What Do People Want From Valley Children’s Hospital?

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
It's really unfortunate. I think thatValley Children's has now become this sort of
hot button like political punching bag,and it's now the focus of extreme skepticism
from unlikely these strange bedfellows basically fromthe left and the right. Gary Brettefeld

(00:21):
has been very critical, Miguel Ariushas been very critical, and now the
Fresno Bee has really jumped in headand feet first in this sort of attitude
of skepticism towards a bunch of practicesthat I think are not all that noteworthy

(00:43):
on the part of Vali Children's.I don't think for a massive operation of
that size, the compensation they've giventheir top executives has been unreasonable. I
don't think the compensation they've given ToddCunrapak has been that far outside the norm.
I don't think the compensation they've givenother executives working at the hospital,

(01:04):
many of whom have been there forthirty years, has been that far outside
the norm. And I think thenow focus on Valley Children's business practices,
and particularly it's portfolio of investments,which the Bee is now engaged in,

(01:25):
is silly. And I sort ofwonder what do people want or expect illustrate
what I'm talking about. Let's goto the Bee and this piece by Mark
Wworzowski, the Bees columnist, talkingabout Valley Children's landholdings. So, in

(01:45):
addition to its main Maderra Hospital campus, Valley Children's owns a lot of property
in that area of Madera County orsort of around Children's Boulevard, sort of
in that section of Madera County.And it seems like there's a lot of

(02:06):
different ideas or plans for what ValleyChildren's, as the owner of this property,
what they're gonna do with it.Are they gonna develop some of it
into retail? Are they going toit seems like they want to use some
of it to be developed into placesfor retail, for grocery stores, restaurants,

(02:28):
a gym. It kind of makessense. A lot of new home
building and expansion is taking place outthat way in the direction of Children's Boulevard.
There's more and more housing developments openingout there. You got Madarra ranchos.
It makes sense that maybe Children's willuse some of this for developing retail.

(02:52):
Obviously, the chief mission of thehospital is taking care of sick kids,
and they're going to it sounds likefrom all reports they're going to continue
to expand for expanding their medical capacities. But let's also realize the financial situation
of what Value Children's does. Andthis is where I don't really understand what

(03:19):
people want. About seventy percent ofthe patients that Valley Children's takes care of
are medical patients. And let's justunderstand this. Probably a lot of you
realize this, and any of youinvolved in medicine realize this, but understand
what that means. Medical health insurance. Some of it funded by the federal

(03:45):
government, some of it funded bythe state of California, California's version of
the federal Medicaid program. It's availablefor people who are at or below a
certain income threshold. I think thatthe number is one hundred and thirty eight
percent of the federal poverty line.It's somewhere a little north of the federal

(04:09):
poverty line. If you're at thatpoint or under, you qualify, you
are eligible for medccount a huge percentageof Californians and a huger percentage of people
in the San Joaquin Valley, whichwe sometimes forget this. Possibly this is
one of the poorest regions in thewhole country. I would laugh about this

(04:34):
a little bit when I was atNotre Dame. When I was at the
University of Notre Dame, they woulddo these like service trips, and they
would frame it as We're going toAppalachia, and they acted like the poor,
benighted people of Appalachia registered trademark withthe poorest, acting like it was
a third world country to go somewherein West Virginia to help out people.

(04:56):
And I realized after a while that, like, actually, there are parts
of Fresno County and other rural areasin the San Joaquin Valley that actually have
worse poverty than quote Appalachia. Butthis was Notre Dame sort of Midwest centric
view of the world. So seventypercent of valid children's patients are on medical

(05:23):
and let's understand what that means fromthe provider's perspective, and within the context
of the healthcare business, you havethree p's, the patient, the payer,
and the provider. The patient receivescare from the provider. The patient

(05:50):
pays a premium or in some way, the payer gets some kind of funding,
usually in the form of a premiumfrom the payer or from the payer's
employer, and then the payer compensatesthe provider. So that's the circle of
money and services. Payer gives careto the patient. The patient or someone

