Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBZ Coustin's me video.
Speaker 2: Today the papal conclave is underway. It's actually our tomorrow.
Speaker 2: It's Thursday morning in Rome. They're about six hours ahead
Speaker 2: of us. And at some point that conclave will be
Speaker 2: renewed today. And there was one indication that there was
Speaker 2: some sort of a vote taken inside the Sistine Chapel,
Speaker 2: but the requisite two thirds vote for one of the
Speaker 2: cardinals in the room was not achieved, and so therefore
Speaker 2: the smoke that showed was black smoking, not white smoke.
Speaker 2: And with us now to talk about all things Catholic
Speaker 2: and all things papal. Conclavish is a friend of many years,
Speaker 2: Professor Thomas Groom. He teaches at Boston College. Tom Groom,
Speaker 2: Professor Groom, Groom, welcome back to Nightside. How are you?
Speaker 3: Oh? Thank you Dad, And only for an old friend
Speaker 3: like yourself, so I'd stay up this late and I
Speaker 3: sat on a Wednesday night. Well, I'm delighted, I'm deli
Speaker 3: to join you and blessing.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, thank you, thank you. This has got
Speaker 2: to be a very interesting time in our lifetimes. We're
Speaker 2: not that far apart in age. There have been a
Speaker 2: few fewer popes than presidents. There's no two term limit
Speaker 2: on popes. Uh, no, no eight year limit, I should say,
Speaker 2: uh and uh, we're about now to have the next
Speaker 2: pope of our lifetime, and it's going to be certainly
Speaker 2: an interesting process. I was listening to some reports today.
Speaker 2: I Uh, I did realize that they were back in
Speaker 2: the in the bad old days, and we're talking I
Speaker 2: guess in the eleventh century. Uh, they did what is
Speaker 2: the the forerunner of a paper conclave, and it took
Speaker 2: three years before they could come up.
Speaker 3: With yes, that's right with the winner, and they eventually
Speaker 3: then they eventually had to lock them up and give
Speaker 3: them only bread and water, And that was the only
Speaker 3: way that they finally came to a decision. The local
Speaker 3: people were so sick and tired of them sponging on
Speaker 3: them that they eventually they locked the doors and they
Speaker 3: gave them bread and water, and they came to a decision.
Speaker 3: But it did take about three years. I don't think
Speaker 3: we're will do that this time here. But actually, when
Speaker 3: you look at the conditions that they're living in, you
Speaker 3: realize that these are cardinals of the church. Meanwhile, they're
Speaker 3: they're sleeping in little beds that looked more like you know,
Speaker 3: weekend bunks on the for the scouts or something, you know,
Speaker 3: So they're pretty humble quarters. So I think they'll move
Speaker 3: along and come to a decision probably the next it'll
Speaker 3: take two or three days. They very I think, from
Speaker 3: what i've know, what we've heard before, very often the
Speaker 3: opening the opening votes are are kind of window dressing,
Speaker 3: you know. The people vote for each other and then
Speaker 3: to pay compliments to them, you know, then they can
Speaker 3: when they leave they say, well I got two votes
Speaker 3: to be pope, you know. But there's a lot of that.
Speaker 3: But I think eventually then the third or fourth day,
Speaker 3: they'll settle down. But I think it will take three
Speaker 3: or four days.
Speaker 2: So let's talk. First of all, I have to ask you,
Speaker 2: I'm sure you must have seen the movie Conclave.
Speaker 3: Yes, Dan, it's very very good, very helpful. There's little
Speaker 3: pits and pieces that you could you could quibble with,
Speaker 3: but they basically portrayed it fair and square, and that's
Speaker 3: pretty much.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna spoiled spoil the ending, but.
Speaker 3: The end. The ending was a bit of a surprise.
Speaker 3: But but I've been hopeful. I thought, well, we might
Speaker 3: have going forward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I don't think so, but but you almost,
Speaker 2: I mean you almost could tell if you were thinking
Speaker 2: what the ending was going to be. I mean, there
Speaker 2: was a lot of what I would call foreshadowing in
Speaker 2: that movie Let's Hope, Let's Hope. So so, so let's
Speaker 2: let's talk about you have been a theologian for your
Speaker 2: entire life. You served as a Catholic priest and at
Speaker 2: one point decided that you were you wanted to go
Speaker 2: in a different direction and uh, and you married the
Speaker 2: love of your life and uh and very very successful
Speaker 2: uh as as a teacher and as a professor.
Speaker 3: And it is the only thing I knew I knew
Speaker 3: how to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the point is, though that I will rely
Speaker 2: upon you to get a sense of where we're headed.
Speaker 2: The church obviously went for the first time, at least
Speaker 2: in my recollection for an Eastern European with John Paul two. Yes,
Speaker 2: they then kind of came back to to to the
Speaker 2: more traditional Benedict who was the only pope to resign, and.
Speaker 3: Then they was in Germany. He was German. Remember then,
Speaker 3: you know he still was an Italian. Because the pattern
Speaker 3: through the eighteen nineteenth and even in the twentieth century,
Speaker 3: was to elect an Italian because I had the majority
Speaker 3: in the conclave, whereas at least Benedict was, you know,
Speaker 3: not from Italy, and he was breaking open new ground.
