Does Fresno Really Need Another Weed Shop?

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
News story about a recreational marijuana businessthat has opened in Fresno, but just
across the border from Clovis, storingthe Fresno b the popular cannabis brand,
a popular cannabis brand which actually Idon't even know that I want to like
say the name of the cannabis brand. I don't want to like give them

(00:22):
business. Anyway, A noteworthy cannabisbusiness has opened up a flagship store in
a strip mall just off of WillowAvenue, across the street from Clovis city
limits. Now, the story goeson to talk about how basically it's right

(00:47):
across the street from Clovis, butClovis still does not allow recreational marijuana storefronts.
And this was the way, thiswas the way a sort of California
law was set up with regard tolegal marijuana sales. That basically, yes,
recreational marijuana was legalized in the state, but it's on a city by

(01:11):
city basis for allowing dispensaries, solicensed approved dispensaries storefronts to sell marijuana and
how many to allow, and thatis left at the level of city government.
Clovis up to this point has notallowed storefronts for the sale of marijuana.

(01:37):
And I think that's good. Ithink the marijuana debate in California was
one basically because one side stood tomake hundreds of gazillions of dollars through the
legalization of marijuana, and they wereable to pitch California law makers on,

(02:00):
hey, it's a source of revenuefor state coffers where you don't have to
compulsorily increase taxes on people. It'sa tax on a completely voluntary product that
nobody needs to buy, so youcan tax and it will be a source
of revenue for state government and forlocal governments. The side opposing it had

(02:28):
not much beyond a sense of Christianvirtue. All they could say was,
hey, this is bad for people. It's societally bad. It leads to
more dys it leads to young peoplegetting introduced to drugs at younger and younger
ages. It's going to lead tomore kids using marijuana. Here's all the

(02:50):
bad effects marijuana has. But becausethe other side had all the money,
they were able to produce survey aftersurvey after survey trying to argue all the
impacts aren't that bad, It's notthat bad for you long term. Here's
all the ways, it's not thatbad. But now as we get more
and more research into marijuana, we'reseeing that the legalization of marijuana has been

(03:13):
a disaster in a lot of ways. Last year, the Biden Department of
Health and Human Services formally recommended movingweed to for Schedule one classification. Okay,
However, NBC had this big reportabout marijuana and the increase in teenager

(03:36):
psychosis as a result that basically thetoxicity levels of marijuana that is sold today,
I mean, the stuff that's beingsold today is I guess pure and
more potent as far as its THHClevels then the dubes your grandpa was smoking
at woodstock. Okay. A growingnumber of studies are linking heavyweed use with

(04:02):
depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. High doses of cannabis can lead to
psychosis and even lifelong psychiatric disorders.There's more and more data about increases in
DUIs as a result of marijuana.There's more and more data about all the

(04:27):
different harms individually and societally that legalizedrecreational marijuana has and everyone sort of blew
by it. Why because one sidehad all the money and had not just
all the money that they stood tomake, but also all the money with
which they could tempt state government andlocal governments, and they could peddle some

(04:50):
sort of blowney libertarian arguments. Sowell, you know, people, adults
will make their own decisions, sowhy not why not just let them and
then we'll just ask them for it. So regardless, this is how marijuana

(05:10):
got legalized. But this is theother. But this is the thing that
I find interesting. Okay, Sothis particular cannabis storefront that's opening in again
right near Clovis, not in Cloviscity limits, in Fresno city limits.

(05:31):
I'll say the name whatever I haveto do it if I'm going to do
this story, right, So it'sthis brand called Stizzy I think s t
iii z y. Now the FresnoB story describing it as a piece by
Joshua tih in the Fresno B Ithink that's how you pronounce his name.

(05:54):
Steeze or Stizzy is one of thebest known vertically integrated cannabis companies, started
in Los Angeles in twenty seventeen.That is to say, by vertically integrated,
what the heck does that mean?It operates across all aspects of the
industry, offering its products, notablyvapes and battery systems, both in its

(06:17):
own flagship stores and at other dispensaries. So it's this entity that makes marijuana
products, but it also runs itsown stores. So an industry report last
year Held said that nearly fifty percentof the state's vape consumers have bought Stizzy

(06:43):
products, with more than ninety percentsaying they do it. Again, this
belies another idiotic argument that was alwaysbeing made about legalized marijuana. Oh,
this was to help you know,mom and pop businesses open a mom and
pop small business owners to open upmom and pops small business cannabis farms and

