Speaker 1: This story has been ongoing from late last week when
Speaker 1: I was filling in for Trevor with the California State Bar,
Speaker 1: the California Board of Bar Examiners, and the administration of
Speaker 1: the most recent California Bar Exam, the big exam that
Speaker 1: qualifies new lawyers, and the total train wreck disaster that's happened,
Speaker 1: and the fact that we may be allowing in a
Speaker 1: bunch of people who are not qualified to be lawyers
Speaker 1: based on the ways in which the California State Bar
Speaker 1: Exam was royally screwed up from soup to nuts. So
Speaker 1: let's I wanted to let all you know. This is
Speaker 1: sort of inside lawyery baseball, but it's just a fascinating
Speaker 1: example of a couple of different things that just massively
Speaker 1: annoy me, particularly the proliferation of AI to basically arenas
Speaker 1: that don't need it and actively shouldn't have it, which
Speaker 1: is a big pet peeve of mine. So let me
Speaker 1: describe what's happened, all right, the bar exam. Most people
Speaker 1: have heard of this. The bar exam is the exam
Speaker 1: administered by every one of the individual fifty states. It
Speaker 1: has some in most states, it has some portions of
Speaker 1: it that are sort of interstate or federal or not,
Speaker 1: you know, individual states specific, and then it has some
Speaker 1: stuff in it that is state specific and it is
Speaker 1: intended to qualify you as a lawyer. If you pass
Speaker 1: the Bar Exam, you become a licensed lawyer in that state.
Speaker 1: And it's a very difficult test. It's very it's very
Speaker 1: intensively like physically demanding. It. It takes place over the
Speaker 1: course of two days. Back when I took it in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, I took the California Bar Exam after having
Speaker 1: I had already taken it in Massachusetts for my first job,
Speaker 1: and then we moved back home to California, I took
Speaker 1: the California Bar Exam, so I'm a member of the
Speaker 1: bar for both Massachusetts and California. The California Bar Exam
Speaker 1: when I took it in twenty fifteen was a three
Speaker 1: day long test. Now it's only a two day long test,
Speaker 1: which most states have a two day long test, and
Speaker 1: it's I think it's two three hour sessions per day
Speaker 1: and very very intensive because basically they can give you
Speaker 1: questions from almost any body any part of American law.
Speaker 1: You might have an essay question about torts, you might
Speaker 1: have an essay question about contract. You might have an
Speaker 1: essay question about criminal law or criminal procedure. You might
Speaker 1: have a essay question about this, you might have an
Speaker 1: essay question about that. And you have to basically study
Speaker 1: this enormous, enormous range of material to be like ready
Speaker 1: to go to answer whatever comes your way. So the
Speaker 1: lead up to it is super intensive because you have
Speaker 1: to study study studies so hard. It's such an enormous
Speaker 1: range of material. Now you have multiple choice questions on
Speaker 1: the bar exam. I'm giving you this background, by the way,
Speaker 1: because the bar exam is only issued twice a year
Speaker 1: late July and February for people who wrapped up law
Speaker 1: school at the end of the spring semester at the
Speaker 1: end of the fall semester, respectively. And the most recent
Speaker 1: February administration of the bar exam was a train wreck.
Speaker 1: So let me keep describing how it goes for you
Speaker 1: so you can kind of under stand the context of
Speaker 1: how bad it is. The bar exam sort of has
Speaker 1: two different kinds of questions. You have multiple choice questions
Speaker 1: and then you have essay questions. The essay questions present
Speaker 1: you with a large sort of factual, a large factual scenario,
Speaker 1: large complex factual scenario. You know, Mike was driving down
Speaker 1: the road. A police officer pulled him over. The police
Speaker 1: officer smelled marijuana in the car. He opened the trunk
Speaker 1: without asking permission first, the Mike fled the scene. He
Speaker 1: raised his fist as if to punch the officer, but
Speaker 1: then did not actually connect with his fist. How many
Speaker 1: criminal claims? Spot all the issues with this scenario in
Speaker 1: an essay form? Okay, so they'll present you with this
Speaker 1: very elaborate factual scenario and you have to identify like
Speaker 1: all the different legal claims or issues involved within that
Speaker 1: legal scenario. That's how the essay questions work. And then
Speaker 1: the multiple choice questions are no walk in the park either.
