Speaker 1: Those of you who listen to John Girardi show a lot. No,
Speaker 1: I often do a little inside Catholic baseball where I
Speaker 1: talk about different topics relating to Catholicism and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: I being a Catholic. So it is with with some trepidation,
Speaker 1: excuse me, it is with some trepidation that I cross
Speaker 1: the street to the Protestant side of the street, Uh,
Speaker 1: to talk about some inside Protestant baseball stuff. And it's
Speaker 1: to talk about the magazine Christianity Today. Now, I am
Speaker 1: not here to cast stones on my against my evangelical
Speaker 1: brethren for having a kind of media outlet called Christianity
Speaker 1: Today that is straying a lot from Orthodox Christianity. Uh.
Speaker 1: That would be a pretty silly thing for a Catholic
Speaker 1: to do. Give that we have a magazine called The
Speaker 1: National Catholic Reporter that is not exactly very Catholic in
Speaker 1: a whole lot of ways. So this isn't trust me
Speaker 1: that any critique that's happening here, my beloved evangelical friends,
Speaker 1: is coming from a place of love and sympathy, not empathy.
Speaker 1: Sympathy for your historic institutions being corrupted by the fingers
Speaker 1: of liberals Christianity Today was founded by Billy Graham and
Speaker 1: has been an important publication in evangelical circles for a
Speaker 1: long time. Russell Moore the former head of sort of
Speaker 1: the Baptists sort of what was what was his role exactly?
Speaker 1: He was sort of the head of kind of the
Speaker 1: Baptist sort of lobbying outfit that was in Washington, d c.
Speaker 1: And he's become sort of progressively more more left leaning
Speaker 1: over the course of the last several years, especially over
Speaker 1: the course of COVID and the Trump era. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was the head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission,
Speaker 1: which is the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention,
Speaker 1: and he's gotten a lot of flack from them for
Speaker 1: sort of being this liberalizing force. And he's now the
Speaker 1: editor in chief of Christianity Today. Well, as some of
Speaker 1: you may know, yesterday Jimmy Carter passed away. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's this Latin expression de mortuis nihil nissi bonum concerning
Speaker 1: the dead nothing but good things, Meaning after someone dies,
Speaker 1: maybe let's you know, reserve all of our harshest critiques,
Speaker 1: maybe save them for later. This person just died, i'd
Speaker 1: let's be nice to that. You know, let's be nice
Speaker 1: to them for the sake of their grieving family and whatnot.
Speaker 1: You know, someone who's kind of rotten passes away, you
Speaker 1: try to be civil. You be civil about him. You
Speaker 1: don't bring up old crap or just anyone who dies
Speaker 1: like you don't go to the funeral and during the
Speaker 1: eulogy talk about how yeah, and then when he you know,
Speaker 1: when he cheated on his wife and he you know,
Speaker 1: stiffed a couple of contractors who worked for him, and well, no,
Speaker 1: I mean that, you know, it's not to overlook those things,
Speaker 1: but that's just not the appropriate time. On the other hand, though,
Speaker 1: the other side of it is that if you're at
Speaker 1: a bad guy's funeral, you don't during the eulogy talk
Speaker 1: about what a wonderful, faithful, uh faithful husband he was.
Speaker 1: You know, if he cheated on his wife, oh that's
Speaker 1: not Maybe you don't go on and on with hay
Speaker 1: geography of the person at the funeral. If this person
Speaker 1: was not a good husband, you don't talk about what
Speaker 1: a wonderful, what husband he was. You emphasize the good
Speaker 1: and you mostly kind of stay silent about the bad.