Speaker 3: He was the first German in a long time to
Speaker 3: be elected pope.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then of course they really surprised first person
Speaker 2: from the Western hemisphere of Pope Francis.
Speaker 3: Uh, the first.
Speaker 2: Ed a Jesuit. Yes, we have to mention that. I
Speaker 2: was reminded of that again today by Jack Dunne of
Speaker 2: your public your great relations department.
Speaker 3: And some people say, maybe the last Jesuits for another
Speaker 3: five hundred years.
Speaker 2: Well, let's unless they decide to make you. You're eligible
Speaker 2: any member of the Catholic Church. I guess Mayl is eligible.
Speaker 3: So I think there need to be a cardinal. It
Speaker 3: needs to be a cardinal. I've been passed over for that.
Speaker 2: Dan.
Speaker 3: So yeah, oh I didn't really.
Speaker 2: Oh, I thought it was just anyone that they could.
Speaker 2: They could if they wanted to.
Speaker 3: I think you'd be Dan'd be in a day christ
Speaker 3: bishop and then the car then.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, fine, okay.
Speaker 3: Well they've always been a card I didn't I didn't
Speaker 3: think that they were gonna get okay, But that's okay.
Speaker 2: So so we.
Speaker 3: Now know what we think to remember Dan is that
Speaker 3: this goes back. This is the two hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: seventh pope. There's been two hundred's in Saint Peter two
Speaker 3: thousand years ago, there's been two hundred and sixty six pope.
Speaker 3: So everything you can imagine about it has happened, you know.
Speaker 3: So like there was an eighteen year old was elected
Speaker 3: the pope back in the seventh or eighth century because
Speaker 3: he was the son of the emperor, and the emperor
Speaker 3: told him that I want my son to be the pope,
Speaker 3: and they voted for him.
Speaker 2: Good work if you can get it.
Speaker 3: But yeah, So it's amazing thing is that it has
Speaker 3: the old Catholic theology that grace works through nature, and
Speaker 3: so nature has been at work all along with God's
Speaker 3: grace also has been at work. So in other words,
Speaker 3: we've also end up with some darn good popes and
Speaker 3: then of course a wonderful pope in Pope Francis. And
Speaker 3: that'll be the big challenge to try to even begin
Speaker 3: to replicate or or at least to approximate somebody as
Speaker 3: wonderful and fantastic as well as Pope Prances and as
Speaker 3: the kind of a leader that he was, and for
Speaker 3: the whole world, not just for Catholics, but for five
Speaker 3: Jewish friends and BUTLM friends and all kinds of non
Speaker 3: religious friends that just taught the world of Pope France.
Speaker 3: And so there's big shoes to fill, and the cards
Speaker 3: have their work cut out for them to find another
Speaker 3: Fancis or somebody comparable.
Speaker 2: Well we get back, I want to talk about that.
Speaker 2: I have some thoughts which probably are errant, but I
Speaker 2: want to run those by you, and I want to
Speaker 2: be able to get corrected as to how far off
Speaker 2: base I am. But but I really I mean that honestly.
Speaker 2: I'm also going to invite callers if they would like,
Speaker 2: if you want to talk to someone who knows all
Speaker 2: of I'm going to use the phrase inside baseball. Professor
Speaker 2: Thomas Groom is here, and I don't want to in
Speaker 2: any way, shape or form compare this to a baseball game.
Speaker 2: But there's going to be some suspense, and whether it
Speaker 2: goes into extra innings or not, we don't know. There
Speaker 2: are supposed to be two votes in the morning tomorrow,
Speaker 2: two votes in the afternoon of tradition holds, and at
Speaker 2: that point that process might start to Winnow will have
Speaker 2: to see how how it works out. My guest is
Speaker 2: Professor Thomas Groom. He teaches at Boston College. He is
Speaker 2: a theologian and someone who is deep in his knowledge
Speaker 2: of the church. He is also, I think, as you
Speaker 2: can tell, a huge fan of the late Pope, and
Speaker 2: he's also I would say, probably you would characterize yourself
Speaker 2: as fairly as definitely I would think of progressive and
Speaker 2: is very No, I'm serious. There are a lot of
Speaker 2: the issues that any new pope is going to face.
Speaker 2: You have addressed either in writings or books. Is there
Speaker 2: a new book with your name attached to it that
Speaker 2: we need to write?
Speaker 1: Late?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Dan? Well, thank you Dan, thank you, thank you. Yes.
Speaker 3: While I've written a number of books that I wouldn't write,
Speaker 3: and many of them I wouldn't recommendes it. I require
Speaker 3: my students to read them, but I wouldn't recommend them.
Speaker 3: But I one book that I would recommend, and that's
Speaker 3: a book called Faith for the Heart. Faith for the Heart,
Speaker 3: and in the sense it addresses the issues that the
Speaker 3: Contave is addressing, like how do we make sense out
Speaker 3: of our faith at this time and this time and place,
Speaker 3: and obviously the horizon duck's different than the past, and
Speaker 3: we will live into new ways of practicing our faith
Speaker 3: and guiding our faith and trying to appropriate and bring
Speaker 3: us along with us. And I would sustain our lives
Speaker 3: and so on and thend us ways of believing and
Speaker 3: ways of belonging and ways of behaving which all of
Speaker 3: us need if we're to live life. Well, so it's
Speaker 3: still as a tremendous function to play on the world stage.
