Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining us now John Nero, to talk about what's happening
with the pope this weekend, as John has an extensive
background in research at the Accident Institute in dealing with
Catholic religious events and leaders. John, welcome in, Thank you
for being here.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Appreciate your time. You've been in Rome and active with
Catholic church and leaders as well for a long time now.
So as you look at the events coming up this weekend,
your thoughts on how many people are coming in for
this event and how many people are paying respects. Let's
walk through the process real quick. Tomorrow is the funeral,
but yet though after the services continue to allow those
(00:39):
that want to pay respects through Sunday as well.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Right, yes, that's right.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
So following a pope's death, there's generally nine nine days
of morning, after which the conclaim to left a new
pope will start. And you've probably already seen the pictures
of the pope lying in state in Saint Peter's Basilica
and following the funeral. Eventually, this Pope Francis decided he
did not want to be buried in Saint Peter's Basilica,
(01:05):
where many many popes have been buried since the fourth century,
but rather a church across Rome a people Basilica Saint
Mary Major, where there are a few popes buried, but
it's been a long time since one has chosen to
be buried there.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Now, I want to get your thoughts on Pope francis legacy.
He was considered by a lot of conservatives to be
a much more progressive liberal pope, if you will. He
discussed a lot of social issues, and there's been a
lot of discussion that hopefully the conclave will bring a
new pope that will get back to teaching scripture and
the Bible and stay out of the social way that
(01:38):
the United States certainly had seen over the last four years.
But your thoughts on him bringing up those topics of
same sex marriage and divorce in the church and other
things as well. When scripture, you know is you know,
I believe clear on a lot of things, and you know, opinions,
(01:58):
whether you're a pope or a cardinal, or a bishop
or just a parishioner, you know, God's opinion is the
final opinion. Your thoughts on his legacy in that social arena,
even though he didn't change policy and move the church
and make official moves to change things. He talked about
it quite a bit.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
And no, sure, that's a great question.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Because the purpose of the office of the successor of Peter,
as we Catholics call him, he's meant to be a
sign and cause of unity, his missions to preserve the
teachings of the apostles. So the pope's competence is supposed
to be in the deep principles that underpin our faith
and morals, not in prudential minutia. And one of the
(02:39):
things that happened with Pope Francis is he would often
say things about things that I think are in the
area of prudence. Is for example, as Christians, we can't say, oh,
we shouldn't care about the poor, but how exactly we
do that, Whether we like at the Act and Institute
promote a free economy, is that which is best for
the poor and to help those in material pop to
(03:00):
get out of material poverty, or whether perhaps you know
in your own prudence you think it welfare state is better,
which which I don't. Those prudential decisions are really up
to Catholics, And so when a pope weighs into prudential matters,
it can weaken his moral authority, it can create needless division.
But the one caution I would make as an American
(03:22):
myself is to try to avoid those American political categories.
When you think about the Pope. Pope, the Pope Francis
compared abortion to hiring a hitman. He called gender ideology
the most dangerous ideological colonization coming out of the West
because it blurs the difference, he said, between men and women.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
And so there's many, many things.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
He said that if we try to categorize them in
American categories, we find that usually with popes and John
Paul was the same, it's very difficult to put them
into American political categories.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, a number of tool is really yeah, no, I
was going to say a number of times he did
clar just like you said, but he also kind of
left some things open ended in just bringing it up.
It's like, you know, you make a statement at the
Thanksgiving dinner table, Hey, what do y'all think about this?
And then you walk in the other room to go
fill up your glass with tea and let everybody talk
about it. It's like, wait a minute, you know they're there.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
You're the Pope at Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So yeah, so what I would hope for in the
next papacy is just some pope who is as clear
as Pope Benedict formerly Cardinal Ratzinger was, And so that
that clarity is is really what Catholics need.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
We believe that the pope is.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
You know, he's going to teach along with all the
bishops and what is true because it's true, but it's
not true because he says it.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
And if he uh, you know, we he's not.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
He's not a dictatorial, authoritarian leader when it comes to
faith and morals. He's he's there to clarify and promote
the faith that some people are better at clarity than others.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
And so this.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Pope, he liked being around people so much he would
speak off the cuff. I call this the airplane magisterium.
You know. The press would ask him some questions on
the plane and he would answer some questions and then
the Vatican would have to clarify it later. So it's
best when religious leaders stick to principles rather than things.
