"Pope Trump" and Selective Outrage

[00:00:07] So the AI generated image of Donald Trump as Pope has caused a lot of controversy, obviously. And was it blasphemous? Was it offensive to Catholics? We're going to talk about that today on Crisis Point. First, before I get started, I just want to say I have some technical issues over here. My mouse died right before we went live, so I have to do kind of things a little manually here. So hopefully I won't screw anything up. Also, I wanted it. I want to sometimes share an article from a website while I'm live streaming, but it seems to crash my computer. If it's one of these lame websites like CNN or MSNBC that has like a billion ads, I need to like get the ad blocker better on my, on my computer or something. So I was going to do that, but now I'm just going to talk about it. But that's okay because do we really want to give more traffic to CNN and MSNBC and places like that? Okay. Anyway, we're going to talk about a couple things today, mostly the Pope Trump controversy and also we'll talk about the conclave some because it starts tomorrow. Before we get started though, I just want to encourage people to subscribe to our channel to like to smash that like button as Trump likes to smash the trolls or likes to troll the smash. Anyway, I couldn't think of one there. Quickly. Also subscribe to our email newsletter. You can also go to follow us on social media riseismag. But the big thing is we are starting our twice a year fundraising campaign. You were waiting for it. You couldn't wait for it to get started. And it has started. We do this in December and May usually. And it's May. I will admit maybe it's not the best timing to a fundraising campaign right in the middle of the conclave and all this stuff going on. But we had this scheduled out for months now and so we're going to go ahead and full steam ahead. But I would encourage you, please donate to Crisis. 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Like I said, it's all free. Okay, so let's go ahead and get started though, with the topic, main topic I want to talk about, which is His Holiness, Pope Donald Trump. Okay. He's not actually holy. We know that. No matter how much you like him, I don't think anybody's going to claim he's a holy man. But anyway, Donald Trump on his Truth Social account posted this image, an AI generated image of himself dressed as the pope. And then the White House official X account, the official White House account shared this image and it caused no end of controversy and discussion on social media. [00:03:34] And outside of social media, everybody had to comment on it. The news stations were, were reporting on. Somebody asked Donald Trump in a press conference. Every single bishop, it seemed like, was asked their opinion about this. So everybody wanted to know, what do you think about this image of Pope Trump? [00:03:52] Now, I will say that what I posted on X was simple. I said, to be honest, this doesn't offend me. It's typical Trump humor. And I've learned not to take that too seriously. I'm much more worried about how actual occupants of the chair of St. Peter might demean the office. [00:04:09] And I will say it just, there's almost nothing Trump can do when it comes to words or, you know, social media posting that really is going to bother me that much. I'm, I think we're way too, I think in general our society is way too prone to be offended by words. I mean, I grew up in the era of sticks and stones may break your bones, but names will never hurt me. And, and so, like, I really don't think that much about, like, what people might say. It's what they do that really matter. You know, sticks and stones may break my bones. So if, for example, Trump declares war on Iran, I care about that because that's actually actions that are terrible. [00:04:53] If he does, if he supports ivf, I care about that because that's not a good thing. That's terrible if he does Something to limit abortion. I care about that because that saves lives. You know, all these, what I care about is what he does. I don't care that much about his dumb jokes. And some of his jokes are hilarious, by the way. He's clearly trolling people when he does a lot of this stuff. And so I just look at as Trump being Trump. It's just his style. He makes these jokes, Some of them land, some of them don't. He purposely does things to annoy his opponents. I mean, that is something we know from the last, you know, I guess it's been over eight years now of him in the public, you know, in public office or running for public office. [00:05:35] Is he, he purposely wants to needle his opponents and he does that for a political reason because what it does is it gets them all upset and they kind of get out of control. He controls the narrative. They are just like beyond themselves. They go, they, they overreact every single time. [00:05:54] And so ultimately what happens is he wins. Now on this case though, we are talking about something that is significant. [00:06:02] It's a sacred office in a certain sense, obviously the papacy. And so is he mocking the papacy? Is he mocking Catholics? I just don't see it like that because it's coming from Trump. I think intentions behind something