Episode 167: Good vs. Evil Vending Machines (June 10, 2023)

In this episode of Saint Paul's Letters to America, Ray Gerard and Bob Hennekeys discuss Good vs. Evil Vending Machines (June 10, 2023)

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You're listening to WCAT radio, yourhome for authentic Catholic programming. Hello,
and welcome to another edition of SaintPaul's Letters to America. I am your
host Ray Girard in a studio withme today. It's your co host,
mister Bob Nichas. Thank you,Bob for being here again. And it's

(00:21):
always a pleasure ring. I lookforward to this. This is a this
is a fun thing to do.Pretty soon we're gonna have to be calling
you father, Bob nichas well.That's two years. A lot can happen
in two years, and hopefully itgoes in two years, but I'm sure
a lot of good things will behappening in that time as well. But
this is the same Paul's Letters toAmerica, and we examine things that go

(00:41):
happen in our world today in theprism in the light of the teachings of
Saint Paul. Why, because theseteachings are true, they do not change
over time. They are the truth, they are the true inspired Word of
God. And we look at thesedifferent events going on in our world today
in that light. All right,So what are we talking about today?

(01:04):
While we're talking about vending machines thatdispense free crack pipes and lip bomb that
can be used to help people whenthey want to use crack crack and crystal
meth, and these vending machines youcan I have to do is you put
in your ZIP code and you getthese paraphernalia items and it's all courtesy and

(01:30):
it's all free. It's courtesy ofthe New York City government. So that's
what we're gonna be talking about today, and we're gonna do it as we
always do. We're going to startwith a letter from Saint PAULA writing from
Saint Paul, and today his writingis this what I do I do not

(01:53):
understand, for I do not dowhat I want, but I do what
I hate. For I do notdo the good I want, but I
do the evil I do not want. Now, if I do what I
do not want, it is nolonger I who do it, but sin
that dwells in me. So thenI discover the principle that when I want

(02:15):
to do right, evil is athand. But I see another principle at
war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of
sin that dwells in my members.Saint Paul is talking about being at war,

(02:36):
that there's a war being raging inhis own mind. In his own
mind, he has trouble controlling whathe himself does. I mean, aren't
we all in control of ourselves?Do we really have the same kind of
problem that Saint Paul does. IfSaint Paul were to write a letter to
America, what do you not tellus the same thing, that any of

(03:00):
us are at risk of experiencing thiskind of war and succumbing perhaps to the
evil inclinations that we have, sothat perhaps we do not do what we
want, but we do the evilthat we do not want. All right,
So how does this apply to whatwe're talking about. Well, first

(03:22):
let's talk about what's going on inNew York City. So the City of
New York put out a press releasea statement dealing with why they're starting this
program on these public health vending machines. So they said that they are in
the midst of an overdose crisis whichis taking a fellow New Yorkers from us

(03:42):
every three hours and as a majorcause of falling life expectancy in New York
City, said their Health Commissioner.And they also cited as reasons for what
they're doing. A report, thescientific report that is actually the compilation of

(04:02):
another number of other reports. There'san article written Scoping Review of Implementation Considerations
for Harm Reduction Vending Machines harm ReductionReduction Vending Machine. That's a nice sounding
title about um. And so thiswas published the Harm Reduction in the Harm
reduct Reduction Journal. Anyways, UM, so this was the study was this

(04:28):
article was done after the authers lookedat twenty two different studies. And so
that sounds impressive. Twenty two scientificstudies that are being used as a justification
for these public health vending machines whichallow people, which provide people with some
of the tools and implements they needto practice a drug Habit sounds ray like.

(04:54):
Let's say we have an issue andwe have people drowning in pools.
So you have a couple of waysto do this. There's lots of ways
to do this, but one thingyou could do is we're going to shut
down all pools. That way,we will never have anyone drowned from from
swimming. Now, that wouldn't bea good thing. Swimming is important.

(05:15):
Many people fish and for their livingand do that sort of thing and need
to know how to swim. Otherslove to do it recreationally. I think
you have to be careful that you'renot causing more harm with what you do
and what the world looks like bymaking a mistake like this, to all
of a sudden start offering drug usinga paraphernalia, and to ease the opportunity

(05:41):
to do that, seems like wemay have a mistake, might be a
bit bit off off the edge tomake things like that easier. I you
know, one of the experiences Ihave is I went to live in Europe
for a period of time and verymuch enjoyed it. Three years, mostly
in another but a lot of visiting. And when I was there, I

(06:02):
encountered vending machines that sold beer.Now they didn't give it away, but
they sold beer. So you couldbe five years old and walk up with
enough money and buy yourself a beer. There was absolutely no warning signs or
any that I could read, atleast no warning signs that you have to

(06:23):
be twenty one or sixteen or twelveor two. But anyone that wanted could
just pop a couple of coins inthis and then pop a beer and away
they'd go, I think we wantto be careful about what we provide people
rather than trying to really deal withthe issue that is there, which is
the use of the drugs. Whyare we there and should we not be