Speaker 1: That's a fine thing to do. But eulogizing someone by
Speaker 1: talking about what a wonderful devout Christian they were when
Speaker 1: they weren't really a wonderful devout Christian is a little
Speaker 1: bit dishonest, and especially if it's coming from a publication
Speaker 1: like Christianity Today, which occupies kind of an important space,
Speaker 1: especially in the evangelical world, of giving kind of almost
Speaker 1: near magisterial opinions about American culture and Christianity and where
Speaker 1: we fit within that culture. So I found this long
Speaker 1: Twitter post from John G. West, who is the vice
Speaker 1: president of the Discovery Institute and some some kind of
Speaker 1: evangelical outfit, and he's talking about Christianity Today's sort of
Speaker 1: they're not their eulogy for Jimmy Carter, the sort of
Speaker 1: their their obituary more or less for Jimmy Carter. Christianity
Speaker 1: Today published this kind of obituary piece about Jimmy Carter
Speaker 1: at the time, yes yesterday, after his passing, And it's
Speaker 1: clear that I think a lot of publications do this.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm sure a ton of newspapers do this,
Speaker 1: where they're getting the obituary ready, the obituary piece or
Speaker 1: the actual obituary for a famous person, they've got it
Speaker 1: ready to go, so that if someone eyes, they're ready
Speaker 1: to publish something like right away. So clearly Christianity today
Speaker 1: had this in the hopper, and apparently this piece on
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter was so just slobberrific about how wonderful Jimmy
Speaker 1: Carter is that it goes into the realm of eulogizing
Speaker 1: the guy who cheated on his husband for what a
Speaker 1: wonderful husband he was, sorry, the guy who cheated on
Speaker 1: his wife for what a wonderful husband he was. So
Speaker 1: let's John G. West sort of points out a couple
Speaker 1: of different points, and I think it's significant because there
Speaker 1: is seemingly this strain of evangelical Christianity. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of times, especially those of us who are Catholics
Speaker 1: or people who aren't Evangelicals, we look at evangelical Christianity,
Speaker 1: which is, first of all, is kind of a very
Speaker 1: loose term that is hard to pin down precisely what
Speaker 1: we mean when we say quote evangelical Christianity. Obviously it
Speaker 1: means Protestants. It largely means, though not exclusively, Southern Baptists
Speaker 1: and Southern Baptist fellow travelers, whether they are actually part
Speaker 1: of the Southern Baptist convention or not. Southern Baptist Christianity
Speaker 1: is kind of the most dominant single strain of Protestant
Speaker 1: Christianity in America, and a lot of non denominational churches
Speaker 1: who claim a non denominational status, they sort of fall
Speaker 1: into this sort of default Southern Baptist kind of theology.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of Catholics also, a lot of Catholics.
Speaker 1: I think when you say Protestant, what actually comes to
Speaker 1: the mind of most Catholics is Southern Baptists, and a
Speaker 1: lot of like Catholic Catholic apologetics for discussion, for talking
Speaker 1: with non Catholics about the faith. Most Catholic apologetics seem
Speaker 1: to be in America anyway, seemed to be oriented towards
Speaker 1: having a conversation with a Southern Baptist. So this is
Speaker 1: really significant for Christianity today to be talking from this
Speaker 1: sort of evangelical perspective about this, to be talking about
Speaker 1: as sort of the representative of evangelical Christianity, to be
Speaker 1: talking about Jimmy Carter. What is the legacy of this
Speaker 1: very prominent public person. So within evangelicalism, though, there's this
Speaker 1: sort of liberalizing strain among Southern Baptists that really reared
Speaker 1: its head during the Trump years, and especially with regards
Speaker 1: to COVID, where there's almost this sense of like, if
Speaker 1: someone is a professing Christian, a professing Baptist, a professing
Speaker 1: born again Christian, that there's almost this willingness to overlook
Speaker 1: the liberal stuff that they did, including things that might
Speaker 1: be contrary to historic little o orthodox Christianity. One of
Speaker 1: the people for whom this was really prominently seen in
Speaker 1: the last four or five years, in the last five
Speaker 1: years especially was doctor Francis Collins. Francis Collins was the
Speaker 1: head of the National Institutes of Health and he was
Speaker 1: one of the big villains of the COVID era. He
Speaker 1: was Anthony Fauci's boss actually, so within the hierarchy of
Speaker 1: the federal government there was Francis Collins was in charge
Speaker 1: of the National Institutes of Health. And one of the
Speaker 1: subdivisions of the National Institutes of Health is USAID, which
Speaker 1: Anthony Fauci ran. And again just for I've discussed this
Speaker 1: on the show a number of times, but the roles
Speaker 1: of those two agencies was they give out federal research grants.