Speaker 1: The multiple choice questions on the bar exam present you
Speaker 1: with a very tightly written but very complex, little factual pattern,
Speaker 1: and you have four different options for how to resolve it.
Speaker 1: It's not easy. I think you think multiple choice, you think, oh,
Speaker 1: that's not that hard. Now these are hard. The multiple
Speaker 1: choice questions on the bar exam are really hard. I'd
Speaker 1: say for me, they were harder than the essay questions. Now,
Speaker 1: what happened? Well, the California bar Exam administered this weird
Speaker 1: hybrid remote version of the bar Exam where there is
Speaker 1: a computer element to the bar Exam where basically, especially
Speaker 1: for the essay questions, you can have your laptop up
Speaker 1: there and it's connected into the system and you write
Speaker 1: out your answers. So there was this sort of hybrid
Speaker 1: remote system that was being used, and these electronic features
Speaker 1: are being used where people are doing the bar Exam
Speaker 1: with their laptops. And in the February bar Exam and
Speaker 1: mission setting, a bunch of stuff failed electronically, just stuff
Speaker 1: wasn't connected, people couldn't connect, and people just lost out
Speaker 1: on the opportunity to answer a whole bunch of questions. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: it was then revealed after the fact that non lawyers
Speaker 1: utilizing AI had actually drafted some of the multiple choice
Speaker 1: questions on the bar Exam. Now, this is so bad
Speaker 1: and so just just wildly inappropriate. First of all, because
Speaker 1: first and foremost, because AI is just not that good
Speaker 1: yet that we could trust it with something like this
Speaker 1: to develop a factual a series of factual scenarios that
Speaker 1: would be relevant enough for testing a prospective lawyer on
Speaker 1: their knowledge of the law. AI is just not good enough.
Speaker 1: It's certainly not good enough to do that without a
Speaker 1: lawyer checking up on it, and at a certain point
Speaker 1: then it's not useful. You might as well just have
Speaker 1: the lawyer come up with it rather than have AI
Speaker 1: create it and then have the lawyer review it. I mean,
Speaker 1: you all, any one of you listening to this who
Speaker 1: have Googled anything, you know how unreliable AI is. Okay,
Speaker 1: I Google, you know, I'm I'm nobody special. I'm sure
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the population does this. But pretty Google
Speaker 1: now has like the AI summary for its search result
Speaker 1: findings that they stick at the top now of every
Speaker 1: single stinking Google search. And it's so obnoxious because I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, nineteen times out of twenty it
Speaker 1: just isn't useful or it isn't reliably useful. Because this
Speaker 1: is the thing with AI, people, I feel like over
Speaker 1: praise it and over laud it for how revolutionary it is.
Speaker 1: It's garbage in, garbage out. What AI does is it's
Speaker 1: just synthesizing all the information that is put into the
Speaker 1: system and then it spits it out. You do a
Speaker 1: Google search for something, you might have five things that
Speaker 1: are relevant and ten things that are irrelevant, well the
Speaker 1: five If the irrelevant stuff is up high in the
Speaker 1: search results, that's going to influence the AI summary. So
Speaker 1: the AI summary then becomes partially irrelevant or partially not useful.
Speaker 1: It's garbage in, garbage out. That's how AI works. So
Speaker 1: you usually cannot trust AI if you have some sort
Speaker 1: of simple task to give it. Okay, sure, write out
Speaker 1: some boilerplate language for you know, a thank you letter
Speaker 1: for you know, in my case, like for a nonprofit donor. Okay, sure,
Speaker 1: that's that looks fine. This is a low stakes thing.
Speaker 1: I can look at it and that's fine. The problem
Speaker 1: is the higher the stakes are, the less you can
Speaker 1: really rely on AI. And specifically this is true in
Speaker 1: the legal context. Lawyers are are getting sanctioned more and
Speaker 1: more today because it gets found out that a lawyer
Speaker 1: used AI, used CHAP GPT, use some sort of AI
Speaker 1: system for writing or drafting a legal brief or doing something,
Speaker 1: and it's a breach of their professional responsibilities. I feel
Speaker 1: like the use of AI in the practice of law
Speaker 1: is fraught with peril, and nobody who's like really enthusiastic.