(06:44):
doing something there? So I lookforward to exploring this. This seems like
a wild start. Well that's precisely, you know, that's precisely the issue.
What's you're hitting on. We needto be careful that we're not making
it easier for people to do thethings that maybe is not the best for
them. You know, did theseauthorities in New York City give due consideration

(07:06):
to this other side of the cointhat you're talking about about? Do they
have a sense of good versus evil? Does that enter into our discussion anymore
these days? Do we really wereso concerned with, you know, trying
to remove the stigma That was oneof the other things the Health Commissioner in

(07:26):
New York referred to as reducing thestigma that's attached to these people. I
mean, certainly, if somebody's adrug user, maybe somebody is a homeless
person, they're living on the street, and they've got a habit something of
that nature. People can have atendency to judge them and look down at
them and step over them, andyou know, if they need some help,

(07:50):
not try to help them. Andof course that's not what Christ tells
us to do. But so movingthe stigma from people, sympathizing with people,
caring for people. All good intentions, good ideas, good motivations.
But again, if we help them, as you say, you know,

(08:13):
in doing something that they shouldn't bedoing, you know, how are we
you know, extending them a goodwith one hand and then at the same
time, with the other hand extendingthem something that is that is bad.
These people that might have a drughabit, that might have a drug addiction,
are they at war with themselves?Do they have some tendencies inside themselves

(08:39):
saying, you know, I'd likeit if I could get off of this
drug use that I have, butI maybe can't help myself. I'm doing
what I do not want to do. And if they do, then when
the city puts out these vending machines, what is the city doing? You
know what, what what is thecity really doing? Anyways? So we've
got a pro and a con tothis. We've got there's two sides to

(09:03):
this coin. But let's look atthe let's look at the positive side just
first to start with. And asI say, the City of New York
referred to this this health study andreport. It cited twenty different twenty two
different reports that spoke to the principlethat these vendue machines are a good idea.

(09:26):
So I looked a little bit furtherinto this this article that examined these
twenty two studies, and it talkedabout that among the studies there were out
the outcomes were mixed, and someof them had inconclusive results. Some of
them said that these vendue machines wereclearly effective. Okay, But then dig
a little bit deeper. What doeseffective mean? While effective could mean things

(09:50):
like the access to syringes. Thesethings were effective at creating greater access to
syringes. It was effective. Expandingafter our availability for things was also considered
effective. Allowing greater anonymity, sopeople didn't have to you know, you

(10:13):
get as you say, anybody,a kid could come up and get a
bearer. You you know, youdidn't have to ask somebody. You don't
have to show yourself to anybody elseto get these things. So great anonymity
was a mark of effectiveness. Decreasedsyringe sharing and disease prevention, we're also
deemed to be effective. Now,if you're going to decrease the sharing of

(10:37):
syringes and perhaps reduce diseases that peoplemight get by using somebody else's syringe,
that's a good I mean, that'sthat's a good thing. You can also
decrease in the sharing of syringes bydecreasing the use of syringes, but that's
another story. It talked about onearticle. It seems like one out of

(10:58):
these twenty two stood or showed ordemonstrate significant reductions in opioid involved overdose fatalities
following naloxone dispensation otherwise known as narcamokay. So twenty two studies, one

(11:20):
of them showed significant reductions in opioidoverdoses because of the distribution of narcam okay.
So it hardly seems to me likethis then speaks directly to the distribution
of crack pipes and lip bomb forcrack and crystal mouth use being effective in

(11:43):
terms of what you know, ifyou're going to I mean, you could
expect this, right, if you'regoing to distribute a narcam One of the
things these vending machines do that besidesdistributing a narcam as, they also distribute
these fentanyl test strips, so youcan determine whether or not this fentanyl and
I guess the drugs that you're taking. So anything they can warn people,
Hey, there's ventyl hair or anarcan, which can if you happen to

(12:05):
have, you know, some ventanylon what you're using, that can perhaps
keep you from dying. Okay,good things. But as you're saying about
if you, on the other hand, do things to increase the drug usage,
well, no, that's a problem. So we've got two things from
these We've got inconclusive results or certainlynot results that would be anything beyond what

(12:28):
we'd expect. I mean, ifyou're going to say, hey, fatalities
go down when you distribute more narcan, sure you would you know, I
don't. You wouldn't need you wouldthink a study to tell you that that
could happen. So if you're goingto distribute narcan or drug test strips,
sure good ideas helps people. Butif you're going to distribute things that have
helped them practice their drug habit,how is that good, and they cite

(12:54):
this particular study for the proposition thatthese vendor machines are a good thing.
But the study doesn't seem to saythat. I mean, the dark can
part of the vending machines. Okay, yes, but the drug habit facilitation
it doesn't, you know. Imean, they use this study to say
that that's that's scientifically proven. Itdoesn't appear from the study that that's the

(13:20):
case at all. So the questionthat is, do they really even consider
this the question of good versus evil? You know, Ray, in my
first year at the seminary, thatwas a topic we had a lot good
versus evil. It was really adeep understanding in theology. That's a big

(13:41):
part of the question. And oneof the things that we spent a lot
of time talking about is our origin, the beginning of the scriptures and the
first people on earth, Adam andEve, and what they did, and
what God's position was and what hedesired. And so what God desired was
to give us the world that wedidn't have to worry about drug addiction or