Speaker 3: And I think our Catholic faith has a tremendous richness
Speaker 3: to it.
Speaker 2: Yes, and of course it's been through some it's been
Speaker 2: through some turbulent times. Uh and uh, well we can
Speaker 2: we can hit upon that as well. But we got
Speaker 2: to take a break. The book book Faith, Faith for
Speaker 2: the Heart by by Professor Thomas Groom of Boston College.
Speaker 2: This is a quick break. We'll be back in about
Speaker 2: three minutes, and I want to talk. I want to
Speaker 2: pick a profile here and define what what I think
Speaker 2: you think will will be produced by this conclave back
Speaker 2: on night side with Professor Thomas Groom of Boston College,
Speaker 2: theologian of great great repute. We're delighted to have him tonight.
Speaker 2: If you like to join the conversation, you know the
Speaker 2: number six one seven, two, five, four ten thirty or
Speaker 2: six one seven nine three thirty. The good thing about
Speaker 2: Professor Groom is whatever you ask him, you will get
Speaker 2: an answer, and a direct and a straight answer. We're
Speaker 2: coming back on Nightside.
Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2: We're delighted to be joined by Professor Thomas Groom. Groom
Speaker 2: a theologian at Boston College. You've taught at BC now
Speaker 2: many many years. How how long have you been there? Oh?
Speaker 3: My bes, Dan, if I teach for one more year,
Speaker 3: because I hope to God spares me. I love talked
Speaker 3: for fifty years at Boston College.
Speaker 2: You for a lot, I can remember.
Speaker 3: I often joked. I often joked that they hired me
Speaker 3: just after I'd made my first Holy communion.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Well, actually, technically then you're what's called PF which means
Speaker 2: pre pre fluty.
Speaker 3: Pre fluty. But actually I taught fluty. It's fascinating and
Speaker 3: and if he was listening, I'd love to. I'd love to.
Speaker 3: I love him to know the story. But I often say,
Speaker 3: one of my greatest claims to fame. I thought, all
Speaker 3: the books have written, in all the rest of it,
Speaker 3: my greatest lam to fame. And I oftenize people, how
Speaker 3: many of you have seen the Hail Mary pass every
Speaker 3: hand today? And the audience goes up, and I said, well,
Speaker 3: my greatest claim to fame is not the books have written.
Speaker 3: My biggest claim is that I taught Doug Flutie to
Speaker 3: hail Mary.
Speaker 2: Well, listen, theology we would expect.
Speaker 3: I had a theology course at Boston College, So in
Speaker 3: a sense, I taught Doug the hail Mary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, absolutely great. So here's my thought. Here's my thought,
Speaker 2: and I want to tell me how far off base
Speaker 2: I am. My sense is that these cardinals have an
Speaker 2: option here, They have many options, and I think they
Speaker 2: may want to come back philosophically a little to the center.
Speaker 2: I know you're a big fan of Francis, and you
Speaker 2: know I'm more than JP two guy. Maybe bring it
Speaker 2: back somebody who's a little bit, a little bit less
Speaker 2: adventuresome on some of the issues that I know are
Speaker 2: so important to you. But I'm guessing they're going to
Speaker 2: go to another continent, maybe maybe Asia or maybe Africa. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think that's where the action is how far off
Speaker 2: am I do you think with that.
Speaker 3: Analysis, Dan, I don't think you're off at all, really,
Speaker 3: I mean from your lips to God's ears. I mean,
Speaker 3: it could be a more moderate pope. Francis was a
Speaker 3: bit of adventuresome, now there was. But but on the
Speaker 3: other hand, he was on the on the social issues.
Speaker 3: You know, there's migrants, the immigrants, the downright, the poor,
Speaker 3: that downtrodden. I mean, his great symbol of his of
Speaker 3: his pontificate to me was on a Thursday, that Holy Thursday,
Speaker 3: going to the local prison, women's prison and washing the
Speaker 3: feet of these young women in the prison. But he
Speaker 3: was just extort the example of Christian love and charity
Speaker 3: and care for the downtrodden, et cetera, which is core
Speaker 3: to our faith. It's at the heart of our Catholic faith.
Speaker 3: So I mean, they'll have to invite, they'll have to
Speaker 3: like somebody that has those kinds of social values. Now
Speaker 3: there might be a little more cautious I suppose that
Speaker 3: some of the more controversial issues, but but they won't
Speaker 3: go away. I mean, and Francis at least opened the
Speaker 3: doors of the possibility of conversation, like the ordination of
Speaker 3: women to the Diacton for example. Of course, if you
Speaker 3: if you ordained them to the Acton, is to be
Speaker 3: no theological reason for if you're declining them to priesthood
Speaker 3: or episcopacy. Now, I think that conversation will continue, you know,
Speaker 3: Carl Ronald writing thirty five forty years ago, they said
Speaker 3: there's no theological reasons left anymore for declining ordination to
Speaker 3: priesthood and ministry and so on to women. So there's
Speaker 3: work to be done. But I think one of the
Speaker 3: greatest contributions the legacies of for Francis will be this
Speaker 3: notion of cinidality, when in many ways it turns that
Speaker 3: were the church upside down instead of the hierarchy all
Speaker 3: being in charge and telling the rest of us what
Speaker 3: to do, it kind of turns the pyramid upside down
Speaker 3: and the people get to participate and to have an
Speaker 3: opinion and to share their opinion, and to have voice
Speaker 3: in the church, and to participate and to bring their
Speaker 3: to bring their gifts to the table as it were,
Speaker 3: so rather than being a top down hierarchy. Know, the
Speaker 3: hierarchical structure of the church will continue instead of bishops
Speaker 3: and popes, et cetera. But I think this notion of
Speaker 3: cynidality that France has launched in the world, and of
Speaker 3: course it's an old idea, goes back to the very
Speaker 3: beginnings of the church, the earliest centuries. But we're lost
Speaker 3: it along the way, especially as Catholic Christians, we lost
Speaker 3: it in some ways. Our Eastern brothers and as Orthodox
Speaker 3: brothers and sisters were more faithful the synidality than we were.
