Pope Leo on the Durbin Award Controversy

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We have a government shut down. I'm sure you're all
wailing and gnashing your teeth, wringing your hands and sorrow
over this disastrous development of the government shutdown and how
it is impacting all of your lives so tremendously, by
which I mean that ninety nine percent of you don't

(00:20):
even realize it's happening. We've had government shutdowns threatened government
shutdowns again and again and again over the course of
the last ten fifteen years. I think we had a
government shut down in like twenty nineteen. It was for
like thirty days or so. And it's such a non issue.

(00:45):
The only people for whom it is an issue are
certain classes of federal employees. Not the military. They keep
on getting fun, they keep on getting paid, Not pretty
much any government worker who has a job that's like

(01:07):
really important, so important that you know they need to
keep going. There are certain categories of government workers and
then certain kinds of private service industries that rely on
it that wind up suffering a bit. For example, the
local example I always get is that during a government shutdown,

(01:33):
a lot of the time, the national parks wind up
having to be closed, and then as a result, a
lot of like the tourism industry that's around federal parks
and especially in the San Luquin Valley. A lot of
this stuff in Oakhurst or or near you know, Yosemite,
that that winds up having to get shut down. So
that is unfortunate and that is you know, bad for
those folks outside of that though, I think government shutdowns

(01:59):
are the biggest non deal in the world. We had
a government shutdown again, as I mentioned in like twenty
nineteen or twenty twenty, it was not even on the
radar of being an issue in the twenty twenty election.
This is a government shutdown happening in September of twenty

(02:20):
twenty five. The next election is fourteen months from now
or thirteen months from now. No one's going to remember
a doggone thing about a government shutdown in twenty twenty six. Nobody,
So I do. I want to talk about a couple

(02:42):
of different things I think about government shutdowns. First is
the question of who's to blame for the government shutdown,
and Republicans try to pin it on Democrats. Democrats try
to pin it on Republicans. Now, to a certain extent,
it takes two to tango. Both party are a significant

(03:03):
enough portion of one of the two parties has to
agree in order to continue past some kind of continuing
resolution or funding bill whatever, in order for the government
to keep on running. And sometimes the threat of a
government shutdown has been used as a kind of negotiating
leverage point to persuade someone from one party or the

(03:25):
other to compromise on something in order for the government
just to keep functioning. And it's because I think the
threat of a government shutdown feels like a much bigger
deal in Washington, DC than essentially anywhere else in the country. Right,
how many people in let's say, our home here, how

(03:46):
many people here in the San Joaquin Valley are actually
impacted in any way, shape or form by a government shutdown?
Almost nobody? Again, Like, the only people who kind of
get impacted by it are you know, people in and
around the national parks. And that's it. Very few people

(04:10):
in Fresno give a darn about the government shutdown, as
is true of most places in America, any town usay,
Like I bet if you did a public opinion poll,
are you aware if we took a public opinion poll today,
are you aware that there is a government shut down?

(04:31):
And Furthermore, if you are aware that it's a government
shut down, what a government shut down actually entails, I'd
bet you the wild, vast, overwhelming majority of Americans are
not even aware that the government has shut down. Let
alone could define for you what a government or describe
for you what a government shut down entails. The one

(04:56):
place where that isn't the case where lots of people
are aware of it, lots of people really care about it,
is Washington d C. Washington, d C is the seat
of the federal government, and a huge percentage of people

(05:17):
who live in Washington, d C. Nearby counties of Maryland,
nearby counties of northern Virginia either work for or are
contractors for the federal government. So a decent percentage of
Washington d C stops working when the government shutdown is

(05:41):
in place. It's a bigger deal in DC than it's
going to be anywhere else. And where are all the
members of Congress during a government shut down? Right before
a government shut down? They're in d C. Everyone they're around,
all their neighbors is everyone they're interacting with, is up
in arms about it. It's the It's the biggest deal

(06:03):
happening in the life of a congressman. It's the biggest
deal happening in the neighborhoods in DC where they're driving around.
But that's really like the only place in America where
it's a really big deal. Pretty much everywhere else in
America it just doesn't impact very many people. So on

(06:25):
the one hand, I just don't think there's much of
an impact to a government shutdown now because so few
people actually really care about a government shutdown. I feel like,
who gets blamed for a government shutdown, it usually winds
up being Republicans. I feel I feel like every time

