Will Clovis Unified Teachers Unionize?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I've said it multiple times within local education that I
think Clovis Unified is going to become more like Fresno.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Unified than the other way around.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
I think a lot of parents whose kids go to
Clovis Unified, a lot of people who work for Clovis Unified,
have lived in this sort of la la land that
national or state statewide trends really just don't impact Clovis Unified.
That the ghost of Saint Doct Buchanan hovers over Clovis
Unified to protect it from all liberal evil. And unfortunately

(00:30):
that's just not true. A lot of statewide mandates do
in fact impact Clovis Unified. And the trend towards unionization
is coming. All these younger teachers coming into Close Unified
who don't sort of have the close unified culture of
that bu can and sort of symbolized, they all want.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
To be unionized.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
And all these young Presno State grads are coming in
wanting unionization, and inevitably that biological solution is just going
to work itself out. So indeed, this is the case,
Close Unified teachers face choice between a CTA backed or
independent union.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
It's a piece published by ed Source, which is this.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
They seem to publish a lot about California, but it's
sort of this education news entity. One of two groups
trying to unionize teachers in Closest Unified is less than
seventy five signatures away from accomplishing that goal. California Close
Unified is the largest school district in California that is

(01:37):
not unionized.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Here we go.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Teachers in the Close Unified School District are within reach
of becoming unionized, the closest they've been in decades. Now
they have a choice of two suitors despite many attempts.
The district is California's largest school system without a teacher's union.
A key difference this time last year the state labor Okay,
I want to get to the heart of the matter.
Over the last four years, two groups, the Association of

(02:01):
Clovis Educators or ACE, which is backed by the California
Teachers Association, and the unaffiliated Independent Clovis Unified Educators ICUE,
which is represented by a law firm, have been vying
to represent district teachers. Now, let's talk about the difference
between these two groups. So you have Clovis Unified teachers

(02:24):
look like they're on the verge of unionizing.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
There are two unions.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
They can go with California Teachers Association or an independent union.
Let me just start by saying that between the California
Teachers Association and SEIU, which is another huge labor union

(02:48):
in California, represents lots of government workers, etc.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Those two unions.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Are together the most powerful force in all of California
politics and shoulder a lot of blame for why our
state and our state's education system and lots of other
things are in the toilet, why our state's financial standing

(03:19):
is in the toilet. California Teachers Association is so left wing,
so viciously wildly left wing. They are responsible for everything
bad that is happening in education, the incredible left wing

(03:39):
slant of California's public school curricula, the ridiculous years longer
than it needed to be, COVID disruption. The California Teachers
Association was at the heart of that. So I would

(04:00):
beg and plead a close unified educator who might want unionization,
don't do it. Don't line yourself up with the California
Teachers Association. Now teachers in the union can opt out
of spending money on quote political.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Activity, but it's also the problem that.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
A lot of their posturing is political in nature, whether
it's explicit, you know, explicitly paying for candidates or things
like that.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
A lot of what they do is political.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
What the you know, what the Teachers Union and for
Presdent Unified does, how it postures itself, how much money
it demands, that's a political issue that impacts people throughout
Presdent Unified. Now the alternative for Close Unified is this
independ Clovis Unified Educators ice UE or IQ.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Maybe that's that's what the acronym is trying to go.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
For, and IQ ICUE it promises teachers cheaper dues and
local control. Because they don't have ties with the California
Teachers Association, there are still many teachers who are on
the fence, often remaining quiet about their decision. The ACE

(05:29):
versus IQ debate must gather the signatures of more than
fifty percent of approximately twenty one hundred Close Unified teachers
within a year to become the recognized union. Whichever group
collects the majority of signatures first must file a petition
to be certified as the union. If the other group
has thirty percent of signatures, that group can request an

