In the News 7-13-23

The transcription is about a discussion on various topics during a radio show. They discuss an article by Bishop Marion Eleganti about the importance of tradition in the faith and the need to stick with doctrine. They also talk about the appointment of Archbishop Victor Fernandez as the Vatican's Doctrine Chief and his support for controversial issues. They mention concerns about the future of the Church and the synod on synodality. They also discuss a meeting between Pope Francis and Bill Clinton and George Soros's son, which raises concerns. They mention the renovation of Notre Dame Cathedral and the Pew Research survey showing higher satisfaction levels among Protestants compared to Catholics with sermons and music. They discuss ways to improve connection and engagement in the Church, including greeting at the door and social activities. They also mention the high number of young people identifying as nones, and the release of the movie "Sound of Freedom" starring Jim Caviezel. Welcome to In the News Show. I'm your host, Judy Desigatis, and I'm here with my faithful co-host, Father Bill Wehry. Hello, Father Bill, and hello, listeners. Hello, Judy. Hi, everybody out there. Thanks for tuning in. Yes, thank you, and welcome. I'd like to thank Joan Ebustinsky for our technical assistance, as well as David Hilowitz for our theme music. So let's jump right in. Father, you have an article here that you pulled off for us from Switzerland. And if you want to share that with us, we'd like to start with that. Yeah, I read it this morning. I really, I don't have a copy of it in front of me, but I was just so impressed with this article by Bishop Marion Eleganti of Switzerland. I'm not sure which diocese, about the importance of tradition and how we cannot change the doctrine, the basic doctrines of the faith. He just put it together so well. It was on some news platform where he wrote this online. And just give a heads up to the importance of sticking with the doctrine of the faith. The tradition, capital T, a doctrinal tradition, is a gift handed down to us, and it cannot be reversed. You can develop it, and the Pope, Pope Francis, has talked about that before, citing St. Vincent of Lorraine from the 4th, 5th century, I think 5th century, who did a great piece on how you can develop it, but you cannot reverse doctrine. And the development has to be done very carefully if you're tweaking how to explain a doctrine, a truth. Sometimes I try to – I try to get myself to avoid the term doctrine or dogma, if possible, because it sounds so stuffy to people, and I talk in terms of the truths of the faith. But just a heads up, a hands up, and high five to Bishop Eleganti for that wonderful, wonderful essay. Maybe next month I'll – when we record again, I will have it in front of me, be able to quote from it. And he gave yellow flags to going too far with – and he mentioned the divorce, remarriage, receiving communion. Some of these efforts are being done at high church levels, giving communion to the divorced and remarried and blessing homosexual unions, which cannot be done, really, and things of that nature which are really against the tradition of the faith going back to the early centuries. So just wanted to get that in there. Yes, we'll follow up on that next time. It's a good lead-in to another article that I saw on LifeSite News. Cardinal Mueller is back in the news again, and he reacts to Pope Francis's new appointment to Vatican's Doctrine Chief. And I think this is bringing up a lot of the things you just mentioned, Father. The new appointment to Vatican Doctrine Chief is Archbishop Victor Fernandez. He's the new prefect of the congregation, which is now the dicastery for the doctrine of the faith. And so this is an article that was done and reported to LifeSite News. And I think it talks exactly what you were talking about. He has gone on record previously calling some of Archbishop Fernandez's statements heretical because he favors the communion to the divorced and remarried. That's definitely one of the things. And so now he's head of this dicastery. He has also argued that sexual relations between cohabitating couples are not always sinful. So that's another thing that he supports, as well as he has stated that he's much more progressive than the pope. Whoa. So what do you think this could mean for the future of the church with this archbishop being in that particular position that the pope has now put him in? That's a very good question. Boy, it really raises concerns on the part of many. He was investigated when it was a congregation to the doctrine of the faith some years ago. I don't know under which pope, but he was – there were concerns about him just in his role as archbishop. And he was looked into and he was investigated, and he carried out a conversation with the congregation for the doctrine of the faith. And then they were satisfied with him, maybe backtracked on some of his positions. But he's since talked about that investigation as – really talked it down as ridiculous, wasted a lot of his time sort of thing. So what this