(06:47):
a government shutdown happens, the blame is usually fifty to
fifty on average. Okay, just as insofar as it takes
two to tango, someone's got a compromise on something, both
sides aren't compromising, you know whatever, If anything, on average
it takes two to tango, maybe you split the blame

(07:10):
on average fifty to fifty. I feel like Republicans, though
a very disproportionate amount of the time, get blamed. Why Well,
because one people generally don't care that much about it.
Two they hear government shut down and they think, well,
that seems low level of engagement. Americans rather hear government
shut down and they think generically, well, that seems kind

(07:30):
of bad, and the same low level of engagement. Americans
who hear government shut down think that's generically bad, then
hear the media basically just declare that it's the Republican's fault.
And so as a result, I think, on the whole,
because the mainstream press is still largely dominated by the
left and they're going to blame Republicans for any shutdown. Ever,

(07:55):
I think most of the time a government shutdown winds
up being for a Republicans a heads I lose tales
they win situation. Now The Washington Post, however, has taken
a very interesting editorial position actually getting frustrated at Democrats

(08:20):
over the government shutdown. Why well, I think because the
Post realizes that there's some strategically pretty bad stuff that
could happen four Democrats and four left wing policy in
general during a government shutdown, namely, Trump has the ability
as a greater ability to release the hounds of war,

(08:42):
and the particular hound of war named Russ Vought. Russell Vott,
who's the head of the Office of Management and Budget,
who while a government shutdown is happening, Basically, it means
there isn't enough government author isation for funding a bunch

(09:03):
of people's jobs. He has much greater latitude during a
government shutdown to fire people, to fire people and not
bring them back. Now, most of the time, what seems

(09:23):
to happen. I mean, this is one of the reasons
why government shutdowns are such a non issue most of
the time. What happens during a government shutdown when the
whenever the government actually does reopen, whether it's you know,
a week later or a month later or whatever, it is,
the people, the government workers who are furloughed during the

(09:44):
timeframe of the of the shutdown, they wind up being
able to come back with backpay. Now Vought, however, he
doesn't care. I mean, this is the one government shutdown
where we've got Republican controls roll of both houses and
an actually really aggressive executive branch, a really executive eager

(10:10):
to cut things. Trump administration that, unlike prior administrations, is
specifically viewing a shutdown as an opportunity to cut things.
And Trump made no secret about it. He told the
Democrats he had a press conference. I mean, first of all,
that the thought that Russ Vought could do big time

(10:31):
cuts during a government shutdown was open discussed, it was
widely known. Then they have a press conference where Trump
and other Republicans are talking about the prospects of a shutdown,
talking about their negotiations with Democrats. Whatever Trump says in

(10:51):
the press conference, I've got this guy, this guy Russ Vought,
and I'm gonna let him loose. And I mean, he's talking,
and they're not gonna like what he's gonna do. I'll
tell you that, like he's he's very open that Russ
Vaught is just gonna run roughshod over all these government
workers that Republicans would not shed one single tear over

(11:14):
if they their jobs were permanently axed. So I think,
I mean, I guess, I'm not sure. I think Democrats
are making kind of a strategic mistake based on, in
large part, Chuck Schumer's tactical fears. All right, why Schumer

(11:42):
is under a lot of pressure right now. Schumer has
been criticized for past decisions two in the minds of
base Democrats, compromise. I think Schumer fears that AOC is
gonna run for his Senate seat and take it from him.

(12:06):
I think Schumer fears that his hold on his leadership
position is kind of tenuous because of how much base
Democrats kind of don't like him, don't think he's liberal enough,
don't think he's a fighter enough, and it seems as
though he's sort of really dug in in order to

(12:29):
kind of show I'm a fighter, I'm not a compromiser.
I'm not bending an inch to Donald Trump, which in
the short term, tactically, maybe that kind of makes sense
just for him. I don't know that strategically though, that
that makes sense for Democrats as a whole. So I

(12:58):
guess that's kind of my long and sh sh your
opinion on the whole government shutdown. I just don't. I
just don't think fundamentally it's a big deal. I don't
think it's gonna sway almost any votes in the next election.
I think it gives Republicans the opportunity to cut some jobs.