really matter. Like for example, there was the infamous, a few years ago at the Met Gala, there was the one of those singer type people, she dressed up as basically a pope in some gaudy outfit. And I did, I thought that was an offensive type of thing. Now again, when I say offensive, like it's just like, I'm not like personally like wailing and gnashing my teeth or crying about, I'm just simply saying what they're doing is wrong. And it's, it's, it's attacking something good because I knew that she, that person was, was, you know, not going to be supportive of Catholicism. And so that bothers me. When, but more importantly, when like so called Catholic politicians, Catholic government leaders, when they do stuff that's antithetical to the faith, like for example, support abortion on demand or they, they support homosexual marriage or something like that, that's much worse. That is what I really care about, that that's going to be much more, much more of an attack on Catholicism, attack on humanity and things of that nature. And so the intention behind what somebody does. So like Trump, has he shown in the past attacks on the Catholic Church? No, the opposite is true. He's actually shown a lot of support for the Catholic Church. He's always said good things about Catholics, at least, you know, in recent years when he's been in office, he has shown a willingness to advocate for policies that are, that are in keeping with Catholicism. Some of his policies are not. I mean, I'll be the first to admit that, particularly like the IVF decision, things like that. But in general, he's never attacked Catholics. He's never mocked Catholics as a group. And so I don't. I didn't see this as mocking. Now, I noticed there was two different categories of people who were opposed to what Trump did with this, with this image of, you know, I'll put it up here again on the screen for those who might missed it. You know, of him as a pope and AI generated image of him as the pope. By the way, AI is getting really good. I mean, there's no extra fingers, you know, that obviously is Trump. I mean, it's pretty, it's a. It's a pretty good image, let's be honest. But I, I think that, like I said, there was two different types of people who were offended by this or upset by it, however you want to say it. One is the group of good Catholics, faithful Catholics, who took offense to it. And I understand, I'm not claiming that they are like snowflakes or anything like that. The fact is, it would be better to be in a world where any jokes related to the Catholic faith were off limits. Not even saying by law. I'm just saying that people respected the Catholic Church and people had good enough sense that they realized, let's not joke about things like the papacy. Let's not joke about things about Catholicism because it's, you know, we shouldn't do. I'm the first to say that, yes, that would be an ideal world. It's not really the world we live in. We live in a world of memes. We live in a world of very kind of lower standards as far as what you can joke about and things like that. [00:09:24] And so, again, I think that the bigger problem is, I would just say to those Catholics, the bigger problem is, of course, how are the occupants of the chair of Peter. How do they demean the office? I mean, I think Pope Francis in a lot of ways, brought down the office of the papacy. He lowered the moral esteem of the papacy in his 12 years in office far more than any joke that Trump does. And also, I just. It's not like Trump was mocking the papacy. I looked at it more like he was saying, what we need is a Trumpian pope. And this actually is an article that was published on Crisis a month or two ago by Austin Roos. He published an article, he wrote an article about called, you know, call for a Trumpian Pope. And what he basically said is, we need a Pope who is going to make the church great again. Who's going to. [00:10:18] He wrote this particularly right after the first few weeks of the Trump presidency this term, where he was trying to cut out the corruption, he was trying to make, get things done, stop the bureaucracy, all that type of stuff. We do need a pope who will do all that. We do need a pope will do that. So I would say, you know, I felt like Trump in some ways was saying, what the Catholic Church needs is a pope like me. Now, obviously, let's not take that too far. We don't want a pope exactly like Trump. But at the same time, some of the good qualities of Trump, I think I'd love to see that in the next Pope. I'd love to see a Pope who would make the church great again. I think the biggest way I would say that is a Pope who is not apologetic for the faith and is very much 100% A. You know, like, they call Trump, like a nationalist, somebody who's like a quote, unquote, nationalist, ecclesialist or whatever you call it for the church, believing that, yes, you know, that the church is the one true church of Christ, it is the only way to salvation. I mean, think about it. Trump looks at America as the greatest nation on earth, that there's not even a close second place, and that America can do anything and America is the most important, the greatest, the bestest, all that stuff. [00:11:32] That's what Trump thinks