(05:21):
It could be seen as policy. They think you used
the word policy earlier.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Right, Well, you know, there are numerous opinions from very
smart people in all walks of life on this planet,
and they all have great opinions and sometimes want only
the best for people. But at the end of the day,
those opinions are meaningless compared to God's opinion. So I
think we have to fall back if there's any gray
(05:46):
area or discussion on it. Okay, great, great little debate
we had here, but now let's go see what God's
opinion is. And when that happens, people start saying, well,
it depends on your interpretation of what scripture says. Do
you believe there's gray area or is the scripture clear
on these issues that the voue brought up that were
so controversial.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Well, I guess I would have to ask you the issue.
Are there gray areas? There's certain areas where I would
say the virtue of prudence comes into play. I mentioned
one about caring for the poor. You just said, you know,
love the poor, and He's got you know in the
Gospel saying what did you do for the least of these?
And if you did X, Y, and Z, then you're
going to be in trouble at the end at the
(06:25):
last judgment. So did you feed people? If you didn't,
then you didn't you didn't feed me, you know that
was me and so. But the worst of the gray
areas is, i would say, in the area of marriage
and so called homosexual marriage, especially for Catholics, those have
to be clear, and they're clear in scripture. But as
(06:47):
you probably know, in the early years of the Church,
when scripture is being put together, the Church played a
role in that, and at least for Catholics the authoritative
tradition for us, Scripture is part of that tradition.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
But there's there's more than scripture.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
There's the words handed down by the apostles to other apostles,
et cetera. So when when Pope Francis was lying in
state at the Vatican, he's directly over the grave of
Saint Peter. The Vatican, the Saint Peter's Basilica is located
where Peter himself was was martyred in Rome, and so
at the time it was just a marsh land in
a graveyard.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
But now it is what it is today because that's
where he was martyred.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
So where do you believe God in scripture and the
Bible and the teachings of marriage stands. Is it black
and white to you or is there a room for
discussion or does it depend on interpretation? Where do you
believe that the Church stands on that and scripture stands.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Well, you probably want to know what popes and Catholics
believe in general, but I believe it as well, So
I mean I can answer that question. For our Catholics.
Marriage is a sacrament. So you know, when you are
married in the Church, there is a grace.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Conveyed to you to be able to be married. And
those of us who are married know what I mean.
You need, you need grace to be married.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
This is a This is a in many ways a
supernatural institution, not just a natural institution. So marriage is
not just a contract where you and I greek to
get along. It's a sacrament. And many many Christian churches
after the Reformation don't see marriage as the sacrament. They've
come to see it as a as a contract. But
no Catholics think it's a sacrament. So that means it's
(08:28):
There's two things that are necessary for a valid marriage.
One is to be open to procreation, which is why
even Pope Francis, despite seeming to blur some edges, didn't
abrogate the h what Catholics believe about artificial contraception, that
it blocks the ability to procreate. Therefore it's it's invalidating marriage.
(08:51):
And the other is it's between a man and a woman.
So those are those are very clear in Catholic teaching.
What Pope Francis wanted to do was say, okay, but
what about Catholics who, through no fault of their own,
have been divorced civilly? Should we consider them adulters? As
Jesus implies in the Gospel, you are if you've if
(09:12):
you divorce and remarry or is that actually a gray area?
What do we really mean by that? Is there a
way that you can still take communion? Because after all,
if you're if you're a murderer and you confess your
sins and give your heart over to Jesus, you can
take communion.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
But if you're divorced, you can't.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
And so those are the kinds of areas that Pope
Francis tried to wade into, not always with the clarity
I would like, but I think they're certainly worth addressing.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
All right, do you think that the conclave will bring
a complete surprise? I mean, nobody seems to have her
finger on who the next pope will be and probably
you know, whoever they're thinking will not be the one.
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
I think that's right.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
So the old saying is, whoever enters a conclave as
a pope leaves it as a cardinal. And so many
of those names you see in the press as a
leading candidate, it's hard to say. John Paul and Benedict
both seen as very conservative and very orthodox Catholic men.
They appointed all the cardinals who voted for Pope Francis,
and so while Francis might have chosen most of the
(10:18):
cardinals who are going to vote, you really just don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
But I can tell you this.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
The average conclave has lasted about two days since the
nineteen twenties.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
And they're just one hundred and thirty five men. They
don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Each other as well as they would like. They don't
get together very often in groups, and so they'll have
a chance to get to know each other for a
few days. Then they go into the conclave, which a
conclave is that it comes from a couple of Latin
words that mean with a key, you know, they lock
themselves away. They do this in secret, like our constitutional convention.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
If you want a debate. Honestly, you got to lock
the door.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Well, John, I really appreciate your insight this morning. Thank
you so much, and we'll stay in touch on this one. Thanks.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Okay, God bless you think.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
All right, you two
Joining us now John Nero, to talk about what's happening
with the pope this weekend, as John has an extensive
background in research at the Accident Institute in dealing with
Catholic religious events and leaders. John, welcome in, Thank you
for being here.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Appreciate your time. You've been in Rome and active with
Catholic church and leaders as well for a long time now.