Speaker 1: All these techi people, they're so enthusiastic about AI Oh,
Speaker 1: it's gonna revolutionize this, gonna revolutionize that. Yeah, it's gonna
Speaker 1: revolutionize You ruining your career because you tried to use
Speaker 1: AI on something important and you didn't double check it
Speaker 1: and then your client gets screwed. Why is your client
Speaker 1: paying you money for you to use chat GPT. The
Speaker 1: use of AI is fraud with peril for attorneys. I
Speaker 1: feel maybe there's some way that you can think of
Speaker 1: AI as like a search tool for beginning your legal
Speaker 1: research or something like that, but relying on AI to
Speaker 1: write stuff is fraught with peril. And yet somehow, bizarrely
Speaker 1: the state bar thought it was okay to have a
Speaker 1: non lawyer using AI draft bar results. Now, this is
Speaker 1: so bad, Like the California Apparently people with the cap
Speaker 1: at the top level of the California Bar did not
Speaker 1: know that they had commissioned non lawyers using AI to
Speaker 1: write bar exam questions. So the very test that you're
Speaker 1: qualifying new young lawyers, for these new young lawyers that
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to give all these continuing education for
Speaker 1: the rest of their careers are going to have to
Speaker 1: deal with the ethics, the how tos, the what to
Speaker 1: avoids of utilizing AI. You are recklessly using AI on
Speaker 1: the very test that's designed to qualify them and having
Speaker 1: a non lawyer utilize the AI to write the test,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure probably cost a lot of money for
Speaker 1: whatever AI function was used, and makes me wonder why
Speaker 1: why would you waste time on it? Get some law
Speaker 1: Get like twenty law professors from different law schools up
Speaker 1: and down the state. They'll help out on a pro
Speaker 1: bono basis. Have each one of them, you know, write
Speaker 1: you know, five multiple choice questions for the bar exam.
Speaker 1: Have them submit them. What are we bothering? Why are
Speaker 1: we bothering? With AI? It probably would have been cheaper
Speaker 1: just to ask a bunch of law professors to help
Speaker 1: contribute questions, which I'm pretty sure is what they normally
Speaker 1: do anyway, at least for whatever portions of the bar
Speaker 1: zoom or state specific usually that there's I think California
Speaker 1: actually rejected the multi state multiple choice question that anyway,
Speaker 1: it boggles my mind. This and this is the thing
Speaker 1: I hate about AI insofar as I have opinions on it.
Speaker 1: And this is this is a constant point of joking
Speaker 1: between myself, Jonathan Keller, and producer Colton who our team
Speaker 1: for the Right to Life radio show, which we air
Speaker 1: on Saturday mornings here on Power Talk. They love all
Speaker 1: new technology. They're Apple fanboys. Anytime a new iPhone comes out,
Speaker 1: they're like first in line to get it. And they're
Speaker 1: very enthused about AI and the opportunities and possibilities for
Speaker 1: AI and blah blah blah blah blah. Meanwhile, I hate
Speaker 1: all this stuff. I feel like we're willingly walking into
Speaker 1: some kind of dystopian you know, terminator slash the Matrix
Speaker 1: slash I robot, you know, dystopian AI future where we're
Speaker 1: willingly handing over our autonomy two machines. And I just
Speaker 1: hate this idea, this mindless idea of wanting to shove
Speaker 1: AI into every single product, function, functionality humanly conceivable. Like
Speaker 1: I don't need AI to help me write a post
Speaker 1: on LinkedIn, of all places. I don't need AI to
Speaker 1: help me on Facebook. I can waste time perfectly well
Speaker 1: on my own, thank you very much. I don't need
Speaker 1: a there's no possible need for AI in I don't
Speaker 1: need an AI summary thing in quick books. I want
Speaker 1: a human entering these ledgers. Like, no, I don't need
Speaker 1: AI for so much. Now when we return the California State.
