Trump & the Catholic Bishops

[00:00:20] Now that Donald Trump is back in the White House, how will Catholic bishops react to his presidency? We're going to talk about that, plus all that happened yesterday at the inauguration, Trump's first day of office, and plus a few more things today on Crisis Point. Hello, I'm Eric Sammons, your host, editor in chief of Crisis magazine. You know what to do. Do I have to even say it? You need to smash that like button like Donald Trump has smashed the woke ideology. Just do it. You know you want to. Also subscribe to the channel, let other people know about what we're doing here. Subscribe to our email newsletter as well. Get our articles from Crisis magazine to your inbox every morning, usually two articles a day. I have an article today at Crisis magazine. Check it out. You can also follow us risismag on all the social media channels. [00:01:12] So this is actually my first podcast I've done for Crisis under President Trump. I actually joined Crisis magazine four years ago this month at the beginning of January, like two days before January 6, 2001, 2021, the date that will live in infamy. So Trump was still president then, but I did not start the podcast till a month later. So this is actually my first podcast in the new regime, so to speak. So what I want to talk about first, we're going to talk about the Catholic bishops in a moment. But what I want to talk about first is yesterday was the inauguration and Trump's first day in office. [00:01:56] And so what happened first? I do want to mention something that happened before Trump was even president, but only happened because Trump was elected president. And that of course, is the ceasefire in Gaza. And I think this is a big deal. [00:02:11] I mean, here's the thing. [00:02:13] Trump has always been very good in his language about piece about war. I love what he just said. I remember one time he's being interviewed about Ukraine, I think it was. He just said, I just want the killing to stop. [00:02:26] It's a great quote. It's very simple, it's very Trumpian, but it's very true as well. The President of the United States, his duty is to protect our borders, protect our country, but also just to want peace in the rest of the world. [00:02:40] He shouldn't want to be trying to start conflicts or inflame conflicts around the world. And Trump seems want to do this now. I will say when he was president, his first term, he didn't start any wars, I'll give him that. But really, his foreign policy staff was terrible. [00:02:56] I'm hoping it'll be better this year. This term. But the fact is, is there's now a ceasefire in Gaza because of President Trump even before he took office. And I think that's a great thing. Obviously, it's not a long term solution. We don't know exactly what was promised to Israel in this. But the fact is, is that this is the first step, what you want. It looks to be a real ceasefire too, not like one of these fake ones they announce sometimes and then nothing happens. [00:03:24] So I think that's the first thing to notice. I mean, Trump already accomplished a major goal, I think a major, a major goal before he even took office. And that was a ceasefire in Gaza. But now, so now we have yesterday's inauguration. So I thought it'd be good. This is a historical, every inauguration is a historical moment. As they said yesterday, this is the 60th inauguration in United States history. So I watched it with my, with my kids and we, we started a little bit beforehand and we were watching it. And when it came time to pray beforehand, they had Cardinal Dolan of New York and Franklin Graham, the son of the famous Protestant evangelist Billy Graham, come out to say the prayers. [00:04:07] And I thought what probably most, at least orthodox Catholics thought, which was, will Cardinal Dolan say the name of Jesus? Nobody doubted that Franklin Graham would. Nobody doubted, but we all wondered, will Cardinal Dolan actually say the name of our Lord Jesus Christ? [00:04:29] Now, just that alone is sad. The fact that we thought that, that we assume Franklin Graham would say the name of Jesus and we question whether or not the Catholic cardinal would. And sure enough, Franklin Graham, of course, said the name of Jesus. Cardinal Dolan did not. He didn't even say in the name of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit. He made a quick sign of the cross at the beginning of his prayer. Didn't say that. So he didn't invoke the Trinity explicitly. He did not say the name of Jesus. [00:05:00] And it just is. I was talking about this on X yesterday and I think it's people, people rightly are upset and annoyed about that. [00:05:11] I would not direct or ire, direct at Dolan per se, because here's the thing. I think Dolan likes Trump. I think Dolan voted for Trump. I feel very confident in saying that. In fact, I would bet, and I think this might shock people, but I know this from. I don't know this is a fact, but I have some sources that relate this to me. I'm willing to bet the majority of Catholic bishops in America voted for Trump. I state that pretty confidently, in fact, that the majority of Catholic bishops voted for