer, more strife, more inequality, more injustice,
(47:22):
more strama, and really horrific outcomes for the victims of
this kind of behavior.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
Bob, I want to end with this, and this is
something we talked about offline, but I know you had
thoughts on the NFL, the Minnesota, Vikings unveiled a pair
of male cheerleaders which they introduced onto the field. Now
here in New Orleans, you know the Saints, they've had
a male cheerleader for a while. Your thoughts on this
now that it seems to be spreading throughout the NFL.
Speaker 4 (47:51):
This is sort of another bud Light moment that they've taken.
They've put right in our faces frontline is my wife
reminds me when we've seen the videos of this men
who are kind of prancing around, I mean, really flaunting
a certain gay way of being, and they're doing that
to the NFL spectators. I mean that this is like
(48:13):
that bud like case where you drove away. I don't
know how many billion dollars it ended up being of
bud Light consumers. I wonder what effect this is going
to have on an NFL. And this goes back to
the other point I was talking about. You can you
can meet with it with people of any sort of
you know, people who identified in some kind of strange
sexual way and try to work with them. But when
you concede to activists that they're going to allow this,
(48:37):
it's clear to me that what the NFL does is
it's succumbed to some sort of pressure from LGB too
T groups to do this, and they're normalizing something that
is It just strikes me as it's a disaster for
them and it's a further disaster for the society.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Father, I'll give you the last word. But you know,
when I watched this, my fault was you're taking the
spots of girls who have competed for that slot, who
have been denied, I mean, and the core audience. When
I look around, you know, an arena, it's mostly guys
in the seats.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:13):
I'm actually a critic of the NFL cheerleader community world
that's been created because I think it's exploited to the women.
It's not like what Bob says. You know, cheerleading is
something I experienced when I was in college and all
I mean because it's basically it's like, you know, scantily
clad women jumping around. No, the New York Giants don't
(49:34):
have cheerleaders, and I'm very happy with that situation. I'm
also a Giants fan, so no, I look, this is
a silliness. Everybody wants to glom on the NFL to
get their picture on a screen. This is not what
it's about. This is football, It's about athleticism. This other
stuff should go.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
All right, pose We will leave it there.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
If you want more of the Arroyo Grande Prayerful Posse,
subscribe to The Arroyo Grande Show on YouTube or our
podcasts wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
On behalf of Robert Royal, Father Gerald Murray.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Until the Posse rides again, Stay the course, follow the light.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
I'm raimonn Arroyo. We'll see you next time by now.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
Arroyo Grande is produced in partnership with Divine Providence Studios
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