(14:03):
alcohol addiction or any kind of sinwhatsoever. He wanted us to live intimately
with him and wanted the whole world, to have this beautiful, glorious world
in a garden where we all livedwith him in harmony. Yet because of
the mistake, because of the forbiddenfruit, and wanting to have the same

(14:26):
knowledge in essence that the forbidden fruitis, we wanted to play God.
We ate the fruit because we wantedto be as good as God. Satan
was brilliant. He suggested he doesn'twant you to eat the fruit because then
you'll know everything he does. Andthat was how he got Eve to sort
of go ahead and try this fruit. And so we were supposed to have

(14:48):
a perfect world, but we don't. Instead, what we have as a
world where we fight sin on anevery day, every moment, routine basis.
We have that in our hearts andsouls, and now we have to
decide we wouldn't have that had itnot been for the fall, but instead
we have this battle every one ofus all the time. Each one of

(15:11):
us fights us. Now, lotsof different people have different things. Some
fight sexual abuse and sexual attractions,some drugs, some trying to possess too
many things in money and the evilsthat money can do. Now, money
is a good thing. It canbuy you health, insurance, it can
buy you clothing, but it canalso buy you many other evil things as

(15:33):
well, and all of those canbe very hurtful to us, our society,
and so to me. Rather thantrying to figure out how to put
things out there like paraphernalia that mayor may not help, we need to
be going back to the root ofthe issue is that people have trouble with

(15:56):
drugs, They have trouble with drugaddiction, alcohol addiction, all of the
those things, and how do wehelp them with that as opposed to facilitating
the process of what this evil isdoing. I'm I'm sort of hearing that
as I'm as I'm listening to youand thinking about that. Yeah, you
know, we talked about how dowe do that? I mean, you

(16:18):
know, we talked about this,this seemingly good idea of removing the stigma,
and yeah, if it helps usnot if we're aided in learning that
we should not judge other people,we should not look down at other people,
that we should desire to help otherpeople, that's a good thing.

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But when you remove the stigma,you also in a way remove even the
sense of sin, the awareness ofsin. You start to think, you
know, well, this is Okay, I shouldn't look down at these people
out You know, when you sayI shouldn't look down at these people,

(17:04):
the question is, look why ifyou shouldn't look down at these people,
because we're all part of the bodyof Christ. You shouldn't look down at
these people because these are all peoplethat are created by God. They have
inherent good in them. They aremade in the image of God, and
that if I want to imitate Christ, I've got to love my brother no
matter who he is. If I'mgoing to follow the example of Mother Teresa

(17:25):
of Calcutta now Saint Teresa, thepoorest of the poor, the most downtrodden
of the downtrodden, you know,they could be covered, their whole bodies
could be covered with sores that peoplenormally wouldn't want to touch in any way.
But I'm going to do it anyways, because I've got the love of
Christ of my heart. Like shedid good things, wonderful things. If

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I learned not to look down atthem, because I don't even think what
they're doing is wrong anymore. Abusinga drug is not wrong anymore. You
know, I had alcoholism, andyou know in my family, I lost
a father to it. I lostan older brother to it. M My
older brother was lost at the ageof twenty nine. I don't think God

(18:08):
made him to die at the ageof twenty nine from alcoholism. Um.
Now he I mean, you know, I mean God got to help him,
got rest his soul. Um hewas a good guy, but he
he got you know, obsessed withthis, this this addiction. There's there's

(18:29):
reasons for it. And but that'sanother story. Um. And it's a
common one. You know, peoplefollowing the footsteps of a parent, they
do something. You know, people, you know they have a parent who
practices abuse on a child. Thatchild learns, then turns around and when
they get older, maybe they abusetheir child. I mean, it's not
an uncommon story. It's the storythat involves good versus evil. We get

(18:52):
caught up with the evil. Wegot these wars going on in our minds.
If you were victim of abuse asa child, I'm sure that when
you abuse a child of your own, something about that doesn't feel right.
I'm sure that there's some war goingon in your head. Something doesn't feel
good. You don't want to doit, like Saint Paul was talking about,

(19:12):
but you somehow for some reason youdo it anyway, Why do you
do it if you don't want todo it because you can't control yourself?
And we're giving out crack pipes andsuch, and we're helping people learn not
to control themselves. We're reducing thestigma, but we're also telling them it's
okay, there's no sin here,there's nothing wrong here. Well, my

(19:37):
goodness, how does that help anybody? It doesn't help the victim, doesn't
help the abuser, it doesn't helpus. If that's not wrong, then
other things aren't wrong. We don'teven feel the need to worry about good
versus evil, And, my goodness, if we get to the point where
we don't worry about sin, wedon't worry about good versus evil, where

(20:00):
is that going to lead us?Most of the program's ray friends of mine
that are alcoholics that you talked about, describe the disease as when they go
to the beach, they look atthe ocean and they think of an ocean
of beer and are worried that theocean of beer that they're looking at isn't