So as you look at the events coming up this weekend,
your thoughts on how many people are coming in for
this event and how many people are paying respects. Let's
walk through the process real quick. Tomorrow is the funeral,
but yet though after the services continue to allow those
(00:39):
that want to pay respects through Sunday as well.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Right, yes, that's right.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
So following a pope's death, there's generally nine nine days
of morning, after which the conclaim to left a new
pope will start. And you've probably already seen the pictures
of the pope lying in state in Saint Peter's Basilica
and following the funeral. Eventually, this Pope Francis decided he
did not want to be buried in Saint Peter's Basilica,
(01:05):
where many many popes have been buried since the fourth century,
but rather a church across Rome a people Basilica Saint
Mary Major, where there are a few popes buried, but
it's been a long time since one has chosen to
be buried there.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Now, I want to get your thoughts on Pope francis legacy.
He was considered by a lot of conservatives to be
a much more progressive liberal pope, if you will. He
discussed a lot of social issues, and there's been a
lot of discussion that hopefully the conclave will bring a
new pope that will get back to teaching scripture and
the Bible and stay out of the social way that
(01:38):
the United States certainly had seen over the last four years.
But your thoughts on him bringing up those topics of
same sex marriage and divorce in the church and other
things as well. When scripture, you know is you know,
I believe clear on a lot of things, and you know, opinions,
(01:58):
whether you're a pope or a cardinal, or a bishop
or just a parishioner, you know, God's opinion is the
final opinion. Your thoughts on his legacy in that social arena,
even though he didn't change policy and move the church
and make official moves to change things. He talked about
it quite a bit.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
And no, sure, that's a great question.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Because the purpose of the office of the successor of Peter,
as we Catholics call him, he's meant to be a
sign and cause of unity, his missions to preserve the
teachings of the apostles. So the pope's competence is supposed
to be in the deep principles that underpin our faith
and morals, not in prudential minutia. And one of the
(02:39):
things that happened with Pope Francis is he would often
say things about things that I think are in the
area of prudence. Is for example, as Christians, we can't say, oh,
we shouldn't care about the poor, but how exactly we
do that, Whether we like at the Act and Institute
promote a free economy, is that which is best for
the poor and to help those in material pop to
(03:00):
get out of material poverty, or whether perhaps you know
in your own prudence you think it welfare state is better,
which which I don't. Those prudential decisions are really up
to Catholics, And so when a pope weighs into prudential matters,
it can weaken his moral authority, it can create needless division.
But the one caution I would make as an American
(03:22):
myself is to try to avoid those American political categories.
When you think about the Pope. Pope, the Pope Francis
compared abortion to hiring a hitman. He called gender ideology
the most dangerous ideological colonization coming out of the West
because it blurs the difference, he said, between men and women.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
And so there's many, many things.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
He said that if we try to categorize them in
American categories, we find that usually with popes and John
Paul was the same, it's very difficult to put them
into American political categories.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, a number of tool is really yeah, no, I
was going to say a number of times he did
clar just like you said, but he also kind of
left some things open ended in just bringing it up.
It's like, you know, you make a statement at the
Thanksgiving dinner table, Hey, what do y'all think about this?
And then you walk in the other room to go
fill up your glass with tea and let everybody talk
about it. It's like, wait a minute, you know they're there.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
You're the Pope at Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So yeah, so what I would hope for in the
next papacy is just some pope who is as clear
as Pope Benedict formerly Cardinal Ratzinger was, And so that
that clarity is is really what Catholics need.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
We believe that the pope is.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
You know, he's going to teach along with all the
bishops and what is true because it's true, but it's
not true because he says it.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
And if he uh, you know, we he's not.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
He's not a dictatorial, authoritarian leader when it comes to
faith and morals. He's he's there to clarify and promote
the faith that some people are better at clarity than others.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
And so this.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Pope, he liked being around people so much he would
speak off the cuff. I call this the airplane magisterium.
You know. The press would ask him some questions on
the plane and he would answer some questions and then
the Vatican would have to clarify it later. So it's
best when religious leaders stick to principles rather than things.