means, I'm really not sure. We just have to pray to the Holy Spirit to really protect, you know, the doctrinal teaching of the doctrinal orthodoxy of the church. And the catechism for the doctrine of the faith, that's their mandate. That's their charge, is to maintain the purity of the teaching of the faith. So I hope, you know, he has a change of heart and really takes a strong stance in terms of the truth, capital T. Yes, amen to that. And also to tag team with that article is another article from LifeSite News where another archbishop from Argentina, Hector Aguirre, slams the synod on synodality for contradicting church tradition, capital T, which is what you were just talking about, saying that, quote, they're pushing a globalist agenda for 2030, unquote. And they're saying that this new progressive church, quote, unquote, resembles Protestantism. Yeah. So that these documents – so we have the one Argentinian bishop in that, in the role under the pope, and then this Argentine bishop, Hector Aguirre, is saying that they're pushing in the synod a globalist agenda moving toward 2030, and that they're really wanting to reorganize the church, and that that might be what might be happening, some of these things about breaking down that church tradition. So now we have something else in our back pocket of concern, basically kind of supporting the new world order. And that's a scary thing. Well, I'm certainly glad to hear and see these people standing up, bishops, archbishops, and speaking out and speaking up. The pope is very much into, at least rhetorically, into listening and being open. And so I hope he takes heed of these concerns. I consider Cardinal Mueller a hero. Cardinal Mueller is just the former head prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith for about five years under – I guess it was under Benedict. And in any case, yes, and there's been plenty of other theological concerns expressed about the synod on synodality and what's going to transpire from that. Mandatory celibacy is also under scrutiny, and there's just so much we have to pray about that. And I thank these archbishops and bishops and other clergy for speaking out, religious leaders. Yeah, yeah, amen to that. We need more of those to speak out. I have another article. It's really rare that we can tag all these articles together, but it was also from LifeSite News, and this also is cause for concern. I mean, I think it's good that we're gathering and talking about the synod and wanting to work together, but this has gotten me a little concerned. So Pope Francis recently received former President Bill Clinton and George Soros' son Alexander in a private Vatican visit. Now, there's the Holy See is saying that it was reportedly about, quote-unquote, peace, but I think we know where they've been in the news. Bill Clinton was the president, so he's been in the news in the past and even currently. George Soros, of course, in supporting the New World Order, and now his son supposedly is even more for the New World Order, even more to the left. So it would be interesting to see if anything were to come out more about this meeting that was done in the spirit of peace, and we hope that's what it was. I think it's kind of interesting that he entertained these two figures that are certainly not conservative, certainly not supportive of the church with their positions. They've been very vocal about that. And now the son, who is taking over for George, his son, his younger son, I think he's in his 30s, is going to really push this agenda. Well, of course, as a head of state, you know, the Pope is going to be meeting with other heads of state or former heads of state, world leaders. We don't always know what goes on at these meetings behind closed doors, but one would certainly hope that the Pope would remind leaders, especially Catholic ones, to let any world leaders, government heads, their responsibility to the divine order and to God's will. And anybody who's ruling or in office, elected or otherwise, is ultimately under God's aegis, and that's what Jesus Christ reminded Pontius Pilate of during the interrogations. Pilate says, don't you know I have the power to put you to death? And Jesus snaps back, you would have no power whatsoever were it not given to you from above. Boy, that's a really telling statement. Even pagan rulers, pagan leaders, that they are, in some sense, appointed by God, that might seem an outrageous statement, especially when they're guilty of terrible atrocities, but that would be a violation of their leadership. And God does give us free will, and we can certainly commit sins, and he does not stop or intervene. But nevertheless, this meeting with Bill Clinton and George Soros' son, you don't know what kind of content, subject matter was addressed there. But you certainly hope that their contact with the Pope would influence them in the right direction toward a true justice. Especially protecting the protection of life, not only against war, but against abortion and euthanasia and all the things that governments now are promoting and permitting and protecting, like