(07:09):
cannabis storefronts. This is about promotinglocal business. And then, even more
absurdly, to try to argue thisis about helping to promote you know,
minority owned business ventures. We needequity in the marri legalized marijuana dispensary industry,
and trying to argue that any ofthis was about promoting small businesses and

(07:33):
promoting like ACTI even like you know, promoting black owned businesses and blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah. Allright, again, though, how did
marijuana get legalized? Let me repeatwhy. It was because one side stood

(07:53):
to make hundreds of gazillions of dollarsgetting in on the ground floor of a
brand new, lead legal weed industryin the state of California. And you
had venture capitalists seeing this opportunity andsaying, yeah, I'll pay five hundred
thousand dollars for lobbyists this year ifit means or however, many gazillions of

(08:20):
dollars for lobbyists this year, ifit means I can make one hundred gazillion
dollars on the back end as aresult of their lobbying. They're lobbying lawmakers
to get legalized. Recreational marijuana isan investment for me to make a gazillion
dollars off of things like vertically integratedbusinesses that are making money hand over fist,

(08:50):
not just with their own storefronts,has a big chain of these marijuana
dispensaries, but also selling products allup and down the place. I'm sure
there are big businesses who run thefarms who do this. Do that.
This is not like California. Youtake almost any liberal cause that is painted

(09:11):
with this, that has this alltruistic facade, and you scratch it,
and what do you find? Youfind some person making money hand over fist.
You look at the transgender ideology,scratch that, you know, altruistic

(09:33):
sad just a little bit. Andwhat do you find? You find doctors,
hospital systems making money hand over fist, doing expensive gender transition processes,
expensive hormonal treatments, expensive surgeries.You scratch the abortion industry a little bit.
What do you find? You findpeople making a lot of money doing
abortions. Weed is the same thing. That's the whole point of this.

(09:56):
That's what's driving this bus. It'swhat's driving this bus. And I believe
it's what's been driving the research.If I mean, I think that's obviously
been driving the research. All theresearch that's favorable to marijuana gets heightened,

(10:16):
gets accentuated. Why because the peoplewho stand to make a lot of money
selling weed accentuate it, heighten it. So yeah, of course, So
like we have this glowing article fromthe Fresno b about, oh wow,
this is such an interesting integrated business. Yeah, yeah, very interesting how

(10:39):
all of a sudden legalized marijuana hasled to the development of massive corporate entities
making money hand over fist off ofpeople who make poor decisions. And this
is the thing I hate about twentyfirst century governance in America is how state

(11:03):
governments and local governments are so desperatefor some source of tax revenue without having
to increase taxes on people, thatthey're going to turn to any source they
can. And basically the main sourcethey turn to is taxing people who make
really poor life decisions. That's whatthey've turned to. Let's legalize this terrible

(11:28):
decision, a lifelong weed addiction,and let's have the state make money off
of someone will incentivize people to makethese poor decisions, and then we will
profit off of it. Let's incentivizepeople to gamble more, to give them
more opportunities for legal gambling, sothat we can take advantage of their bad

(11:50):
mathematical decisions and make more money bytaxing, you know, gambling earnings by
casinos. So and you see thatstate governments all over the place, there
are more and more and more andmore casinos being built all over the United
States of America, all these differentstates legalizing gambling more and more and more
and more, all these different stateslegalizing weed more and more and more and

(12:11):
more I mean, one of thethings that astonished me was a recent stat
I saw that the amount of moneyAmericans spend on lottery tickets is more than
the amount of money they spend goingto the movies, which is which really
kind of made me think, Wow, I am a pretty sheltered person,

(12:31):
given that I have never spent asingle red scent on lottery tickets in my
life. I've just never I've nevereven I've never actually bought a lottery ticket.
But that's what these states are doingthat this is modern American state governance.
Is we will get revenue, wewill capitalize off of people making really

(12:58):
bad math or life or both decisions. So maybe we're fighting this lost cause.
But I commend the city of Clovisfor saying, you know what,
no, we don't need pot dispensariesin the city. We just don't need
it. And I hope they alsofollow that up with cracking down on you

(13:22):
know, vape shops and all thatstuff, because a lot of those places
are from what I've been reading,a lot of those places throughout the San
Joaquin Valley are just selling weed illegallyout the back. That's the thing.
The legal weed industry has not actuallydemolished, which was the other grand promise.
The other grand promise will say,oh, well, we can get
the illegal weed industry, and wecan. We can completely eliminate the illegal