Speaker 1: The California State Supreme Court also didn't know that the
Speaker 1: state bar folks were using AI to write multiple choice questions.
Speaker 1: That on top of the giant mess that was left
Speaker 1: behind from the February bar administration. Now the California Supreme
Speaker 1: Court has to rule on are we going to lower
Speaker 1: the scores for passage to allow in a bunch of
Speaker 1: lawyers who didn't make the normal what we would have
Speaker 1: said as the normal qualifying score and what the impact
Speaker 1: of that is. That is next on the John Girardi Show.
Speaker 1: So the California State Bar Exam that was administered this
Speaker 1: past February, and remember they only administer the bar exam
Speaker 1: for prospective new lawyers two times a year, once in
Speaker 1: February for either people who failed to pass the bar
Speaker 1: exam the first time or graduated in spring, and then
Speaker 1: once in July for people who graduated law school in May.
Speaker 1: So you only get two shots at this year, and
Speaker 1: it's like six months apart. So it really janks up
Speaker 1: your life schedule if you fail the bar exam, or
Speaker 1: if the bar exam got so screwed up that you're
Speaker 1: in the state of limbo of did you or didn't
Speaker 1: you pass, and your you know, your professional prospects are
Speaker 1: massively altered. Thereby, you can't practice as a lawyer if
Speaker 1: you haven't passed the Bar Exam, and maybe you got
Speaker 1: hired by a firm out of law school and you're you're,
Speaker 1: you know, waiting to hear back on your Bar exam results.
Speaker 1: It's a stressful thing and can be a hugely obviously,
Speaker 1: it's a hugely limiting thing if you don't pass the
Speaker 1: Bar Exam or if you don't know. Plus, by the way,
Speaker 1: it takes a couple of months to grade the Bar Exam.
Speaker 1: They administered the Bar Exam in February. They're supposed to
Speaker 1: be releasing Bar Exam results on May second. Now, as
Speaker 1: I described in the last segment, the California Bar Exam
Speaker 1: that was administered in February, and California has sort of
Speaker 1: taken total control over its state bar exam. Most states
Speaker 1: have what's called the multi state portion of their exam,
Speaker 1: where this this entity provides all the states with sort
Speaker 1: of the same stuff for the multiple choice questions that
Speaker 1: are used on the Bar Exam. By the way, this
Speaker 1: is the hardest multiple choice thing you've ever seen in
Speaker 1: your life. Okay, imagine the sat is on steroids. There's
Speaker 1: the multiple choice questions are usually sort of standardized across
Speaker 1: the country, and then your essay questions are state by
Speaker 1: state specific. Well, California rejected that. California said, no, we're
Speaker 1: we're taking control of the multi state portion ourselves, and
Speaker 1: the multi state multiple choice question portion ourselves, and the
Speaker 1: individual essay questions ourselves. Okay, that's fine, don't screw it up.
Speaker 1: And they royally screwed it up. The basically the electronics
Speaker 1: system allowing people to take the test, the online electronics
Speaker 1: system failed massively for large numbers of test takers, resulting
Speaker 1: in a bunch of people who just weren't able to
Speaker 1: even finish the test or go through all the answers.
Speaker 1: And it was later revealed a bunch of the multi
Speaker 1: state a bunch of the multiple choice questions were written
Speaker 1: by non lawyers utilizing AI. So we were now in
Speaker 1: this position where the California Bar examiners were having to
Speaker 1: go to the California State Supreme Court, which, for those
Speaker 1: who don't know, there's the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC.
Speaker 1: You know, Chief Justice Roberts Clarence Thomas Samlito. Every individual
Speaker 1: state has its own state Supreme Court. There's a California
Speaker 1: State Supreme Court, Utah State Supreme Court, Hawaii State Supreme Court, Montana,
Speaker 1: et cetera. California's State Supreme Court overseas certain aspects of
Speaker 1: the legal profession, and because of the exceptional circumstances here,
Speaker 1: the California Bar Examiners are petitioning the State Supreme Court
Speaker 1: to lower the passing grade for this February bar exam,
Speaker 1: given how royally was screwed up. Results are supposed to
Speaker 1: be released on May second. Yesterday, it was revealed, though,
Speaker 1: that the State Bar still hadn't even submitted its brief.