physician-assisted suicides and all that sort of thing. But the Catholic Church has to stand strong against those things. That is true, and Soros is definitely linked to and a proponent of and also funded anti-family, anti-life, and anti-Catholic endeavors. So we'd like to think that this meeting with the Pope, as you said, he's also a head of state, could maybe provide an evangelization opportunity and working toward peace and saying, well, we all have different views, but what can we do to support life? We certainly don't want to be having anti-family and anti-life, so we'll have to see what happens if anything else becomes of it. But those two have been well in the news of not being supportive of those issues that Catholics are supportive of. So we'll switch gears a little bit and just kind of go through, Father, I know you've researched this a little bit, about the renovation of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Which had a fire, I think, back in 2019. I think it was before the pandemic. And then they were going to redo it, and at one point they were going to redo it into an ultra-modernistic type of architecture. And I think you have some news for us that they're going back to the more traditional now. They're backing off of that Plan A. Good. Thanks be to God. And they're going to renovate along more traditional lines. There was such an outcry about it. One artist said, you know, they were turning the cathedral into Disneyland or something like that. And so the outcry was significant, and people were expressing their chagrin over the plan as first proposed. So now they're back to a more traditional look that's going to happen. And I guess I'm not sure when the opening is going to be, but it's coming up, the opening of the cathedral. And so that's all, really. And I'm just happy that they're going to preserve the integrity, architectural integrity of the place as it was built and intended. Right. Amen. Because I remember seeing that fire on TV. That was very scary. And then hearing about that they wanted to ultra-modernize the art. And that really scared me. So I'm glad that there has been, you know, pushback from that and that they are going to be changing that. First of all, on that, I was in Paris many years ago, early 2000s, with a priest friend of mine and my sister and brother-in-law. And I celebrated Mass at the high altar of Notre Dame, Notre Dame. Oh, nice. I was up there. And it was 11 a.m. Mass. Of course, a lot of crowds Sunday morning. There was a lot of crowds moving around, the tourists and pilgrims. And it was just – the main celebrant was an African priest who was studying theology in Paris. And just me and Fr. Frank Karwoski, pastor now of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, and just the three of us up there at the altar, at the main altar. Wow. And no other concelebrants or anything. So that was very impressive. And I'm just standing there in the sanctuary just thinking of all the historical events that took place there, like the crowning of Napoleon. And that's the incident where the pope was going to place the crown on his head, Napoleon's head, and he grabbed the crown from the pope's hands and placed the crown on his own head. In other words, crowning himself. Right. And then took the crown off and placed it on his queen Josephine's head and crowned her queen. But he wanted to take charge. And I guess it took place right up there in that square footage where I was. And that was a very moving moment for me. That's a great experience. And we're going to go to break right now. Please stay with us. You're listening to WHYS, 720 a.m., Holy Family Radio. We'll be right back. We can go into the Pew Research eventually. Yeah, okay. It's not good news. I know. Pretty depressing. But we'll deal with it anyway. I might mention, I just might mention also, if I can squeeze it in, it's no big deal, but just that I'll be at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology priest conference this week. That's right. And that Scott Hahn, it's Scott Hahn's project. He's one of the main speakers and Ralph Martin. And it's a fabulous, fabulous time. Yeah, we'll start with the Pew Research thing. And then I also have that little blurb about the people that associate as non 50% of women and 40% of men. Right. And then we can go into things about your conference. And I'm going to mention maybe if we have time about that movie that's out, The Sound of Freedom. I saw it. Did you see it? I'm going to see it tonight. Oh, it is fabulous. So we can talk about that, too. Okay. We can talk about it. All right. So I'm going to, let's go back then. Are you going to start the timer? Okay. Welcome back to In the News Show. Our next topic is some information that Father got for us about the Pew Research survey about Protestant and Catholic satisfaction levels with sermons and music at the services. It's not good news, but why don't you tell us about it, Father? Oh, boy. This is kind of, this is a letdown. This survey, what they found was that Protestants are much more satisfied with their preaching and music than