(20:22):
large enough. I can drink thatup and consume it. The thought process
is that I want to take thatand consume all that's there by facilitating that,
by facilitating the illness to help makeit easier, doesn't go back to
stopping the addiction and stopping the pattern. What it does is it allows it

(20:44):
to go further. It allows itto make it easier. And certainly that's
the thing we need to do,is to help them stop, to help
those not to judge them right,because every one of us, I think
Saint Paul said that so well atthe beginning. He talked about himself.
But the inference is that every oneof us has these evils. Every one
of us has these difficulties. Noneof us except Jesus and Mary are too

(21:07):
too great as people to ever walkthe earth, didn't have this fight against
sin. The rest of us alldo. And we have got to figure
out how to stop that. Andby trusting in God, by using his
strength to give up these things thatwe need, can be the path forward

(21:29):
all the rest to somehow not understandHis glory, his love, and his
guidance as a way through the evilone is crazy. That's in fact,
I'd use the word arrogant. Thatmeans that I'm so smart and this is
not the case for me. Everyday, I remind myself that the devil

(21:51):
an evil are a heck of alot smarter than I am, much smarter,
much more capable. And the onlychance I have not to sin is
not from me, not from mywill power anything else. It is from
the grace of God and to trustin the grace of God. And by
doing this, by facilitating, we'reeliminating the fact that this is bad,

(22:11):
and we're eliminating the capability to stoppeople from doing this and to push this
evil away. We're facilitating what thedevil wants to do, which is to
get us addicted on drugs or addictedon alcohol, or addicted on abuse,
or whatever it is. We don'tthink in terms of good versus evil anymore.
Yeah, we just don't think ofit. We don't think of a
sin versus not saying, we don'tthink of the devil versus relying on the

(22:34):
strength that can be found through throughChrist and his mother. We don't think
in those terms. We do.We're moving The stigma means that it also
means that if you talk in thoseterms, you're stigmatizing. If I say
a drug user is not good,that they're doing bad, now that the

(22:56):
person is good. You know,they're made in the image of God.
Can't judge the person, but youcan judge the action. They're not doing
good, they're sinning, they're doingevil. Oh, you're stigmatizing. And
we're afraid of that. We areafraid of that. We don't talk about
that. If you were to saythis New York City program has elements of

(23:21):
evil in it, you will behounded, You will be ridiculed, castigated,
you will be called out. You'restigmatizing you. You know, you're
you know you you don't have sympathyfor these people. You know you're a
bad person yourself, and so afraid, so we don't say anything. And

(23:41):
the people that are doing these thatput out these vending machines, they're scene
is the sympathetic ones, the kindones, the good ones. And why
do we have a tendency to eventhink that, Because we don't have a
sense of good versus evil anymore.We don't have a sense of sin versus
virtuous conduct anymore. We don't havea sense of things through a Catholic prism,

(24:04):
and the Catholic prism, it's Christ'sprism. We don't have a sense
of looking at the world and lookingat ourselves through Christ's prism like we should.
If we did, we might behorrified at what at our own silence.
That through our silence, maybe we'rehelping these conditions to exist and maybe

(24:27):
even and to grow. Perhaps throughour silence. Do we not need to
speak out? Speaking out with loveand with kindness? But do we not
need to speak out? Do wenot need to not be silent anymore?
I mean, how strong is oursense of good versus evil? How strong

(24:48):
is our sympathy and our love forthat other person and what they're doing to
their souls? Do we think inspiritual terms anymore at all? And don't
we need to? You know,this idea that you know, we're losing,
this sense of right and wrong andgood versus evil, it's all around
us. We picked this story aboutthe Vendom machines because not only does it

(25:14):
is a point out this idea ofgood versus evil, but it points out
how sometimes it's difficult to separate thetwo and to really, you know,
we have to have a sense,a good Christian sense of good versus and
evil in order to be able toseparate things as we should. I mean,
people like in New York City,the people that are putting out these
vendom machines I'm doing I'm sure they'redoing it. They think they're doing well,
they think they're they're helping people,they're trying to help people, but

(25:38):
you know, by the same token, they're going to be hurting these people
at the same time they're helping somemaybe they'll help somebody avoid offending all death
from an overdose. But at thesame time, they're going to be doing
evil because they're going to be helpingsomebody continue to practice and to grow their
their drug addiction. They're gonna bedoing evil at the same time they're going

(26:03):
to be doing it. And thisis all around. You know, we're
getting sort of immune to this,We're getting sort of cold to this.
It's all around. I mean,I pulled up this story on this an
article on this vending machine thing inNew York City, and there are all
these other little captions of other storieson this very same day in New York

(26:26):
City. Here's one New York Cityteen shoved on the subway tracks, was
heading to get her hair done.Woman attacks strangers, lunges at mother and
baby. New York Police the NYPDArest of man who tried to snatch a
little girl from his mom in Brooklyn. There was just a mom and she

(26:48):
was she had were two year littlekids. She had two little kids with
her, and this guy, hardly, you know, without any without any
provocation, and seemingly without any reason, just came up and just tried to
grab her seven year old child awayfrom her, and the mother initially kind
of lost the battle, but thencontinue to fight and succeeded in being able

(27:12):
to hold on to a kid longenough for this guy to have to run
away. I mean, my goodness, what's going on? You've got people?
These are gratuitous acts of violence andviolence against children, Violence without any
rhyme or reason. Violence with norhyme or reason. You shove somebody on

(27:33):
the subway tracks. Why I meanthis idea and how do we react to
these stories? When people hear aboutthese stories, The devil is in loose
in New York City, that personis evil. That's horrible, that's horrific.
Don't hear that. I don't hearthat. What you hear is,
well, the story gets reported,and it gets reported matter of factly.