(06:15):
else we'll talk about that someone elsegives a premium to the payer, and
the payer compensates the provider. That'show it works. In a private insurance
setting, it's the patient pays acertain health care, a certain premium for

(06:36):
their health insurance package to the patientpays that premium to the payer. Okay,
and usually it's not the payer himself. It's usually the payer's employer.
It's usually the patient's employer. Excuseme, Well, when medical is the

(06:58):
payer and the payer is the insurance. Now, when medical is that payer,
Medical is providing this care for peoplewho can't afford their own health insurance,
right, that's the whole idea.This is health insurance for lower income
people. So the funding that Medicalgets is not in the form of a

(07:18):
premium. Necessarily, it's in theform of taxes taxpayer dollars, federal and
state taxpayer dollars, and as astate funded personally program. There's only so
much in the pot to go around. Okay, there's only so much.

(07:39):
Medical only has a certain amount ofmoney in the pot, and medical keeps
getting more and more and more andmore people added into the plant. The
number of medical beneficiaries in California sinceObamacare has skyrocketed. Okay, that was
one of the big things with Obamacarewas massively increased the pool of people eligible

(08:03):
for medical for Medicaid. And that'swhy people tend nowadays to like Obamacare more
so than anything, because of howit expanded Medicaid eligibility. So, now,
if you want to repeal Obamacare,basically the way you get attacked is
you're voting to take away health insurancefrom all these gazillions of people. All

(08:24):
right, that's why David Valadeo brieflylost his seat. It's because he voted
to repeal Obamacare, and his opponent, I think TJ. Cox at the
time, was able effectively to argue, hey, you voted to take away
health insurance from however, many hundredsof thousands of people in this district.
Okay. So it's why people likeObamacare today. It's why Obamacare is at

(08:46):
zero risk of being overturned today.It's because people like the Medicaid expansion.
Well, the problem with that isCalifornia can't really increase revenue for funding medical
anymore. There's no we don't reallyhave any more avenues. We've already we
are already putting this massive tax burdenon California citizens, and we are super

(09:11):
reliant on this very small number,relatively speaking, of very high income taxpayers
in California who are keeping the wholesystem afloat. So there's no more money
we can easily mine for medical.As a result, medical reimburses medical as
a payer Number three p's patient getsservices from the provider providers of the doctor.

(09:35):
Their spectation patient gets services from theprovider. Provider gets payment from the
payer. There's only so much moneythat medical can give out for services.
So if you're a doctor who decidesyes, I will take medical patients or
I want to take medical patients,you're not gonna get reimbursed very much.

(09:56):
The payment you get from the medicalwell as the payer, is not going
to be very much. It's goingto be much less than you'd get from
a private insurance pay. Private insurancepayers can rely on just increasing their premiums.
They know they're going to make moneyat the end of the day.

(10:20):
So when you take medical patients oftenyou're operating at a loss, and maybe
in certain contexts, for certain kindsof fields of medicine, for certain kinds
of service services, you can structurethings with patient flow and with your own

(10:43):
setup so that you can still makemoney. I think a classic example of
this is an entity like Planned Parenthood. How does Planned Parenthood make money?
Well, they make money off ofin their lower income clinics, off of
medical abortions. Okay, so ifyou give if lamparenthood gives birth control to
about eight women, they're losing moneyon that, but they know within two

(11:07):
years their birth control will fail andone of them, one of those women
will come in for an abortion.Statistically speaking, that's about an accurate summary,
Okay, for one out of fourwithin two years they will have a
breakthrough pregnancy. And then maybe fiftypercent of those people will choose to have
an abortion. Okay, so maybeit's one out of every ten, one