(05:49):
intervention to the existing petition, which will force a vote
between the two unions, or for no union representation if
the other group doesn't file that petition for intervention and
there's automatic union recognition and no election.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
ACE, which is the CTA back group.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Does not have updated percentages considering new teacher hires, but
had gathered over thirty five percent last year. Based on
the number of ICU the number that IQ presented to
ed Source, they've reached around forty seven percent of signatures.
If enough teachers sign on to IQ, the group will
be closely watched as the largest independently run teachers union

(06:30):
in California. All right, so this is kind of fascinating.
Now let me preface all of this by saying as follows,
I am skeptical of all public sector unionization, even people
like FDR. No one was more pro union than FDR.
Even people like FDR were skeptical of the notion of

(06:54):
public sector unionization. Why unions labor unions makes sense in
the private sector context, they make less sense in the
public sector context. Why in the private sector there are
incentives pointing opposite directions between management and labor management or

(07:15):
ownership wants to keep a greater shareff profit for itself.
Labor wants to keep a greater shriff profit for itself.
Management wants more money for shareholders ownership. Labor wants more
money in the form of wages, better working conditions, more vacation,

(07:39):
better perks, et cetera. One individual employee. Let's take like,
you know, the General Motors. Okay, if you're working the
line at General Motors and you think you're underpaid, and
you think your working conditions aren't safe, and you go
to the manager and say, hey, this is BS. You
should pay me more, and we should and I should
have safer working conditions. Well, you're your job may not

(08:01):
be so unique, and you, as one person, may be
replaceable enough that instead of saying, oh, of course, we'll
bend to what you need, Bill, they'll just fire you
and replace you. Now, if Bill unionizes with all the
employees at GM, and they all chip in money for
dues so they can all afford a lawyer, and they

(08:21):
can all and they have that smart, sharp lawyer who's
skilled at negotiation, go in and talk with management and say, listen,
we deserve a greater share of revenue, We deserve working
conditions of this, this, and this, and this is our
range of demands. If you don't meet that, we also

(08:42):
have the threat of walking off the job. And you
may be able to replace one of us, but you
can't replace all of us very easily without a massive
disruption to your cash flow and your business. So labor
unions give individual workers in the context of a private
sector industry protection, protection that they wouldn't ordinarily have the

(09:10):
public sector union. Doesn't make sense why well, management in
the public sector union doesn't have a profit motive operating.
There's no profit motive operating for Clovis Unified School District.
Public schools are a government program. The idea is, we
collect taxes from everybody. We spend taxes on a school

(09:33):
because we think there's a public good that comes from this,
the education of the populace, getting them ready for the workforce,
forming them as.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
Future citizens, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
The point is not to make money or to capture
a greater share of profits for labor versus shareholders or ownership.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
That that's not what's going on.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
More labor unions, because they have the labor, they can
operate as political actors to higher get elected people on
the other side of the table against whom they'll be negotiating.
This is why there's a certain level on which, as
a matter of principle, when you drive around town and

(10:21):
you see during election season vote for so and so
for the Presno Unified Board of Trustees endorsed by Fresno teachers,
and most people see that and they're.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Like ooohoo, go j Willkers.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
The teachers like them, and it's the school board, so
teachers must know what's good for the schools, so I.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Should vote for them.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
You should actually possibly have the exact opposite reaction, because
when it says endorsed by Fresno teachers, it means endorsed
by the teachers union. And what you're doing when you
vote for someone endorsed by the teachers union, you're giving
the teachers union both sides of the negotiating table, and

(11:06):
they're negotiating on your money, how much of it to
spend and take. So the natural and especially given the
political climate in California, where the Teachers' Union in California.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
Is ownership is management.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
Why because they own the state Assembly, they own the
state Senate, and they own the governor. The single biggest
donors collectively to Gavin Newsom have been unions, the teachers
Association kind of leading the charge. He's never he was