of America. Well, wouldn't you like a pope who thought that about the Catholic Church, who you knew thought that at least, who was very much out there saying, yes, the Catholic Church is the one true faith. Outside the church, there is no salvation. People need to become Catholic, all those things. It would be great to have a pope like that. And so in a lot of ways, I kind of feel like this meme that Trump shared is kind of in keeping with that idea. Let's have a Trumpian pope, a Pope who is not apologetic about the faith, who doesn't undermine it, who doesn't demean it by his actions, but instead just says, yes, we are 100% Catholic and we're proud of that. I mean, if there's one thing that's true about Trump, he's proud to be an American. [00:12:12] Well, let's have a Pope who's proud to be Catholic and the fullness of the Catholic faith and not want to change the Catholic faith, but instead wants to make the church great again. [00:12:22] So that's kind of like I said, there's two different groups that were offended by this. Like I said, the first group, I understand good Catholics, they just didn't like it. They thought it was in bad taste. And that's fine. I think there we're just kind of disagreeing on taste more than anything else. I did see a few saying it was blasphemous and things like that. I mean, I feel like that might be some hyper papalism there. I mean, it's not like he was acting like he was God. I think if Trump made a meme where he was God, I think that's where the line would be crossed and I'd be like, or he was Jesus. Like, I've seen some Trump things that were like, I think I saw a Trump. I know. I heard people compare Trump to Jesus's sufferings, his sufferings to Jesus sufferings. I might have seen a Trump that was crucified. I can't remember that one for sure. That I think is crossing a line. Trump is not our Savior. Trump is not God. He is not Jesus or anything like that. But the papacy is the most important office on earth, don't get me wrong. But it's still a human office in the sense that humans, you know, fill it. [00:13:24] I'm just not going to be that offended when somebody makes a joke that kind of brings the papacy into it, because, again, I don't think he's mocking the papacy. I think he's just bringing the papacy into. Into his joke. And so I'm okay with that. I just don't personally have a problem with it. And, you know, I think Catholics, we need to be kind of realize where we are in the culture today. We are low on the totem pole as far as influence goes, like faithful Catholics. So we need to be able to take a joke. We need to recognize the dominant culture doesn't really have that high of opinion of us. And so if we get offended by every time people make. Make a joke at our expense, I don't think that goes over well. I mean, I think this kind of brings into the debate about, like, Babylon Bee. Babylon Bee has had some jokes over the past, you know, few years that are, you know, I mean, they're. You could call them anti Catholic, but they definitely are at the expense of Catholic. And I draw the line of when they're. When they're making fun of Catholics or the Catholic Church or how Catholics do things, I typically don't have a problem with that. They made a joke one time that was basically mocking our beliefs about the blessed mother and St. Joseph and their relationship. I feel like that crossed a line. That's where it's like, okay, you're not making fun of, like, us. You're not making fun of, like, the foibles of Catholics of the Catholic Church. We have lots of things we've done in our past that can be mocked and made fun of. It's not that you're making fun of now. The blessed mother and St. Joseph. [00:14:55] That's where I think I'm drawing the line. And so likewise, if Trump were to do a joke that in some way demeaned our Blessed Mother or Joseph or the Saints or God or anything like that, that's. That's when I'm like, nope. I'm like, timeout. You. You crossed a line there. And hopefully people would tell him that. [00:15:12] There was another group of people who were feigning offense, I would say, who were acting very offended, and that was his political opponents who happened to be Catholic. I mean, I kind of feel like some of these governors and these politicians who are Catholic, they kind of don't even remember they're Catholic. And then when something like this happens, one of their aids say, hey, you can use this by saying, hey, I'm Catholic, and I'm offended by this. And they're like, oh, right, right, I'm Catholic. I almost forgot. And then they use it and they say, I'm Catholic. I'm totally offended by this. I honestly think they might forget they're Catholic sometimes because they don't practice the faith in any meaningful way. I mean, they basically reject it in all their public actions. And so it's hard to even call them Catholic at that point. Point. And they were acting all upset. I mean, I saw politicians, you know, like the Governor of New York, I believe, and some others who are like, as a Catholic, I'm totally offended by this or whatever the case may be. [00:16:06] And it's like, well, I don't care. I really don't care. Because, honestly, you've been offensive to the Catholic faith for years now by