(13:20):
I think if they cut too many jobs, it'll result
in Democrats rushing back to the negotiating table in horror
over what Vott is doing. So I don't think this
is gonna be that long of a shutdown. I mean,
the last actual shutdown that actually happened I think was

(13:40):
twenty nineteen, and I think it lasted something like thirty
five days. I don't know that it's gonna take that long,
so I'm you know, I guess I just don't know
how significant it's gonna be. The only way will be
significant is if Democrats really keep digging in. And a

(14:04):
lot of this has to do with something about extension
of subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, the Obamacare for
certain kinds of health plans Democrats seemingly wanting. I guess
I haven't really dug into the nitty gritty of policy,
but the accusations going back and forth are Democrats are

(14:24):
being accused by Republicans of inappropriately wanting to extend some
of these Obamacare subsidies to illegal immigrants. I'm not sure
if that's one hundred percent true. That's the Republican messaging
on it, but it seems to be this has become
this big sticking point, and if it is, I mean,
this is a big sticking point for the Democrat base.

(14:49):
Trust me. I know. I've been in Sacramento. I've seen
how furious hardcore based liberals in Sacramento got when news
some announced he was rolling back medical coverage for illegal aliens,
that they are furious over this idea that illegal aliens

(15:09):
shouldn't get insurance coverage, which if that's genuinely the case,
I mean, that's like a ninety That's another one of
these Republican issues that have you know, they keep calling
these eighty twenty issues like you know, transgender, you know,
boys presenting as girls playing girls' sports. I don't know
that it's an eighty twenty issue necessarily, but it's at

(15:30):
least a sixty to forty issue that Americans just don't
want government funded healthcare programs to pay for illegal aliens,
people who aren't supposed to be in the country legally.
So at any rate, I think this government shut down
is not going to last all that long. I think

(15:53):
once Russ Vought starts really going at it with cutting things,
it's going to force Democrats to run back to the
negotiating table. I think Schumer has made a big time
strategic mistake because I think it's going to be more
painful for Democrats to do it this way than it

(16:14):
would have been for him just to compromise and pass
a clean continuing resolution to keep the government open. I think,
though the fact of the government being shut down. While
most of the time it does get blamed on Republicans,
the fact of the government being shut down is just

(16:34):
generally not a big thing that moves the needle of elections.
So I don't know. I feel like goverment shutdowns are again,
it's a much bigger deal in Washington, DC than anywhere else.
It's a much bigger deal for people who live in Washington,
for congressmen. Because they're in Washington, they start to think
it's a bigger deal than it is. For media that's

(16:56):
based largely around Washington, they think it's a bigger deal
than it is. I don't think it's going to last
that long. I don't really think it's going to move
the needle that much for the twenty twenty six elections
when we return. Just a little more about the media
disconnect with pretty much all of red America and maybe
just all of America in general. That's next on the

(17:17):
John Girardi Show. I'm still reeling from this, and I
think it kind of is connected with this government shut
down and how My general thesis is that government shutdowns
are the most overrated stories in America. They impact a
very small percentage of Americans, but they get outsized coverage
because one, all of our members of Congress are in Washington,

(17:40):
d C, which is like the one city in America,
the one metro area in America where a government shut
down is kind of a big deal just because so
many people in Washington, d C. Either work for or
have jobs that are dependent upon the federal government, government contractors,
or whatever one. It's portrayed to be a much bigger

(18:04):
deal because politicians think it's a bigger deal because they're
all in Washington. And sometimes even these politicians, many of
whom have two homes, one in the DC area, one
back in their district. A lot of these politicians are
duped into thinking it's a much bigger deal than it
actually is in their home district which they actually represent.
But two, a lot of the media is based in DC.