(11:52):
never at any point over his governorship, Newsom was never
going to cross them, never was going to cross the
teachers even and that's why he treated them with kid
gloves during COVID. That's why Newsom continues to deserve blame
for the disruption of education the COVID caused. When California
allowed its schools to remain closed way longer than it
should have. That was on Newsome because he basically what

(12:14):
he did was he allowed teachers' unions to have maximal
leverage by instead of trying to make a statewide decision,
he allowed every district to make their own decision, which
gave the union maximal leverage in every single school district
to delay as long as possible, and it also led

(12:35):
to ridiculous outcomes like San Francisco Unified was open for
like one day at the end of I don't know
if it was like the last day of school in
like June of twenty twenty two, and that allowed San
Francisco Unified to get like five million dollars. So they
had one day of in person classes and that got
the school district like five million bucks or something.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
It was.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
It was completely nuts, completely in saying, completely ridiculous. And
I think the practical on the ground level of what
happens when you have unionization. I mean, what's the basic
thing that happens with unionization in the context of education.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
Well, one of the.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
Things the union does is it protects people from getting fired,
It insists on better due process, et cetera. And ultimately,
the practical reality of what happens is it's hard to
fire people.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
But that's the thing. It's when you're talking.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
About a private sector entity. A private sector entity might
be skirting state law or skirting federal law with employment law,
or do things better. You're talking about the state itself,
you're talking about a public entity. Are we that concerned

(13:55):
about a public state entity ignoring state HR law?

Speaker 3 (14:00):
Us?

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Ultimately, what a.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
Teacher's union winds up doing is it provides less accountability
for teachers who do a bad job. If you don't
have a union, you can fire someone more easily. If
you do have a union, there's a whole process that's
much longer and more challenging and more difficult. And I
don't think it's a coincidence that Clovis Unified has had

(14:28):
better results in a lot of ways, even when you
adjust for socioeconomic status of the students within Close.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
Unified and Prison Unified. Close Unified is doing a better job.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
And I'm not saying Close Unified is perfect, but unionization.
Part of the point of it is to make it
harder for the school district to fire teachers. And often
the school district is firing teachers not because they're mean
or devious, it's because the teachers aren't doing a good job.

(15:02):
So I guess my order of preference would be that
a public facing institution, which is what this is. This
is a public service. That's what schools are, a public
service oriented towards children. When you bring unionization in, it
turns most of the political discussions about unions away from

(15:25):
how is this public service doing in its service to
the public in educating children. Most of the stories you
hear about Presdney Unified, for example, a lot of them
hinge on the fact the idea that it is a
jobs program for adults as opposed to a public service

(15:46):
for children. That's what it turns into I mean, how
much political energy, how much time energy effort is expended
by the Fresney Unified Board of Trustees in dealing with
the union in every couple of years having a huge
showdown over the CBA the collectively bargained agreement governing teacher

(16:08):
pay versus Clovis Unified, which doesn't expend that much time
and time is energy, is attention?

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Is care is quality? I refuse to believe otherwise.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
It's a massive shift. I think in mindset as much
as anything else. So I guess in order of operations,
my preference would be no union at the top, this
independent union next, which it sounds like, this independent union
is I see you eat. It represents certain kinds of

(16:45):
charter school.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
Teachers.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
It's not affiliated with the California Teachers Association or with
the National Education Association. National Education Association also a bunch
of flame and lefties. So actually the dues that teachers
would pay to it would be much cheaper, and it
would still do the same function of collective bargaining. It
just wouldn't be as involved in statewide insane politics the

(17:09):
ways Californe Teaches Association is or the way the National
Education Association is And then at the bottom I would
say for Close Unified teachers is the CTA, the ICE,
the or ACE rather the Association of Clovis Educators, which