promoting abortion on demand. I mean, by promoting homosexual marriage and things like that. That is offensive to Catholicism. That's what really matters when it comes down to it. So your faked offense I don't care about at all. Because you didn't say anything when that. That. I can't remember her name. The. The. The. The singer or whatever was dressed up like a Pope at the Met Gala, you didn't say a thing. When. When the. The churches teaching on abortion or homosexuality or transgender or whatever was undermined you. In fact, you. You supported it. [00:16:46] So, like, honestly, I don't care what you guys think. So ultimately, I just think that we need to realize where we are in the culture. I'm not saying we accept beatings. I'm not saying we just simply never say if something's done, it's offensive. I just think we have to see who the source is. What is the intention behind it. If it's done in a way that's trying to demean Catholics or to harm the Catholic faith in any way, then, yes, we need to fight back. But you just can't convince me that Trump. Here it is again. Trump putting up this picture of him as pope is in any way, you know, harming the Catholic faith at all. I mean, it's just a joke, because somebody asked him, I think it was like a week before, like, who do you think would be a good Pope? And he kind of joked and said. He said, oh, I think I would be. And he laughed and he said, oh, no, that's. And he even said, no, I'm just kidding, or something like that. And he actually recommended Cardinal Dolan, believe it or not. He said, said the Bishop of. Archbishop of New York. I think he'd be a good one. And that's because that's the one guy he knows well is Cardinal Dolan. So, again, Catholics, relax. Don't. Don't let things that are just obviously jokes that don't really harm the Catholic faith or demean it. Don't get offended by that. Just kind of roll with the punches, so to speak. Now, the other thing I wanted to talk about in this podcast is obviously today's May 6, recording this, podcasting this. Then tomorrow, May 7 is the beginning of the Conclave. And so obviously, conclaves are always major events in the Catholic Church. I've already talked about on the podcast. I talked with Tim Flanders on the podcast about it. I've talked about myself, like, who I think would be a good pope, next Pope, speculate who I think might be the next Pope. I do want to just take a step back and have Catholics remind us that the Conclave is a big deal because it elects the next successor, St. Peter. Now, I am not a hyperpoplist, and I just said that a couple minutes ago. That doesn't mean I don't think the office of the papacy is important. Obviously, it is. And it's actually got more importance today than it should, in my opinion. What I mean is it has importance in ways it shouldn't. It's been turned into a celebrity figure. And so the person has influence through that way. And I don't necessarily think that's a good thing because it does lead to hyperpoplism. It does lead to when you have a pope who says something wrong, then all of a sudden now people think, oh, that's what the Catholic Church says. That's what we have to believe. That's what Catholics think. Things, all those, all those things that I was afraid of as a Protestant come to pass in that case. And so I do think the papacy is important, but I think the reason, the way it's important is not the way it's being presented today, I guess, is the best way to put it. And so the conclave, in picking the next pope, obviously this is a big deal. And I think I just want to kind of remind people of a couple things going into this papacy. First is I want to remind everybody that these cardinals don't know each other. Most of them have not met each other until last week. And they might still be meeting each other. And I don't think we can underestimate how important that is. Pope Francis has not called a gathering of the he did not call gathering of the Cardinals until after 2014, I think it was, or 15. So it's been at least about 10 years that the cardinals got together. Remember, most of the cardinals today have been selected in the last 10 years. And so these cardinals have never gotten together. They've never gotten to know each other. And do you really want to elect somebody you've only heard of by name? I mean, you'd want to, like, hear them speak, maybe talk to them yourself. I mean, if I'm a cardinal, thank God I'm not. If I'm a cardinal and I'm based somewhere like Sri Lanka or somewhere like Iraq or Timor, somewhere like that, and I get there and I don't know hardly anybody. I've only heard rumors. I've only heard, like, news reports. I'm going to want to go up to the guy and talk to him. I'm going to want to talk. I want to hear him speak to the rest of the cardinals. I want to do a little more research. So I think that's something that I don't think we can underestimate, how important that's going to be. Does that favor a big candidate like Apparel in maybe, because everybody kind of does know him. And so maybe they're more comfortable with somebody like that perhaps. I do think though, it's interesting that there's a controversy being called happening right now because of the College of Cardinals. The