Speaker 3: But it's coming back, and I think that's going to
Speaker 3: be one of the great agendas for the next pope
Speaker 3: to continue to push for cynidality and the practice of sinidality.
Speaker 2: Just so, professor, just so there's no confusion amongst the
Speaker 2: the faithful. Here, Cynidality is spelled s y.
Speaker 3: N o d from the Greek word the week, then
Speaker 3: you know, which literally means to work, to walk along,
Speaker 3: or to move along together.
Speaker 2: Well, they talked about when you talk, when you talk
Speaker 2: about that again, sinidality, I want to make sure that
Speaker 2: no one thinks it's spelled si n That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Sorry, that's why, thank you.
Speaker 2: N No, that's all. That's all. So let's do this,
Speaker 2: let's let's take a break. I want to expand on that.
Speaker 2: I always want to give people a chance to call.
Speaker 2: I would love to hear from people who are either
Speaker 2: non Catholics or people who are interested in the process.
Speaker 2: We can talk about the process and all of that,
Speaker 2: the history of this process which will produce the two
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty seventh Pope in the history of the
Speaker 2: Catholic Church. I think it's really interesting the amount of
Speaker 2: attention that the American networks are giving to the papal
Speaker 2: to the Papal conclave, because they are treating it only
Speaker 2: what twenty five percent of their audience, probably Catholic. I'm
Speaker 2: guessing that we have about sixty to seventy million Catholics
Speaker 2: in America. I don't know that they would do this
Speaker 2: when they there is ahead of any other religion in
Speaker 2: the process of being elected or appointed, and that's to
Speaker 2: me fascinating. I want to get your comment on that,
Speaker 2: why in your opinion, and I also want to give
Speaker 2: people an opportunity to ask you any questions. I mean,
Speaker 2: you are somebody who believes that the church needs to modernize.
Speaker 2: Whether people agree or or disagree, this is a church.
Speaker 2: This is no longer the Catholic Church of the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2: It's now the Church of the twenty first century, and
Speaker 2: there have been changes, and there are folks in the Church,
Speaker 2: of which Professor Groom is one, that feel that the
Speaker 2: changes must continue or if the church doesn't grow, it
Speaker 2: will die. It's growing in other parts of the world,
Speaker 2: and I want to make people understand that as well.
Speaker 2: We'll get to all of that, I promise in your
Speaker 2: phone call six one, seven, two, four, ten thirty, six months,
Speaker 2: seven nine thirty, feel free join the conversation. That's why
Speaker 2: Professor Groom is staying up late. He's gonna have to
Speaker 2: get up early tomorrow morning because the Rome is six
Speaker 2: hours ahead of us, and by time six o'clock in
Speaker 2: the morning rolls around, it to be almost noontime in Rome.
Speaker 2: So we very much appreciate him staying with us tonight,
Speaker 2: but he will be gone by eleven o'clock. I could
Speaker 2: talk to him all night long. This fascinating intellectual and theologian.
Speaker 2: Back on Nightside right.
Speaker 1: After this, It's Night Side with Dan Ray on w
Speaker 1: Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: I'm joined by Boston College Theology Professor Thomas Groom. Professor Groom,
Speaker 2: I am delighted, but somewhat surprised at the amount of
Speaker 2: attention live coverage that not only the cable networks, but
Speaker 2: the three major networks ABC, CBS, NBC have given to
Speaker 2: not only the passing Pope princess, but the process now
Speaker 2: by which his success will be chosen. Are you surprised
Speaker 2: by that or no?
Speaker 3: Well, I think no, not really, Dan in the sense
Speaker 3: that well, yes, indeed it is surprising and gratifying in
Speaker 3: a way, but I think some of it is the
Speaker 3: the legacy of Pope Friences already emerging, that he really
Speaker 3: won the hearts of the world. He was a pope
Speaker 3: for everybody, and I think lots of people from all traditions,
Speaker 3: especially people with any sense of social justice, any sense
Speaker 3: of compassion, any sense of the rights of the downtrodden.