(17:30):
would be affiliated with the California Teachers Association. I think
that's the worst possible outcome here, So fingers and toes
crossed that no unionization wins, but if not, that at
least an independent union. When we return, we'll dig a
little bit more into this story that is next on
the John Gerrardy Show.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
I just want to pop this little balloon. I enjoy
popping balloons. It's one of the fun things on the show.
This little balloon that Clovis Unified folks have.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
That they've said for twenty or thirty years, and I
think it's a result of a couple of different things.
I think real estate developers have really pushed for the
last several decades.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
The highly acclaimed Close Unified School district, highly acclaimed Clothes
Unified School district, almost to the point where, oh you
O own a home and Close Unified, well you've really
made it in life. This sort of like status symbolesque
thing of Clothes Unit, having your kid go to Clothes
Unified rather than President Unified, and the whole sort of

(18:38):
Doc Buchanan hagiography, this notion of Clovis Unified as more conservative,
as not union, as that it's it's better than all
these other things.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
And plus Clovis is just so politically conservative. Most people
there send their kids to a Clovies Unified school. And
you want to believe that your school is good. And
this is the thing, like it's still a California public school,
and they still control the state government controlled, you know,

(19:14):
seventy five percent Democrats, seventy five percent of all of
our state assembly members or Democrats, seventy five percent of
our state senators or Democrats.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
They draft our laws.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
The entire department, California Department of Education is completely owned
by the left. There's not there. There's not going to
be one conservative person who works in the entire California
Department of Education. The people who are setting curriculum standards,
providing the curriculum, curriculum mandates.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Et cetera.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
It's all completely dominated by the left. And I say
this to parents all the time, especially talking about stuff
like such sex ed programs and things like that. They
have to teach certain kinds of things so I just
sort of especially for Christian parents or conservative parents, don't

(20:05):
act like, don't think that just because your kids in
clothes unified and your old government teacher, mister Smith was
a Republican who liked George W. Bush, that like, somehow
you're gonna be immune from all of this. It's a
different time, certainly different time from twenty years ago, at
different time from thirty years ago, and I think unionization

(20:27):
is only going to accelerate that whole process. When we return,
I'm going to talk a little inside Catholic baseball and
a big controversy about honoring a pro abortion politician that
is next on the John Girardi Show.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
Gather around, folks.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
I'm going to talk about something that's kind of inside
Catholic baseball, something happening on our side of the street,
but I think it should be interesting for those of
you not on this side of the street.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Agent Squires always loves it when I do segments like this,
so here we go.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
I want to talk about the decision by different kinds
of Christian and Catholic entities to cozy up to honor
award politicians, people in power. For some of the allegedly
good things they do while overlooking many of the very
bad things they do. This is hardly a new phenomenon.

(21:18):
How do churches in America relate to those in power?
How do they relate to those in power whose adherence
to the Gospel is questionable, whose overlap with Gospel values
is not so great, and even when it is, it's
often quite accidental rather than intentional.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
And this is something that has beleaguered.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Catholic institutions for quite some time, though less so in
recent decades. The Catholic bishops in America have actually, i
would say, become far more conservative than they were thirty
years ago, and the kinds of controversies you see today
are far fewer in number of Catholic entities under the

(22:00):
control of bishops. When those entities are genuinely under the
control of bishops, these kinds of things happen less often. However,
we have had a grand exception.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
To this.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
Cardinal Blaze Soup Bitch, who is the Archbishop of Chicago.
He has long been sort of thought to be the
most liberal bishop, one of the most liberal bishops in America.
It was specifically appointed by He was appointed by Pope
Francis pointedly made a cardinal immediately when you know the

(22:34):
Archbishop of Los Angeles has been languishing for oh, like
I think about almost two decades that Archbishop Gomez has
been the Archbishop of Los Angeles. People have perceived him
to be more conservative, and Pope Francis never made him
a cardinal.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Despite of the BacT.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Los Angeles is a much bigger diocese and the Archbishop
of Los Angeles has almost always been a cardinal going
back for decades and decades and decades, and that was
always felt pointed, especially when Pope Francis made the Bishop
of San Diego a cardinal and not the Archbishop of
Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
That felt very pointed.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
Anyway, Cardinal Blaze Soup is the Archbishop of Chicago. It
is thought that he is much more liberal than most
of the bishops, and he's also not very popular with
the bishops the America. As I said, I do think
the American bishops are far more conservative as a body
than they were, say two or three decades ago. There
are about one hundred and seventy six dioceses in the