College of Cardinals report that is going, that, that is up on, you know, that, that I've talked about before. So college cardinals report.com I believe is what, is what it is. And so I think. Let me just, I'm trying to. Yeah, sorry, I was distracted there for a second. I think though, like the college of cardinalsreport.com it's run, it was done by Ed Penton, Edward Penton and Diane Montana, who are two of the best Vatican based reporters in the world. And they compiled this and basically it was to help the Cardinals. They made this months ago. I think it was like a year ago. It's been a while now. And they did simply to help the Cardinals. They realized the Cardinals don't know each other. So at least let's put in one place a starter pack. They're not claiming the College of Cardinals report is not claiming that all of a sudden they know everything and they're getting all the information. It's more like a starter pack. Do you want to know the basic biography and basic views of the different cardinals? Well, here's a place you can start. And then of course, you can find out more information on your own. So it's in one place. You don't have to go and do research all through Google or whatever to find out about these people. It's all in one place. Well, what's interesting is cnn. This is the article I was going to post up, but then it was crashing my computer. CNN had an interesting article today where they were freaking out about this because what's happened is that that College of CardinalsReport.com was turned into a book and is being handed to the Cardinals who are then allowed to bring it into the conclave. You're not allowed to bring electronic devices into the conclave, but you can bring written stuff. Obviously you might want to bring notes that you've made beforehand. You might want to bring some, some reports that you've printed out or whatever the case may be. You might, some books just to read in the downtime, whatever the case may be. So you, so they were handing out these books and CNN was just freaking out about it. They were trying, they were calling up, you know, some canon lawyers saying this might be against canon law, which is of course ridiculous. It's just people who are, you know, trying to don't like It. And what's interesting is this is the progressive playbook. This is the progressive playbook. You just have to fight information by trying to squelch it. This is what the Democrats always do over here in America is they try to silence any opposition. They try to silence information. We saw it during COVID What happened during COVID One of the biggest things was they kept calling everything misinformation. They kept saying, censoring information. They did that because they knew their lies can only propagate and be successful in the absence of the truth. Well, that's what's happening here, is that CNN and some progressive Catholics, they're freaking out because information is being given to the cardinals. They know their lies and misinformation will not work. If people get the truth, if they try to make out a cardinal as some radical, crazy. But then somebody just writes up, well, here's their positions. And you realize that's not crazy, that's not radical, it's just normal. Well, then their lies don't work anymore. I think that's why they don't like this. It's it. It's what they do. They try to censor information. That's what they're trying to do here is trying to make it. Trying to scare people. Because that's what they're doing is they're trying to scare people to say, oh, you better not give out this information because you could get excommunicate because it might violate canon law, which is nonsense. It's nonsense that, that, that would violate canon law to give information to the cardinals before they go into conclave. We're not talking about like violating the conclave. We're just saying, hey, here's a report. Take it or leave it. You can do whatever you want with it. You can throw it away. You can read it, take it in with you, show it to others. That's fine. [00:24:51] So I think it, that's probably a good sign that, that, that they're, that they're upset about this because it means it might be working. It means it might be giving information to the cardinals and you know, who don't have it ahead of time. So, so pray about that. Pray. Pray for the cardinals to know who it is they're voting for. That's the one thing you don't want, is all of a sudden there's a candidate who's got some problems and you get a bunch of votes from people who simply just don't know. They don't realize he's a bad, bad actor. I think, honestly, I think that's how Jorge Bergoglio was, was elected Pope in 2013, is that I don't think the cardinals realized kind of what kind of pope he would be. I'm willing to bet that if in an honest moment, if you could get them to admit this, which they're not going to because they're not allowed to and some of them are dead, of course. [00:25:36] Did you realize this is what you were voting for? The answer would be no. I mean, everybody says like, is this what you voted for? About when Trump done something and usually he's like, yes, that is exactly what I voted for. I bet you if you ask a lot of the cardinals from 2013, is this what