Speaker 1: That's what they do Anthony Fauci's job was not America's doctor.
Speaker 1: His job was he was a federal bureaucrat who gave
Speaker 1: out federal research grants for researching infectious diseases, and so
Speaker 1: he and Francis Collins, that was their job. Francis Collins,
Speaker 1: from his perch at NIH, was often called upon by
Speaker 1: different evangelical outlets to talk with them or to was
Speaker 1: prominently featured, including Russell Moore who Russell Moore really liked
Speaker 1: Francis Collins. And this is Russell Moore when he was
Speaker 1: the head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, he
Speaker 1: was really big on Francis Collins. Lots of Republicans in Washington,
Speaker 1: especially evangelicals, really liked Francis Collins. Why well, because he
Speaker 1: was a born again Christian, a professing born again Christian
Speaker 1: who would occasionally do stuff where he'd play guitar and
Speaker 1: sing songs about Jesus. This in spite of the fact
Speaker 1: that he was like the federal bureaucrat overseeing research grants,
Speaker 1: and also in spite of the fact that why was
Speaker 1: Francis Collins picked to head NIH. He was picked because
Speaker 1: he was aggressively in favor of federal funding for embryo
Speaker 1: destructive stem cell research, research that required the destruction of
Speaker 1: embryos to get their stem cells for different kinds of
Speaker 1: medical research. Now that proved to be a complete flop
Speaker 1: and a complete dead end. There were no cures that
Speaker 1: resulted from embryonic stem cells, the kinds of stem cells
Speaker 1: that you acquire by destroying embryos. But he pursued it
Speaker 1: enormously aggressively. It's why Barack Obama picked him for the job.
Speaker 1: Barack Obama comes in in two thousand and nine, one
Speaker 1: of the first things he does is he reverses George W.
Speaker 1: Bush's policies about embryonic stem cell research and federal funding
Speaker 1: for it. He says, Nope, we're gonna fully federally fund this.
Speaker 1: We don't care about destroying embryos, we don't care about
Speaker 1: creating human beings new embryos solely to use their body
Speaker 1: parts for research. Francis Collins supported that he supported fetal
Speaker 1: tissue research using the bodies of aborted children. All the
Speaker 1: stuff that David de Lighten uncovered about Planned parenthood selling
Speaker 1: the body parts of children they aborted. The market for
Speaker 1: those body parts was created by the NIH and people
Speaker 1: like Francis Collins, who had federal funding for research using
Speaker 1: fetal tissue from and they needed the fetal tissue to
Speaker 1: come from somewhere, and they derived it from aborted babies.
Speaker 1: Francis Collins was hugely supportive of this, resisted Trump when
Speaker 1: during the Trump administration, when he was still in charge,
Speaker 1: resisted the Trump administration's efforts to stop funding fetal tissue research.
Speaker 1: Trump was able to enact that policy over Collins's objections,
Speaker 1: which were reported in major media outlets. So there's this
Speaker 1: whole sort of liberalizing trend. He's not the only one,
Speaker 1: by the way. I bring him up as an example,
Speaker 1: but there's this whole sort of liberalizing trend among kind
Speaker 1: of people in leadership positions within the Southern Baptist Convention
Speaker 1: sort of being very okay with extremely liberal people doing
Speaker 1: extremely bad things that are opposed to Christianity as long
Speaker 1: as they are kinda sort of professing Christians, as if
Speaker 1: the celebrity magnetism of oh my gosh, Francis Collins, the
Speaker 1: head of the NIH and an Obama appoint is a
Speaker 1: born again Christian. Oh wow, aren't we cool for interacting
Speaker 1: with him? And it seems that this kind of slobbering
Speaker 1: desire to be near power applied to Jimmy Carter two
Speaker 1: and this whole piece it Again, I understand concerning the dead,
Speaker 1: don't say anything except a good thing. But the idea
Speaker 1: of Jimmy Carter as an exemplary Christian from the perspective
Speaker 1: of evangelical Christianity seems very hard to sustain to me
Speaker 1: in a number of ways, which we will detail after
Speaker 1: the break. This is the John Girardi Show on Power Talk.