Speaker 1: They're screwing up left and right. On April eighteenth, according
Speaker 1: to this statement from the State Bar, on April eighteenth,
Speaker 1: the Committee of Bar Examiners made its recommendations for scoring
Speaker 1: adjustments for the February bar exam. The CB asked US
Speaker 1: California's Supreme Court to rule on a petition the State
Speaker 1: Bar would file regarding those recommendations by Monday, April twenty eighth. Well,
Speaker 1: the problem is the State Bar hadn't even filed the petition,
Speaker 1: and they're supposed to be filing it today. The timing
Speaker 1: of the petition will not give the Supreme Court, the
Speaker 1: State Supreme Court much time they write to rule in
Speaker 1: a manner that allows us to apply the scoring recommendations
Speaker 1: adopted by the Court and then release February Bar Exam
Speaker 1: results on May second. There may therefore be a slight
Speaker 1: delay in releasing results. This is a huge problem. This
Speaker 1: is a huge problem. So first of all, how it
Speaker 1: impacts your professional prospects if you're admittance to the bar
Speaker 1: is being delayed, delayed, delayed, Can I start this job
Speaker 1: that I want? Well, we don't know. And then secondly,
Speaker 1: there's this all right, The idea of the bar exam
Speaker 1: is that it's a barrier to entry. It's deliberately hard.
Speaker 1: On the one hand, it's testing your knowledge of the law.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, it's just testing if you're smart
Speaker 1: and hard working. It's testing whether you've got the goods
Speaker 1: to really study, really, really, really hard and absorb a
Speaker 1: lot of material. Because why, well, being a lawyer is
Speaker 1: a really important responsibility. Your conduct, your behavior can be
Speaker 1: the difference between a murderer going free or a murderer
Speaker 1: going to jail. It can be the difference between you know,
Speaker 1: millions of dollars going rightly or wrongly one way or another.
Speaker 1: We need good, just competent people being lawyers so that
Speaker 1: justice can be administered throughout society. It's actually a really
Speaker 1: important thing. And they make it hard to pass the
Speaker 1: bar exame because they don't want dummies being lawyers. And
Speaker 1: I'm afraid, like, if you're lowering the standard because the
Speaker 1: state and I mean, what else can the state bar do?
Speaker 1: They screwed it up. They screwed it up. It wasn't
Speaker 1: the test takers. It screwed it up. They did. So
Speaker 1: if you're lowering the standard for admitting people in, are
Speaker 1: we just going to concede? Well, I guess we're just
Speaker 1: gonna let a couple of people who are not as
Speaker 1: smart as we would normally like let them become lawyers.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not good, It really is not good.
Speaker 1: Are we going to get people who are gonna give
Speaker 1: people add legal advice like that? It's a really bad thing.
Speaker 1: And the state Bar is going to just apologize and
Speaker 1: that Here's well, the one thing that could really give
Speaker 1: the state bar some real pain and maybe lead to
Speaker 1: some real reform here is the fact that these are
Speaker 1: law students whom you have screwed over. This is a
Speaker 1: litigious group. So and and you've got a lot of
Speaker 1: lawyers all up and down the state looking at this
Speaker 1: with great interest about, Hey, how can I sue the
Speaker 1: state bar. You know all these bar dues they're collecting. Hmmm,
Speaker 1: maybe that's a nice pool of money for me to
Speaker 1: try to sue. Let's see if I can put a
Speaker 1: slap a class action lawsuit together. Like yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a dicey situation for the state bar. All right. When
Speaker 1: we return, one of the big issues in the upcoming
Speaker 1: papal election China. That's next on the John Girardi Show.