(11:30):
out of every eight. They figuregiving out birth control is like a lass
leader, and so they make upfor that with the abortion. The abortion
is a you can get a higherreimbursement from medical for that, and so
they have a high volume of abortionsand that makes up the business. Also,
their nonprofit status allows them so theyhave fewer uprate operating costs. That's
how they make it work. Butfor Valley children as a hospital that's doing

(11:56):
all these different kinds of services seventypercent of their and by the way,
that's why I think planned parenthood isloathsome. But you know, we'll save
that. That's a discussion for anotherday. Seventy percent of Valied Children's patients
are medical. They're not making alot of money off of that. And
it's like, we have a directlycomparable example for a hospital that isn't as

(12:24):
blessed and innovative and industrious in fosteringother sources of revenue, like its real
estate holdings, like its investment portfolio. Another hospital that wasn't as industrious as
Valued Children's is. Here's Valley Children'sgetting blamed. Oh you've got these five
hundred acres of property. Oh you'regoing to develop, You're going to develop,
you know, retail spaces and agym. What does that have to

(12:48):
do with helping fix kids? Okay, Maderra Community Hospital, Madera Community Hospital
didn't have the same portfolio of investmentsValley Children's does. I'm sure Madeira Community
Hospital would have loved to have fivehundred extra acres of highly developable land that
they could have sold or developed andderived revenue from. They didn't, And

(13:15):
guess what happened. They with apatient population that I'm sure is similar as
far as the number of medical patientsthey were serving, they went out of
business. Children's is able to serveall of these lower income people with medical

(13:35):
plans where the hospital loses money onthem for one reason only, well two
reasons only one the amount of charitablesupport they give and two a very highly
effective investment portfolio that they've been ableto develop, which includes things like real
estate holdings that they can develop intorevenue into further revenue generating. Okay,

(14:01):
you've got a chunk of land outin Madera County somewhere. Look, you
put a GB three on it.You put not trying to do advertising for
GB three here? You do?You know a gym on it, in
a grocery store and a couple ofrestaurants, and real estate is developing around

(14:22):
there. You're increasing the value ofthe property that you own. You can
sell it for more. You canderive revenue from the tenants who are over
whom you are now a landlord,like, it's smart business, use that
to help sustain your medical operation.So the idea, I don't know what

(14:43):
people want from Valley Children's. Whatdo you want? Do you want Valley
Children's to net out at the endof every fiscal year at exactly zero dollars
left? Like you want them toalways be like slightly in the red or
something. Do you want them tobe poor? Do you want them to

(15:03):
be like almost at the point whereyou know, rounding up your dollar at
Panda Express is actually the thing that'smaking or breaking the hospital's success, or
buying the Fresno Bee. You know, kids day paper is actually the thing
that's making or breaking their success.I've known my whole life that that's not
making or breaking Valley Children's success.And the Fresno Bee's acting all offended that

(15:30):
they do the Kid's day thing,when meanwhile, Valley children is paying its
executives a lot of money and hasbig real estate holding. They knew that
all along too, and now they'reacting like so offend. What do you
want for Valley Children's? Do youwant it to be run intelligently by smart
professionals who, yeah, should probablybe compensated pretty well, because if they

(15:50):
wanted, they could go almost anywhereelse in any other field of business and
also make a gazillion dollars Or wouldyou like it to be run the way
Maderrek community was run? I einto the ground when we return, just
to reinforce this point. How sillythe idea is that excessive, allegedly excessive

(16:11):
compensation for executives is coming from Medicalfor Valley Children. So that's an next
on the John Jarrody Show. Ithink the thing I've most disagreed with from
critics locally of the compensation that ValleyChildren's has been providing to its executives.
And again it's a point where Ihave worked with Gary Brettefeld. I disagree

(16:34):
with him on this all right.I like Gary Bretdefeld a lot. I
think he is right on a tonof things. I think he's been a
valuable member of the Fresno City Council. You know, I don't want to
act like I'm on here bashing him, but I just think he's wrong.
I think he and Miguel Arrius arewrong on the idea of Valley Children should

(16:57):
be looked into for possible inappropriate useof state medical funds for the compensation of
their executives. So, first ofall, there doesn't there isn't actually any
evidence of inappropriate use of medical fundsother than the fact that you have an

(17:19):
executive being highly compensated and Valley Children'sreceiving medical funding for the patients it serves.
Other than those two things both existing, there's no evidence that that funding
is inappropriately being used somehow, allright, there just isn't any evidence there.