(18:28):
A huge percentage of media of American media is based
in DC. A lot of major newspapers, television, news, et cetera,
they all have a d C presence. They you know,
ABC News as their Washington bureaus, CBS News, the MBC News,
but Fox News, CNN, everybody has their Washington bureau and

(18:50):
for all of them, the government shutdown is also the
biggest deal in the world. It's just not a big
deal for ninety nine percent of the country. And related
to that was this thing from the Charlie Kirk coverage
that still kind of astonishes me. It was MSNBC's coverage
of the Charlie Kirk thing, like as soon as people

(19:14):
learned that Kirk had gotten shot, now, this was the coverage,
like before even they realized he was dead. It was
like the day of before it was reported that he
was dead, all we knew was that he got shot.
There was some videos circulating he'd been shot in the neck.
They weren't even sure that. They weren't sure who was
the person who did it. They had arrested that, Like
there was the old guy that they had arrested who

(19:34):
wasn't the shooter but was later charged. I think with
like obstructing the search and MSNBC and their coverage, they theorized, well,
we don't know that it was someone who assassinated Kirk.
Someone on air. I forget if it was their anchor,
if it was Matthew Dowd. It was like this commentator

(19:57):
who was talking. I think it was while he was
on or something. Someone on MSNBC genuinely theorized it could
have been someone in the crowd firing their gun in
celebratory agreement with what Kirk was saying. And the fact

(20:19):
that such a comment could be uttered on air on like,
you know, a major cable news network, it kind of
indicates to me, like this fundamental lack of understanding of
at least half the country, which is pretty much totally

(20:41):
okay with guns, or is okay generally with gun ownership
or the Second Amendment, whatever, the notion that Washington based
media or New York based media types are so insulated

(21:02):
from the vast majority of the country, so insulated from
anyone to the right of Hillary Clinton. Also, they're so
insulated from them that they genuinely think that conservative gun
owners are basically no different from drunken Wild West cowboys

(21:31):
in a saloon shooting off their guns in the air
in celebration for a body burlesque performance like in Blazing
Saddles or something, which was like that was the joke
in Blazing Saddles, where like like they have some like

(21:52):
burlesque thing and then the guys are all shooting their
guns in the air. Everyone's shooting their guns in the air,
and it's just completely ridiculous, Like that seems to be
how these people genuinely think of us, how they genuinely
think about this huge percentage of the country. So if

(22:18):
there are people who genuinely did this, who genuinely think
that way, yeah, they're obviously gonna misunderstand the importance of
a government shut down. The media is such a bad
They are just bad at perceiving what is important. All

(22:40):
of their attempts to kind of understand, Like the New
York Times will have some report I wanted to try
and understand rural America, like they'll have these things we
need to better understand the country we cover. After the
twenty sixteen and twenty twenty four elections, the New York
Times was like trying to have this like self reckoning
of like how did we miss this? What do we
need to do to I don't understand the country we're living.

(23:01):
Like they're acting as if they're like missionaries trying to
understand the foreign country to which they're sending their missionaries
off to, Like, ah, what do we need to do
to understand these people and reach them? They just have
this such a profound misunderstanding of what actually normal Americans

(23:23):
are and what normal Americans are like, and that's just
completely reflected in their coverage. So I guess I just
wouldn't buy too much the idea that this government shut
down is that big of a deal. It is a
big deal in Washington. It is a over hyped deal
in Washington because a lot of people's jobs in Washington
depend on it. I don't think it's gonna last that long.

(23:44):
And as I said, I don't think it's really gonna
shift much as far as the vote in twenty twenty six.
When we return, we are gonna shift gears quite a bit.
We're gonna talk a little bit of Pope Leo and
his comments about an award that wound up not being
given to Dick Durbin in the United States Senator from Illinois.

(24:09):
That's next on the John Girardi Show. I want to
talk about Pope Leo's comments about the proposed award to
Dick Durbin. Now, I hate it when Pope's talk impromptu
in press conferences because the Pope's words carry a lot
of weight, and in a press conference, necessarily you have
to think on your feet, and sometimes you don't say

(24:30):
the full thought of what you want to say, and
as a result, it leaves questions. The Pope said, blah
blah blah, and it's like, well, okay, off the coff
in a press conference without full context. Yeah, he said this.
The Pope was asked a question about the decision by
Blaze Soupitch, the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago, to give a

(24:52):
lifetime Achievement award to Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois for
his contributions in the area of immigration. Now, I wrote
about this for National Review. It got published yesterday. I
did this kind of comparison. It is basically what I
talked about on the show yesterday. I did this comparison
between Dick Durbin and a former member of the House

(25:13):
of Representatives, Dan Lipinski. Lapinski was a member of the
House of Representatives representing Illinois for about fifteen years, from
two thousand and five to twenty two thousand and five
to twenty twenty one. Lapinski was a actual pro life Democrat.
He was the co chair of the Congressional Pro Life Caucus,

