In this episode, we talk with Dr. Shaun Blanchard. Shaun is a Catholic scholar and our conversation ranges from clerical celibacy, ordaining women, the LGBTQ community and Catholicism, abuse scandals, papal authority, and how Catholic and Protestant Christians can understand and love one another well. It's a fun one. You can find some of Shaun's work here.
We sampled Noteworthy Sherry Stave Aged Bourbon from the good people at Noteworthy Spirits. Thanks to our friends at Story Hill BKC.
The photo for this episode (taken by Kyle) is from under the dome in the St. Josaphat Basilica in Milwaukee.
CONTENT NOTE: This episode contains discussion of clergy sexual abuse and some mild profanity.
=====
Want to support us?
The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
Cheers!
In this episode, we talk with Dr. Shaun Blanchard. Shaun is a Catholic scholar and our conversation ranges from clerical celibacy, ordaining women, the LGBTQ community and Catholicism, abuse scandals, papal authority, and how Catholic and Protestant Christians can understand and love one another well. It's a fun one. You can find some of Shaun's work here.
We sampled Noteworthy Sherry Stave Aged Bourbon from the good people at Noteworthy Spirits. Thanks to our friends at Story Hill BKC.
The photo for this episode (taken by Kyle) is from under the dome in the St. Josaphat Basilica in Milwaukee.
CONTENT NOTE: This episode contains discussion of clergy sexual abuse and some mild profanity.
=====
Want to support us?
The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
Cheers!
00:02
i don't normally swear when i'm talking
00:04
about theology but there's one question
00:06
where i probably will and i don't know
00:07
if you guys if
00:09
that's okay or not
00:14
welcome to a pastor and a philosopher
00:16
walk into a bar the podcast where we mix
00:18
a sometimes weird but always delicious
00:20
cocktail of theology
00:22
philosophy and spirituality
00:24
[Music]
00:25
welcome friends to a pastor and a
00:27
philosopher walk into a bar
00:29
today we have this really wonderful
00:32
conversation with a catholic theologian
00:34
i know that many of us probably when i
00:37
say we're talking with a catholic
00:38
theologian
00:39
our interest peaks and some of us
00:41
probably are like what are you talking
00:43
about
00:44
i promise it's compelling it's
00:45
interesting it's fun and it's
00:46
challenging it was challenging to me so
00:48
i'm excited about that conversation kyle
00:51
hello
00:52
hello hello hey elliot
00:56
oh hi elliott sorry i'm late
00:59
no no no you're there you're like the
01:01
holy spirit i mean
01:03
just hovering over the the chaos
01:05
brooding
01:07
we love you elliot cheers
01:10
so randy what are we what are we
01:11
drinking today uh something fun well i
01:14
hope it's fun i haven't tried it but
01:15
our friends at story hill bkc have
01:17
supplied us with
01:19
a noteworthy bourbon and i don't know
01:21
are you saying that it's a
01:22
a noteworthy bourbon or i hope it's both
01:25
noteworthy
01:26
but i know that it's called noteworthy
01:28
bourbon it's from
01:29
the distillery is called owensboro
01:32
distilling company in owensboro
01:34
kentucky which apparently you're you're
01:35
familiar with yeah used to go there and
01:37
eat the barbecue
01:38
when i was a kid praise the lord bourbon
01:40
and barbecue i like it already
01:42
um this is this is a bourbon but it's a
01:45
high rye bourbon
01:46
it's 70 corn 21 percent rye and only
01:49
nine percent
01:50
malted barley it's it's a bourbon that's
01:53
finished
01:53
on sherry barrel staves so the staves
01:56
basically just means
01:57
they're a little bit too cheap to finish
01:59
it in the whole cask
02:01
so they take cares are expensive now i
02:03
know i know i respect
02:04
and i like thriftiness i'm a milwaukee
02:07
but they take
02:08
they take the the wood from the the
02:10
sherry's
02:11
barrels and just put the wood into into
02:14
the bourbon and finish it like that so
02:15
um does it say how long it was finished
02:17
on those it does not say how long i
02:19
gotta say i'm not getting any sherry on
02:20
the nose but that's nice nose though
02:23
i'm i'm getting some of those plummy
02:25
things those dark fruits that you get
02:26
with raisins
02:27
yeah yeah yeah yes that you get with
02:30
sherry
02:31
i'm going to disagree i think there is
02:32
some sherry in the nose
02:34
you tasted it kyle what do you think
02:36
it's not what i expected
02:39
what you will i don't know i haven't had
02:42
much
02:42
cognac but this tastes like cognac that
02:44
i own that's interesting
02:46
yeah fun i can kee i can see like a
02:48
brandy-esque thing this is only 90 proof
02:50
it's 45
02:51
alcohol so it's it's smooth oh man
02:55
raisins on the finish on my tongue holy
02:56
moly yeah it's pleasant it's so
02:59
different
02:59
i mean there's not a whole lot of heat
03:00
to it in my in my experience
03:03
major reason i've never had a bourbon
03:04
like this that i tasted i like it
03:06
significantly better than
03:08
than i thought i would from the nose
03:09
this is very good
03:11
it's well-rounded i know that's one of
03:13
those vague things but
03:14
like there aren't any flavors that seem
03:16
to be overpowering
03:17
what i enjoy about it is you don't have
03:18
to try to find the sweetness like it's
03:20
it's right there
03:21
but then it's got some heat to balance
03:23
it out and the like the cinnamon in the
03:25
back of the throat
03:26
but see it's not a new makey sweetness
03:28
that's very different enough new mickey
03:30
sweetness is a
03:30
is like a con for me this sweetness here
03:33
is the dark fruit
03:35
sorry but no this tastes like an earned
03:37
sweetness yeah
03:38
absolutely that's a good way to put it
03:40
yeah i wouldn't have guessed it was a
03:42
high rye
03:43
to be honest
03:47
oh man i like it it's so unique it
03:50
doesn't have that sweet corn thing
03:52
uh that and maybe that's the high rive
03:54
where you finish it with sherry
03:55
you get those sherry notes but then the
03:57
rye actually keeps it from going over
03:59
the top too sweet
04:00