Speaker 1: An underrated issue in the upcoming election of the Pope
Speaker 1: may well be the issue of China. One of the
Speaker 1: more significant things that happened under Pope Francis's papacy was
Speaker 1: an agreement, a kind of concordat that was signed between
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church and the Chinese government. And it had
Speaker 1: to do with what influence, what power was the Chinese
Speaker 1: state going to have in the selection of bishops, and
Speaker 1: what sort of regularized non regularized status would there be
Speaker 1: for the Catholic Church in China. Now for years up
Speaker 1: until now in mainland China, there was this division between
Speaker 1: the state approved I think it was called the Chinese
Speaker 1: Catholic Patriotic Association or something, so the state approved Catholic
Speaker 1: Church in China, and then the underground illegal Catholic Church
Speaker 1: like the actual Catholic Church, which would be subject to
Speaker 1: sporadic harassment persecution by the Chinese governmental authorities. The Vatican
Speaker 1: and China had broken off any kind of diplomatic relations
Speaker 1: after the revolution and Malo Zetung and a ton of
Speaker 1: Chinese Catholics were martyred under the Communist regime and one
Speaker 1: of the during the Benedict papacy, one of the real
Speaker 1: stalwart defenders of the underground church in China was the
Speaker 1: Bishop of Hong Kong, who is a cardinal, Cardinal Zen. Yes,
Speaker 1: his name is Cardinal Zen ze En, not Cardinals Zin.
Speaker 1: Cardinal Zin zi Yan had as a mullet and wears
Speaker 1: wrap around rainbow colored shades and cut off you know,
Speaker 1: tank top and cut off blue jeans and smokes Marlboroughs
Speaker 1: and goes dirt biking with his buddies. No, just kidding,
Speaker 1: there's no Cardinal Zen. There is a Cardinal Zen though, Okay,
Speaker 1: Cardinal Zen was the Bishop of Hong Kong and was
Speaker 1: a staunch defender of the underground Catholic Church and a
Speaker 1: critic of the Chinese government. Well Francis's papacy. And by
Speaker 1: the way, I'm not I'm gonna just report on this,
Speaker 1: I'm not really giving much of an opinion because, for one,
Speaker 1: diplomatic relations between the Catholic Church and various kinds of
Speaker 1: governments have always been dicey, and you often have this
Speaker 1: situation of the Catholic Church trying to make chicken salad
Speaker 1: at a chicken you know what, where they've got a
Speaker 1: hostile government, they've got a anti clerical or anti religious government.
Speaker 1: They want the Catholic Church to exist within that government,
Speaker 1: and maybe certain kinds of concessions have to be made
Speaker 1: as far as like over you know how bishops get appointed,
Speaker 1: what you know, stuff like that. And the Church wants
Speaker 1: to have regularization with all of the Catholics in China
Speaker 1: who were part of the Patriotic Catholic Association, the state
Speaker 1: approved church, and they're trying to figure out, well, is
Speaker 1: there a way that we can regularize relations and have
Speaker 1: these Catholics not be schismatic and have them be part
Speaker 1: of the actual Catholic Church. Is there a way we
Speaker 1: can do that? And they developed this sort of concordat
Speaker 1: allowing basically the Vatican to also nominate bishops for the
Speaker 1: official state run Chinese Church. So I get what's motivating
Speaker 1: Pope Francis and most particularly Cardinal Pietro Parolin. So, Pietro
Speaker 1: Polin is the papal Secretary of State and is clearly
Speaker 1: seems to think of himself, or well, I shouldn't say
Speaker 1: think of himself. He is clearly a candidate for Pope.
Speaker 1: Pietro Poolin. He's a secretary of State, which is basically
Speaker 1: he's in charge of the Vatican's relationships with foreign officials,
Speaker 1: and the Secretary of State actually has a lot of
Speaker 1: sort of power within the structures of the Vatican itself.
Speaker 1: And it's clear that he is a candidate for Pope.
Speaker 1: So he was critical under Pope Francis and signing this
Speaker 1: agreement with the Chinese Communist Party regarding the above ground Church.
Speaker 1: The criticism of this agreement, though, and one of the
Speaker 1: big critics of this agreement was Joseph Zen, the cardinal
Speaker 1: Bishop of Hong Kong, or the former he's now retired,
Speaker 1: he's like ninety years old, but he was extremely critical
Speaker 1: of this deal, and here he is in Hong Kong.