Trump in 2020 and voted for him in 2024. That might sound crazy for people who think that all the bishops are a bunch of progressive liberals, things like that. They're not. Some of them obviously are. Most of them are just spineless or quiet or whatever, but they generally are more lean, more conservative. [00:06:01] So I think Dolan, for example, is a Trump supporter. [00:06:07] And here's the thing. Dolan, though, is the product of the environment in which he was raised. And by raised, I mean as a bishop. I don't know about how old everybody is who watches this, but those of us who are old enough to remember Dolan was actually considered the great hope for, for the episcopacy when he was first, when he was rising as bishop. I can't remember now where he was bishop before. I think it was Green Bay or something like that. But he sounded very good. He sounded like, this is a JP2 type Bishop Benedict bishop who's going to be great. And so we went to New York. There's a lot of high hopes. And the truth is, since then, he's been a real disappointment. Now, let's be. Let's give credit where credit is due. Cardinal Dolan is the one who first public. Who went public with Cardinal McCarrick's scandal. He's the one who started the process in 2018 of exposing Cardinal McCarrick. Maybe he did too late, whatever. But the fact is he is the first bishop who did it. [00:07:06] So we give him credit for that. But really, he's just been. He's not been like this terrible bishop, but he's not been a very good one either. And so he's like a lot of the bishops in America, just very middle of the road. [00:07:17] But he's a product of an ecclesiastical culture that is terrified of appearing too Catholic because of a ghetto mentality that these bishops, especially older bishops, have had for a very long time. And it really harkens back to the old days before jfk, before, you know, I'm talking decades and decades ago, where Catholics were a discriminated minority in America. And so the bishops tried very hard to fit in, to be like, we're American just like you. We're not too weird. We don't do crazy things. When the fact is, compared to Protestant American culture, we were, we, we were weird. We did do crazy things. Things like having statues of big statues of Mary and, you know, not eating fish on Friday. I'm sorry, not eating meat on Fridays, things like that. [00:08:08] But there was a whole effort to To. To blend in, to not look too different. And this, like I said, hearkens back over 100 years, and a lot of the bishops and this. And this was exacerbated, really, when it shouldn't have been, which was in the 1960s and 70s after Vatican II, it continued this ghetto mentality when really the world had shifted, the country had shifted. There was no need for that ghetto mentality anymore, because really, you know, we're supposed to be diverse. We're supposed to, you know, express our differences, whatever. We. Well, Catholics are different, and we needed to lean into the fact that we are the one true church, and we're not like everybody else. We're not like Protestantism. Sure, we share some beliefs and practices with them, but we're not like them. We do things different. We make the sign of the cross when we pray. [00:09:00] And it even gets to the point where, like the not saying the name of Jesus, obviously, the Protestants do that. But again, it's that attitude of we don't want to look too odd. We want to blend in. And a secular culture to blend in means you can't say the name of our Lord publicly. And so when Dolan got up there to pray, we all knew he wouldn't say the name of Jesus, because that's just what bishops do. Now, here's the fact, here's the truth, though. There are a handful of bishops who would. In fact, I believe the bishop who prayed at the Republican National Convention did, and, you know, somebody like Bishop Strickland obviously would. I think somebody like Archbishop Corleone would. There are a handful that would, but most of them would not. Not because they don't believe in Jesus, but simply because it's the culture. When you're in a public, secular setting, you tone down, you give a very generic prayer. You don't want to offend the Jewish people there or the Muslim people there or the atheist people there. So you keep it very generic. You just talk about God in general. [00:10:05] That's what they do. [00:10:07] Of course, the Protestants don't feel a need to do that, so they don't mind being very explicit in praying in the name of Jesus. And here's the thing is, it really is not understanding, not reading the room, not understanding the culture we live in now with Trump being elected, particularly. This is the opportunity to shout from the rooftops what we believe, because here is why. I think I saw Leila Lawler mention this on X. [00:10:34] Here's why it's so good that Trump won, not because he's a pro life Warrior. He's not. Not because he's going to fight against gay marriage. He won't. [00:10:43] Not even because he'll necessarily be great on most of the social issues. He probably won't be. [00:10:49] But what he will do is he will allow us Catholics to speak out without fear of retribution. [00:10:57] And so if