um i'm fully endorsed this is
04:03
a new experience i personally would want
04:05
to drink this neat every time
04:07
yeah oh yeah i don't know which i mean
04:09
that goes for almost everything but a
04:10
drink
04:12
yeah and my our friends at story hill
04:14
bkc in milwaukee tell me that
04:16
they have two cases of this stuff on
04:18
hand right now
04:19
in other words it's going to go and it's
04:21
going to go fast so
04:22
go into story hill bkc get this
04:25
noteworthy bourbon
04:26
tell them it is a bar told you to go get
04:30
it aptly named
04:32
it reminds me a little bit of the match
04:33
build number two from buffalo trace so
04:35
if you're a fan of any of those
04:37
supposedly high rye bourbons i think
04:39
you'd probably like this one
04:40
i think it compares favorably to what um
04:43
what's that place is
04:44
mgp or something the india the big
04:46
indiana producer that
04:48
contracts out to a bunch of other places
04:50
they're kind of known for their high
04:51
ride bourbon i think this is better
04:52
this is delicious i really like it again
04:55
grab it at a storehill bkc in milwaukee
04:57
and if you're not a milwaukee support
04:58
local if you are in milwaukee grab this
05:00
and then i
05:01
try their burger and i dare you to find
05:03
a better burger than you find at story
05:04
hill bkc
05:11
i'm really excited about our guest today
05:12
good friend of mine
05:14
we were doing our phd simultaneously at
05:16
marquette university
05:18
and he is now an assistant professor of
05:20
theology in baton rouge louisiana
05:22
my good friend shaun blanchard so thanks
05:25
for being with us shaun
05:27
thanks a lot guys yeah are you drinking
05:29
anything you want to tell us about
05:31
yes i'm out of my because i'm talking to
05:34
you
05:34
out of my marquette uh rocks glass very
05:38
nice
05:38
i have a little bit left of a bottle of
05:41
pen hook
05:42
rye bourbon which is very very nice
05:46
which i got at a local local body shop i
05:48
can't describe it
05:50
to the degree that you would be able to
05:52
my guess is very good
05:53
that's the nicest the best liquor that
05:56
has been in a marquette rocks class
05:58
i'll bet most like 75 of drinks that are
06:02
in a marquette rocks class are like
06:03
malibu and coke
06:08
yeah i mostly drank jack daniels when i
06:11
was a doctoral candidate so i'm sure
06:13
that
06:14
the undergrads were not you know it
06:15
would have been a couple steps down from
06:17
there
06:18
there are steps down from that wow you
06:20
forget you know oh burnett's
06:23
aristocrat oh i've never even heard of
06:25
that i could go on
06:27
[Laughter]
06:30
so yeah let's just start why don't you
06:32
tell us a little bit about yourself
06:34
and why you became a catholic theologian
06:37
how did that happen
06:38
well i think growing up i
06:41
originally i remember we had to do a
06:43
project my freshman year
06:44
of high school about what we wanted our
06:46
career to be and i remember
06:48
i said i wanted to be a youth minister
06:51
and i think it's because i
06:52
thought that meant you just like talked
06:54
about theology in small groups of people
06:56
all the time
06:57
and then when i kind of grew up and
06:59
realized what they actually do
07:01
i sort of moved away from that but
07:05
after i converted to catholicism i
07:06
thought about the priesthood
07:08
i loved my religious studies classes i
07:10
wasn't a great
07:12
student in like the general college
07:14
stuff but i always did
07:16
really well in religious studies and
07:17
history classes which was my double
07:19
major
07:19
i took a great church history class and
07:21
then i took a history seminar on
07:24
luther and the german reformation i
07:26
remember writing doing research kind of
07:28
for the first time i did
07:29
like research other than just the stuff
07:31
that they assigned
07:32
us to read and i looked at the debate
07:35
between luther and zwingli
07:36
on the eucharist called the the marburg
07:38
college is that the one where
07:39
where luther carves into the table or is
07:42
that well
07:44
that's right yeah he he uh he literally
07:47
yeah he literally
07:48
luther in very luther fashion yeah sort
07:50
of strode into the room dramatically and
07:53
and wrote uh this is my body on the
07:55
table in chalk
07:57
in latin and and zwingli was a bit of a
07:59
character too so i think it was sort of
08:01
doomed from the beginning but i found it
08:03
really interesting trying to kind of
08:05
enter into their way of thinking
08:07
and and i think that led me into what
08:10
at the doctoral level they would call
08:12
historical theology so
08:14
trying to understand what christians at
08:16
certain times in history have thought
08:17
and why
08:18
and then i very much try to inform the
08:20
present with those lessons from the past
08:22
so i really enjoyed that
08:23
also my senior year of undergrad i did a
08:26
um
08:27
a film project on neo-atheism and
08:29
christianity so like
08:31
you know these guys that were really
08:32
popular maybe 10 15 years ago
08:34
richard dawkins sam harris christopher
08:36
hitchens and then i went on to graduate
08:38
school
08:39
at oxford and then marquette so shaun you
08:42
i understand haven't always been
08:44
catholic and you walked us through kind
08:46
of
08:46
you know i wanted to be youth minister
08:48
than considered the
08:50
priesthood tell us about your transition
08:53
from i'm assuming protestantism into
08:55
catholicism and why that happened
08:57
i was actually armenian orthodox um
09:00
no i'm just kidding no i was uh i i was
09:03
a
09:03
we were reformed baptist i was raised
09:05
reformed baptist so we were that
09:07
explains everything
09:07
[Laughter]
09:09
we were calvinistic sort of we were
09:12
calvinistic
09:13
when we wanted to be yeah that's all
09:15
good
09:17
so it was it was cut we were we were
09:19
quite essentially american
09:21
because we could you know we could we
09:22
could take what we liked from from all
09:24
these different
09:25
you know currents and we were
09:28
very much encouraged to study the bible
09:30
we were encouraged to um
09:32