(17:41):
And I'm using that. I oftenmedia people will say there's no evidence
of such and such, and whatthey mean is there isn't really sufficient evidence.
There isn't enough evidence to convince me. I remember playing parent had constantly
did that, say, oh,Congress and instigrated whether we were illegally selling

(18:02):
the body parts of aborted children forprofit, and they found no evidence that
we were doing well, No,they found a lot of evidence. It's
just that maybe federal prosecutors didn't deemit was enough evidence for them to secure
convictions by filing charges, right,But Congress clearly found a lot of evidence

(18:22):
that they were doing illegal stuff.Similarly, but what I would say is,
I don't think there is any evidenceof inappropriate usage of state dollars for
compensating executives. I just don't thinkthere's any evidence pointing to it. There's

(18:45):
no like, it's not like someoneuncovered and reported on, you know,
emails between hospital executives and accountants saying, Okay, well we got to shove
a bunch of money from medical youknow over here to because we're bumping up
Todd Centerback's compensation. We got touse that bubba. But no, there's
no there's no paper trail, there'sthere's no paper evidence. There's no testimony,

(19:10):
testimonial evidence of anything that's happening that'sinappropriate. And secondly, I think
once you understand the structure of howmedical works in the context of the business
of healthcare, you understand that it'sall it's kind of silly even to suggest

(19:30):
it. Medical revenue comes to thehospital as reimbursement for a service provided.
Okay, that's how medical health insurancebilling works. Okay, I put okay.
An orthopedic surgeon puts a cast ona kid's arm for a broken bone.

(19:56):
Putting on a cast is a codableyou billable events val I'm simplifying here.
Value children's so value children's is theprovider who provides care for the patient.
Value children sends the bill for thatservice too. Let's say the child
is on Medical, they send itto Medical. They say, here's the

(20:18):
code for the service we provided doctorputting a cast on patient's arm. We
want you to reimburse us. Andthen Medical reimburses Vallee Children's for the cost
for that service. And often thisis the problem with medical. What Medical
is sending you back is barely enoughto cover the cost of what it costs

(20:42):
Value Children's, as far as theprovider's time, the nurses time, the
space, the you know, schedulingoverhead, et cetera. What Medical is
sending back barely covers the cost ofthat service. Often doesn't cover it at
all, because often Medical will refusea bill and say, Nope, you

(21:03):
didn't code this right, you didn'tdo this right, you didn't do that
right. Oh no, this servicedidn't need to be this. But but
that's the other problem. Like whenmy dad was at Children's, his his
medical group. They're billion people goto him and say, doctor Charty,
we are working with Medical is sucha nightmare. It's like we're eighty percent

(21:26):
of our headaches are spent chasing downtwenty percent of our revenue. And but
that's kind of the beauty of ValleyChildren's. Valley Children's has enough community support,
it has enough donor support, ithas enough you know, stability from

(21:47):
its investment portfolio that they sort ofmake a deal with their medical groups of
practice there with everyone. We're justgonna take all the medical patients. We
know we're not gonna make a lotof money off of them. We know
often we're going to lose money onthem. But that's the deal with this
hospital. People are going to becompensated decently and we're going to help a

(22:08):
lot of kids in real need.That's the arrangement with Valley Children's. And
that's why I think the idea thatmedical funds are being inappropriately used to compensate
Todd, CenTra Pack or the executives. That's why I think it's so silly.
The money comes as reimbursement for anindividual service, and that money's not