Dolan had gotten up there and started off, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and Jesus, we pray, you know, whatever, and if he'd said, invoke the Blessed Mary, said, blessed Mary, please, you know, you are our patroness of the Immaculate Conception. If he'd done all that, guess what? Nobody would have blinked an eye. Trump would not have cared. The Trump team wouldn't have cared. Vance would have loved it. The liberals would have hated it. It would have been perfect. Trump would love. [00:11:26] If Dolan had done that. Franklin Graham had done his thing, the black preacher, I can't remember his name. If he had done his prayer like he did it. That's okay. That's the whole point, is we're not going to cancel people anymore for stupid stuff like that. So, therefore, it's not just that the bishops still live in this old day in which they're afraid of. They have to blend in. They're afraid of being different. We want to be different. We need to shout from the rooftops who we are. And so that's why it was a really missed opportunity. And I wish bishops like Dolan, who I don't. Who I do believe are good men in a lot of ways, I wish they would understand that and understand kind of the moment we're living in. And this is an opportunity. What the Trump presidency does, it gives Catholics an opportunity to advance the gospel of Christ. Not that Trump himself will do it, but he will allow us to do it. And I think that's. That's what we have to understand. Okay, so beyond Dolan's prayer, though, So I thought that it was, you know, the inauguration itself was great. Vance. I'm okay. I'm now an Usha Vance fan. Obviously, I want her to become Catholic. You know, her husband's Catholic. I assume they're raising their kids Catholic, but she, I believe, is Hindu. [00:12:45] But she just impresses me. Her public appearances really impress me, because here's why. She's a very successful woman by today's standards. She's on her own. And so she's the feminist ideal. Right. [00:12:59] The difference is, I think because she's much younger, she doesn't feel a need like the older feminist to always be Like, I'm a strong, independent woman. I don't need no man or anything like that. And a lot of times what they would do is they'd almost distance themselves from their husband. She doesn't appear to do that. She looks like she admires her husband and she's not afraid to show it. And I think that's a great thing. That's a good example that, you know, I'm not saying she's a good example in every way. I'm just simply saying in her public appearances, what I've seen is she's not afraid to show public admiration for her husband. And I think, honestly, in this day and age, that's a great thing. That's a good signal. And so I was impressed by that. But also, Trump's speech after he was first inaugurated was very good. What I really liked was he made sure it was clear the federal government only recognizes two genders, male and female. And then. But not only that, he followed it up with an executive order. He had a bunch of executive orders yesterday. I'm hoping he's going to do a whole bunch more because he's made some promises he hasn't kept. I'll talk about that in a moment. But one of them was the executive order on gender ideology. Let me pull this up for a moment. Get it here. [00:14:16] Okay, so here we go. Defending women from gender ideology, extremism, and restoring biological truth to the federal government. I want to read a little bit of this because it really think for, just take a step back for a moment and realize for the last four years what we've lived under with the Biden administration and the whole transgenderism nonsense. I mentioned it in a previous, in a couple previous podcasts during the Trump campaign. If somebody mentioned, you know, there's only men and there's only males and females, you can't switch. You know, something is transgenderism. There's a huge, there was a huge applause line because people were tired of it. But living under Biden, Just think about that while I read what the White House is. On the official White House website, it says, across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self identify as women and gain access to intimate single sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women's domestic abuse shelters to women's workplace showers. This is wrong. Let me take a step back. Ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex. That alone, he actually didn't use the word gender Like I did, which is actually not as correct. The more correct statement here is sex, deny the violence, deny. The White House is saying there's a biological reality we must submit to. We must just adhere to. [00:15:47] He can. It continues executive war efforts to eradicate the biological reality. There it is again. Of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety and well being. The erasure of sex and language and policy is a corrosive impact not just on women, but on the validity of the entire American system. Amen. [00:16:07] Basing federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself. That alone, that, that paragraph alone, that is awesome. Yes, I know there's plenty of