to read pastors
09:35
scriptural commentators apologists but
09:38
we didn't really study church history
09:40
so my path into catholicism was fairly
09:43
typical i realized it was actually
09:45
fairly typical i thought it was
09:46
i thought it was so unique and so
09:48
interesting when i was in my late teens
09:50
but i really wasn't it was very typical
09:52
i think it was two basic things i um i
09:54
started thinking about ecclesiology
09:56
about the ideas of
09:57
you know what is the church how is the
09:59
church organized
10:01
uh how do we kind of make sense of it at
10:02
a more sort of
10:04
uh bird's eye view we moved to minnesota
10:07
and we started going to john piper's
10:09
church and i really really didn't like
10:10
it
10:11
it was way too liberal for me i'm just
10:14
kidding
10:15
no it wasn't that it wasn't that it was
10:17
that it was
10:18
it was kind of christian cliche culture
10:22
in a certain way it was like everybody
10:23
read the i kissed stating goodbye and
10:25
all that kind of stuff and i hadn't
10:26
really been exposed to any of that we
10:28
were so
10:29
kind of sectarian in our christianity
10:31
that we didn't
10:32
we looked sort of askance at like people
10:36
who listen to third day
10:37
and people who read christianity like we
10:39
didn't do any of that
10:40
we just listened to like i mean my
10:42
parents secretly listened to bob dylan
10:44
but
10:44
get on you know you just music was just
10:47
like hymns and classical music and stuff
10:49
like we weren't plugged into mainstream
10:51
american christian culture so i didn't
10:53
like it it was a culture shock i went to
10:55
public school
10:56
which was different from most of the
10:57
kids so i was this weird combination of
11:00
like i was kind of secular but then i
11:01
was
11:02
my christianity was actually like deeply
11:04
sort of sectarian
11:06
in many ways um so i didn't i totally
11:09
rejected piper's church i hated it you
11:11
know and i'm sure it was
11:12
rebelling as a 13 14 year old and
11:16
i started thinking like well why how do
11:18
we choose a church
11:19
on what basis are we because my parents
11:21
had always said growing up like we
11:23
that you know god has placed the elders
11:24
over us um
11:26
until they did they didn't agree with
11:28
them right like i remember
11:29
they would come out against certain
11:31
movies or things like that and my
11:33
parents would go oh well they haven't
11:34
even seen that movie you know we we can
11:36
watch that movie
11:37
so my parents were always in a sort of
11:39
uh liminal place i suppose you could say
11:41
a
11:41
vis-a-vis kind of church authority
11:44
anyway long story short is
11:45
through a path that i now have learned
11:48
is quite typical
11:50
i i started believing that the church is
11:51
visible the church is one we know where
11:54
it is
11:54
it's it's it's people gathered around
11:57
their bishops celebrating the eucharist
11:58
and if you live in the united states the
12:00
the most logical place you would go for
12:02
that
12:02
kind of patristic vision is the catholic
12:04
church uh
12:06
like i suppose you you know there are
12:07
there is the phenomena of
12:09
of evangelicals confer converting to
12:11
eastern orthodoxy
12:13
and things like that but i never i i
12:15
don't even know if i knew what that was
12:16
frankly when i was 17 18.
12:18
so i i converted catholicism for these
12:20
sort of ecclesiological and
12:22
and kind of sacramental reasons uh
12:25
baptism and communion are symbolic but
12:27
they also sort of
12:28
actually actually convey grace they're
12:31
they're they're both uh
12:32
both symbols and and kind of realities
12:35
uh of grace so it was it was that sort
12:37
of stuff
12:38
wow as a high schooler sheesh what a
12:41
nerd
12:43
well on one yeah but you know the
12:45
interesting thing and i've listened to i
12:47
listened to that one episode of you guys
12:48
and i think you guys
12:50
can sort of relate to this that or at
12:52
least at least kyle can
12:54
you're told you have to make sense of
12:57
all of this
12:58
you know you have to know the reason why
13:00
you do all these things or else you'll
13:02
go to college and you'll you know
13:03
the evil atheist professor will cackle
13:06
and
13:07
and tell you you know in some ways they
13:09
sort of they they created
13:10
this monster because they said
13:14
you know study all these apologetics do
13:15
all this stuff so i was
13:17
i was strange but i was also if you tell
13:20
a certain type of kid
13:22
what they tell people you're gonna get
13:24
me
13:25
i mean there's a lot of truth to that i
13:28
remember
13:29
a few years ago it was the 500th
13:31
anniversary of the protestant
13:32
reformation and you posted a thing on
13:34
13:35
i didn't go back and read it again but i
13:36
remember being kind of moved by it
13:38
frankly
13:39
and you approached it in a way that i
13:40
hadn't heard anybody approach it before
13:44
certainly that i hadn't heard any
13:46
protestants approach it before
13:48
and your reflection on it was kind of
13:49
mournful having been a protestant and
13:52
converted to catholicism
13:54
how do you view that moment in church
13:56
history and
13:58
how do you view where we are now in
13:59
relation to it and if you're willing to
14:01
speculate
14:02
where do you see it going in the future
14:04
it's very very complex and it's very
14:06
personal to me i think as
14:07
as you as you read in that facebook post
14:12
i i know what it's like to root for the
14:14
other team i remember the old hymns i
14:16
remember
14:17
the kind of apologetics about it the
14:19
rhetoric about it it plays strongly into
14:21
a sense of kind of national identity
14:24
and a sense of cultural independence
14:28
the way that i view it is essentially a
14:31
a catholic reform
14:34
that failed a a catholic reform that was
14:39
rejected unjustly and then became
14:42
non-catholic as a result of it being
14:44
rejected
14:46
so i think that luther was not
14:48
inevitable
14:50
i think luther was one of five six seven
14:53
eight different reform currents and
14:56