Speaker 3: And he here for the environment, I mean, his passion
Speaker 3: for trying to save our environment before we destroy it
Speaker 3: and poison ourselves was exemplary and extraordinary in a gift
Speaker 3: of the world, not just the Catholic faith. Now, you
Speaker 3: know he's our pope and revere him as such, and
Speaker 3: our leading teacher, etc. Et cetera. But I have lots
Speaker 3: of friends from other traditions, and no tradition that deeply
Speaker 3: admired the kind of values he was championing, and see
Speaker 3: in our present political assignus. And so I think people
Speaker 3: are hoping that maybe these Catholics can come up with
Speaker 3: another pope like Francis that would do the same kind
Speaker 3: of leadership on the world stage. Now, he'd also need
Speaker 3: to be the pope of the Catholic Church, and of
Speaker 3: course you will be. But it's a bigger role than
Speaker 3: just for the Catholic Church.
Speaker 2: But that that isn't that the inherent conflict in the
Speaker 2: sense that the criticism of Francis came often from the
Speaker 2: folks who were perhaps pushing him a little further on
Speaker 2: things like gay marriage and and to what to what
Speaker 2: level should the church go women as priests. You know,
Speaker 2: he held the line on many of those issues. It's
Speaker 2: easy to talk about, you know, being a good steward
Speaker 2: of God's green earth. I mean, look, you get into
Speaker 2: the whole climate change and what do you do about it.
Speaker 2: That's where where the water gets choppy. But but I
Speaker 2: don't know anybody who wants to destroy the.
Speaker 3: Planet, you know, don't want to take precautions to preserve us.
Speaker 3: I mean, there are people who are happy to exploit
Speaker 3: it and pretend that there is no crisis and there
Speaker 3: is no environmental challenge.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that with I think that within some sides,
Speaker 2: with all due respect, professor, there are some who would say, Okay,
Speaker 2: you know, a little bit of soul, a little bit
Speaker 2: of this, but we need to bring in some nuclear
Speaker 2: or whatever, and and then people kind of it becomes
Speaker 2: sort of you talk about cafeteria Catholics, it also is
Speaker 2: cafeteria issues. Like you know, so if we could just
Speaker 2: do it with soul and just to the wind, that
Speaker 2: would be great, but you have to have something more
Speaker 2: than that, and then you get the question of of
Speaker 2: I'm just saying I think I would like to assume
Speaker 2: that that there's nobody who wants to destroy the earth,
Speaker 2: and that there's and I'd like to assume that there's
Speaker 2: nobody who really wants to use nuclear weapons. But obviously
Speaker 2: we have to be concerned about those sorts of issues.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm just saying that that whenever I talk
Speaker 2: to you, I get excited because I think you have
Speaker 2: a real good sense of where the church is going.
Speaker 2: But I also think that the church has has its uh,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's religious. I'm going to use the word
Speaker 2: religious ideology that that that any pope, uh is he
Speaker 2: cont straight too far from that? And there are people,
Speaker 2: there are people. Yeah, that's and that's the balance that
Speaker 2: they have to that that needs to be struck. Go ahead,
Speaker 2: I didn't I don't mean to dominate.
Speaker 3: It has to be no matter what they do, it
Speaker 3: has to be faithful to the tradition. I mean, we're
Speaker 3: all we're all our calls to give our religions to
Speaker 3: the Creed, you know, to the niceeing Creed and the
Speaker 3: confession of faith we make there and you know, to
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and so on,
Speaker 3: and the church is a sacrament of God's salvation of
Speaker 3: the world, et cetera, et cetera. So that, I mean,
Speaker 3: the common faith is there, but as we implement it,
Speaker 3: as we expanded out in this post nuclear age, and
Speaker 3: it's this, you know, it's posts almost everything you know,
Speaker 3: postmodern post God knows. It's a new day. There's one
Speaker 3: theologian that writes about the afternoon of Christianity and that
Speaker 3: in a sense, his proposed is that the afternoon won't
Speaker 3: be quite like the morning. Uh. Now, they'll still be
Speaker 3: faith and and you know, deep faith, but some of
Speaker 3: the rules and regulations and structures and so on that
Speaker 3: it may have served as well at some time in
Speaker 3: a different contexts and ages and cultures. But it'll keep evolving.
Speaker 3: If the faith is to if it's to grow, and
Speaker 3: if it's to continue, it will have to be remain
Speaker 3: vital I continue to push out into new horizons. I
Speaker 3: think that's where That's where Francis was such a leader,
Speaker 3: not just for Catholics, but for all people of goodwill?
Speaker 2: Is lebis? Is there an inherent conflict here in the
Speaker 2: sense that the church is doing well in different parts
Speaker 2: of the world. It's not doing well in Europe, it's
Speaker 2: not doing as well in the United States as it
Speaker 2: once did. We can, I think we can agree upon that.
Speaker 2: And it's doing well in South America, it's doing well
Speaker 2: in Africa. Yes, yeah, So the question is here's my question.
Speaker 2: My question is a lot of the conveniences of the
Speaker 2: West electricity and and and air conditioning, all of which
Speaker 2: on climate change, there's there's there's there's sort of that
Speaker 2: that argument how much air conditioning? How much electricity can
Speaker 2: we use before we're overusing it? Yet there's parts of
Speaker 2: the world where the church is not doing well, where
Speaker 2: there is no electricity or there is no air conditioning.
Speaker 2: So as they come into the modern world, what conflict
Speaker 2: do they have to deal with in terms of the
Speaker 2: creature comforts of the world versus what the church requires.