federal policies that are not based on truth. I get that. Obviously the same sex marriage thing is the main one. But the fact that they're at least stating federal policy should be based on truth is wonderful. [00:16:32] And so it just continues and it says, basically, that is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality. Under my direction, the executive branch will enforce all same, all sex protective laws to promote this reality in the following definitions. And he goes on. [00:16:55] So the point of this is, this is, this is a real, A real effect of Trump being elected is now the federal government is saying there's. They're not saying we define. This is what's so important about this. It's not President Trump or the executive office or federal government saying we define. There's two sexes. What it's saying is we recognize the reality that there's only two sexes. And that's a key. That's a big difference. Whoever wrote this understood this because this is a key difference between just saying because the government does not have the authority. Because the problem is the government has been saying it has the authority to say there's more than two sexes or people can switch sexes. It's not Trump reversing that and saying, oh, no, we now declare there's only two and you can't change them. It's simply saying this is the reality and we're acknowledging it. A fundamental reality of biology, of reality, of nature, of God. So I think that that is something. I think we have to cheer now. [00:17:58] Okay. So I would say it was a good start to the Trump presidency. That alone, there's other things that, of course, executive actions, actions that he did yesterday, withdrawing from the World Health Organization was obviously a very good one. A lot of things about not having Going after, you know, free speech and no more censorship, no more political persecution of people by the government, stuff like that. All good. Now, one thing I want to talk about, though, is the pardons. I mean, yesterday was a big pardon day. [00:18:33] Apparently, before Biden's term ended at noon yesterday, he pardoned a bunch of people. But here's the thing, okay? I'm actually, I know some people don't like this, but I'm actually a fan of the presidential pardon in general because I think it's a good thing to basically allow the president to be able to say, I'm just going to let this person off. Yes, they may have done something wrong. I'm going to let them leave. They don't have to be in jail anymore. And for whatever reason, I think it's nice to have that kind of the back pocket of the president. [00:19:06] Biden, however, he decided he's not going to just pardon people who had been convicted of a crime, might be in jail. He's going to preemptively pardon them. So he pardoned Fauci, he pardoned Liz Cheney and other members of the January 6 committee. He pardoned his brothers, his sister. [00:19:26] And there's just something very odd about this, because how do you preemptively pardon somebody? Obviously, he'd done it with Hunter Biden, his son as well, a while back, but still, the whole pardoning of like Fauci, because when you pardon somebody, you are saying they're guilty of a crime. That's the whole point of a pardon. The whole definition of pardon is somebody who's guilty of a crime does not have to face the punishment for, or their punishment is now lifted. [00:19:53] Yet, of course, in his statement pardoning them, he said, this is no indication that they're actually guilty of anything. The claim is that he's protecting them from retribution from the Trump administration, which, of course, is just ridiculous. Trump would not have gone after Fauci. We might want him to, but he wouldn't have. Just like he didn't go after Hillary. You know, they chanted lock her up during the campaign in 2016. [00:20:16] But the pardon somebody preemptively, I mean, if that's not an admission of guilt, I don't know what is, and I don't know how legal it can be. Because when you pardon somebody, they have to accept the pardon, and it is an admission of guilt when they accept the pardon. It also means they cannot plead the Fifth Amendment if they're, like, hauled in front of Congress or something like that. So I don't know how this is going to work, I'd love if they challenge these pardons somehow legally. I think preemptive pardons should never be allowed. Should be. Basically, the Supreme Court should decide on this, that, no, this isn't allowed. But, but we'll see what happens. But obviously Fauci is guilty. Fauci should, you know, be in jail for the rest of his life for, for crimes against humanity. [00:21:01] But so, but anyway, the, the preemptive pardons are crazy. But then, then when Trump became president, he could start pardoning people, of course, and he had made promises beforehand to pardon certain people. Now, the people I wanted him to pardon were the 21 pro life prisoners. All the people associated with January 6th. [00:21:23] Ross Ulbricht. How do you always pronounce it? Yeah, Ulbricht. [00:21:28] Ed Snowden and Roger Ver. Those are people I want him to initially pardon. Now, so far, he has pardoned all the January 6th protesters, basically. Great. That