(23:34):
United States, so that's a region of the country where one
bishop is in charge.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Some dioceses have.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Helper outer bishops, auxiliary bishops. So we're dealing with a
group of about a little over two hundred men. And
that body of men that they have, the United States
Bishops have a conference that convenes together, the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is an association organization of

(24:02):
all the Catholic bishops in America who gather together for
various kinds of collective and cooperative work on different kinds
of initiatives. They make different statements on things, they have
policy positions. They have a lobbying entity within Washington, d c.
To advocate for or against legislation that impacts areas of

(24:22):
ethics that the bishops are concerned about, etc. So the
two hundred plus American bishops are i would say, much
more conservative today than they were thirty years ago. And
this can be seen by the fact that Cardinal Soupicch
has never been elected to any position of importance within
the USCCB. He's never been sort of considered to be

(24:45):
the president of the USCCB. He seems to run counter
to the leadership of the USCCB. He had this whole
big controversy when President Biden took office where the USCCB
issued a statement on the day of President Biden's inauguration
that wasacious to him, but which was pointed in saying,
you know, we have very serious concerns about President Biden's positions,

(25:07):
particularly on the issue of legal abortion, and blabah bah
bah bah, and Cardinal Soupicch pitched a fit and went
all the way to Rome to try to get Pope
Francis to to tattletale on the American bishops and try
to get them to retract their statement.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
It was this whole Brew haha. So the other bishops.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
Don't really like Cardinal Soupitch very much. And it's kind
of clear that Cardinal Soupitch lean. I mean, I don't
want to totally besmirch the guy, and I don't want
to make grand assumptions about his political preferences, but a
lot of his priorities, it seems like his priorities are

(25:47):
not on sort of the socially conservative things that most
of the bishops care about, and the things that why
do the American bishops care about social conservative issues like
abortion like this, like that, Well.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Because they're more important.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
The American bishops care about abortion more because they're a
million babies killed every year in America.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
That's why it's this fundamental issue of justice.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
As John Paul the Second reiterated, blah blah, blah, blah blah.
Cardinal Soupic had an interview earlier this year when he
talked about no actually immigration. He talked about a letter
that Pope Francis had sent regarding immigration, and he praised
it for saying how it identified immigration as the pre

(26:28):
eminent issue of urgency in our time, which raised a
ton of eyebrows among American Catholics. No, it's not like
you can think, even if you think that the Trump
position on immigration is take it at its maximal position,
that every single person President Trump is deporting, that it

(26:52):
is a grievous miscarriage of.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
Justice, which I do not think.

Speaker 1 (26:59):
Even if you take, for the sake of argument that
every single person President Trump is deported was unjustly deported,
it's still hard to argue that immigration is more important
than abortion. You're talking two hundred thousand people, it looks
like have been deported this year. We're way over that

(27:22):
in terms of number of abortions. Okay, we're probably gonna
end the year at over a million abortions in this country.
It still doesn't hold a candle now, and again that's
that's assuming every one of those two hundred thousand people
deported was unjustly deported, and I don't know that that

(27:42):
is true, and in fact, I think many of them
are deported quite quite justly. Now, Cardinal Soupitch announced that
he was going to give at this fundraiser for the
Archdiocese of Chicago and their Immigration Ministry, their ministry thing
for immigrants, and they do have a ton of immigrants

(28:03):
in Chicago. They have a ton of Polish immigrants who
go to their Catholic churches, like really off the boat
from Poland Polish and as well as a good smattering
of Latino immigrants. Colonel soup has announced he was giving
a lifetime Achievement award to none other than United States
Senator from Illinois Dick Durbin. Now, many of you may