Speaker 1: Basically he said, well, you've you're you're conceding so much
Speaker 1: to the Chinese, Like are you going to be okay?
Speaker 1: I mean, are the is is the Chinese government going
Speaker 1: to vet bishops to make sure that they're you know,
Speaker 1: supportive of communism? Like are we really going to be
Speaker 1: sure that bishops that are jointly appointed, that are okayed
Speaker 1: by the Chinese state and appointed by the Vatican, that
Speaker 1: they're actually going to reject communism? Are we going to
Speaker 1: have pictures of Xi and Mao Zedong? Are we gonna
Speaker 1: have pictures of Jijinping and Mao Zedong hanging up in
Speaker 1: Catholic churches? And what about all the underground Catholics? Did
Speaker 1: you just leave them all out to dry? Did you
Speaker 1: basically just say that their years of sacrifice meant nothing?
Speaker 1: So I can see both sides of the debate. I
Speaker 1: can see on the Vatican side and Cardinal Parolin's side,
Speaker 1: we wanted to regularize relations with all of these Catholics
Speaker 1: who are part of this above ground like schusmatic Chinese
Speaker 1: government controlled organization. We want to bring them into the
Speaker 1: fold of the Catholic Church again. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: here's Cardinal Zen saying, hey, you know, here's all these
Speaker 1: underground Catholics who've suffered so much under the threat of persecution.
Speaker 1: Why aren't you helping them? And it's not an academic exercise.
Speaker 1: For Cardinal Zen, so as I said, he's the Bishop
Speaker 1: of Hong Kong. For those who are not aware, the
Speaker 1: last fifteen years for Hong Kong have not been great.
Speaker 1: Hong Kong had been a British controlled territory along you know,
Speaker 1: right next to the communists controlled Chinese mainland. Hong Kong
Speaker 1: was democratic. Hong Kong had robust British inherited systems of legal,
Speaker 1: due process and common law. Hong Kong was a relatively
Speaker 1: free place. The British did this handover. I remember this
Speaker 1: in the late nineties. The British formally gave back Hong
Speaker 1: Kong to the Chinese. I guess they had had like
Speaker 1: one hundred year lease or something, and they agreed to
Speaker 1: abide by it. I don't know why they agreed to
Speaker 1: abide by it. I think that was silly. The Chinese
Speaker 1: gave some the Communist Party in China. The Chinese Communist
Speaker 1: governing authorities gave some sort of assurances that Hong Kong's
Speaker 1: current you know, they're sort of British inherited legal system
Speaker 1: and system of freedoms, etc. Would be maintained. And in
Speaker 1: the last fifteen years those promises have all gone out
Speaker 1: the window. Hong Kong is now much more aggressively under
Speaker 1: the control of mainland China and mainland Chinese communist attitudes
Speaker 1: about free speech and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera to such an
Speaker 1: extent that Cardinal Zen, Joseph Zen was arrested by the
Speaker 1: communist authorities and he's basically he was under house arrest.
Speaker 1: He got permission from the communist authorities to go to
Speaker 1: the Vatican for the papal election, but he was under
Speaker 1: house arrest. A lot of people have noted the case
Speaker 1: of Jimmy Lai Lai, who has been arrested and arrested
Speaker 1: and imprisoned by the communist authorities. He's a media mogul
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong, a pro democracy guy, and a Cardinal
Speaker 1: Zen has been very supportive of him in his persecution
Speaker 1: by the communist authorities. He's a Hong Kong businessman and politician.