Speaker 2: Do you know where I'm trying to go with this question?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I do, then, And it's a great question, and
Speaker 3: it's a better question that I've been asked in a
Speaker 3: long time. And I'm not sure I can give in
Speaker 3: adequate answer to it, but I'm going to give it
Speaker 3: a kind of a simplistic response to what you're saying.
Speaker 3: The heart of our faith is Jesus of Nazareth, and
Speaker 3: I mean Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter who walked the
Speaker 3: roads of Galilee. Now our Christian faith we also believe
Speaker 3: he was the Son of God and the second person
Speaker 3: of blessed Trinity, and the divine presence in human history,
Speaker 3: in our Lord and Savior, et cetera, et cetera. But
Speaker 3: the Catholic faith has ape France has led the way
Speaker 3: with this. If you were to say, what was it
Speaker 3: the heart and center and soul of Francis's pontificate. I
Speaker 3: would say Jesus. Now, so that's because he was a Jesuit.
Speaker 3: He's a society of Jesus. But that emphasis that Catholics
Speaker 3: have in some ways rediscovered this, the emphasis on the
Speaker 3: historical Jesus and the values he stud for and the
Speaker 3: truths he proclaimed, that the lifestyle he lived, and his
Speaker 3: greatest commandment that the only way we can love God
Speaker 3: is by loving our neighbor as ourselves. And I was hungry,
Speaker 3: gave me to eat. I was thirsty, you gave me
Speaker 3: to drink. God will not say there was a hungry
Speaker 3: person one time in your feed them, but rather I
Speaker 3: was hungry be to eat. I mean, it's a very
Speaker 3: radical gospel that Jesus left us. Now, there's much more
Speaker 3: to our faith than just the gospels, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, whether it's two thousand years since then and
Speaker 3: the evolution of our faith, et cetera. And yet there's
Speaker 3: something that France has caused was rather amazing when he
Speaker 3: called us back to the historical Jesus and to look
Speaker 3: again at the pattern that the values he lived. And
Speaker 3: you know, he was constantly giving out bread to people.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's there's only two there's only two miracles
Speaker 3: reported six times in the Gospel. One is the miracle
Speaker 3: of the Resurrection and the other is the miracle of
Speaker 3: the loaves and fishes. It's in all four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke,
Speaker 3: and John, and twice in Matthew, twice in the Mark
Speaker 3: Jesus multiplying loaves, four loaves, five love, seventh fish whatever,
Speaker 3: to cure thousands, and to heal thousands and thousands of people,
Speaker 3: and to cure the sick among them, et cetera. And
Speaker 3: that's that kind of Jesus. I mean, that's the one
Speaker 3: that calls us to the depths and to the deep
Speaker 3: commitment of our faith. And now, as they said, there's
Speaker 3: more to our faith than just saying Jesus. But Pope
Speaker 3: Francis has done that was what I think. It's a
Speaker 3: great legacy to return us and to more refocus us
Speaker 3: more deliberately. Uh not on Thomas Aquinas or Augustin or
Speaker 3: somebody or a gat theologians, which we spend a lot
Speaker 3: of time doing, but rather to begin our focus on Jesus.
Speaker 2: I would I would argue in a in a in
Speaker 2: a polite way that the American economic system, which can
Speaker 2: be tough rugged individualism, capitalism, whatever, also has produced more
Speaker 2: food for more people, and not only in America but
Speaker 2: in different parts of the world. Uh that I'm not
Speaker 2: sure that that that Francis would would look at maybe,
Speaker 2: you know, unbridled capitalism. As many of us in America,
Speaker 2: we look at it as something that is good because,
Speaker 2: as you know, I think it was President Kennedy said,
Speaker 2: a rising tide lives all boats. And I think that's
Speaker 2: that's that's the rising tide of America that that hopefully
Speaker 2: is going to help other kind tries learn to feed
Speaker 2: more people and to be more successful. That's I don't
Speaker 2: know if there's an inherent conflict there or if it's
Speaker 2: complimentary Tom, that's I professor.
Speaker 3: Hopefully it can be complimentary there.
Speaker 2: Yes, Okay, let me take a very quick call here
Speaker 2: and we'll take some more after the break, but I'm
Speaker 2: going to get to Jennifer, who's been holding on from
Speaker 2: Yarmouth Port. Jennifer, your own professor Tom Broom of Boston College,
Speaker 2: go right ahead.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, I just have one very quick question. How
Speaker 4: many cardinals are actually voting?
Speaker 2: Okay, it's one hundred and thirty nine. Would you please
Speaker 2: call him back for us. I was not. I hope
Speaker 2: he didn't get disconnected, but please call him back. It's
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty nine cardinals, Jennifer, who vote and
Speaker 2: in order to I think the number is one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty nine, and the number that are needed to
Speaker 2: elect is two thirds of that, which I believe is
Speaker 2: something like eighty nine when I did my math.
Speaker 4: Okay, Jennifer nominated for the Pope? Do you get nominated?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: Jennifer, hold off for one second. Did we lose Jennifer? Now,
Speaker 2: what's going on with our phones? Jennifer? Yeah, Jennifer, please
Speaker 2: call back. Professor. You dropped off on us, and I
Speaker 2: think we got a little problem with our phones here.
Speaker 2: Jennifer was on the line. She started to ask me
Speaker 2: some questions that I wanted to defer to you. The
Speaker 2: She wanted to know how many cardinals I told her
Speaker 2: that are eligible to vote. I think it's one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty nine, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 3: One hundred and thirty three. Actually, Dan, if you didn't
Speaker 3: show up and we're sick, okay, thirty three.