(13:48):
weed industry. But just taking weedtransactions and putting them out in the open.
Nope, there's still a six billiondollar per year illegal weed industry.
Why because potheads often don't want topay top dollar for weed. They would
rather pay less money, and they'rewilling to pay for that illegally. When
we return how much marijuana use hasincreased in the United States and my grand

(14:11):
hopes for my children. That's nexton the John Girardi Show. So the
shadow producers of this radio program,this radio program, as well as Right
to Life Radio on Saturdays, areoften my wife Holly and my mom,
doctor Sharon, And today Holly messagedthis story to me. Daily marijuana use

(14:39):
outpaces daily drinking in the US.A new study says, for the first
time, the number of Americans whouse marijuana just about every day has surpassed
the number who drink that often,a shift some forty years in the making.
As recreational pot use became more mainstreamand legal in nearly half of US

(15:03):
States in twenty twenty two and estimatedseventeen point seven million people reported using marijuana
daily or near daily, compared tofourteen point seven million daily or near daily
drinkers, according to an analysis ofnational survey data of people who make poor
life choices no just national survey data. In nineteen ninety two, when daily

(15:28):
pot use hit a low, pointless than one million people said they used
marijuana nearly every day. Alcohol isstill more widely used, but twenty twenty
two was the first time this intensivelevel of marijuana use overtook daily and near
daily drinking. So the studies authorJonathan Culkins, a cannabis policy researcher at

(15:48):
Carnegie Mellon University Cannabis policy researcher,How do you get that job? Can?
I ask? How can I getan endow chair studying something so niche?
How does one find oneself in thatkind of little corner? I guess

(16:08):
I've got an odd little corner ofthe universe sort of job. I've run
ProLife organization, I do like adaily radio show, and I do you
know, blah blah blah. Yeah, I guess how does anyone wind up
anywhere? Anyway? A good fortypercent of current cannabis users are using it
daily or near daily, a patternthat is more associated with tobacco use than

(16:32):
typical alcohol use. Caulkins said,it's almost like cannabis has a addictive habit
forming quality. The research, basedon data from the National Survey on Drug
Use and Health, was published Wednesdayin the journal Addiction. The survey is
a highly regarded source of self reportedestimates of tobacco, alcohol, and drug
use in the United States. Fromninety two to twenty twenty two, the
per capita rate of reporting daily ornear daily marijuana use increased fifteenfold. Caulkins

(16:57):
acknowledged in the study that people maybe more willing to report marijuana use as
public acceptance grows, which could boostthe increase. Most states now allow medical
or recreational marijuana, though it remainsillegal at the federal level. The November
Florida voters will decide on a constitutionalamendment allowing recreational cannabis, and the federal
government is moving to reclassify marijuana asa less dangerous drug, all of which

(17:21):
are terrible ideas. That's just methrowing in my opinion on this ap story.
Research shows that high frequency users aremore likely to become addicted to marijuana,
said David A. Gorolic. It'sa funny way of phrasing it that
if you use marijuana more frequently,you're likely to become addicted. Kind of
feels like a bit of a chickenand egg thing. Don't you think maybe

(17:42):
you become a really frequent user becauseyou are getting addicted to it, or
no, you become addicted to itbecause you use it so often, says
David Gorolic, a psychiatry professor atthe University of Maryland School of Medicine who
was not involved in the study.The number of daily users suggests that more
people are at risk for developing problematiccannabis use or addiction. Gorlic said high

(18:04):
frequency use also increases the risk ofdeveloping cannabis associated psychosis, a severe condition
where a person loses touch with reality. He said, So it seems like
it's basically they are a lot morewhat this study is telling us, there
are a lot more casual drink recreationaldrinkers in the United States. That is

(18:30):
to say, people who are notdrinking on a daily basis. I probably
average one alcoholic beverage per maybe likeone point five alcoholic beverages per week.
I usually have one drink, usuallyon Sunday, and maybe I don't know,

(18:55):
if I go out to dinner ifI usually when I have we usually
have dinner at my mom's house,and usually I have a drink while I'm
there on Sundays. And then maybeif I go out with Holly sometime I'll
get a drink too. So I'mprobably averaging about one point two and maybe
and maybe I'll have one weekday whereI happen to drink, just have odd

(19:18):
drink at dinner or something. SoI probably am averaging about one point two
drinks per week. There's a lotmore of that with alcohol than with cannabis.
Basically, so the percentage of cannabisusers who are daily users is much
higher than the percentage of alcohol userswho are daily alcohol drinkers. So,