Catholics. In the United States, this is from Religious News Service, June 21st. When United States adults were asked how satisfied they were with their sermons that they heard online or in person, 82% of Protestants who regularly attended services in person said that they were, quote, extremely or very satisfied with the sermons that they hear. For Protestants who regularly watch services on TV or online, 76% were extremely or very satisfied with the sermons. On the other hand, only 61% of Catholics who regularly attend church in person said that they were extremely or very satisfied, a difference of about 21 points from the Protestants. Similarly, of those Catholics who regularly watch services on TV or online, 57% were extremely or very satisfied, a difference of 19 points. Only 36% of Catholics read the scripture once a month or more, as compared with 75% of evangelical Protestants, according to Pew Research. Among Protestants, 75% of those who regularly attend services in person and 57% of those who regularly watch on TV or online are extremely or very satisfied with the music. For Catholics, the equivalents are 61% and 50%. So 71% of Protestants who regularly attend religious services in person report feeling a great deal or quite a bit of connection with others attending in person. Only 50% of Catholics report the same, feeling a great deal or quite a bit of connection with persons. So... What are some of the things, how can we improve that, do you think, Father? As a priest, what do you think? That is so true. I mean, I try to prioritize greeting at the door. I mean, going back to the connection with people, greeting at the door. Having greeters is a really important thing, and with varying degrees of success on my part with that. I have two parishes, two small rural parishes. But I think that's one way of really ramping up the greeting and social activities. My one parish, my larger parish, we don't have refreshments after Mass. We used to. We don't anymore. Got to get back to that. The second parish, and one of the reasons we don't is because even though it's a larger parish, we hardly have any meeting space. The narthex is very small and a dingy church basement that is not handicap accessible. We're doing a capital campaign to try to address that, collecting money now for a renovation. But anyway, the second parish has a great church hall where they do wonderful refreshments and donuts and what have you afterwards, and a really good dynamic there. So I think, you know, greeting at the door and social activities in the church are just so important. I don't know. I bust my back on my homilies and try the best I can and just keep on plugging away at it. The larger parish is doing a really good – we have a really good music program going right now. It's very good, and more young people involved. So I don't know. You know, there are no easy answers. Parish renewal programs, there are a number of them out on the market. I remember when the Renew program out of New York was really big. You don't hear too much about it now. It was like a three-year program. I was just a little bit involved with one parish where I was just as a preliminary. Then I was transferred out. I just got some of the preliminary steps done, very extensive. But there are other programs out there. Of course, parish missions, stuff like that, bringing in the guest preachers. Council. And just say, you know, gee whiz, folks, what can we do about this? You know, consultation and getting some ideas from the people is very important. Right. Right. Yeah, and to go along with that, there was a blurb in our Sunday Visitor that says, 50% of women ages 18 to 25, they identify as religiously unaffiliated or nones. N-O-N-E-S. And 40% of men at the same age identify as nones. Right. So not only are we having this issue with the Protestants and the Catholics, but then just general population, people are identifying. I mean, half of the women of that age, like the young people, who are going to be the future of our world and of our church, are identifying as nones. And I think a lot of it had to do with we lost a lot of people with the pandemic and not being able to come to church. And maybe they got disillusioned with faith and God because this pandemic happened and all the things that were happening. I mean, we got polarized politically and everything. So I don't know if those would change in time. You know, maybe they'll come back to church. Maybe, you know, to your point about the Protestants and Catholics, maybe they won't be watching it on TV so much. Maybe they'll want to come back and they'll want to gather with people as you have social events and things like that and things start to continue to ramp up again. I don't know what the answer to that is, but we definitely need to have people come back. And I know for our church and Holy Spirit, we try to be as welcoming as possible, and the sermons are always good. I know all you priests are trying, and it's tough out there because there's some really tough issues and people, Catholics, are polarized with some of those issues and, you know, what we've