is very good news that the whole thing, the whole January 6 thing is just such a joke. Everybody, you know who was convicted of anything or, you know, arrested or whatever should be pardoned now. He did not yet pardon anybody else. Obviously, the top priority for me is his 21 pro life prisoners. I'm actually, I'm friends with one of them and I think that they all should be set free. Obviously what they did, you know, was morally correct, if nothing else. And so I think that's something we need to keep in mind. But he has not pardoned any of them yet. I also think he should pardon Ross Ulbricht. Now, this is one that I think many of my listeners might not know who he is, and it might sound a little bit odd that I want him to pardon him. Ross Ulbricht was the founder and, like, ran Silk Road, the Silk road website, about 15, 10, 15 years ago. This was a website in which you could purchase illegal items, mostly drugs. You were not allowed to purchase items that could harm somebody else. Like, for example, you couldn't purchase child porn, you couldn't purchase things like that, but you could purchase drugs. [00:22:51] And then he was caught. And, oh, the big thing about Silk Road was it was the first website to use Bitcoin. And so people would buy things on there using Bitcoin because obviously a site like that is not going to be PayPal is not going to hook up with it. And it was on the dark web on, on, on Tor sites. And so the point of this is, is that he was arrested and he, and he was sentenced to two life sentences plus 40 years or something like that. Basically, the rest of his life, he was going to be in jail. [00:23:21] Now, Ross Ulbricht was basically somebody. He was a young guy at the time, very idealistic. He was basically a libertarian, maybe anarchist even, who believed that in a free society, you should be able to buy and sell things like this. And so it wasn't like he was some drug kingpin or something like that. He was an ideologue. And this is how he basically, he wanted to compete with Amazon rather than a drug dealer, because he thought, okay, people should be allowed to buy and sell anything. Now, I'm not saying I endorse that. In fact, I don't endorse that. [00:23:56] I'm not even saying I don't think Ross Ulbricht shouldn't have gone to jail. Unlike a lot of my libertarian friends and my fellow bitcoiners, I do actually think he probably should have gone to jail. However, the idea that this kid should have gotten two life sentences plus 40 years or whatever it is, basically spend the rest of his life in jail is ludicrous. Think about our judicial system and how murderers get off after a very short amount of time, how, you know, just various people get on parole for everything, but this guy has to spend the rest of his life in jail with no possibility of parole. It was clear that the reason for this was they wanted to set an example because they were very worried about bitcoin back then and worried about what it might mean, and they wanted to set an example. They wanted to, you know, crush this kid so nobody else would. Would. So they could crush bitcoin. They could crush that whole movement. And. And it was just. It was completely out of hand. This is, by the way, under Obama's administration, this all happened. [00:24:53] And so it's not saying he shouldn't have gone to jail, but the kid has served his time. He served over 10 years in jail. Now he should be out of jail. He should get a pardon. And I just think that's something. And here's the thing. Donald Trump promised that on day one, he would free Ross Ulbrich. He promised this multiple times in multiple places at the Libertarian Party convention, at a bitcoin convention. I think some other times he did not do that because we're past day one. Now, day one ended, by my calculations, at noon today because that's 24 hours since he was president. He didn't do it. Now, the word is he is going to do it and do it soon. [00:25:31] But, you know, just for keeping your promises, don't make the promise if you can't keep it President Trump, I think that's a bad precedent to set. So I'm hopeful he will do that. The other ones I mentioned, I think everyone knows who Ed Snowden is. He's the one who famously revealed how illegal the government was working the spot that three letter agencies like the nsa, CIA were spying on their own citizens illegally. He's one revealed it and then ended up, of course the whole deep state went after him and now he's in exile in Russia. I think he should be pardoned. I think he did nothing wrong. I think a whistleblower who showed that the American government was doing illegal things to their citizens should be a hero is a hero, not a criminal. I don't think he's going to pardon Ed Snowden. He never promised it. I don't think so. It's just too many conservatives look at him as like some traitor or something like that. He's not. But I think that, I don't think Trump's going to do it. Another one, also less well known, is Roger Ver. He is another bitcoin guy who basically left the country, decided he didn't want to be American citizen. He did everything he could to pay all. If you leave America and renounce your