(19:42):
of the pool of people who smokecannabis, who use cannabis at all,
a large percentage of that group aredaily habitual users. Of the whole body
of people who drink, it's arelatively small percentage of them who are daily
habitual users. What does this mean, Well, it probably means cannabis is

(20:03):
more likely addictive than alcohol is it'smore likely to become a sort of crutch,
addictive, habitual thing. That's whatThat's what it would seem to indicate
to me. This is not goodand this is why, like I am,

(20:30):
I feel as though Biden this isall in the context by the way
that the Biden administration is looking intothe possibility of reclassifying marijuana so that it's
no longer a federally in the federalFDA Schedule of Drug regulation, to move
it out of its current schedule sothat it's not illegal at the federal level.
I think Biden is doing that forpolitical reasons. I think he wants

(20:53):
young voters to vote for him.He wants pot heads, young, young,
younger marijuana smoking voters to go votefor him. And I do not
think this is a good idea.I reject. I realize, especially in

(21:14):
California, especially among libertarian people,marijuana has gained more and more and more
acceptance. Well, it's never goingto gain more and more acceptance on the
old John Girardi Show, guarantee youthat. And basically my and my wife's
thought on this whole thing was,you know, we're worried about our kids
and their education, and you know, we're homeschooling, and you know,

(21:37):
we're concerned. We want to makesure that they do well. And my
wife sent me that story, youknow, daily pot users out pacing daily
drinkers, and she said, youknow what, as long as these kids
can write a paragraph, read anddon't smoke pot, they're probably going to
rule the world. And that's acomforting thought. When we return, I'm

(21:59):
going to cover a whole bunch ofCatholic stuff next on the John Girardi Show.
All right, there's been a wholebunch of Catholic stuff happening. And
not that I'm the official Catholic commentatorfor Power Talk or anything like that.
It would not be great if Itried to give myself that label. That

(22:22):
would be a pretty presumptuous thing.That's the problem with the virtue of humility
is that as soon as you thinkyou have it, you've pretty much lost
it. You know what I mean, I think I've done it. I'm
so humble now, Well there itgoes kind of feel that way about.
Yeah, well, I'm the bestCatholic commentator there is. By virtue of

(22:45):
me saying it, I would immediatelybecome the worst Nonetheless, I kind of,
I guess, follow these things close. So I've got a couple of
Catholic things on the menu here thatI sort of wanted to talk about,
and I'm talking about them last,I think, because I guess I wanted
all the hot takes about them tobe sort of exhausted first. So the
one is Harrison Butker, the kickerfor the Kansas City Chiefs, who gave

(23:11):
the commencement address at Benedictine College,which is a Catholic private school in Atchison,
Atchison, Kansas, so near KansasCity, which is a pretty conservative,
small Catholic college, Catholic liberal artsschool, and it's attached to or

(23:32):
near a Benedictine a couple of Benedictinemonasteries, so that there's a I think
there's a community of Benedictine monks anda community of Benedictine nuns. So these,
by the way, Benedictin's in caseyou're wondering what is this Benedictine stuff.
This means monks who follow the ruleof life established by Saint Benedict of

(23:56):
Nursia, who is one of themost important figure years in the history of
Europe. Frankly and established the Benedictinestyle, the Benedictine monastic tradition, so
he established a sort of rule oflife for monks to follow. Saint Benedict

(24:18):
himself his years are he was bornin the year four eighty and died in
the year five forty seven, andhis monks, their pattern of life and
living became foundational for European civilization andthe monks. His monks preserved a ton

(24:41):
of what was important and beautiful fromthe Roman Empire by writing it all down,
by copying it by hand, andeverything we have, all of the
written records we have of the ancientworld, is due to the fact that
a bunch of busy little beaver Benedictinemonks were sitting at desks writing it all
down and preserving record of the RomanEmpire and preserving literacy and music and culture

(25:07):
in their monasteries, which dotted theentire landscape of Europe. Anyway, So
Benedictine College founded by Benedictin monks.It's pretty conservative Catholic school, and they
got a pretty conservative Catholic Harrison.Butker is a fairly prominent fellow. He's
a kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs. He's maybe if he's not the best
kicker in the NFL, he's topthree. Certainly, it's probably him.

(25:32):
The guy who plays for the BaltimoreRavens. What's his name, Justin Long?
I think this is now that's Ican't remember his name. I'll figure
it out anyway. So Harrison Butker, if he's not the best kicker in
the NFL, he's like one ofthe best. Certainly, I'd say definitely
top two or top three. JustinTucker is the kicker for the Baltimore Ravens.