(28:28):
have heard Durbin's name before. He's a fairly mediocre Democrat,
been on the Senate Judiciary Committee for a long long
time and has been a very consistent supporter of legal
abortion for decades, including you know, shifting his position to
be in favor of public funding for abortion, supporting gay marriage,

(28:53):
all this stuff. Durbin is a baptized Catholic, and, like
many baptized Catholics in American politics, is a terrible Catholic
as far as his public adherence to the teachings of
the Catholic faith terrible. It's so bad that Durban's local
bishop Durban, actually his primary residence is not in Chicago.

(29:17):
His primary residence is Springfield, Illinois. And the Bishop of Springfield,
Illinois is this gentleman named Bishop Thomas Papraki. Now let
me talk about him because he enters into this controversy.
So you have Cardinal Soupitch saying I'm gonna give this
rabidly pro choice senator a Lifetime Achievement Award because of

(29:40):
his amazing contributions supporting Catholic social teaching in the areas
of immigration, war and peace care for the environment. Now,
Thomas Pepracki, who's the Bishop of Springfield, Illinois, where Durbin lives,
has excluded Dick Durbin from receiving Holy communion in churches

(30:07):
in the Diocese of Springfield since two thousand and four.
Bishop Ofpracy made this determination for Catholics holy communion.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
The Eucharist is.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
A really really really really really really really important thing.
We believe that the Eucharist is the body and blood,
soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. We think that it
makes the sacrifice of Calvary present, the one sacrifice of
Calvary that happened once and for all, present here before us,
and that this is what Christ meant when he said,
do this in remembrance of Me at the Last Supper.

(30:41):
This is my body, this is my blood which is
offered for you. So to receive Holy communion is a
really serious thing for Catholics, and it requires, at least
it requires a sort of a personal preparation on the
part of Catholics to say, Okay, I'm in a state
of grace, I've been going to confession, living living a
life that is consistent, that is, at least for the

(31:03):
most part, consistent with the dictates of Catholic ethics.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
But there's also this public dimension of it that.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
Receiving Holy communion is a sort of sign of union
with the Church, living as the Church wants you to live.
And as a result, while an individual priest or bishop
who's giving people holy communion at a Catholic Mass Obviously,
he can't read the minds of everyone who comes forward

(31:33):
to receive communion, and he's not going to refuse communion
to someone who might be engaged in private misconduct. But
when you have someone who is a manifest, public, unrepentant,
serious sinner, you can see how a priest giving this

(31:54):
person holy communion. Again, this is in a public setting,
could be seen as the church turning a blind eye
to that conduct. If Hugh Hefner all of a sudden
waltzed in to a church, a Catholic church, you know,
wearing his Playboy Bunny logo emblazoned smoking jacket and popped

(32:16):
up in line to receive Holy communion.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
The priest would probably be well.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Within his rights to say, hey, Hugh, buddy, we got
to resolve a few things first before you start coming
to a Catholic church and receiving communion as if there's nothing.
If you want to come to church, that's fine, you
want to be your church.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
But if you're receiving communion, this is me like acting
as though you're in good that you're you're fine, and
you're not fine.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
You've done really bad public things for a really really
long time. You've got to get your life in order
a bit first, on a public stage, given that you've
publicly done all this stuff, you should maybe publicly recant
of this, maybe, you know, divest yourself of ownership of Playboy,

(33:02):
whatever it is you're gonna do.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
And if someone.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Refuses to do that, then the bishops within his rights
or the priests within his rights to say no, you
can't keep coming to receive communion. That was the judgment
that Thomas Proki, the Bishop of Springfield, made for Dick Durbin. Well,
here comes Cardinal Soupitch, Papraki's neighbor. So here's the Diocese
of Springfield. Here's the Archdiocese of Chicago there right next