we remember it as something new and
14:58
different because of the peculiar
15:00
confluence of
15:01
sinful people and misunderstandings and
15:04
national and cultural tensions that were
15:06
going on in that particular time and
15:08
place
15:09
so i don't view luther as some sort of
15:11
demonic villain which you'll still get
15:13
that
15:13
taken into kind of in certain catholic
15:15
polemic you'll still get this kind of
15:17
ridiculously uh over-the-top negative
15:20
judgment of
15:21
luther i don't view him that way i don't
15:23
view him as some sort of
15:25
prophetic figure either i view him as a
15:27
as a
15:28
a man who had who had very good
15:30
intentions initially and then because of
15:33
uh sin on both sides you know that the
15:36
train went off the tracks to to
15:37
everyone's detriment
15:39
to the detriment of the people who
15:41
remained
15:42
catholic so to speak roman catholic and
15:45
to the new groups
15:46
so that's why i have a sort of mournful
15:48
i don't view it as a kind of winning
15:50
you know i don't think anybody won in
15:52
that and i think everybody lost
15:55
i think the catholic church lost certain
15:57
ideals
15:59
that it had to later recover because it
16:01
had jettisoned them
16:03
and i think that i i'm of i'm i agree
16:06
with those protestants who say
16:07
protestantism can't be an end point it
16:10
has to be
16:11
a a means back into visible communion of
16:15
some kind
16:16
even those who will say it was justified
16:18
i have a lot of protestant friends who
16:20
say the protestant reformation was
16:21
justified
16:22
i stand by it i defend it nevertheless
16:24
it can only be a temporary
16:27
solution or or a temporary home
16:30
for full full visible unity so shaun
16:33
couple questions for you there
16:34
then i appreciate the thing i appreciate
16:37
about my catholic brothers and sisters
16:38
more than anything
16:39
is your high value of unity
16:43
way more than most any protestants i
16:45
know
16:46
and that challenges me but a couple
16:48
comments
16:50
given the state of the catholic church
16:53
in the
16:53
you know 15th 16th century wouldn't you
16:57
agree that
16:58
the reformation some sort of reformation
17:01
some sort of splitting some sort of
17:03
violent separation was almost inevitable
17:06
given the corruption of the church
17:08
at that point in the resistance to
17:10
change that was in the catholic church
17:12
would you agree with that or not
17:13
um historically speaking
17:17
probably uh the the same way that
17:20
there was probably historically speaking
17:23
it was inevitable
17:25
that east and west would split at some
17:27
point right
17:28
the the the contingent factors
17:32
were not inevitable or the the the
17:35
actors that actually
17:37
made this happen their actions were not
17:39
inevitable
17:40
nevertheless the fact that there would
17:42
be some sort of cataclysmic
17:44
event i i would probably agree that was
17:47
inevitable in the 16th century
17:48
and you know when we talk about the
17:51
great schism
17:52
you know between east and west or we
17:54
talk about the reformation
17:56
i don't and this is me as a good
17:58
protestant probably but i don't
18:00
see that as the the great tragedy
18:03
that you know good catholics would maybe
18:06
you would
18:07
i see i see a lot of beauty honestly in
18:10
different streams of the church
18:12
and i don't see a whole lot of ability
18:13
now that's
18:15
i should walk that back a little bit i
18:17
know there's a tremendous amount of
18:19
diversity within the catholic tradition
18:21
um and i really really enjoy it the more
18:22
i get to know the diversity within the
18:24
catholic tradition between
18:25
the benedictines and the franciscans and
18:27
the jesuits and you know you name it
18:29
i love finding the nuance there and it
18:32
encourages me and i love seeing it but
18:34
i love a lot of things about the eastern
18:37
orthodox church particularly their
18:38
theology particularly about
18:40
the atonement particularly about their
18:42
eschatology i enjoy probably more than
18:44
the protestants and the catholics both
18:45
of them
18:46
so i enjoy things about the orthodox
18:49
church
18:49
i enjoy obviously a lot of things about
18:51
the protestant church and the catholic
18:52
church
18:53
and part of me wants to be really pie in
18:56
the sky and say can't we all just be one
18:58
big happy family even though we're
19:00
not you know the one catholic holy
19:01
catholic church what are your thoughts
19:03
on that
19:04
well i hope i don't sound um
19:07
i mean catholics always agree with
19:09
qualification right so i hope i don't do
19:11
that to every single
19:12
question that you ask me or agree with
19:14
some sort of distinction john
19:16
but um yes i mean there's always been
19:19
diversity and any and i think when
19:21
catholics
19:22
there are uninformed catholics who will
19:24
say oh humanism is just everybody
19:25
becomes catholic
19:27
and and what they mean is you two start
19:29
worshiping in a latin rite catholic
19:31
church you know
19:32
which is the kind of jurisdictional
19:33
apparatus of of
19:35
what we often think of as roman catholic
19:37
right when we have
19:38
uh egyptian catholics and ukrainian
19:40
catholics and these other kind of you
19:42
know
19:42
jurisdictional bodies i shouldn't say
19:44
jurisdictional they're
19:46
they're ancient linguistic and cultural
19:49
traditions
19:49
that have uh a measure of jurisdictional
19:53
autonomy they're called
19:54
rights in the catholic church rit so
19:57
yes i mean had the great schism not
20:00
happened
20:01
in 1054 or whenever we actually date it
20:03
to
20:04
really happening um the the you know the
20:07
liturgy
20:08
and the theology i would say of the
20:10
eastern orthodox what we call now
20:12
eastern orthodox would be different and
20:13
what i mean by that is
20:15
a a theology of atonement
20:18
that is not doctrinally in contradiction
20:22
to
20:23
the other churches which i think is the
20:25
case now right i don't think there's
20:27
i wouldn't say there's anything
20:28
problematic about orthodox
20:30