(27:59):
That's it, and that's it.We're becoming numb to this this is evil.
Where's the good? Where's the goodversus evil? Where's the where's the
contrast? Where where's the horror atthis? If we react with numbness,
it's just another one of these stories, is it? Because we really don't
have a sense in our heart thatwe feel in our heart for these these

(28:26):
you know, these people that arebeing victims from this sort of thing.
I mean, how much do wefeel it? How much do we have
a sense of good versus evil?You know? And it's all around,
It's all around. For example,San Francisco. Stories that have recently closed
in San Francisco's downtown Union Square,famous part of San Francisco. It's a

(28:51):
beautiful area, or at least itwas. Um you've got people leaving their
old navies, you know, it'sclosing sacks of Fifth Avenue and zon Go.
They had Amazon had at a brickand mortar store, Whole Foods office
depot, Nordstrom, Banana, Republic, athleta Creighton barrel, Abercrombie and Fitch,
DSW shoe store, Disney Marshals,the gap. I mean, my

(29:15):
goodness, they were leaving. Whywell, Walgreen's closed five stores in San
Francisco, because of shoplifting. There'sas a worker at Old Navy. So
Old Navy just closed. There's aworker at Old Navy and he did not
want to be identified, but hesaid that shoplifters and a given day,

(29:40):
you'd have twelve to fourteen on agiven day. Wow, so one every
hour, somebody's just walking in helpingthemselves. He said this in the last
two days the store was hit.There's twenty two times in the last you
know, two days. And hesaid, they're just super comfortable. They

(30:00):
go in and they just take whatthey want and they're just comfortable doing it.
There's no sense of right and wrong. There's no sense of good versus
evil. They're okay with it becausethey've been told they can be okay with
it. They're told really to benumb to sin anymore. They Old Navy

(30:23):
workers said, shoplifters. However,we're gonna be kind to these people,
are gonna you know, I meanthat the policy and San Francisco, like
in Los Angeles, is hey,you know, we're not going to prosecute
you. If you steal less thana thousand dollars, we're not going to
prosecute you. Why we're doing itunder the kindness of art, the goodness
of art, because a lot ofthese people, well you know, they're

(30:45):
just trying to make ends meet.They can't get by. They've been victimized
by society, and so society shouldprovide for them. So we'll just let
them take what they want. Ina way, it seems like it's being
done out of a kindness, outof a sympathy for the fact that these
people have had, you know,tough circumstances in their lives. But when

(31:08):
making them into people that just shopliftall the more and they become numb to
sin. There's nothing wrong with it. And so what happens when you become
numb to a small symbol, thenyou start committing other sins? Is that
not true? This old navy workerssaid, the ship shoplift. There's regularly
curse and throw things. This guy, this worker, just an employee at

(31:33):
a store. He says he fearsfor his life. He says, I
don't feel like fearing for my lifeevery single day. I just hope that
it can get back to normal,the way it used to be when people
were out shopping having fun with theirfamilies. That it's not normal any more.

(31:53):
This is all around us. Sothe normal is now sin is acceptable.
And I hope we still consider shopliftingor stealing somebody else's material wrong and
a sin. It's actually one ofthem listed in the Ten Commandments, you
shall not steal. So hopefully wehave that view that's that's wrong. But

(32:15):
somehow we're accepting that, we're allowingthat to occur, encouraging it, encouraging
it. So if you don't pushit down, it is going to pop
its ugly head up because and again, Ray, I go back to the
fact, let's make sure we allunderstand every one of us, including me,
has a great desire to sin.We have that in our heart,

(32:37):
we have that in our soul,and now you've got to try to figure
out how do I avoid that?How do I avoid sin? And the
answer back is not loosen the lawsand allow anyone to sin without consequence or
without issue, but to help peopleunderstand that that is not what should be

(32:58):
done. To get going a differentdirection, we are missing the boat.
Pope Francis asked the very same questionthat you just asked, and he said,
there's only one way to do that. There's only one way to do
this. He said, only truelove for God and neighbor can destroy the

(33:20):
chains of greed, lust, anger, and envy that enslave mankind. He
said, true love is true freedom. It detaches you from possession, It
rebuilds relationships. It knows how towelcome and value the neighbor. It transforms
every struggle into a joyous gift.It makes communion possible. He said,

(33:42):
there are many types of slavery,both interior and exterior. Talked about interior
prisons. He says slavery to one'sego can time men and women down more
than a prison. Pope explained thatthe quote deadly sins such as greed,
lust, gluttony, and sloth canturn people into slaves of their own passions.