Speaker 1: We're talking about a piece from Christianity today about the
Speaker 1: passing of Jimmy Carter. And my again, I understand, someone dies,
Speaker 1: you don't just talk about what a piece of crap
Speaker 1: they are. But you also if the person was a
Speaker 1: piece of crap, you don't talk about what a saint
Speaker 1: they were. And I think that's what's happening, and it's
Speaker 1: tracking with this trend that other evangelicals like Meg Basham
Speaker 1: and others have pointed out much better than I have,
Speaker 1: about liberalizing trends within leadership of the big time leadership,
Speaker 1: especially within Southern Baptist Christianity or sort of big institutions
Speaker 1: within the evangelical Christian world. Now, I am not an
Speaker 1: expert to speak about these things. If you want me
Speaker 1: to talk about problems like this on my Catholic side
Speaker 1: of the street, more than happy to do so. But
Speaker 1: here's sort of the main things that were wrong and
Speaker 1: really wrong about this sort of obituary that was published
Speaker 1: by Christianity Today, which is one of the leading publications
Speaker 1: of evangelical Christianity founded by Billy Graham. It's editor in
Speaker 1: chief is Russell Moore. Some of the main problems with
Speaker 1: this piece, and this was identified by again by John G. West,
Speaker 1: the vice president of the Discovery Institute, who writes, here's
Speaker 1: some of the things that were in this piece that
Speaker 1: maybe give pause. First, there was this desire to sort
Speaker 1: of compare and within this obituary piece, there was this
Speaker 1: compare and contrast attitude between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan
Speaker 1: to make it look like Carter was a good Christian
Speaker 1: and Reagan was a crappy Christian. So it brings up
Speaker 1: this idea that Reagan was divorced twice, which is not true.
Speaker 1: Reagan was divorced once. So just this basic factual error,
Speaker 1: And what John G. West writes is he writes the
Speaker 1: point of drawing attention to Reagan's divorce was to slam
Speaker 1: evangelical voters for trading in the saintly Carter for the
Speaker 1: supposedly far less devout and loose living Reagan. This is
Speaker 1: a common trope voiced by left wing evangelicals, but it
Speaker 1: happens to be false. We now know, thanks to the
Speaker 1: work of scholars like Paul Kenger, that Reagan was a
Speaker 1: pretty serious evangelical Christian in his personal life. Next problem,
Speaker 1: and again, I think also from just a public policy perspective,
Speaker 1: I'd much rather have the Reagans, at least President Reagan
Speaker 1: set of policies when it comes to abortion, etc. Than
Speaker 1: I would the Carter policies. Number two, the article suggests
Speaker 1: that Carter's disastrous presidency was foisted on him by outside
Speaker 1: events over which he could do nothing. Again, this is
Speaker 1: a standard talking point by the left, but it's highly debatable.
Speaker 1: Number three. Although the article glancingly mentions the White House
Speaker 1: Conference on Families, it doesn't do much at all to
Speaker 1: help people understand why evangelicals were so upset about this event.
Speaker 1: Among other things, the conference offered a redefinition of family
Speaker 1: that is incompatible with Christian teaching. I might also mention
Speaker 1: He writes that Carter appointed some extreme cultural progressives to
Speaker 1: the courts, and Jimmy Carter never had a Jimmy Carter
Speaker 1: didn't have a Supreme Court vacancy during his one term
Speaker 1: in office, but he did appoint a lot of very
Speaker 1: liberal Circuit Court judges. That was another reason West writes
Speaker 1: why theologically conservative evangelicals were upset it with him. Number four.