doctrine about atonement even though
20:32
theologically it's different so i try to
20:34
draw this distinction like
20:36
the um the armenian orthodox to go back
20:40
to my
20:40
my my original church their theology of
20:43
the eucharist is different from
20:46
what i was taught as as a catholic
20:48
because i'm taught on the basis of
20:50
medieval universities and
20:52
aristotelianism and you know kyle
20:54
whitaker type philosophy
20:55
you know straight aristotelian tombism
20:57
you know um
21:00
the the the theological difference is
21:02
healthy and good and beautiful the
21:04
liturgical difference is healthy and
21:05
good and beautiful
21:07
but i don't think that doctrinal
21:09
difference
21:10
understood very strictly um
21:13
is is good describe the difference
21:16
between theological difference and
21:17
doctrinal difference
21:19
so i the way i'm understanding this
21:22
is that um there can be many many
21:25
theologies
21:26
of atonement ways of making sense of it
21:31
uh images that you use philosophical
21:33
traditions you come from
21:34
cultural imagery lens whatever but
21:38
the doctrine would be a more fundamental
21:41
kind of distillation
21:43
what happened the the the say the
21:45
meaning of the theology perhaps
21:47
something like that so you know like in
21:49
grad school they'll say oh have you read
21:50
von balthazar's theology of the trinity
21:52
and lonergan theology of the trinity no
21:54
one thinks that these things contradict
21:56
one another
21:56
on doctrine they might they may have
21:58
genuine difference
22:00
um the question of course becomes how do
22:02
you manage this difference in a way that
22:05
doesn't lead to
22:06
a kind of um doctrinal incompatibility
22:11
and so you're saying for you
22:12
theologically we can be diverse
22:14
doctrinally we have to remain pure yes
22:18
if i had to say it if if you forced me
22:20
to say something simple i would
22:22
i would say that yes okay yes
22:26
that's interesting i i enjoy that
22:27
perspective and it challenges me because
22:30
i want to make bigger space for us to be
22:33
able to have even doctrinal differences
22:35
and there are
22:35
there are things that i would say i
22:37
can't doctrinally
22:39
differ with you on this and still
22:41
consider ourselves part of the same
22:42
faith there are there are some of those
22:43
for me but there's not many
22:45
because i want to be able to just have a
22:48
generous orthodoxy enough to the fact
22:50
that we can have
22:51
differences substantial differences on
22:53
the eucharist or substantial differences
22:55
on you know mary for instance or
22:58
whatever it might be
22:59
and still consider one another brothers
23:01
and
23:02
and i i would like to think that you
23:03
consider me a brother in the faith but
23:05
oh certainly certainly as far as even
23:07
being able to worship together
23:08
and being in the same church that's the
23:11
big difference where i'm playing pretty
23:12
loosey-goosey here
23:14
and you as a good catholic would say now
23:15
that's a little bit too much tell me why
23:18
well it's a great question um i mean i
23:20
would say that from the catholic
23:22
perspective we are brothers brothers and
23:25
sisters in christ with people who are
23:26
baptized
23:27
into the trinity okay so if you baptize
23:30
in the name of the father son and holy
23:31
spirit you're a christian
23:33
there's a sense this might sound
23:34
horribly imperialistic
23:36
there's a sense that you're a
23:40
a small c catholic sure that we would
23:42
consider you a family member
23:44
who's not coming to the thanksgiving
23:46
dinner i'm honored
23:47
you're in the same family because
23:49
there's only one family there's only one
23:51
baptism
23:53
there is no presbyterian baptism
23:54
catholic baptism
23:56
you know there's one baptism so um
23:59
the the way that catholics would
24:01
typically approach this is
24:04
there is a sacramental unity between
24:06
protestants and catholics and orthodox
24:08
on baptism which means that we are
24:10
christians
24:11
the the problem becomes if we're
24:15
celebrating the eucharist
24:16
with a specific understanding of
24:19
ordination a specific understanding of
24:21
what the eucharist is
24:23
that to us is is central to our identity
24:26
as catholics in a way that
24:28
disagreement perhaps about
24:31
certain other matters of church
24:33
government or say
24:34
certain types of piety devotion
24:36
veneration of mary
24:38
veneration of saints is not necessarily
24:41
central
24:41
in the same sense so the problem for
24:44
catholics becomes when
24:46
they're i mean for very practical
24:48
reasons frankly the problem becomes when
24:50
there's different understandings of
24:51
ordination
24:52
of clergy and there's different
24:54
understandings of sacraments because
24:56
those are very concrete things that
24:58
people
24:58
do and there there's no getting around
25:02
the difference the way that there could
25:04
be
25:04
say much diversity and understanding of
25:06
atonement or even of
25:08
maybe how the communion of saints works
25:10
and that i think part of that
25:12
is not just theological it's partly just
25:15
how do you run a church of 1.2 billion
25:17
people
25:18
on seven continents you kind of you have
25:21
to know who your clergy are and who they
25:23
are
25:23
yep and they have to be accountable to
25:25
specific people and not to other people
25:27
so let's just just for fun let's just
25:29
experiment here and let me go on a
25:30
little
25:31
down a little rabbit hole protestant
25:33
catholic you had mentioned that if
25:35
if you're baptized in the trinity we
25:37
would see you as
25:38
small c catholic brother sister in
25:40
christ now
25:42
i'll bet a bunch of our good protestants
25:45
friends heard that and got a little bit
25:48
sideways and we're like
25:49
whoa why is baptism the badge
25:52
that actually the key that unlocks that
25:54
thing because we're told
25:56
as good protestants and my protestant
25:58
friends are going to say that shaun you
25:59
know what
26:00
the scriptures say it paul says faith
26:03