(34:05):
That's exactly what Saint Paul was talkingabout. This is not something new,
This is something that is part ofthe human condition as you're just as
you're talking about bout it's it's inus, but God is also in us.
And the only way we can fightthe one is to rely on the
other. The only way is theonly way is to have true love for

(34:25):
God and neighbor. This is whatwe have to fight with. We have
to understand, we have to beaware that there is this battle between good
and evil. There is sin,not everything is good. We can't just
go around thinking everything is fine,everything is good. And if you say
something is not good, you arejudging people, You are looking down at

(34:49):
people, you are stigmatizing people,you are hating people. No, because
you I mean by by helping peoplenot to do what is harmful to them
and to others. That's true lovefor God and for neighbor. That's the
only way, and that's very difficultto do. It's it's very hard one

(35:09):
to put our own desires aside,that we have to sin and to be
wrong and to do things, butthen to go out to someone else and
help them. You know, inthe in the Scriptures, it talks about
what do you do if someone doessomething wrong? And it's a it's a
it's a wonderful quote where the answerback is when someone does something wrong,

(35:30):
you go to them and you explainto them that it's wrong. You don't
just let it occur. You gohelp them because they might not understand that
whatever it is that they're doing iswrong. So you do that for a
child. You help a kid understandthat smacking their brother who has an ice
cream cone and they want it.It's the wrong thing to do, right.

(35:52):
You don't want to let that happen. So you tell someone and then
if they don't respond, then whatyou do is you get others and as
a group you go together right andhelp them understand that this is missing.
There's power in numbers. You helpthem understand. But again you're trying to
explain this to someone. And thenthe last step is if they still won't

(36:15):
listen there, then you ask them, well, maybe you need to step
out for a while outside the churchor outside the community to figure out why
it is that you're you're not gettingthis, and that's the idea, but
or to help those people that arestill in the community, and it helps
people in the community. Again,if they won't accept the help, then
sometimes the only thing you can dois make sure that they don't spread the

(36:37):
harm. Spread spread the harm around. But we seem to be saying help
you see somebody do something wrong,spread the harm, spread the harm,
turn your head, don't look atit. And I think part of that
comes from I'm a center. Isee that I don't I don't want to.
I don't want to think of myselfas a center, right, And
who am I to tell somebody elsethat they're doing something wrong when you know

(36:58):
I'm I'm absolutely evil as it is. We need to help people understand,
and we do that as parents.You brought that up. That's absolutely beautiful.
We somehow, for the good ofour children figure that out. Now
we do a lot of stupid thingsas parents as well, but most of
the time, as parents were tryingto do the right thing. And if
we could do that with our lovedones others, wouldn't we be a lot

(37:21):
better off? You know, Let'slet's uh, let's take this a little
bit in another direction. Let's let'sgo backward a little bit. These things
don't happen overnight. This this climatethat we're living in where you know,
we're being told, well, it'sit's okay to let people do anything.
And whenever you tell somebody you knowthat they need to be restricted and what

(37:45):
they can and can't do, youknow, you're you're you're the old you
know, they're the old Catholic typeof person. You're the old Church.
You're you're harsh, you're unloving,you're uncaring, you know, And where
does this comfort? It doesn't justhappen night. It takes years for things
to develop to the point now wherego ahead and steal. It's okay,

(38:07):
you know, to the point wherenow stores can't even stay in business anymore.
They just simply have to leave.It doesn't happen overnight. How about
we go back. There's a guywho wrote a book. It's called Beyond
Good and Evil. I wrote abook Beyond Good and Evil. No,
you don't have to have this senseof good and evil. That's an old
dogmatic notion. He railed in thepreface to his book about the dogmatists,

(38:31):
people that insisted there's dogma, thatthere's truth. He said, the most
dangerous of errors hitherto has been adogmatist error, namely Platos in Plato's invention
of pure spirit and the good initself. But now it has been surmounted,
when Europe has now finally rid itselfof this nightmare. The man who

(38:54):
wrote this is Frederick Nietzsche wrote thisover about one hundred and forty years years
ago, and he's also famous forproclaiming that God is dead. But his
whole, his whole argument in thisbook is we have to get beyond this
notion of good and evil. Stopthinking in terms of good and evil.

(39:17):
Stop it. Just don't even doit at all. That's a dogmatic,
old fashioned notion that really puts peoplein chains instead of liberating people. He
said, modern men, with theirobtuseness as regards all Christian nomenclature, no
longer had the sense of the terriblysuper terribly superlative conception which was implied which

(39:43):
was implied to an antique taste,by the paradox of the formula God on
the Cross. Hitherto had there hadnever and nowhere been such boldness and inversion,
nor anything so dreadful a transvaluation ofall the ancient values. God on
the Cross us was bold and itsinversion of ancient values, and Europe had

(40:06):
been suffering under this for centuries andmillennia, and now on the eve of
the twentieth century, Nietzsche was glorifyingin the fact he was taking clean the
fact that Europe was getting was gettingpast this. Of course, surely there
after we had World War One andWorld War two, but so anyways,
um He said that the slave,the people that were enslaved by these dogmatic