Speaker 1: The article talks early on about Carter's conservative theology, yet
Speaker 1: not one word is spent discussing his promotion of gay
Speaker 1: marriage much more recently. Why by the end of his
Speaker 1: life Carter definitely did not embrace a conservative theology. But
Speaker 1: I guess delving into that wouldn't fit the narrative CT
Speaker 1: wants to offer, so it was suppressed. It's appropriate to
Speaker 1: laud Carter for the good things he did, especially at
Speaker 1: the time of his passing, but a serious Christian publication
Speaker 1: would have offered something more serious than this worshipful piece.
Speaker 1: And then he concludes by saying this, which I think
Speaker 1: is really instructive. One reason it's important to talk about
Speaker 1: Carter's real record is because his rise to fame and
Speaker 1: power is symptomatic of an unhealthy strand in Evangelical Christianity.
Speaker 1: Even today, many evangelicals embrace public figures who wear their
Speaker 1: faith on their sleeve, paying almost no attention to their
Speaker 1: actual policy views and actions. When Christians do that, they
Speaker 1: get politicians in public officials like Jimmy Carter or more
Speaker 1: recently Francis Collins out of the NIH. I would add that,
Speaker 1: and that's the main point of this. I think some
Speaker 1: Evangelicals are starting to see this and realize this a
Speaker 1: little bit later than Catholics did. Catholics, for a long
Speaker 1: time figured out that we had plenty of, you know,
Speaker 1: professingly Catholic politicians who were terrible Catholics and whose public
Speaker 1: policy positions were completely contrary to what they profess to
Speaker 1: believe on Sunday, starting with the Kennedys and going on
Speaker 1: from there, you know, from Kennedy to Carrie to Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: you know, the professing baptized Catholics who all their public
Speaker 1: policy beliefs were totally contrary to Catholicism. And yet there
Speaker 1: was some sense among Catholic liberals to sort of like
Speaker 1: give sort of some kind of hagiography or act like
Speaker 1: these people were wonderful just because they happened to be
Speaker 1: Roman Catholics because a priest happened to pour water over
Speaker 1: their heads when they were baptized. I think baptism is important,
Speaker 1: but you gotta do some more stuff after that. You
Speaker 1: have to keep living out your Catholic faith. You can't
Speaker 1: just leave it there. So anyway, I just thought this
Speaker 1: was fascinating how it seems as though Evangelical Christianity is
Speaker 1: right now wrestling with a lot of these things that
Speaker 1: Roman Catholicism was wrestling with, you know, twenty thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: When we return more stuff about Gosh, I'm doing all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff about Christianity. What do men want to
Speaker 1: follow in Christianity? And do they actually want to follow
Speaker 1: Jesus or something else? Next on the John Girardi Show,
Speaker 1: doing a lot of Christianity stuff today and wading into
Speaker 1: Evangelical Christianity. Now I'm going to comment on this, and
Speaker 1: I'm commenting I want to establish some humility and some
Speaker 1: acknowledgment of my lack of understanding. I see this clip
Speaker 1: circulating around online. My pastor named Mark Driscoll, who seems
Speaker 1: from a large non denominational church. Now, I don't know
Speaker 1: how prominent this guy is. All I know is he
Speaker 1: is the pastor of a big megachurch, seems to be
Speaker 1: some kind of evangelical of some sort. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say all of you who are evangelical Christians who
Speaker 1: define yourselves as evangelical Christians, I'm not pinning his beliefs
Speaker 1: on all of you, okay, or on any of you necessarily,
Speaker 1: But I do think that some of the things he
Speaker 1: talks about in this are reflective of a lot of
Speaker 1: strains that we're seeing in culture, especially sort of male
Speaker 1: oriented media and social media ideas from influencers at the
Speaker 1: extreme end to influencers like Andrew Tate and others talking
Speaker 1: about what it means to be a man and be
Speaker 1: a masculine and what men need to do to have
Speaker 1: success and blah blah blah blah blah working out and
Speaker 1: crushing it in business and da da da da dad,
Speaker 1: all these sort of ideas from people who range from
Speaker 1: like motivational speakers to social media defaces to apparently to
Speaker 1: some extent, Christian pastors. So just to see some of
Speaker 1: these things infecting Christianity, I just want to discuss. Okay,
Speaker 1: So this is and in fairness, I'm also commenting on
Speaker 1: this because this is Mark Driscoll commenting on Catholicism. So
Speaker 1: I'm going to stand up a little bit for my
Speaker 1: guys from my side of the street here. So this
Speaker 1: is Mark Driscoll. This is what he has to say
Speaker 1: about Catholic priests and why it's hard for men to
Speaker 1: follow what Catholic priests say to follow Catholic priests as leaders.