(22:33):
even covering the cost of the serviceif it's coming from medical usually, so
it's not like we're developing this hugepool of money to send over to Centripack.
No, it's going to offsetting thecost of providing the service itself,
and it's not a lot of money. Yeah, and the aggregate over the
course of a year, all themedical funding they received over the course of

(22:55):
the year, Oh, looks likea huge amount. It's not covering the
operational costs that were necessary to providethe services in the first place. So
that's not why Todd Centrapak is makinga bunch of money. Anyway, when
we return, the Catholic Church isreturning to a benighted past according to the
media. We'll dig into that storynext on the John Gerardy Show. There's

(23:17):
an interesting ap article making its roundsaround Twitter that is sort of giving voice
to older liberal Catholics bewailing the directionin which the Catholic Church in the United
States is going, which is ina decidedly conservative direction. A lot of

(23:38):
demographic shifts in a number of areas, both as far as church attendants and
the kinds of young men signing upto enter seminaries throughout the United States is
resulting in a Catholic Church that isI think improving within the United States.

(24:02):
It is younger, it is morevigorously orthodox, it is more faithful to
the ethical teachings of the Catholic church, particularly in these critical areas surrounding sexuality,
without though I think sacrificing any kindof I don't know. There's often

(24:22):
this sort of narrative in catholic amongliberal Catholics anyway that you have it's traditional
conservatives who care about sexual ethics andabortion, but meanwhile, the liberal Catholics,
they are the ones who really careabout helping the poor and social justice

(24:44):
and things like that. And whatI see is actually that that's a very
lame dichotomy. I think that thisnewer generation of more conservative priests is if
anything, just as if not moreenthused and vigorous, and you know,

(25:07):
enthusiastic about promoting, you know,helping the service to the poor and helping
those in need. And they alsoare very enthusiastic about embracing the vision of
Christian morality that John Paul the Secondspent so many years developing. I think
one of the big demographic shifts that'sbeen happening in American Catholicism is that we've

(25:29):
now had about fifteen years or soworth of priests being ordained, fifteen to
twenty years of priests really being ordained. Who's guiding sort of inspiration was the
teaching of two great popes, JohnPaul the Second and Benedict the sixteenth,

(25:52):
who I think are continuing today evenyou know, after they've had you know,
Benedict's been dead for about a yearand a half and resigned as pope
about nine years ago. On JohnPaul the Second, you know, passed
away in two thousand and five.Their writings, they're teaching, their example

(26:14):
is providing inspiration for the most inspirationI think for most of the young men
who have become priests over the lastsort of two decades. And as the
demographics have shift in the ranks ofCatholic clergy, so has stuff changed in
American Catholicism. There have been othermajor demographic shifts happening in American Catholicism.

(26:38):
A lot of people who I thinkwere Catholic sort of in name only.
And this is here's some of thefundamental problems with American Catholicism over the last
fifty years. In the sixties andseventies, we had this the clergy was
dominated by people who were inspired withthis more sort of liberal and modernizing vision

(27:00):
of American Catholicism. And then everythinghad to be new. Everything that was
old was passe, and our waysof doing everything, of how we worship,
how we teach, how we catechisefuture generations, it all had to
change. And frankly, what justhappened was you had several generations of people
who just were not really catechized atall. And there is maybe no single

(27:25):
greater example of that than Joe Biden. I mean, he's kind of a
classic example of the somewhat ignorant boomerliberal Catholic who and I think the trend
is Catholicism is essential to someone's life, both its teaching and its practice,

(27:48):
and then a generation of poor catechistslater well, people who are still going
to church but they don't really knowanything, and Catholicism becomes almost more like
a social club. And then thatnext generation of their kids and grandkids,
maybe some of them keep going tochurch, maybe as a social thing,
but eventually fall away because they sortof realize the emptiness and hollowness of their