(25:34):
which the Congressional Pro Life Caucus had always tried to
be a bipartisan caucus, and so for a while towards
the end, I think Lipinsky was like the only Democrat
in it, and I basically said, I thought that Durbin
and Lapinsky were very similar people. Now Durbin's actually a
bit a bit older than I think I realized. Durbin's

(25:54):
like twenty years older than Lapinsky and started his career
in Congress think in the late eighties, but very similarly
situated people who took two very different paths in life.
I think, mostly around the issue of abortion. Durban started
his career as a relatively conservative and pro life Illinois

(26:21):
Catholic Democrat, just like Lepinski, and they both came to
this fork in the road. What am I going to
do about the abortion position? Clearly, my party doesn't want
me to be pro life, but those are my convictions.
And basically the longest short of it is Lipinski didn't
change his views and Durbin did. Because Durban changed his views,

(26:45):
his career just went up, up, up, up, up up up.
He was able to jump up from the House to
the US Senate. He's been in the Senate now, I
think since nineteen ninety seven or something like that, so
you know, he's been in office for almost thirty years
in the Senate, he'd been in public life for about

(27:07):
forty years. As a member of Congress, Durbin is has
been the Democratic Party's whip, so part of Democrat Senate leadership,
I think since two thousand and five. He's currently the
minority whip. Still. Durbin is now the most senior Democrat
on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is this incredibly one

(27:29):
of the most powerful committees in the United States Senate.
It oversees judicial appointments, nominations, confirmations. Durbin helped shepherd In
Katanji Brown Jackson onto the Supreme Court. Durbin's this incredibly
powerful figure, and I think he owes that rise to

(27:50):
the fact that he changed all of his views on
abortion and then gay marriage, and has embraced the most
liberal views on transgenderism. Lipinski, on the other hand, who
again started at the same place as Durban, relatively conservative
Illinois pro life Democrat, did not change his views on abortion,
and what happened well, Lipinski's career in Congress stalled. He

(28:16):
was a Democrat backbencher, a backbencher for about fifteen years,
and well how many years, fifteen years or fourteen years,
was either fourteen or sixteen years he was a relatively
unimportant Democrat member of the House, and he almost got

(28:41):
primaried out by a more liberal opponent in twenty eighteen,
and he was primaried out by a more liberal opponent
in twenty twenty. Why well, he was always marginalized among
Democrats because he was pro life. They didn't like how
he voted on abortion issues, and so they marginalized him,
ostracized him, and eventually kicked him out, got a more

(29:04):
liberal opponent to primary him. Ount two men similarly situated
two different choices on whether to uphold their faith or
advance their careers. Durbin chose his career, Lipinski chose his faith.

(29:25):
So that contrast, in particular, I thought, was what made
the decision by the Archbishop of Chicago, Blaze Soupitch to
give an award to Dick Durbin just so egregious and
to justify it with this thing called the consistent ethic
of life. So what is this consistent ethic of life?

(29:45):
All right? The concept I don't think is necessarily intrinsically bad,
depending on how you apply it. Consistent ethic of life
is this theme among especially English speaking Catholic thinkers, and
it tends to come mostly from left leaning Catholic figures.

(30:10):
It basically says abortion, yes, is a very very serious
issue of concern for Catholics. However, it does not therefore
mean that other issues that involve genuine questions of justice
or injustice, like immigration or care for the environment or whatever.

(30:34):
It doesn't mean that a Catholic can just ignore everything
the Church teaches on those subjects and feel like they're
justified because they have the right view on abortion. Now,
that's true. The problem with how that argument gets applied, though,

(30:54):
is one the idea that there's moral equivalence between abortion
on the one hand, and say, how we're running our
immigration system on the other. Abortion in America is killing
a million children a year. Our immigration system may involve

(31:15):
certain people being treated unfairly and unjustly, but frankly, it
beggars belief to think that the two problems are at
the same level of importance, either numerically as far as
number of persons involved or as far as gravity, the
severity of the harm, etc. The other difference is that

(31:45):
abortion is always end everywhere in Catholic moral theology, as
with murder, as with the various others Bennett as John
Paul the second talked about them in his encyclical Very
Tatis Splendor, which was his great contribution to Catholic moral
theology and I think one of the most important papal
writings of the last forty years. John Paul the Second