(33:31):
to each other. And Cardinal soupicch says, here you go, Dick,
I'm gonna give you a Lifetime Achievement Award for your
promotion of Catholic social teaching, to which Bishop Papracy.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
Says, Wow, Wow, whoa what on earth are.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
You talking about promotion of Catholic social teaching. This guy
has trampled on Catholic social teaching.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
In the areas of abortion in this the like for decades.
How can you give him a lifetime Achievement Award.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
Bishop after bishop after bishop is starting to join in
with the criticisms that Papraki is making against supers. By
the way, it should also be noted Papraki is not
just some illly just a nice priest or something. He
was an attorney, he went to De Paul University in Chicago.
He then decided to become a priest. He has a

(34:29):
doctorate in canon law, which is basically the historical body
of law that governs how the Catholic Church operates internally
and interacts with and interfaces with it's lay faithful. It's
this historic body of law that is currently codified within
the Catholic Church. Like, he's no slouch, and he's actually

(34:56):
pretty well respected, I would argue, probably a little more
so than Cardinal Soupitch is. The American Bishops made him
the head of their Commission on Church Governance in Canon Law.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
So the guy is no slouch and.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
He's basically telling Cardinal s SOUPI, this is a terrible
thing that you're doing. You are undermining my spiritual authority,
and you're cozying up to this guy who is just
because he's he's trampled on only some critical principles of
justice that you think he deserves a lifetime Achievement award. Now,

(35:33):
when we return, I want to connect this to some
evangelical examples, because I think evangelicals do similar stuff to this.
Sometimes an American non Catholic Christians do a lot of
this kind of stuff as well. When we return, I
will discuss all of that faithful presence. That's the evangelical

(35:53):
buzzword next on the John Girardi Show. Faithful Presence. This
is the evangelical buzz word. And my good buddy Jonathan
Keller mentioned to me as I was talking about a
Catholic controversy the Archbishop of Chicago, Blaze Supic giving a
lifetime Achievement award to a pro abortion Catholic US Senator

(36:14):
Dick Durbin and the rest. Every other American bishop who
has commented on it has decried what the Archdiocese of
Chicago is doing, which I think is a positive sign.
It shows that Cardinal soupicch is an outlier among the
American bishops, not representative of them, And it reminds me
very much as my I was talking about this with

(36:36):
my buddy Jonathan, who's Jonathan's evangelical.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
I'm Catholic.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
This is our odd couple relationship about how evangelical entities
and groups and persons like Russell Moore and Southern Baptist
Convention they have for a long time cozied up with
sort of people kind of on the left in American
politics and tried to be nice to people on the left,
like when Richard Warren hosted Barack Obama.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
At his church in Orange County.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
And they call it that faithful presence where, oh, you know,
we live in this world, not in an idealized world,
and yes we don't agree with everyone who does and
everything they do, but we should have a faithful presence
of interacting with those with whom we disagree, and blah
blah blah. And it turns into sort of it can
very quickly morph morph from being near people we disagree,

(37:27):
witnessing dialoguing with people we disagree, into kissing the butt
of people with.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Whom we disagree.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
Now, what's going to happen with this thing? Here's the
Cardinal ars Bitch of Chicago honoring a pro abortion senator. Well,
it's interesting that the pope who's from Chicago. He's the
one person who could maybe intervene on this. I don't
know if he will. It's got a global church to
govern and he's got to pick his battles. However, it'll
be very interesting to see which way the American episcopic goes.

(37:56):
Cardinal soup Bitch of Chicago and Cardinal Dolan of New
York are past their retire hirement age. They've submitted their
resignations to the Pope. The Pope can replace them at
any time. The Archbishop of Los Angeles will be retiring
in two years. Pope Leo will get to reshape the
American Church very soon, and I suspect it'll be for
the better.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
That'll do it. John Garady shows you next time on
Power Talk