(40:30):
notions of Plato, and then theChristians that were to followed. These enslaved
people desire the unconditioned. Even inmorals. You have to get beyond good
and evil, free yourself from thesethese change these these these bonds that that

(40:52):
tie you down. We gotta wegotta be liberated, We gotta be free.
Otherwise, you know, we're justwe're just living on these archagnoses,
and so, okay, then we'rebetter off. Then once we get past
the notion of good and evil.Beyond good and evil is the goal.
We've got to get past this andthen we'll be better off. Then we

(41:15):
can shoplift, then we can throwpeople onto subway train tracks. Then we
can get crack pipes for free,so that we never get past our drug
addiction. And we can still,you know, stay enslave to these things
and do these things that we donot want to do, when somewhere,
somewhere in the back of our mindthere is a desire to do good,

(41:39):
but we really can't just help ourselvesto do it. Somehow, we're just
we're still we do the things wedon't want to do. We can't control
ourselves and all. But isn't itgood that we've got the city of New
York that's going to help us tostay enslave. Nietzsche talks about slavery,
there's a saint. Paul talks abouta different kind of slavery, a slave

(42:00):
to evil, getting beyond the goodand evil. No, let's pointed out,
we have to look for it,examine it, not all the things
around us, but in ourselves,and find it out and be aware of
it so that we can at leastengage in the fight. If you're not
aware of it, you're never goingto fight it, and you're gonna lose.

(42:22):
You're going to be lost before iteven get started. You know.
I think I know for myself andI think for others. It's true.
If you do something that's truly eviland it works out and it's successful for
you, you think about that,or at least I do, and I
think what occurred, and I thinkthe evil that I've done, but that

(42:43):
the success that it drew right.I was able to make a deal work.
I was able to get a permitfor something. Whatever it is that
that I did that was wrong orevil. I was in turmoil because I
knew that I had done something wrong, yet I somehow made that work.

(43:04):
And inside my heart there was abattle going on inside my soul. There
was a battle going on knowing thatI had done something wrong. Like if
you make a deal to the pointwhere you are taking advantage of another person,
you're you're going to profit, You'regonna get some money, and maybe
a little bit more than maybe itwas appropriate. But hey, you're doing
it because you've got to make thebest deal, even if you're gonna,

(43:27):
you know, take advantage of theother guy, because hey, it's for
the good of my company. Youbet see you do that. And then
you have a deal where you lookat somebody and you're very open with them,
and you talk through the deal andyou say, here's what we need
to watch, and here's and we'regoing to have to figure out how to
split profits on this area because we'reunsure where they're going to be. And
you walk away saying, I notonly pulled this deal off, but I

(43:51):
did it in a fair way tomyself, to the folks, the contractors,
to the people that are going topurchase whatever it is that's being made.
And you put all together and inyour mind, in your mind,
even though that second deal didn't makeyou as much money, didn't make my
company as much money, I feltso much better. I felt as if
all good things were occurring and notthis evil. Each one of us has

(44:15):
that in us. Some of us, at different times in our life have
shut that off, that we figuredout how to blind ourselves to those evil
But it's still there and we stillknow it. And I think each of
us, if we really check ourheart, would know that that is not
what we want to do. Youknow, this whole idea of good versus
evil and these we're talking about theselittle things that go on and you know,

(44:38):
our own consciousnesses like, okay,I make it a little more profit
than I should, things that nagat us whatever. Okay, So there's
those those kinds of evils that weall know that we all experience. Are
there bigger evils? Well, ofcourse there are. If you talked about

(44:59):
Bob earlier, about the fact thatyou know, in theology you study a
lot about good versus evil that thisis a primary kind of a thing,
This is a foundational kind of athing. So there's small evil, well,
but there's also big evil. Imean, if if evil is a
truth, then there's gonna be bigevil. There's gonna be transcendent kind of

(45:22):
evil. There's gonna be evil thatwell, that is it's spiritual. There's
good. Evil is gonna be athing. It's gonna be a real thing.
Just as God is good, thathe's universal good, he's he's universal
love. Well there's also evil.I mean, if if there was no

(45:44):
evil, we wouldn't have this problem, we wouldn't have these pangs of conscious
we wouldn't be doing things we don'twant to do. If you really have
doubts about whether or not evil perse exists, oh, I don't know.
Talked to on steenior Steve Stephen Rossetti, who's month senior Stephen Rossetti.

(46:07):
He's an exorcistum he he talked aboutfor example, he's been an exorcist,
you know, in the church forsome years. Had an occasion where time
where he was before he's trying tohelp somebody, a possessed individual. He
saw this person's blue eyes turn yellowand the pupils shrink down to mirre dots.

(46:31):
They looked precisely like the eyes ofa hissing snake. He talked another
another case when a man's entire eyesturned jet black. His eyes you couldn't
see the pupils from the from thewhite. They were just all black.
Um. He's got other stories aswell, and he says, you know

(46:52):
that the exorcisms, he said,have grown exponentially in just the last decade
or so. He said, theUnited States is racked by discord and a
moral crisis. We're racked by amoral crisis, and exorcisms and possessions are
growing exponentially. Why could it bebecause maybe we don't even know. We're

(47:16):
not even aware of the difference likewe used to be, between good and
evil. He made a rather disheartening, discouraging prediction. He said, I
think it's going to get much worsebefore it gets better. He happens to
be a licensed psychologist. He's alsowhen a social professor Catholic University of America.