Speaker 2: I love Catholics. There are Catholics that love Jesus. But
Speaker 2: part of the problem with work in Catholicism, especially for men,
Speaker 2: the leader is the priest, and the priest is committed
Speaker 2: to poverty and chastity. Just so you know, that's my
Speaker 2: unbucketed list. I don't want to die a broke vision
Speaker 2: at the church. In fact, I promise you that's not
Speaker 2: how I'm going out within that it doesn't bring the
Speaker 2: healthiest men, and it doesn't encourage and inspire men. Because
Speaker 2: if the leader is well, he doesn't have a wife,
Speaker 2: he doesn't have kids, he doesn't own anything, he's not
Speaker 2: building anything, and he's not responsible for anyone. It's really
Speaker 2: hard to admire that guy.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go into this. He says that the
Speaker 1: reason why it's hard for Catholics to take leadership from
Speaker 1: a priest is because they don't own anything. They don't
Speaker 1: have a wife, they don't have kids, they're not building anything,
Speaker 1: so I guess they're not business entrepreneurs. They're not quote
Speaker 1: responsible for anyone, which I find an odd characterization of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, even at the most fundamental level, a pastor
Speaker 1: of a Catholic church is sort of an employer as
Speaker 1: a manager. He's responsible for his staff, he's responsible for volunteers,
Speaker 1: he's responsible for this church, for the financial assets of
Speaker 1: the church, and and you know, overseeing that. Like there's
Speaker 1: actually quite a few things I'm on my you know,
Speaker 1: my Catholic parish has a finance council, So I mean
Speaker 1: I see the books of my parish, and my pastor
Speaker 1: is responsible for quite a few things which I see
Speaker 1: in my just day to day going to church interacting
Speaker 1: with him. So just on a factual level that this
Speaker 1: seems silly, but I he's also got a couple of
Speaker 1: other things wrong. So not all Catholic priests are exactly
Speaker 1: the same. Some Catholic priests take what's called a vow
Speaker 1: of poverty. They're usually part of some religious community like
Speaker 1: the Franciscans or the Dominicans or the Benedictines or something
Speaker 1: like that, or the Jesuits, where they know individual member
Speaker 1: of the community owns anything. Property is owned by the community,
Speaker 1: So you take a vow of poverty, meaning I'm never
Speaker 1: going to own anything i myself. Most priests, though, who
Speaker 1: are normal parish priests, priests running your parish, don't take
Speaker 1: that vow. So they do actually have a salary. They
Speaker 1: can own things, they can inherit their families money, they
Speaker 1: can you know, they can own things. But at the
Speaker 1: same time that the yeah, they're not building massive investment portfolios,
Speaker 1: their salary is not much, and they work really hard
Speaker 1: running their parish. The point of their ministry is not
Speaker 1: to make a lot of money. Their point that you know,
Speaker 1: there's no you know, big worldly power or fame that
Speaker 1: they're trying to aim for here, all right, So he's
Speaker 1: getting a lot of factual stuff mixed up. Now, it's
Speaker 1: hard for men to follow a priest because they're not married,
Speaker 1: they don't have kids, and they're not they don't own stuff.
Speaker 1: Can we think of a very prominent and successful Christian
Speaker 1: leader who was not married, didn't have kids, was very poor,
Speaker 1: didn't own stuff, and yet still inspired a lot of men. Hmmm,
Speaker 1: let's think about historic christ Shean leaders, followers of Jesus
Speaker 1: who didn't own things, didn't have a lot of money,
Speaker 1: didn't get married, didn't have kids. Oh wait, you mean
Speaker 1: this guy named Jesus Christ himself? Like, was there no
Speaker 1: self self awareness from this dude before he opened his mouth?