seen in the last three years. So it's hard to bring people back, and I know everybody's doing the best they can so we can keep praying for the Holy Spirit to rain down on us what we need to be doing for our next steps. A little bit of a positive spin is we have a movie that came out on July 4th. Father, you said you saw it. It's called Sound of Freedom, and it's starring Jim Caviezel, and he is the actor who represents Tim Ballard who quit his job to rescue children out of sex trafficking. And you said it was very good. I'm going to be seeing it tonight when we record this on July 10th. So we have about two minutes. Could you give us a little synopsis without spoiling the ending? Well, I want to tell you it is a fabulous movie. Of course, there's the issue of stopping child sex trafficking that is more prevalent than you realize, and the movie helps you to see that. And also, just as a movie, it's very exciting, very suspenseful. Tim Ballard goes undercover, infiltrates these gangs. One was in the middle of it was actually an insurrectionist group in Latin America that was basically a terrorist but had a big compound in the jungle. But it included, you know, child sex, bringing in kidnapping children and bringing them in for the pleasure of the men. And there was an undercover operation Tim Ballard did that was, I want to tell you, it was very exciting and suspenseful. And it is just a great movie. Tim Ballard himself, I saw an interview with him and Jim Caviezel, an interviewer, both of them on the screen, and they were wonderful. And Tim Ballard is so fabulous. He could have played the role. Jim Caviezel could have stepped aside and Tim Ballard himself, I think, could have played that role. He's so articulate and very energetic and very charismatic. He's a Mormon by faith, but he is very driven by his faith. And the motto of the film, Tim Ballard says it a couple of times in the movie, that God's children are not for sale. God's children are not for sale. And it's a top-grossing movie right now. It's number one, yeah. And I saw it in State College July 5th. It opened the day before, July 4th. And I hear that one of the showings, there were three showings, and one of them was sold out. You couldn't get in. That's what I was told. When I went the next day, it was not that many people in the theater. But I highly recommend it. Yeah, I think it was the number one movie on July 4th. And as you said, Father, it's selling out in a lot of theaters. Yeah. Our show is going to be heard on Thursday of this week. But I know it's showing tonight, July 10th at Palmyra, and it might be there for a few more days. So if you can grab to see it, that would be great. I'm looking forward to seeing it. We have a little bit of time to go. I just want to mention this. We have two minutes. I just wanted to mention this for all the parents and grandparents out there. The new Barbie movie is going to be coming out. It is not for children. It may be spinned that way, but it is not for children. It does contain pro-LGBT and feminist propaganda. And one of the films features a gender-confused man portraying a female doctor. And the theme is belittling to men. So while it may seem cute, I know for me as a kid growing up in the 60s, we all had, all the girls had Barbies and Ken dolls. So it was very innocent, and we put the clothes on them, and we'd act out different scenes and stuff like that. And Barbie would go to the fair, and she'd go to church, and she'd do all these things on her dates with Ken. But I think this is a completely different spin. But I think it might be very subtle for some of the kids maybe, but it could also be kind of like planting a seed in the mind. Yeah. Not as innocent as we'd like it to be. I'm an advocate of, for myself anyway, of watching a movie like that with a view of refuting it and warning people about it. I'm a former journalist, so I have that streak in me of interacting with the other side. Right. I was seeing some, I was catching up on some classic movies of the 60s and 70s that I wanted to see that are lionized by, you know, loved by the critics. And the content is so horrible. The sexual immorality in these movies is oftentimes, you know, among young people. Yeah. It's just horrible. And then I second thought, you know, should I really be watching this stuff? But, you know, I want to be able to do analyses of these movies, especially from the standpoint of spirituality and morality, which the critics don't care about at all. Hollywood doesn't care about that at all. Yeah, absolutely. So, well, we're going to be wrapping up for the day. If you could give us a prayer, Father, and send us on our way, please. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord God, Heavenly Father, we ask your blessings upon us. Fill us with your grace, your peace, and your light by the power of the Holy Spirit. Fill us with your love. May we share that love with others through Christ our Lord. And may Almighty God bless you all. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, Father. I'm going to stop recording now. That's going to make me stop anyway.