Speaker 2: So now the two thirds of that is going to
Speaker 2: be probably somewhere around eighty nine. Okay, eighty nine. I
Speaker 2: was right on that number. Okay, Jennifer has rejoined us.
Speaker 2: Let's do this, Let's take a break, Let's get our
Speaker 2: phones right, and we'll come back with Professor Thomas Groom
Speaker 2: of Boston College, who's a Jesuit theologian. And Jennifer, thank
Speaker 2: you for calling back. We didn't get you off our phone.
Speaker 2: We're giving us a little bit of trouble. We'll get
Speaker 2: everything all set and we'll come back on Nightside right
Speaker 2: after this.
Speaker 1: So you're on night Side with Dan Ray on WA
Speaker 1: Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: We're going to go back to the phones and keep
Speaker 2: our fingers crossed. Jennifer, we got you back here. We
Speaker 2: just lost Tom Groom here. Something's going on with the phones.
Speaker 2: Please bring Professor Groom back as quickly as you can. Jennifer,
Speaker 2: I don't know what's going on with the phones. Can
Speaker 2: you hear me?
Speaker 4: I can can you hear me?
Speaker 2: Yes? We can, And I believe that Professor Groom is
Speaker 2: ready to join us. So you go right ahead. We
Speaker 2: have Professor Groom on the line. Go ahead, Jennifer. What's
Speaker 2: your question from my guest?
Speaker 4: Oh? Okay, so you had said that there were one
Speaker 4: hundred and somebody nine people that are actually voting.
Speaker 1: Is that one undred?
Speaker 2: Professor Groom corrected me. One hundred and thirty three cardinals
Speaker 2: are present, and so they comprised the conclave, and that
Speaker 2: means I think it's eighty nine that will be necessary
Speaker 2: the two thirds majority. But go ahead, you ask your
Speaker 2: question directly of Professor Groom. He can hear you.
Speaker 4: Okay, So how many how many people are actually vying
Speaker 4: for the pope position? How many of those people are
Speaker 4: in their running?
Speaker 2: Okay, well, professor, go right ahead, professor.
Speaker 3: So technically all one hundred and thirty three of them
Speaker 3: are eligible, and even if it would be possible for
Speaker 3: them to reach outside of the conclave and I'm appointed
Speaker 3: archbishop or a bishop, they could easily raise somebody to
Speaker 3: the level that would be unusual, and it wouldn't be
Speaker 3: you know, with no precedent recently for in the recent centuries.
Speaker 3: So it's more more than likely that one of the
Speaker 3: one hundred and thirty three cardinals that are there, one
Speaker 3: of them will be selected. You know, it's it's probably
Speaker 3: ninety nine to percent likely. And now so that they
Speaker 3: have to get eighty nine votes, as Dan said, or
Speaker 3: eighty nine positive votes and the point is of the
Speaker 3: one hundred and thirty three that are voting Paul France
Speaker 3: is a point at one hundred and eight of them.
Speaker 3: In other words, four fifth of them were appointed by Francis.
Speaker 3: So the assumption is that most people make is that
Speaker 3: UH have a similar sentiment to poor Francis, that he
Speaker 3: would have chosen people of like mind to himself, you know,
Speaker 3: within reason. I'm sure there'll be lots of the agreements
Speaker 3: and disagreements, but that generally speaking, there are church people
Speaker 3: who would be in the mold of Francis. So I
Speaker 3: would be fairly confident that the next pope will continue
Speaker 3: the same style and a lot of the a lot
Speaker 3: of the typical The central agenda of that was the
Speaker 3: pontificate of poor Francis.
Speaker 2: So then the question, the question that Jennifer answer.
Speaker 4: I certainly respect Francis for all of his you know,
Speaker 4: work for the Catholic Church. I think it's just amazing, you.
Speaker 3: Know, and for the world and for the world.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know, jif Jennifer asked a question which which
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you can hear me, but Jennifer
Speaker 2: asked the question of how many people I think the
Speaker 2: verbs you use was vying for the job. This is
Speaker 2: not a job you can really run for, correct, Professor.
Speaker 3: Groom, Well, Dan, look at the old Catholic theology is
Speaker 3: that grace works through nature. In other words, there'll be
Speaker 3: people there that'll be running for it. But maybe God's
Speaker 3: grace can work through that as well. You know what
Speaker 3: I mean. There's never a pure system that comes down
Speaker 3: from heaven. It always comes through human agency, and the
Speaker 3: human agency like ourselves of opinions, and they'll agree, and
Speaker 3: they'll disagree, and they'll be envy and all kinds of
Speaker 3: things between them. But meanwhile, as I said, but that's
Speaker 3: how God's grace works typically through nature. The ordinary in
Speaker 3: the every day of life is what's sacramental to be
Speaker 3: the same this in this contlave. So hopefully we'll get
Speaker 3: a pope that as the blessings of God but also
Speaker 3: was able to win the majority votes of the conslave.
Speaker 2: Aging is age in European.