(05:21):
It could be seen as policy. They think you used
the word policy earlier.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Right, Well, you know, there are numerous opinions from very
smart people in all walks of life on this planet,
and they all have great opinions and sometimes want only
the best for people. But at the end of the day,
those opinions are meaningless compared to God's opinion. So I
think we have to fall back if there's any gray
(05:46):
area or discussion on it. Okay, great, great little debate
we had here, but now let's go see what God's
opinion is. And when that happens, people start saying, well,
it depends on your interpretation of what scripture says. Do
you believe there's gray area or is the scripture clear
on these issues that the voue brought up that were
so controversial.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Well, I guess I would have to ask you the issue.
Are there gray areas? There's certain areas where I would
say the virtue of prudence comes into play. I mentioned
one about caring for the poor. You just said, you know,
love the poor, and He's got you know in the
Gospel saying what did you do for the least of these?
And if you did X, Y, and Z, then you're
going to be in trouble at the end at the
(06:25):
last judgment. So did you feed people? If you didn't,
then you didn't you didn't feed me, you know that
was me and so. But the worst of the gray
areas is, i would say, in the area of marriage
and so called homosexual marriage, especially for Catholics, those have
to be clear, and they're clear in scripture. But as
(06:47):
you probably know, in the early years of the Church,
when scripture is being put together, the Church played a
role in that, and at least for Catholics the authoritative
tradition for us, Scripture is part of that tradition.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
But there's there's more than scripture.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
There's the words handed down by the apostles to other apostles,
et cetera. So when when Pope Francis was lying in
state at the Vatican, he's directly over the grave of
Saint Peter. The Vatican, the Saint Peter's Basilica is located
where Peter himself was was martyred in Rome, and so
at the time it was just a marsh land in
a graveyard.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
But now it is what it is today because that's
where he was martyred.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
So where do you believe God in scripture and the
Bible and the teachings of marriage stands. Is it black
and white to you or is there a room for
discussion or does it depend on interpretation? Where do you
believe that the Church stands on that and scripture stands.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Well, you probably want to know what popes and Catholics
believe in general, but I believe it as well, So
I mean I can answer that question. For our Catholics.
Marriage is a sacrament. So you know, when you are
married in the Church, there is a grace.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Conveyed to you to be able to be married. And
those of us who are married know what I mean.
You need, you need grace to be married.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
This is a This is a in many ways a
supernatural institution, not just a natural institution. So marriage is
not just a contract where you and I greek to
get along. It's a sacrament. And many many Christian churches
after the Reformation don't see marriage as the sacrament. They've
come to see it as a as a contract. But
no Catholics think it's a sacrament. So that means it's
(08:28):
There's two things that are necessary for a valid marriage.
One is to be open to procreation, which is why
even Pope Francis, despite seeming to blur some edges, didn't
abrogate the h what Catholics believe about artificial contraception, that
it blocks the ability to procreate. Therefore it's it's invalidating marriage.
(08:51):
And the other is it's between a man and a woman.
So those are those are very clear in Catholic teaching.
What Pope Francis wanted to do was say, okay, but
what about Catholics who, through no fault of their own,
have been divorced civilly? Should we consider them adulters? As
Jesus implies in the Gospel, you are if you've if
(09:12):
you divorce and remarry or is that actually a gray area?
What do we really mean by that? Is there a
way that you can still take communion? Because after all,
if you're if you're a murderer and you confess your
sins and give your heart over to Jesus, you can
take communion.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
But if you're divorced, you can't.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
And so those are the kinds of areas that Pope
Francis tried to wade into, not always with the clarity
I would like, but I think they're certainly worth addressing.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
All right, do you think that the conclave will bring
a complete surprise? I mean, nobody seems to have her
finger on who the next pope will be and probably
you know, whoever they're thinking will not be the one.
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
I think that's right.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
So the old saying is, whoever enters a conclave as
a pope leaves it as a cardinal. And so many
of those names you see in the press as a
leading candidate, it's hard to say. John Paul and Benedict
both seen as very conservative and very orthodox Catholic men.
They appointed all the cardinals who voted for Pope Francis,
and so while Francis might have chosen most of the
(10:18):
cardinals who are going to vote, you really just don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
But I can tell you this.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
The average conclave has lasted about two days since the
nineteen twenties.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
And they're just one hundred and thirty five men. They
don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Each other as well as they would like. They don't
get together very often in groups, and so they'll have
a chance to get to know each other for a
few days. Then they go into the conclave, which a
conclave is that it comes from a couple of Latin
words that mean with a key, you know, they lock
themselves away. They do this in secret, like our constitutional convention.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
If you want a debate. Honestly, you got to lock
the door.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Well, John, I really appreciate your insight this morning. Thank
you so much, and we'll stay in touch on this one. Thanks.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Okay, God bless you think.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
All right, you two
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