justified by faith
26:04
through grace that's the badge and nt
26:06
wright would even say
26:08
justification like that faith is that
26:10
justification it's like that badge that
26:11
gets a sin which
26:12
sounds like you were saying baptism is
26:14
the thing why
26:15
would you say baptism is that thing
26:18
instead of faith
26:20
well i think luther would agree with
26:22
this
26:23
actually at least as i read him and i
26:25
might maybe i'll be corrected by
26:27
lutheran but
26:28
baptism is inexplicable apart from faith
26:32
so you either have an adult hopefully
26:34
seeking baptism unless charlemagne or
26:36
someone forces
26:37
him to be baptized you know which has
26:39
happened in history
26:40
but i mean hopefully an adult person
26:44
is is seeking baptism because they have
26:46
come to faith
26:47
in the triune god now most catholics
26:50
and maybe most protestants actually uh
26:54
actually i'm not sure if most but a
26:56
great many protestants are baptized as
26:57
babies
26:58
the idea there is that there is a a
27:01
faith of the community a faith of the
27:03
parents of faith of the sponsors
27:06
that is active so there is no baptism
27:09
apart from faith the difference though i
27:12
mean you point to a very real difference
27:13
so for luther
27:15
and for the protestant reformation that
27:17
you know the true church is
27:19
where the gospel is correctly preached
27:20
and the sacraments are rightly
27:22
celebrated
27:23
in in in the catholic church you can
27:26
just be a bad
27:27
parish or a pastor who's not preaching
27:29
the gospel correctly but you're still
27:31
catholic
27:32
you're still sacramentally catholic
27:34
you're just not doing what you're
27:35
supposed to be doing
27:36
so the the um identity is objective
27:40
and again there's probably there's not
27:42
probably there's certainly cultural and
27:43
political
27:44
factors historically for this but the
27:46
identity is objective
27:48
nevertheless we would recognize of
27:51
course that if let's say
27:52
a protestant was was was not baptized
27:56
that doesn't mean god is not working in
27:59
the person's life and supplying them
28:01
grace and that they're they're going to
28:02
go to heaven when they die
28:03
so we are bound by a system
28:06
because we live in community and we have
28:08
sociological structures god of course is
28:10
not
28:11
is not bound by this so we you know we
28:13
have these things so the baptism of
28:14
desire the baptism
28:16
of blood all these ways of sort of
28:17
getting around and saying how could the
28:19
person
28:20
be saved who hasn't done xyz objective
28:22
thing
28:23
you know it's supplied by their faith by
28:25
god etc
28:26
fun yeah that's good that is uh as i was
28:30
trying to read your some of your some of
28:32
your articles
28:33
which i got to say was challenging
28:35
because it feels like you were
28:37
you you speak in code when you when you
28:39
write theologically
28:41
and that's not just because it's
28:41
theological it's because it's catholic
28:43
and i was like holy moly i barely
28:44
understand this stuff like another
28:45
language
28:46
oh it was very in-house a lot of that
28:48
was in-house baseball so i'm sorry about
28:49
it it's all right it was
28:50
yeah it literally was like whatever
28:54
um but the rules of the game you don't
28:57
play yeah but i really
28:58
did kind of pick up on this for the
29:00
first time this nuance that
29:02
catholicism values objectivity
29:06
much more than protestantism right
29:09
that protestantism
29:12
is very loosey-goosey in the lines that
29:14
we draw and we get to draw our own lines
29:16
and we get to figure out what the
29:17
boundaries and the rules are
29:19
church by church in many many ways
29:22
if not denomination by denomination
29:24
network by network and then there's
29:26
little
29:26
branches of lutheranism that you know
29:28
are different it's just so subjective
29:31
and we get to make the rules and we
29:33
protestants would say and by
29:35
protestant i mean more evangelical
29:37
tradition we would say well the bible
29:39
makes the rules
29:40
in reality hopefully you understand if
29:42
you do think that listeners
29:44
is that we all see the bible differently
29:46
and we all say the bible
29:47
makes my rules but we all have different
29:49
rules so that's subjective it's it's
29:51
different
29:52
catholicism it seems like i'm
29:54
understanding that
29:55
good catholics really enjoy objectivity
29:58
and saying
29:59
here's where it is here's where we draw
30:01
the lines and that's
30:03
a safe place that's the best way to
30:05
operate and function
30:06
i don't know if i would agree with that
30:07
but that's what i'm picking up would you
30:08
agree with that
30:10
i would certainly agree with it when it
30:11
comes to
30:13
these issues of kind of belonging and
30:15
identity
30:16
so on issues of so it actually can get
30:20
quite legalistic and not very edifying
30:22
the catholic discussions of
30:23
of of a validly performed sacrament
30:27
so they'll actually have debates over if
30:30
one were to use this form of words and
30:32
not that form of words would this be
30:33
valid or invalid
30:35
now the the important point about this
30:37
though is that
30:38
this isn't saying god is
30:41
confined by any of this so in catholic
30:44
doctrine an atheist could be saved
30:47
we don't know we hope we pray we think
30:50
they could be
30:52
right but when it comes to organizing
30:55
the church community there are very very
30:58
clear
30:59
boundaries this is what you say when you
31:02
lay hands
31:02
on someone to ordain them a priest this
31:04
is what you say
31:05
when you lay hands on the bread and wine
31:08
that sort of thing
31:09
and that has to do with with trying to
31:12
keep
31:13
i mean we have theological reasons for
31:15
it but it's i think
31:16
the easiest way to understand it is how
31:18
do you keep a community together that's
31:20
in japan the philippines
31:22
germany the netherlands new mexico
31:26
nova scotia and you have to have these
31:29
strongly objective
31:31
agreed upon forms of of uh of
31:34