citizenship, you have to pay tons of taxes to American government, which is ridiculous. [00:26:39] He had to pay all these taxes. He got lawyers, he tried to pay them all. He did what they told him, but then they basically changed the rules. And now like 10 years later, after he did all this, they're saying now you're under arrest for tax evasion. So just ridiculous. He should be set free to Roger Ver. Okay, so that's the pardons. I'm hoping that all the people I mentioned, I don't think Edson will happen, but I think all these people, I hope they all get pardoned. The 21 pro life prisoners. Ross Ulbricht, Roger versus I just. Please, President Trump, I know you're listening. Okay. I know you actually know you're not listening. Please do the pardons and do it soon. [00:27:19] Okay, now I kind of want to talk about that was the presidential pardons. Forgot to update the banner on the screen. Okay, now the next thing is kind of the main topic here. How will the bishops react to Trump? So now we have President Trump here and what are the bishops going to do now? First I just want to say what I think the bishops should do. [00:27:41] Bishops should not be lap dogs of any administration. [00:27:45] They should not be ones who just support every anything administration does, no matter what they shouldn't be like, for example, the Russian Orthodox Patriarch with Putin or the Russian government. [00:27:55] They should be willing to challenge what administration does when it goes against something, Catholic moral teaching or something like that. They also should not be hacks against an administration just simply reacting. Anything administration does, we're going to be against it. I don't think bishops should do that either. They are really called to be a prophetic voice, to always be clear about when administration veers away from Catholic moral teaching when they subscribe to it and praise them for that. They should be the ones who let people know that. Now, let's look at what they actually released. Here's a statement from the USCCB about Trump being elected and his executive orders, and it says, okay, the bishops conference will be carefully reviewing the executive orders that are expected to be signed today by President Trump. The Catholic Church's foundational teaching calls us to uphold the sacredness of human life and the God given dignity of the human person. This means that the care for immigrants, refugees, and the poor is part of the same teaching of the church that requires us to protect the most vulnerable among us, especially unborn children, the elderly, and the infirm. The bishops conference will work with the Trump administration as well as the US Congress to advance the common good for all, which include instances of agreement as well as disagreement. Okay. In general, okay, this sounds kind of fine. Kind of what I just said, right? They're going to agree and disagree at times, but note, they lead with the immigration and then they mention, just like the unborn. Well, let's be honest. If the bishops do the same amount of work opposing the Trump administration for its immigration policies as they did against the Biden administration for its abortion policies, then that means they'll do nothing. [00:29:42] That means they'll do nothing. Because the fact is, is that for four years under Biden, Biden got a free pass. As a Catholic, remember, as a Catholic, he got a free pass to completely promote abortion. Every opportunity to promote homosexuality, to promote the transgender agenda, to promote wars all over the world. He did this with impunity, without. Without any bishop, the USCCB really challenging him. Yes, they make a statement here and there, but they did nothing. They rarely spoke out. They, of course, did not deny him communion. And, you know, it was a disgrace. [00:30:17] So now if they're going to all of a sudden get their backbone and say, oh, we're going to be prophetic witnesses against Trump for his immigration policies, well, frankly, nobody cares. Nobody cares. Nobody's going to listen to you. Your Excellencies, and your eminences, because you dropped the ball when you had the opportunity to talk about these intrinsic evils like abortion and to do something about it, not just talk about it, but to do something about it, you dropped the ball. So why would we listen to you now when you talk about prudential decisions like immigration? And that's a key difference we have to remember we're talking about something like abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism. We're talking about intrinsic evils. There is no debate about it. Abortion is always and everywhere evil. Homosexuality, homosexual acts are always and everywhere intrinsically immoral. Same sex marriage is a farce. It is a blasphemy. It attacks the sanctity of marriage. Transgenderism goes against the very order of God. There's no debate in Catholic circles about this. Yes, I do know there are progressive people, say they're Catholic who debate about it, but they're wrong. [00:31:22] When it comes to immigration, though, there's prudential decisions the church makes very clear. A country can protect its borders. It can limit