(32:10):
talked a lot about, basically the idea that ethics is
not entirely situational or based on proportionalism, that the natural
law indicates, as confirmed by the Bible, frankly confirmed by

(32:34):
like the Ten Commandments, that there are certain acts because
of the disordering of nature that is involved in them,
how they run contrary to human nature, that are always
intrinsically wrong, what John Paul the Second referred to as
the absolute negative prohibitions of the moral law, Thou shalt

(32:57):
not kill being one of those highlights, which which probably
is better translated as thou shalt not murder, murder being
something different from killing in self defense, killing in a
just defensive war, et cetera, even killing in the context

(33:23):
of executing someone for a capital crime, which John Paul
the Second would distinguish that. While John Paul the Second
was not in favor of the death penalty. He did distinguish,
as did Joseph Ratzinger, future Pope Bennedtt the sixteenth, distinguished
between executing someone via the death penalty versus something like abortion.

(33:47):
While both Benedict and John Paul the Second were against
the death penalty and advocated for its abolition, they recognize
that there it was a morally different character of a thing,
and that there could be room for disagreement about when
the death penalty is or is not correctly applied. I
think their kind of general thought was that the death
penalty is so often not the death penalty can be

(34:10):
applied incorrectly often enough. And let's remember this is Joseph Ratzinger,
a boy growing up under the oppression of the Nazis,
John Paul the Second who grew up under Communist depression.
Their experience of the death penalty was a lot different
from the American experience, which I think is totally fair. Now,

(34:37):
the problem with American left leaning Catholics when they talk
about a consistent ethic of life, usually what they're trying
to do is to say that abortion isn't that important,
and I'm okay to vote for a Democrat because they're
fine on immigration allegedly, and it's just not an apples
to apples comparison. There's a certain fundamental importance to abortion,
numerical importance, severity importance to abortion, and also so people

(35:00):
can have legitimately different opinions about how to apply principles
of justice when it comes to immigration or this or that. Now,
Suppitch is giving this life the Cardinal Soup Pitch of
Chicago is giving this Lifetime Achievement award to Dick Durbin.
The Pope gets asked about it. The Pope clearly doesn't
want to talk about it, but he's on the spot.

(35:23):
He says, I don't know a lot about the case, which,
by the way, I'm willing to believe. You know, he's
governing a global church of which the United States is
five percent of it. He says a lot of very
generic things. He says, you know, is it really pro
life if someone's anti abortion but is in favor of

(35:45):
unjust treatment of immigrants? And he says something like that,
which again is not like Republicans treat immigrants unjustly. He
just sort of leaves it open. I don't think it's
pro life if you do that. I don't think it's
pro life if you're anti abortion, but in favor of
the death penalty. And he uses that category pro life,

(36:05):
which is not to say consistent with the teachings of
the church. It's this political category, and it's kind of
consistent with the efforts of again John Paul the second
and Benedict the sixteenth, who wanted to abolish the death penalty,
even though they recognized it was something of a different
moral character than say abortion. Now, within a few hours

(36:28):
of the Pope saying this, Durbin announced, it's announced by
the Archdioceis of Chicago that Durbin's not going to accept
this award. I think this is what happened. I think
the Pope might have realized the firestorm around this whole issue.
I think sup I think the Pope probably realized that
a lot of American bishops, including the leadership of the

(36:50):
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, was furious at Supach
and was going to make a statement about it and
was going to cause a big stink. And I think
Pope Leo or his representatives called ernal suppage and tried
and made this thing go away in a way that
didn't totally shame suppach. I think that's what happened. When

(37:10):
we return, explaining what paopal infallibility means for non Catholics
next on The John Gerardy Show. When the Pope speaks
officially in his official teaching capacity on questions of faith
and morals, attempting to define things authoritatively, Catholics think he

(37:31):
is authoritative or infallible, if you will, because God protects
the church, not because the pope is superman. When the
Pope comments on things off the cuff in a press conference,
he's not necessarily infallible. That is the long and short

(37:52):
of it. And how anyone should entertain any story about
a pope saying something off the cuff in a press
conference that I'll do it, John Girardi Show. See you
next time on Power Talk