(47:40):
Recently wrote a book, Diary ofan American Exorcist, Demon's Possession and
the Modern Day Battle against Ancient Evil. He's experienced doors, banging, TVs
turning on and off, victims,communicating an ancient languages, a lot of
the things that you think about,he says. He hasn't personally, you

(48:00):
know, the kind of crazy levitationyou'd see in the movie Exorcist, but
he's seen enough. You know,he's you know, there's a woman he's
sprinkled with holy water and her bodybegan to spas him. I mean,
I don't think if you'd asked him, hey, is evil a real thing?
Is the devil a real thing?I don't think he'd have any problem

(48:21):
giving you an answer. He's seenit, just because we don't see it,
just because we don't go, youknow, like like some of these
these priests that performed these things,and they're very trying experiences for these priests,
that are not easy things to do. And just because we don't try
to put ourselves in his position andgo out and try to help, you
know, people that are possessed andwe don't see these things, doesn't mean

(48:45):
we shouldn't listen to him when hesays I have seen it. He also
was helping a woman one time.This is kind of scary. It's helping
a woman one time, and hefound out that her dad was receiving snarky

(49:07):
text messages from demons. The textswere typical demonic rant. She belongs to
us, his father, her father. He's trying to help this woman from
a possession and her father and Iguess this was transpiring over some months and

(49:28):
his father would get her father wouldget these text messages. She belongs to
us. Now here's a curious littlebackstory. As a child, the father
had dedicated her to Satan. Asthis woman grew up, she found her

(49:49):
way to the Catholic faith. Thedemons didn't like that, and so you
know, they acted out against hertry and to turn away from the devil
and turned towards the Catholic faith.And she needed help, and so Monsignor
Rossetti did succeed in helping her.Took months, and she's still not completely

(50:16):
free of it. She still hasstruggles. Devil doesn't give up, but
she's much better than she was.The stuff is real. Evil is a
real thing. We can close oureyes to it. We can, you
know, allow ourselves to become numbto it. We can maybe sit back

(50:38):
silently when you know, New YorkCity helps people with drug paraphernalia, or
when shoplifting is allowed to occur,and not say that these things are evil,
that we're not helping people, thatwe that we can be trying to
help people, and maybe you know, we get maybe we can help people.

(51:00):
We can give him in our canwe can you give him drug test
strips? But not give them crackpipes. We can become aware to good
versus evil. We can have asense of what's going on in the soul
of those other persons at the sametime where of what's going on in our
own souls, and try to guardagainst evil and promote the good whatever we

(51:22):
can, with whoever we can.Anyways, that's what we have today for
our discussion about some of the thingsthat are going on in our world and
whether or not Saint Paul can helpspeak to it at all, and as
always he can, And we hopeyou found this provocative, hope you found

(51:45):
it a little bit enjoyable. Butwe're going to close this particular program like
we always do, and that's witha prayer. And we're going to ask
Bob, who has been ordained adeacon and is now in training. They've
got to teach him a few thingsstill to become a priest. But nevertheless,
I'm sure he can help us witha prayer. We can do that
in the name of the Father andthe Son the Holy Spirit. Amen,

(52:07):
Heavenly Father, you made this world, and you made it perfect for us,
Yet we blew it. We didnot accept your perfect world. We
wanted to be like you, sowe ate the fruit and became in trouble.
We sinned. We'd like to thinkthat we can fix all of that
ourselves, but we can't, Lord, and so we ask your love and

(52:28):
blessing. We ask you to cometo us to help us through this.
Allow our desire, our will tofollow in your son's footsteps and follow him
and always follow you. That's theonly way that we can beat evil.
Lord. We cannot do it onour own. We are not strong enough,
we're not successful enough, we're notcapable enough. It is you that

(52:49):
is there to pull us out ofthe difficult difficulty and desire. And we
ask your love and help and careto be able to take care of ourselves,
and then not only us, butthen to help others, to help
others along the same path, tocome to know you, and to come
to know the good that you've putin each one of us. And we

(53:10):
pray all of this in the onethat you sent to turn the world around
to give us salvation. And Edis your Son, who is our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen, name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit.Amen, we do thank you for listening.
We'll hope you'll join us again nexttime. And until the next time,

(53:30):
God bless Hello, God's beloved.I'm Annabel Mosley, author, professor
of theology and host of Then SingsMy Soul and Destination Sainthood on WCAT Radio.
I invite you to listen in andfind inspiration along this sacred journey.
We're traveling together to make our livesa masterpiece and with God's grace, become

(53:55):
saints. Join me Annabel Mosley forThen Sing My Soul and Destination Saint Head
on WCT Radio. God bless you. Remember you are never alone. God
is always my fair. Thank youfor listening to a production of WCAT Radio.

(54:19):
Please join us an omission of evangelization, and don't forget Love lifts up
where knowledge takes flight.