immigration if it wants to. Now, how it does that is up to the prudential decisions of the people, of the government. And here's where I think the bishops really have to understand what is their role when it comes to politics. The funny thing is all these Vatican II bishops don't listen to Vatican II when it comes to this, because Vatican II made it very clear that the laity are the leaders in the secular realm. [00:31:59] The Catholics in the secular realm are supposed to be the ones who are making these decisions in kind of these prudential decisions, not decisions against the faith like abortions, like that, but the prudential decisions like immigration. [00:32:11] That's the role of the lady to determine, okay, what is the limits of immigration that country should have in this time and in this place, and frankly, the country has. The laity have decided because they've overwhelmingly supported Trump and his policies in this area. So when the bishops go against that, like somebody like Cardinal Cupich was talking all big about, oh, we're going to resist this, blah, blah, blah, because they're going, they're supposedly, they're going to go to Chicago first, is one of the first places they're going to do some deportations and Cupich is talking a big game. Where were you, your eminence, Cardinal Cupich, when they do so when the Biden administration was promoting abortion on demand and promoting all these other evils, when it comes to a prudential decision that the laity are empowered to make by the church, now you're going to fight it. But when it's an intrinsic evil, that's when you stay silent. This is really the problem with the bishops have, frankly, no moral authority, by the way. I don't say that like I like it. I don't like it. I wish the bishops had a huge moral authority. They deserve. They should have moral authority by their very office. As successors to the apostles, the bishops should have the highest moral authority in the world. [00:33:21] Yet they've lost it all for various reasons. A big one, of course, their activities with the same sex. I'm sorry, the sex abuse scandal, covering it up. But also just they're. They're doing what they're doing now, which is they focus on prudential issues and they talk a big game about that, but they allow the real, true intrinsic evils to continue. [00:33:43] And so I really feel like they've lost their moral authority and they're not going to get back doing what they're doing now. Like, they think, okay, I'm going to talk a big game. People are going to listen. I mean, the problem is it's hacks, like partisan hacks, like Cardinal McElroy and Cardinal Cupich that really are the problem, because McElroy is going to get into D.C. he's going to say all the same progressive canards about, like, immigration, you know, let everybody in, no, no borders, blah, blah, blah, and say, be completely quiet about abortion, completely quiet about other things. And so it's like, nobody's going to listen to him, and nobody should listen to him. Let's be honest. Trump's not going to listen to him. Trump shouldn't. [00:34:21] And so I think the bishops are really dropping the ball. What I'd like to see is where the bishops were consistent with what the Church actually teaches when they speak. Very. If, for example, if Trump does something for ivf, like promoting ivf, an IVF mandate or something like that, they need to fight that. And they didn't just say, no Catholic institution will implement an IVF mandate. No matter what you do, President Trump, we will never do that. They need to do that. [00:34:48] But when Trump says, we're going to shut down the border, we're going to protect reporters like that, you know what you need to do, your Excellencies? Just keep your mouth shut. You don't need to say anything. Let us let the lady determine exactly how that should be implemented, and we'll take care of that one, okay? And I think if they did that, they would gain a lot more of the authority that they had, that they have moral authority. I should say they've lost, obviously, it's institutional authority still from Christ, but they've lost their moral authority, their ability to speak to the public about these moral issues and have anybody even care what they say. [00:35:22] Okay, last but not least, I just want to mention I like having my white pill of the week. So here's my white pill of the week. Hillsdale College Catholic converts. There was a hilarious tweet this week, I think it was last week, about somebody mentioned that evangelicals are starting to realize if they send their kids to Hillsdale College. Hillsdale College, by the way, is a very conservative college in Michigan. I have a good friend who's a professor there, and I know some kids who have gone there and they're afraid Evangelicals, Protestants are. If they send their kids to Hillsdale, they might convert to Catholicism because so many of them are. Now, let's be clear about something. Hillsdale College is not a Catholic college. It is a. It's not really even a Christian college. It's a, it's a. It's a secular college, but it's very conservative. I think it was founded by Protestants long ago, but it doesn't make a claim to be a