Speaker 1: No self awareness that Jesus Christ died, as he puts it,
Speaker 1: a poor virgin at the church. I don't I guess,
Speaker 1: I don't know. But you know, we just read at
Speaker 1: the Gospel yesterday at Mass, so we talked about Joseph
Speaker 1: and Mary losing the child Jesus and finding him in
Speaker 1: the temple. Did you not know that? I must be
Speaker 1: in my father's house. So there's no self awareness from
Speaker 1: this guy from this markdiscal character that Jesus died a
Speaker 1: bro virgin. And let's look at the other Let's look
Speaker 1: at the twelve apostles. All right, we don't have perfect
Speaker 1: historical records for them, necessarily, but there's good historical evidence that,
Speaker 1: for example, the apostle John died a broke virgin. That
Speaker 1: actually most of the apostles died as broke virgins, or
Speaker 1: at least as broke celibates at the time. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a little unclear how many of the apostles were married.
Speaker 1: There's some there's evidence, some thought or some writings about
Speaker 1: Saint Peter in what his life was like, that maybe
Speaker 1: he was a widower and died as you know, again,
Speaker 1: a broke celibate. But there are plenty of Christians who
Speaker 1: died as broke celibates or broke virgins. In fact, there
Speaker 1: were tons of the early Christian martyrs are remembered as
Speaker 1: being broke virgins. Like this happened a lot. The martyrs
Speaker 1: are the greatest single examples of Christianity. I actually talked
Speaker 1: on the show. I think it was about a week
Speaker 1: before Christmas. Pope Francis announced the canonization, meaning declaring someone
Speaker 1: to be a saint of a community of nuns from
Speaker 1: Paris who died during the French who were martyred during
Speaker 1: the French Revolution in the year seventeen ninety four, the
Speaker 1: French revolutionaries arrested the nuns of the Convent of Compagnie
Speaker 1: in Paris, and this was a group of Carmelite nuns.
Speaker 1: So the Carmelites is a spiritual tradition within the Catholic
Speaker 1: Church inspired by the prophet Elijah, named after Mount Carmel,
Speaker 1: which is in the Holy Land. And these nuns led
Speaker 1: lives of exclusive prayer and penance. All of them broke virgins.
Speaker 1: All of them he took vows of poverty. None of
Speaker 1: them owned a damn thing, a blessed thing, a damn thing,
Speaker 1: blessed thing, whatever. None of them owned a thing. And
Speaker 1: they were virgins. They were nuns, and they marched to
Speaker 1: the guillotine. They were charged by the wicked, evil, atheist
Speaker 1: French Revolutionary government with fanaticism, which you know God helped me. Someday,
Speaker 1: I hope I can receive a charge of being a
Speaker 1: fanatic for Jesus Christ marched to the guillotine, chanting a
Speaker 1: hymn in honor of the Holy Spirit. Come, Holy Spirit,
Speaker 1: fill the hearts of thy faithful and enkindling them the
Speaker 1: fire of Thy love. All the nuns sang this hymn
Speaker 1: as one by one their heads were chopped off, until
Speaker 1: the last nun was the one voice singing it and
Speaker 1: got our head chopped off. These nineteen women, who ranged
Speaker 1: in ages from nineteen to seventy nine, all of them
Speaker 1: broke virgins. That is way more inspiring to me as
Speaker 1: a man. By the way, these broke virgin women are
Speaker 1: far more inspiring to me as a man than this dude.
Speaker 1: I don't need you know. Look, there are plenty of
Speaker 1: motivational speakers, business motivational speakers, fitness motivational speakers out there,
Speaker 1: all right, there's plenty, and god knows what social media
Speaker 1: they seem to be multiplying like flies. I don't need
Speaker 1: that from a pastor. I don't need that from a
Speaker 1: religious figure. And you know, if anything this is you
Speaker 1: know one of the reasons why there are groups of
Speaker 1: Catholic religious and clergy nuns and priests and brothers, so
Speaker 1: guys who are kind of like the male equivalent of
Speaker 1: nuns who aren't ordained priests. The reason why we have
Speaker 1: a lot of people like that is because there are
Speaker 1: various specific instances in the Gospels where Christ or in
Speaker 1: the New Testament epistles, where either remaining celibate for the
Speaker 1: sake of the Kingdom of God, giving up all that
Speaker 1: you have, selling it to the poor, and following Jesus
Speaker 1: where these things are recommended, living in community, communal sharing
Speaker 1: of goods. That was the acts of the Apostles Church.