(25:55):
There we go. So Butcker givesthis commencement address, and during the
commencement address he talks he is basicallyand this is the thing to I guess
context. He's a twenty eight yearold pretty conservative Roman Catholic, and everything
he said was pretty consistent with whattwenty eight year old conservative Roman Catholics think.

(26:22):
He was very pro marriage. Hesaid, you really encourage people to
get married, and thought that motherhoodis the great you know, the signature,
one of the most important things fora woman's vocation. And the way
he expressed it though he wasn't likesaying no woman should ever work outside the

(26:45):
house. But I think it's asort of thing of you know, there's
I guess in some aspects of Catholicparlance, you've got your vocation and then
your job your vocation and maybe agood way of thinking of it is sort
of who you are. Your jobis the thing you do within that context.

(27:06):
So my vocation that I've chosen formyself is married life. I'm a
husband, I'm a father. Thatis the first thing that I identify as
and that takes priority over everything else, over work. My wife's vocation is
as a mother and within as amother and a wife, and within that

(27:32):
vocation, there's a lot of waysshe can express it, and different families
have different setups, and a lotof those setups are legitimate. If my
wife wanted to work and wanted todo more outside the house, I wouldn't
like stomp on hers, Absolutely not, You're no way. But we would
need to figure out some way toensure that our children were educated well and

(27:56):
brought up in a good, lovinghome, et cetera, et cetera.
And the decisions we've made for ourlives reflect our beliefs in our obligation,
our prioritizing of our fundamental vocations asfather, husband, wife, mother,
over and against other things. Allright, So, Butcker gives this speech

(28:21):
in which he's praising marriage, he'spraising women, embracing motherhood, and this
is interpreted as Harrison Butcker hates women. Harrison Bucker thinks all women should be
pregnant, barefoot in the kitchen.Harrison Bucker doesn't think any woman should ever
work, which is overblowing what theguy said. Was it the most nuanced
speech in the world. Probably not. He's a kicker. He's a jock.

(28:44):
He's not a you know, hedoesn't have a master's degree in philosophy
or something. He's a kicker,and he's a very nice, good decent
young guy. But of course it'sa very conservative speech. He's blasting abortion,
blast all this stuff that the CatholicChurch is concerned with as far as
social issues. So the NFL issuesthis statement kind of condemning him. But

(29:10):
to their credit, the two mostimportant guys, maybe two of the most
important guys in the NFL, andcertainly the two most important guys on Harrison
Bucker's team, the coach in thequarterback Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes, both
the other day came out with statementssaying, no, we love Harrison.
He's a great guy. Yeah,people disagree about stuff, but he's an

(29:30):
awesome guy. He's an awesome character. He's one of the best people we
know. And you know, yeah, they totally back to their guy,
which good for them, and screwthe NFL for throwing this guy under the
bus now. So I don't havemuch all that interesting to say about it,

(29:52):
honestly, Yeah, I thought itwas a good speech. I thought
it was I thought it was fine. Was it the most perfectly worded,
most perfectly nuanced way of expressing it? Maybe not, But on the whole,
I thought it was very good.I think the thing that is sending
people into orbit though, and Ido think this is true. So he
gives this speech. Just a coupleof weeks after, there was this big

(30:17):
AP story about the shifting dynamics ofthe Catholic Church in the United States that
basically there's been this real winnowing processthat's taken place in the United States as
more and more I think what's reallyhappening is is more and more cultural Catholics
so called, are just stopping goingto church. There have been a number

(30:41):
of things that have happened that haveresulted in a bunch of people that in
mass attendance number attendance numbers at Catholicmass, at Catholic services have been going
down. And that's a real Iknow for certainly my pastor, and I
know for Bishop Brennan. That's areal source of sorrow to see. COVID

(31:03):
was we had a number of sortof signature events. So the horrible abuse
scandals when they were revealed in theearly two thousands and then COVID were these
sort of signature events that were sortof dropping out points, if you will,
for large numbers of American Catholics.And what's basically happening is the church

(31:26):
is becoming smaller, but it's becomingmore and more conservative, and maybe conservative
is too freighted with political ideology.I would say the church is becoming smaller
and much more faithful. There area lot fewer active Catholics who would identify
as like liberal Catholics, a lotfewer. If you go to your average

(31:52):
Mass on Sunday nowadays, the majorityof every the vast majority of everyone there
agrees that abortion is wrong, agreeslargely not perfectly, with a lot of
the teachings of the with a lotof the more controversial social issues where the
Catholic Church has staked out its positionover recent decades. And I think this