Christian college. It's just conservative. But they're very focused on the classics, on classical education, on. They're very focused on a deep appreciation of history, of Western philosophy. [00:36:22] Well, guess what happens when a Protestant, a goodwill Protestant, shows up. He starts studying Western history deeply. He starts saying Western philosophy deeply. What's going to happen? He's going to become Catholic. I know a priest, a good friend of mine who's a priest, he went to Hillsdale College as a Protestant, came out a Catholic and is now a priest. I know a number of other. I know another guy at my parish, actually, who went to Hillsdale as a Protestant, came out a Catholic. And I've heard other stories of Protestants who go to Hillsdale and become Catholics. So this is a great white pill for us that, you know, let's pray that are evangelical brothers and sisters, that they would send their kids to Hillsdale College because then they would learn philosophy, they'd learn history, and because of that, they would end up becoming Catholics. So I think that's a good thing. I did chuckle, though, when I heard that people were evangelicals, were a little bit scared about that. [00:37:20] So. Okay, so last thing is, I want to check out the live chat. People who are in the live chat during the podcast. I really appreciate that. I appreciate your commentary. I can't obviously follow all of it, but I do. I do appreciate you doing that. And we try to take a few of them by the, at the end of the podcast and I'll address them, talk about them, show them on the screen. So first one is from female Casey, Royals fan from Nebraska. This is one of my regular viewers and the only thing I wish was that her, her, her profile name was a little bit shorter. But anyway, so Dolan marched in a hijacked St. Patrick's Day parade. Hijacked by James Martin types, as Anthony Stein of Return Tradition would say. Yes. And, and I don't want to make it like I think Dolan's this, the paradox paragon of virtue, a great bishop or anything like that. He has done some, some bad things. I know that. I'm just saying he's kind of middle of the road when it comes to bishops. He's not, he's not Supich, he's not a McElroy. He's not Gregory. He's not like that. I think he's just kind of, he's, he's, he is basically conservative politically in his own views, I think. And, but he's not going to, he's not going to tip rock the boat on anything like that. He's just going to do the St. Patrick's Day parade because frankly, him doing that St. Patrick's Day parade, they've been hijacked by the, by the gays. I think it's very similar to him not saying the name of Jesus. It's a secular situation, basically, at this point, the St. Patrick's Day parade. And he's not going to rock the boat. He don't want to look too Catholic. So. [00:38:47] Okay, Bear, call me a pessimist, but the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the gender announcement is the Selective Service and the draft. I don't understand. Do you mean, like, you think that they're going to now draft women? [00:39:01] Because obviously I think they've already said they're not going to do that, that they're not going to let women be part of the Selective Service, which they shouldn't. I mean, I personally think the draft is immoral. I think if a country has to go to war, if it's a just war, the people will support it. And men and women, men only. Only should be in the military. Men should, you know, would volunteer for it. If it's an unjust war, you don't deserve to have people. You shouldn't fight it. So I hope people wouldn't join up for it. So I don't think I think the draft itself is immoral. That being said, with the draft, obviously women should not be part of the draft no matter what. So. [00:39:36] Okay. FEMALE Casey Royals fan from Nebraska again, says Bishop James Connolly went to college at University of Kansas and took the classic books program and he ended up converting to the Catholic faith and they canceled that classic books course that actually, you know, I thought of that when I was thinking about Hillstock, couldn't remember which college it was. I think it was University of Kansas. I was thinking about Bishop Connelly. I know him from a long time ago. We haven't talked to him very long time. But, but a number of people went to this classic books program. I guess it was University of Kansas, and they ended up becoming Catholic and they had to cancel it because they were. This is just a public school, completely public school. But again, if you learn the great books, if you learn, if you get a classical education, if you learn Western philosophy and history, there's a good chance you're going to end up becoming Catholic if you're, if you're open minded. And that's exactly what happened, happens at Hillsdale, happened in Kansas. [00:40:30] So hopefully, like I said, our Protestant brothers and sisters will embrace classical education, embrace the Western tradition, because ultimately that will lead them to the fullness of the Christian faith, which is the Catholic Church. Okay, well, that's it for now. I appreciate, like I said, you joining in. Until next time, everybody. God love.