Speaker 1: So today, basically the cardinals are all meeting in the
Speaker 1: Vatican today, So you have something like two hundred plus
Speaker 1: cardinals in total. Only the cardinals under the age of
Speaker 1: eighty are allowed to vote, but all of the cardinals,
Speaker 1: even those who are over eighty, are able to come
Speaker 1: to the Vatican for these discussions before the cardinals get
Speaker 1: locked down and start voting on the pope. The cardinals
Speaker 1: will start voting for the pope on May seventh, so
Speaker 1: in about a week. So cardinals En is apparently going
Speaker 1: to talk today and the cardinals are going to have
Speaker 1: to decide, well, what is the future for the Catholic
Speaker 1: Church in China. Are we going to keep abiding by
Speaker 1: this agreement that gives the Chinese government you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of sway in the choice of church leadership. Does
Speaker 1: it do so at the expense of, you know, weakening
Speaker 1: down the faith? I mean, on the one hand, we
Speaker 1: want this schismatic Chinese patriotic church to come back into
Speaker 1: the fold of the Catholic faith. We want all these
Speaker 1: you know, gazillions of Catholics who are part of it
Speaker 1: to be returned into Catholic unity. At the same time,
Speaker 1: or was the Vatican diplomatic team headed by Cardinal Perilan
Speaker 1: where they played for fools by the Communists. Did the
Speaker 1: Communists get everything they wanted, a submissive Catholic Church supporting
Speaker 1: communism and we didn't necessarily get that much back in return?
Speaker 1: Did we throw the underground Catholics under the bus again?
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna John Girardi is not making a huge
Speaker 1: judgment about this. I can see both sides of the issue.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm probably a little more inclined towards Cardinals Zen's perspective.
Speaker 1: But this is a huge issue within the election of
Speaker 1: the next pope is what will be the actual practical
Speaker 1: political posture of the Catholic Church, not not just against China,
Speaker 1: but against there are other countries that are having sort
Speaker 1: of very host countries in Latin America, et cetera, that
Speaker 1: have very hostile relations with the Catholic Church who want
Speaker 1: to meddle with the appointment of our bishops, which is
Speaker 1: not a new thing, especially since the French Revolution. This
Speaker 1: is something that this has been a problem that the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church has had to deal with with long time.
Speaker 1: We've had a lot of less than ideal situations that
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church has lived under the Soviet domination of
Speaker 1: much of you know, eastern Central Europe for example. So
Speaker 1: this is going to be a huge issue, and you know,
Speaker 1: I hope, you know, I hope cardinals En has something
Speaker 1: thoughtful to say to all those cardinals. You know, he's
Speaker 1: ninety years old. I don't think he's got much of
Speaker 1: a filter anymore, and maybe that's good. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: they're going to hear a lot from Cardinal Perland, probably
Speaker 1: trying to defend his own record. So it'll be very
Speaker 1: interesting to see. It's going to be a major issue
Speaker 1: I think in the upcoming papal election when we return.
Speaker 1: Money another big issue in the papal election, basically the
Speaker 1: bad state of the Vatican's finances. Next on the John
Speaker 1: Girardi Show. One of the other big issues with the
Speaker 1: papal election so the cardinals are going to get locked
Speaker 1: down and start voting on May seventh, is money. Vatican's
Speaker 1: finances are in bad shape. Donations worldwide, the Vatican gets
Speaker 1: some donations from the Catholic Church, all of the world
Speaker 1: are down. The Vatican keeps running a deficit, and one
Speaker 1: of the sad things was under Pope Francis, he appointed
Speaker 1: this Australian cardinal, George pell. He was a very competent
Speaker 1: man Oxford doctorate holder, very conservative guy, beloved by Benedict
Speaker 1: the sixteenth to revamp the Vatican's finances, and the Italians
Speaker 1: basically stymied him at every turn. He was not really
Speaker 1: able to affect the kind of economic and financial transparency
Speaker 1: reforms that were needed. I think popes have had a
Speaker 1: hard time wrangling various lousy Italian pres bishop's, cardinals and
Speaker 1: their investments of money and their dealings with shady Italian characters,
Speaker 1: especially for various kinds of investing opportunities, and it's resulted
Speaker 1: in the Vatican losing a lot of money on stupid investments.
Speaker 1: So obviously it shouldn't be the issue, but it's going
Speaker 1: to be. Ah issue is the finances of the Vatican,
Speaker 1: their unfunded pension liabilities and just their donation deficits. It's
Speaker 1: a real issue, and I hope they can get someone
Speaker 1: who is a competent person as well as someone who
Speaker 1: is a holy and smart person that'll do it. John
Speaker 1: Girardi Show, See you next time on Powered