expression that's my understanding
31:37
that's why i think
31:39
it it because it wasn't that way in the
31:41
early church to the same extent
31:43
yeah and i think that's one of the most
31:44
beautiful things about the catholic
31:45
church is that you could
31:47
go on vacation to argentina or you could
31:49
go you know
31:50
to work in greece or wherever in the
31:53
world and you could go into a catholic
31:55
church
31:55
and you'd know the liturgy that they
31:57
were speaking and singing
32:00
just in a different language but you
32:01
know exactly what they're saying that's
32:03
fun
32:03
that's rich and beautiful yeah it's a
32:05
beautiful thing right it is a beautiful
32:07
thing
32:07
i will say this on objectivity though i
32:10
certain forms of protestantism
32:13
are more objective in their
32:15
understanding
32:16
of you know i drew that distinction
32:18
between theology and doctrine
32:20
i don't some of my protestant friends
32:21
don't have that distinction yes
32:23
so i've had i've had and i i think it's
32:25
probably not you guys at all but
32:27
some of my friends say what does the
32:28
catholic church teach about x and their
32:30
and they'll use a phrase about you know
32:33
substitutionary atonement or penal
32:35
substitution or something like that and
32:36
i'll say well i
32:37
we don't that's not the way we think of
32:39
it
32:40
we don't use that language of a
32:42
courtroom and jesus is the defense
32:44
attorney and
32:45
you know that just isn't the way that
32:46
catholics have traditionally understood
32:48
it
32:48
and they'll say well is it right or
32:49
wrong do you agree you know do you
32:51
accept it or not except that well i
32:53
i don't know it's just not how we think
32:55
about that mysterious thing
32:56
so there is subjectivity within
32:58
catholicism
33:00
on on certain issues but when the issue
33:03
touches upon the organization of the
33:05
community or the administration of the
33:06
sacraments it gets
33:08
really really really objective and we
33:10
have an entire law code
33:11
the code of canon law you know that you
33:14
can go and get a doctorate
33:15
which i have not done and hopefully will
33:17
never do
33:19
so it's funny the protestant friends
33:21
you're describing seem to want to
33:22
collapse
33:24
the theology side of the distinction
33:26
into the doctrine side and then they get
33:27
really uncomfortable when you can't
33:28
delineate the catholic doctrine on that
33:31
i come at it exactly they think i'm
33:33
being evasive yeah
33:34
they think i'm intentionally avoiding an
33:36
answer and the answer is i
33:38
yeah i don't know other than to say
33:40
that's not the way that i
33:41
and that there's no objective catholic
33:42
position on that
33:44
right yeah i would come at it from
33:46
exactly the opposite angle as your
33:47
protestant friends for me i would want
33:49
to collapse the doctrine side into the
33:50
theology side to me it's just
33:52
yeah opinion all the way down that's
33:54
funny um so
33:55
so sticking with that just shows the
33:57
diversity of protestantism right sure
33:59
but i wouldn't
33:59
i mean i wouldn't be claimed by many
34:01
protestants either to be fair
34:05
but sticking with this general theme
34:07
what you're calling objectivity
34:09
i might be a little more comfortable
34:11
calling authority
34:14
um i don't philosophers mean something
34:16
different by objectivity usually and i'm
34:18
not quite sure that's what we
34:19
are using here the concept in that way
34:21
um so
34:22
would it be fair to say that what
34:24
catholics have
34:26
that protestants tend to lack is a
34:28
clearer authority structure
34:30
and that this this gives a way to decide
34:34
an argument about who's in and who's out
34:36
and what the ecclesial structure should
34:38
be
34:39
and you know who bishops report to and
34:40
whatever and what the literature liturgy
34:43
should look like it gives a way to
34:44
decide that argument that protestants
34:46
lack
34:46
is that fair i think so i think so i
34:49
think the authority structures
34:51
are far less effective in asserting
34:53
their authority
34:54
than is typically perceived and the
34:56
debates
34:57
morph and go on and on and on
34:59
nevertheless
35:01
there are specific issues which can be
35:04
solved one way or the other
35:05
and if you disagree you have every right
35:08
to disagree but
35:09
you kind of lost the debate that can be
35:12
clearer in catholicism than in
35:14
protestantism
35:15
because in protestantism you know a
35:17
baptist church can have a disagreement
35:18
and it can just become two baptist
35:20
churches
35:21
um which or one true baptist church and
35:24
one apostate baptist church i think
35:25
yeah well right of course of course yeah
35:28
oh boy yeah yep
35:30
so shaun it's kind of sticking on this
35:32
theme of
35:34
authority being really really important
35:37
you know we have we kind of have to get
35:39
on to this topic
35:40
when we think about well for me when i
35:43
think about the catholic church i had
35:44
all sorts of beefs with the catholic
35:46
church growing up because i was told to
35:48
have these beasts with the catholic
35:49
church
35:49
most of those i don't i enjoy just
35:52
really nuanced conversation with my
35:54
catholic friends now
35:55
but something that i think is relevant
35:57
is thinking about the
35:58
institution that is the catholic church
36:01
right now we talk where congress is in
36:04
talks of breaking up
36:06
big tech right whether it's facebook
36:08
amazon whatever
36:10
we live in this reality where the bigger
36:11
the institution the more
36:13
opportunity there is for corruption the
36:14
more opportunity there is for
36:16
um just all sorts of unsavory things to
36:18
happen and when you think about
36:19
institutions perhaps
36:21
the biggest most historic institution
36:23
the world the modern world has known has
36:25
been
36:26
the catholic church and is the catholic
36:27
church and i'm a huge fan of
36:29
richard rohr father richard and he says
36:32
any institution that's left uncritiqued
36:34
becomes demonic which i think is really