you voted for? I bet a lot of them would say no, that's actually not what I voted for. So we want the cardinals to be open eyed and know as much as possible. Another thing I wanted to mention about the conclave is I think a key factor is how united will the different factions be. [00:26:06] What I mean by this, a priest I know was saying the other day that he, he thinks that he's seen and I think this is true. If you look at the past, like 60 years, conservatives are often not united. This is very true of Vatican ii. If you look at Vatican ii, what you find is the progressives were very united in cause, the conservatives were very slow in reacting. They were not united together. And so they lost basically. Well, that's happened over and over again and I think that happened 2013 as well. The hope and prayer is that the conservatives have learned their lesson, be united. They don't have enough votes to elect a pontiff on their own. I don't even think they have enough votes to block a candidate like by themselves. If you just took the ones who are truly conservative, my guess of 133, you need, okay, how many votes do you need? You need about 44 votes. I think it is to block a candidate. If, because it's 89, I think, I believe it is that you need to be elected, which means you need 45, I guess 45 cardinal electors to be in a block against somebody in order to prevent them from becoming the Pope. I don't think they even have 45, but if they have like say 30 that are truly united, 20 to 30 that will not, will not budge from each other, will not compromise and say, no, we're not going to take this guy or whatever they vote in a block, well, any candidate's going to need their vote probably because other ones are just too much out there. And there might not be united, obviously, if there's a huge united front for one candidate that the progressives don't like. I mean, I'm sorry that the conservatives don't like. They don't have enough votes to stop it. But the more likely scenario is there's going to be multiple candidates that are kind of have a certain number of votes. Like, one might have 40 votes, another one might have 30 votes, another one have, you know, 25 votes, something like that. Well, then you add the conservative block to them, and now they're. Now we're talking. Now they could get elected pope if they're united. So I think that's the key, is the conservatives, do they stay united also? On the flip side, will the progressives be united? It doesn't look like they are at this point, at least from what they're saying. It doesn't look like they're united behind a single candidate. And that's a good thing. We want them to be divided as much as possible that they. They don't, you know, certain candidates, you know, they like, they support different. Different candidates. And then hopefully maybe a candidate will come forward who will be somebody the conservatives can back, and a certain segment of the more progressive cardinals can say, okay, that guy's fine, too. Like, I personally am still. I talked, you know, last week on podcast, I said, I think it's very like Cardinal Sarah had maybe a 3% chance, something like that. Tim. I talked to Tim Flanders on the podcast in the next one, and he kind of convinced me it's a better chance. But I'm going back again to saying, I just don't see it happening. I don't see a true conservative. And by the way, these labels conservative progressive, I know they're not perfect. I know there's issues with it. [00:29:10] The groups are a little bit more nuanced than that, but I think everybody knows what I mean when I say that. So anyway, I think we should pray that conservatives remain united and the progressives are divided. I think that would be. That would end up a better chance of a good candidate being elected to Pope. Another thing I want to say is I. I'm starting to suspect it's not going to be one of the big names they've been bandied about on social media. I tend to think that what's happening on social media is not reflective of what's happening among the cardinals. I'm not saying they don't. They're not on social media, not looking at social media. I just don't think they I think they're. They're going to be, like, more open to candidates we've never heard of. And then another thing I wanted to say is I'm starting to think it might be a long conclave. By that, I mean the last few conclaves have always been two or three days. I think it might go more than three days, primarily just simply because, again, they have to get to know each other. I think there would be a good segment of cardinals who are going to be like, I'm not voting for this guy until I know more about him. So maybe some guy, some cardinal gets, you know, 50 votes in the first, on the first day, they might really need to be convinced, like, okay, I will go over to this guy. I need to hear more from. I need to hear him speak, because they have these opportunities to speak during the Conclave and to outside of the official meetings to. To canvass for votes and things like that. I mean, this does happen. Have their people canvassed for it as well. [00:30:34] So we'll see. Ultimately, of course, nobody knows. I don't know. I don't claim to be an expert on this, and