(28:11):
practice. Biden, I think Bidenis kind of a classic example of that
second stage, the people who treatCatholicism as basically fodder for you know,
yucking it up jokes about old FatherO'Malley and how you know on Saint Patrick's
Day and blah blah blah blah blahand camaraderie and community and things like that,

(28:37):
but who fundamentally don't give a flyingrats you know what about Catholicism when
it comes to anything that might possiblyinfluence his actual day to day life or
let alone his public stands the ideathat the Gospel is in any way impacting

(28:59):
how Joe By actually governs or hispolitical opinions in any respect whatsoever. Even
like, okay, modern day Catholicismis for the most part, very negative
towards the death penalty, at thevery least saying that it's theoretically permissible,

(29:21):
but there are very few circumstances inwhich it is necessary in the modern age.
And the posture of most of Catholicismis to say, yeah, it's
fine to actually advocate for the deathpenalty to be abolished. Here's Joe Biden
running as a Democrat, Democrats don'tlike the death penalty, haven't liked the
death penalty for fifty years, sayshe's opposed to the death penalty, and
then when he gets into office andactually has the ability as president to completely

(29:45):
stop the federal use of the deathpenalty for federal prosecutions. He doesn't do
it. Why because it would beunpopular. Okay, like the Buffalo shooter
who's being prosecuted by the Feds.That guy in Buffalo who shot up that
grocery store and killed a whole bunchof people. It's this terrible mass shooting.
Well, Merrick Garland's pursuing the deathpenalty and Joe Biden's letting him.

(30:08):
Joe Biden could stop that tomorrow.He could issue one memo to the Department.
Maybe it's more complex than that,but he could direct the Department of
Justice, Hey, doj prosecutors,You're not allowed to pursue the death penalty
anymore. Or he could pardon orcommute sentences to say, Okay, anyone
who's convicted of the death penalty,I'm going to commute their sentence from death

(30:29):
penalty to life in prison. Buthe hasn't even done that. That's how
little Joe Biden's Catholicism influences him,even for things that would be politically expedient
for him, things that he hasactually pretended to politically agree with with Catholicism
for years. He doesn't do nowlet's get back to what's happening with American

(30:49):
Catholicism. Here's how this piece fromthe ap starts. It was the music
that changed first, or maybe that'sjust when many people at the pale brick
Catholic church in the quiet, Wisconsinneighborhood finally began to realize what was happening.
The choir director, a future atSaint Maria Garetti Church for nearly forty
years, was suddenly gone. Contemporaryhymns were replaced by music rooted in medieval

(31:11):
Europe. By contemporary, we meanwritten in the nineteen seventies and eighties,
which were decades ago. So muchwas changing. Sermons were focused more on
sin and confession. God forbid,God forbid You actually called people to stop
sinning in church. Priests were rarelyseen without cassocks, altar girls for a

(31:34):
time were banned at the parish elementaryschool. Students began hearing about abortion and
hell. Hell is a pretty constitutivepart of Christianity. Like the fact that
they hear about it is not someoutrageous thing. It was like a step

(31:56):
back in time, said one formerparishioner, Still so dazed by the tumultuous
changes that began in twenty twenty onewith a new pastor that he only spoke
on condition of anonymity. It's notjust Saint Mariak. Already across the US,
the Catholic Church is undergoing an immenseshift generations of Catholics who embrace the
modernizing tide sparked in the nineteen sixtiesby Vatican two, the Second Vatican Council,

(32:17):
which was basically a gathering of allthe world's bishops to look at ways
in which the Catholic Church should couldchange certain things to react to new changes
in the modern world, and whichwas used by America by liberal Catholics as
the excuse for changing everything in horrificways that Vatican Two itself and its actual

(32:37):
teaching documents did not recommend anyway.But the characterization of Vatican two is always
that it was liberal. It wasnot really that liberal. It was utilized
as a tool for introducing all kindsof liberalism into the Catholic Church. Generations
of Catholics who embrace the modernizing tidessparked in the nineteen sixties by Vatican two