(32:19):
sort of shows what's going on.Here's Harrison Butker giving this speech. This
twenty eight year old young Catholic husbandand father, successful individual. I think
he is much more representative of theemerging face of American Catholicism than many of

(32:43):
his critics. One of the notablecritiques of Harrison Butker came from the group
of Benedictine nuns who live in Atchinson, Kansas, near the monaster near Benedictine
College where Butcker gave this commencement addressed. So a lot of communities of nuns
were infected with a lot of sortof feminist and extremely liberal ideology in the

(33:07):
sixties and seventies and eighties, andthose communities of nuns are quite literally dying
off. They they're these communities ofnuns who they refuse to continue wearing habits.
They refuse, They more and moreand more rejected the common life of

(33:27):
prayer in many cases. I don'tknow this particular community of nuns and almost
started seeing their work more as socialworkers rather than what nuns historically were.
They were sort of the female counterpartof nuns. Their work was praying in
common and for more active communities,serving the poor, and living a common
life of prayer together. More andmore, almost certain communities of more liberal

(33:52):
nuns just sort of thought of themselvesas social workers, free floating social workers.
And you look at this community.We have nuns in Atchinson. They're
all extremely elderly, extremely liberal.They're all criticizing Butcker. But they haven't
had a new entry. Their communityis dying out. Everyone in their communities

(34:13):
in their seventies. They haven't hada new entrant, a new postulance,
or novices or anything into their communityseemingly for years. They are literally dying
out. Meanwhile, all of thereally conservative communities, most of anyway,
the growing communities of nuns in theUnited States, the communities of nuns that
actually wear the habit and continue thetraditional Catholic practices of common prayer together and

(34:37):
common service to the poor, rootedin a common prayer life, those communities
are booming. Those communities are bustingat the seams. That's where all the
growth is. That's where all thecommunities of nuns where the average age is
like twenty eight. Those are allthe really conservative communities. That's I think
what's significant about Butcker's speech. Itis much more represent of the emerging face

(35:01):
of American Catholicism than all of itscritics, and I think it's what has
led to all of the critics ofwhat Bucker said being more and more strident
and angry because they realize their timeis over. To close off the show

(35:23):
when we return, the Pope gavean interview to sixty Minutes and said a
couple of a whole bunch of differentthings. We'll talk about it real quick
on the next segment. This isthe John Gerardy Show, so slogging through
all the Catholic news. The Popegave a big interview to sixty Minutes in
which he said a number of differentthings and let me see if I can
kind of go through them here.He said a couple of things about immigration

(35:49):
that I thought were actually kind ofinteresting. Basically said yeah, you need
to be accommodating to immigrants. Butat the end of it he sort of
came around again and basically saying thatyou know, yeah, you the countries
can enforce their borders, they shouldbe welcoming to immigrants. So it's sort

(36:12):
of like he has to kind ofhe not that he has to, he
does sort of a firm basic realityof the kind of basic reality that I
think American liberals refused to accept.He also very bluntly said that women will
never be ordained cannot be ordained deaconsor priests in the Catholic Church, which
I thought was solid of him tobasically just like say, no, this

(36:36):
is the divine constitution of the Churchthat like, basically Christ chose twelve male
apostles. The apostolate and the vocationof women is of incredible dignity and importance
and beauty. But it's something differentfrom the calling to the priests and the
diaconate. So he sort of slammedthe door on that, which I thought

(36:57):
was good. He also one pointsaid something about human beings are fundamentally good
or in their fundamental nature good,which is like, yes, newsflash,
Catholics don't believe the same thing asCalvinists. You know, for all my
reform listeners out there, yes,we Catholics disagree with you on total depravity
doctrine. Like, yes, wethink human nature is wounded by sin.

(37:19):
We think human beings, yes,need a savior, Yes, cannot do
any good without the assistance of grace. But we don't believe in total depravity,
So it was a lot of Itwas actually a kind of mixed bag,
which is very often par for thecourse with Pope Francis. He talks
very freely in interviews and then sortof lets everyone kind of pick up the
pieces afterwards, and I often sortof wish that was not his interview style.

(37:45):
But on the whole, I didn'tthink this interview was that bad.
He took some potshots at conservatives,which again I'm not exactly sure whom he
means by quote conservatives, but onthe whole I thought it was pretty good.
That'll do it for John Jarlady Show. See you next time on Power Talk.