Speaker 1: They're not doing it for no reason. It's not like
Speaker 1: they cooked up the eyes. It's not like we Catholics
Speaker 1: cooked up the ideas in our heads. It's in the Bible.
Speaker 1: As some of these things that aren't explicitly recommended, as
Speaker 1: like very high lofty ideals in states of life that
Speaker 1: either can be radically lived out or at the very
Speaker 1: least should be an inspiring example. I mean, the rich
Speaker 1: young man went away sad because he had many possessions.
Speaker 1: I mean, I hear that, and that's like a haunting thing.
Speaker 1: It should be a haunting thing to say, think like, well,
Speaker 1: am I giving enough? Am I too concerned about material possessions?
Speaker 1: Like that? That should be a real examination of conscience
Speaker 1: moment for every Christian. I think so again again, just
Speaker 1: because he decided to wade into the Catholic side of
Speaker 1: the street, I thought it was an appropriate thing to
Speaker 1: respond to. When we return, a quick little mental check
Speaker 1: in with our buddy Keith Olberman. Very upset about Jimmy
Speaker 1: Carter's passing. That's next on the John Girardi Show. I've
Speaker 1: been very tickled lately by the online presence of Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1: Some of you may recall him. Keith was thought to
Speaker 1: be the best. He was like the called the best
Speaker 1: sports center duo ever was him and Dan Patrick, which
Speaker 1: I think is kind of like saying, you know, the
Speaker 1: best wide receiver duo ever was Jerry Rice, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, so and so any other wide receiver Jerry
Speaker 1: Rice was playing with was the best wide receiver duo
Speaker 1: ever because Jerry Rice was carrying everything, like like, you know,
Speaker 1: Jerry Rice could have been playing with you know, Joe
Speaker 1: Dirt the Ragman, and it would have been the best
Speaker 1: wide receiver combo ever because Jerry Rice was the best
Speaker 1: wide receiver. So uh yeah, Dan Patrick was amazing. I
Speaker 1: don't know that Keith Olberman was that great. Olberman took
Speaker 1: he parlayed that success into being a political commentator of
Speaker 1: sorts and burn bridges everywhere he went, lost his jobs
Speaker 1: everywhere because he's impossible to deal with and seems to
Speaker 1: be a crazy person. He has taken that craziness to
Speaker 1: the completely unedited, unfiltered world of Twitter, where he's constantly
Speaker 1: calling on people to be fire. He thinks everything, all
Speaker 1: of the most aggressive versions of every left wing policy possible.
Speaker 1: He talks to me. So after Carter the President Carter
Speaker 1: passed away. Olberman tweets, the best president since RFK is dead,
Speaker 1: my friend Jimmy Carter would probably argue against my conclusion.
Speaker 1: I say he rebuilt a generation's belief in government. Problem
Speaker 1: there is that RFK Robert Kennedy was never president. Olberman
Speaker 1: then tries to correct his tweet. He says, the best
Speaker 1: president since FDR is dead. He then says, my apologies
Speaker 1: for the earlier typo. It underscores the degree of sadness that,
Speaker 1: despite its inevitability and the long dread, this loss of
Speaker 1: an honored friend has left me bereft rip Okay. Then
Speaker 1: he says the best President. Then he did it again.
Speaker 1: He just tweeted it the same thing again, US President.
Speaker 1: Since RFK is dead, my friend Jimmy Carter would probably
Speaker 1: argue against my conclusion. So there you go. RFK and
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin are two greatest American presidents who were not
Speaker 1: actually presidents. That'll do it for Jones. We already show
Speaker 1: see you next time on Power Talk