honestly, I don't think anybody really is. I think ultimately we're all guessing. I'm just taking what I hear, what I've seen, just basic guess on human nature and things, you know, things like that. So we'll see. [00:30:52] And, and I think, though, I think it's a good chance when we do our next live podcast, which will be a week from today on Tuesday. May. Was today the 6th, so May 13th, I think then we'll have a new Pope. I. I do think it's not gonna be that long. I don't think we're gonna not have a Pope, you know, seven days from now. So. So we'll see what happens. Okay, so let me go ahead and take some of the, the, the comments from the live chat, by the way. Thank you, everybody who joins the live chat. I really do like that you do that and have comments with each other and stuff. And I try to, you know, address some of them at the end. First one's from Sean Duffy. Not the Transportation Secretary, I assume, if it is a transportation secretary. Welcome to the program, Secretary Duffy. Otherwise, thanks for being here, Sean. Remember when Father Martin put a rainbow flag behind St. Luke's image of Our Lady? Who is a guy like him to talk? I mean. Okay, there we go. That's a good point. Talking about this offensive images. When you change icons of saints and images of saints and you know that to represent something that's sinful. Like the homosexual movement. I mean, hello, that is blasphemous. Not making a joke about, like, being the next Pope. And I like what somebody said about that was that somebody said that, like, most guys joke around at time, Catholic guys joke around and say, oh, if I was Pope, I would do this. I mean, it's kind of what Trump's doing, and nobody's. Nobody cares about that. [00:32:18] Anna Kate Howell says, and Gloria Purvis is melting down over it. Of course I mean it. Talk about the professional, you know, aggrieved class. I mean, that. That. I'm sorry, Ms. Purvis is exactly that. She. She always finds something to be offended by. So Vic Burr said. Well said. By the way, love the painting hanging behind you, The Angelus. Yes, thank you very much. I've had this painting since I was married. I think I got it as a wedding gift. So 30 years ago this month, by the way, I'm celebrating my 30th wedding anniversary. So congratulations to me for that. [00:32:48] Yes. I love that image. I've had it. I remember seeing it when I first became Catholic, before I was even married, and I loved it. And, yeah, so we've had in the house, and I finally stole it so I could have it on the podcast not a couple years ago. Anna Kate also says, compared to how other presidents have treated Catholics, this isn't in good taste, but it's not worth shaking over either. Yeah, I'm not claiming it's like a. It's in good taste. I mean, I wouldn't do it. I know that I wouldn't put an AI image of me as the Pope. And. Because, again, I don't think it's good taste. But, yeah, no shrieking over it. Agreed. Anarchy. And anarchy also says, I agree, Eric. I think it'll be at least a week or so this time. More than just a few ballots. Yeah. So just to be clear on how the conclave works, as far as the voting goes, what happens is every day of the conclave, except the first. The first, they just have one vote in the evening. What they do is they do a vote in the morning. If nobody gets the required amount of votes, then they just kind of put it aside. They do another vote soon, like later that morning. [00:33:47] If nobody gets it, then. Then they burn them. Black smoke. If somebody gets elected at either of those times. White smoke in the evening, same thing happens in the afternoon session. They have two votes. The first vote. If somebody gets elected. White smoke. If nobody gets elected, they move on to the next vote. A little, a little bit later. Again, if nobody gets elected black smoke, somebody gets elected white smoke. So there's really only two times during the day that you can get black smoke at the end of the morning session into the afternoon session. And there's four times during the day that you can get white smoke. And I think it's like 10:30, noon, 1:30 and 4, something like that, Rome time. So we'll see. But that means you can have up to four votes a day. Like I said, there hasn't been a conclave that's had more than 10 votes in recent memory. [00:34:33] So it would take to get to be to four days. You'd have Thursday, Friday, Saturday. [00:34:39] You need at least about 14 votes to get to Sunday. I'm not sure if they have the same number of votes on Sunday. I don't know that somebody had to fact check me on that one. But the point is to get to even Saturday because it starts on Wednesday. Get to Saturday, you need at least like 13 or 14 votes. That would fail. I think that's possible, but we'll find out. Like I said, obviously, be praying for the Conclave, be praying for the cardinals. Pick a cardinal or two that you can pray for specifically and kind of take them, you know, at random or something like that. But, you know, like I said, by the time we talk again, I'm willing to bet we'll have a new Pope and we'll say habamus, pop them. And we can just hope and pray it's the, the, the Pope that the Holy Spirit wants us to have. Okay, everybody, until next time. God love.