(32:59):
are increasingly giving way to religious conservativeswho believe the church has been twisted by
change, with the promise of eternalsalvation replaced by guitar masses, parish food
pantries, and casual indifference to churchdoctrine. No conservative has ever objected to
a food pantry. This is theframing of this is so silly, the

(33:22):
idea that, oh, liberals careabout helping the poor and conservatives don't care
about no like And by the way, the trend I was talking about with
you've now had several decades of youngmen being ordained to the priesthood who are
more conservative. Okay, I amin my parish that I go to is

(33:49):
probably would be possibly the kind ofparish that this article is talking about.
I have a pastor who is relativelyyounger and has I mean, I haven't
talked with him directly about this,but it seems as though his life and
priesthood and is very much inspired bythe teaching and practice and example of people

(34:15):
like John Paul the Second and Benedictthe sixteenth, and the changes that he
is instituted into the parish I think, gently and in a sensitive way are
somewhat similar to what is reflected inthis article. But the idea that He's

(34:36):
neither he nor any other priest thatI've ever seen. The idea that he
is getting rid of food, pantriesor something. No, if anything.
Fresno's Catholic Charities program, which doesa great job of this and is the
sort of great, sort of centralizingresource for all the Catholic parishes in Fresno

(34:57):
to sort of help people. Fresno'sCatholic Charity is this busier than ever and
has a great relationship with pretty muchall the priests, conservative and the more
conservative evil priests who wear, youknow, more traditional clothing and like more
traditional music, and those who aren't. Just this idea that there's this dichotomy

(35:21):
allegedly between or this this unopposable,this unreconcilable difference between being conservative and caring
for poor people is so stupid andit's phony. This is just a narrative
that liberal Catholics have been sort ofusing to help themselves fall asleep better at

(35:43):
night, And I just don't thinkit's true. When we return, how
American Catholicism might be a lot smallerand a lot healthier in the years to
come. Next, on The JohnGerardy Show, one Thing, Poe Benedict
the sixteenth said, is we're lookingat this interesting ap article which you can

(36:04):
read by the way Twitter dot comslash president Johnny at Fresno Johnny basically this
Twitter article bellyaching that the church inAmerica is becoming more conservative. And one
of the things that's that's really beenhappening are these huge demographic trends in America
where basically, I think a lotof sort of more liberal leaning cultural Catholics

(36:25):
have had a lot of reasons toabandon ship and just leave the Catholic Church
over the last twenty years. Andwe're seeing church attendance numbers plummet. We're
seeing certain cities this is disastrous,like Baltimore, for example, is going
to have to sell a ton ofits churches or fold a ton of its
churches. And Baltimore was actually thefirst Catholic dioceses in America. So it's

(36:52):
actually a really sad thing. Betweenthe sex abuse scandals, which were the
legacy of a bunch of terrible priestsand bishops from the nineteen fifties, sixties
and seventies, chiefly making one engagingin horrific conduct and two shuffling priests surround

(37:12):
and covering up that horrific conduct,the public scandal that caused tons of people
to leave the liberalizing trends more broadlyin American society. Causing people to leave
the poor catechesis that the church engagedin from the sixties, seventies, eighties,
nineties that left generations now of Catholicscompletely ignorant about their faith. Look

(37:38):
at Joe Biden and then finally thislast kick in the nuts COVID. COVID
was this huge opportunity for people justto leave the church. But Benedetu once
said that the church will become smaller, but healthier and more faithful, that
a creative minority will persist. AndI think that's what's happening right now now

(38:00):
that the people who are still theregenuinely believe. And I think that's for
me as a Catholic and those ofyou on maybe on the other side of
the street. It's a cause forhope for the future. That'll do it
for John Gilady Show. See younext time on Power Talk.