Speaker 3: I'd say, I would say they probably won't want to
Speaker 3: appoint somebody that's significantly well, what do you mean by old,
Speaker 3: I mean I would say over eighty. On the other hand,
Speaker 3: I don't think there's a couple of front runners that
Speaker 3: are in their sixties. One in particular, Cardinal Pizza Bala.
Speaker 3: He's very fascinating. He's a patriarch of Jerusalem. He's a
Speaker 3: hot favorite. But he's only sixty years of age. So
Speaker 3: if he lived to be ninety, which wouldn't be unusual
Speaker 3: in this day and age, it might be too long
Speaker 3: to have him. So they might pass him over this
Speaker 3: time and like him the next time. I don't know.
Speaker 3: We don't know what the Holy Spurs was up to
Speaker 3: it all, but yeah, there'll be some of them that
Speaker 3: that might be a bit too young. I mean, some
Speaker 3: of them might be a bit too old. But then
Speaker 3: that's all so relative. I I wish Sean O'Malley was running.
Speaker 3: He'd make a great pope, but unfortunately he passed the
Speaker 3: age of eighty. But he'll have a voice, you know,
Speaker 3: because he's you know, he's very well respected and appreciated
Speaker 3: in Rome and by the bishops, on the cardios and
Speaker 3: throughout the world. So I bet he got consulted.
Speaker 2: Okay, so he's over eighty, he's not he's not allowed
Speaker 2: to vote. But could they at some point say well
Speaker 2: what about Sean O'Malley?
Speaker 3: Could could He's conceivable it's conceivable, Danavable, they could easily
Speaker 3: pick them somebody from outside of there that that has
Speaker 3: gone past the retirement age. But I'm just sailing good
Speaker 3: health and so on, and you know the celebrat or
Speaker 3: now there's all kinds of people who have lived into
Speaker 3: into into old old age and the big leadership positions.
Speaker 2: What about what about the the the cardinal from the Philippines.
Speaker 2: I'm a couple of yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah about he's a wonderful person. He's a wonderful person, Tagla,
Speaker 3: and they say very much in the in the mold
Speaker 3: of Pau Francis. The only difficulty is that the Philippine
Speaker 3: Church has done very poorly by way of addressing the
Speaker 3: issue of clergy sex abuse. That they're basically kept it
Speaker 3: on wraps. And it's a lot of criticism of the
Speaker 3: Philippine Church. Now, whether Tagley gets gets tired with that
Speaker 3: brush or not is a good question. Maybe he you know,
Speaker 3: he wasn't a part of that, but that that that
Speaker 3: will be one question about his suitability because that remains
Speaker 3: a crucial crisis for the church. That has to be
Speaker 3: that they have to continue address very active, you know,
Speaker 3: competition huge to.
Speaker 2: Have quieted down but it's not going to go away
Speaker 2: for a long time.
Speaker 3: It's not going to go away because in many ways
Speaker 3: they still have to have to face the question not
Speaker 3: just what happened, but why did it happen? And why
Speaker 3: was it allowed to continue happening. Uh, there are questions
Speaker 3: that we still have to address, and the next pope,
Speaker 3: hopefully will will address them and and maybe maybe uh
Speaker 3: the one you mentioned tag lay will will be a
Speaker 3: fine expression of that. But yeah, we'll have we'll we'll
Speaker 3: have to wait and see Jennifer.
Speaker 2: Any final question from you. Thank you for calling. I'm
Speaker 2: sorry about the problems with the phones.
Speaker 4: Oh that's okay, Jan And I hope to see you
Speaker 4: over the summer when you're down. And thank you very
Speaker 4: much for your T shirt.
Speaker 3: Appreciate it, all.
Speaker 2: Right, word proudly, thanks Jen talk soon. Alrighty, all right.
Speaker 2: I know Professor Grome that you had talked about the
Speaker 2: challenges of celibacy in your own personal life, and that's
Speaker 2: an issue that this pope may have to deal with
Speaker 2: in some form of fashion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you would think, well, you see again, France has
Speaker 3: often got things started but then didn't finish them out,
Speaker 3: Like he had a huge Senate of the South American
Speaker 3: Church back in twenty nineteen, and the South American Church
Speaker 3: overwhelmingly in favor of the married priesthood and of restoring
Speaker 3: priests who had resigned from priesthood to married to restore
Speaker 3: them to the priesthood. And that passed and was endorsed
Speaker 3: overwhelmingly by the churches of South America. But France has
Speaker 3: never moved on it. See that is just there, so
Speaker 3: that awaits the next pope.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And and not just for South America, for other parts
Speaker 3: of the world.
Speaker 2: For whatever happens, it's it's gonna happen for the for
Speaker 2: the church universal.
Speaker 3: I would think, uh, yeah, you would think so that
Speaker 3: it wouldn't be just confined to one area.
Speaker 2: Professor Groom is always thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: Thanks Dan, You're the only man. You're the only one
Speaker 3: would keep me up this late at night.
Speaker 2: Well, Uh, you're a fascinating person to talk with. I
Speaker 2: know my audience learned a lot tonight. And I can't
Speaker 2: thank you so much for your time and for your
Speaker 2: service uh to uh to our world and to our
Speaker 2: to us.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you, yes, thank you, bye, thank you.
Speaker 2: All right, we are gonna go to the News and
Speaker 2: we're gonna get these phones straightened out and we'll be
Speaker 2: back on Night's side right after this