36:38
really provocative but really really
36:39
true
36:40
whether you're talking about a police
36:42
force or a church
36:43
or whatever you're talking about the
36:45
catholic church in
36:47
i think this comes down to for me in the
36:48
way that i've interpreted and kind of
36:50
tried to understand the way they've
36:51
dealt with the sexual abuse scandals is
36:54
the institution institutionalism of the
36:57
of it
36:58
has actually hindered it from dealing
37:00
rightly with the abuse scandals like the
37:02
the institution has become so important
37:05
that the main objective is to maintain
37:07
the institution
37:08
which has probably assets of tens of
37:11
billions of dollars literally and has
37:13
over a billion followers worldwide and
37:15
is two thousand years old
37:16
i mean talk about a powerful institution
37:19
that's it right there
37:20
and so it's no surprise to me that the
37:22
number one objective
37:24
as it seems to me as an outsider is
37:26
maintain the institution
37:28
maintain the safety and the the
37:30
integrity of the institution over and
37:32
above
37:32
just doing what's right do you feel my
37:36
uncomfortability with the huge
37:37
institution that is the catholic church
37:39
and the opportunity for so much
37:41
corruption and just
37:42
bad decisions because of the desire to
37:45
maintain that institution i don't know
37:47
if i'm being clear
37:48
no no you absolutely are i mean i think
37:50
i would i would
37:51
completely agree with uh father richard
37:54
rohr uh
37:54
in his comment there i haven't read that
37:56
but i i'm familiar with some of his
37:59
writing and
38:00
that definitely sounds like something he
38:01
would say i i absolutely agree with that
38:04
and when i when i teach
38:05
church history i say the scary thing
38:08
about
38:09
many periods of the church but we'll say
38:11
let's rewind to the 16th century
38:13
the scary thing is almost none of these
38:16
popes were bad people they were nice
38:19
people they were kind they were loving
38:22
most of them actually weren't sexually
38:24
corrupt there were many many many
38:26
sexually corrupt
38:27
popes at different times in history but
38:30
most of these popes during this
38:32
this when luther was breaking away were
38:34
were good people
38:36
and that to me makes it scarier
38:39
it would be easy if we said pope leo the
38:41
tenth who who was a medici from florence
38:44
pope lee the tenth was this horrible
38:46
disgusting corrupt
38:48
you know sexual abuser or whatever he
38:50
wasn't
38:51
he was a good person but he was a person
38:55
who
38:55
who in many ways i shouldn't say too
38:58
strongly about him because i'm not an
39:00
expert on on him but
39:02
in many ways put the institution over
39:06
what is right or what is true so i think
39:09
i don't want to sound too
39:10
individualistic
39:11
because there's a sense that
39:12
institutions and communities are more
39:14
important than individuals
39:15
nevertheless when you're dealing with
39:16
something like the abuse crisis
39:18
to put the institution over an
39:21
individual who has been harmed
39:23
or in future individuals who could be
39:24
harmed i think that's
39:27
something of a kind of original sin or a
39:29
constant
39:30
a systemic sin in the catholic church i
39:33
mean it's
39:34
i presume it's present in every
39:35
institution i mean i've been around
39:38
you know universities and families
39:40
extended families and
39:43
all kinds of uh structures that that i i
39:46
think this
39:46
the same thing probably goes but as you
39:48
say the catholic church is enormous
39:50
so that the possible scale uh for the
39:53
sin or the kind of systemic nature for
39:54
the sin becomes enormous
39:56
another thing i would say is that i
39:58
always go back to the reformation with
40:00
this because
40:01
before the reformation catholics were
40:03
very comfortable with the word reform
40:06
referencio in latin they used the word
40:08
all the time the stated purpose of the
40:10
council of constance which was called in
40:12
1414 for this ludicrous situation where
40:14
you had three popes
40:16
you had three men claiming to be pope
40:18
and they said what is the purpose of the
40:20
council
40:21
reform in head and members uh referencio
40:24
and kapute
40:25
i forgot what members is in latin that's
40:27
probably something similar to
40:29
the word members anyway by the time
40:32
protestants were seen to
40:33
sort of co-opt the word reform and
40:36
catholics stop
40:37
using it and i think that that is
40:40
a that's very telling
40:43
and this idea that we have now like if
40:45
you asked someone in boston
40:47
in the 1970s or 80s when a lot of this
40:50
abuse was going on
40:52
or the high point as far as we know the
40:54
high point of this abuse
40:55
why would you not go to the police or
40:57
why would you not
40:59
follow up on where the bishop moved this
41:02
man that you know
41:03
abused a child or a young person or a
41:05
vulnerable person
41:06
the phrase that would always be used is
41:08
not causing scandal
41:10
[Music]
41:11
and there's so many things wrong with
41:13
that right because the scandal is what
41:15
happened
41:16
and the further scandal is not
41:18
preventing it from happening again
41:20
but the idea is that the church is so
41:22
big and so important it's too big to
41:24
fail we might say
41:25
colloquially so if you undercut
41:29
confidence in the institution you're
41:30
harming more people than any
41:32
individual could do that's i think the
41:35
way most
41:36
good people who went along with
41:39
something
41:40
demonic and wicked didn't do what they
41:42
could have done
41:43
not because they're evil not because
41:45
they're sadistic but because they had
41:46
this
41:47
ingrained systemic sin of
41:50
putting an institution over the good of
41:52
individuals
41:54
so i think this is a deeply ingrained
41:56
this is way more to me this is
41:58
way bigger than any discussion of
42:00
pedophilia
42:02
or or clericalism those are
42:05
facets of a problem the problem is
42:09
a a community that has this ingrained
42:12
way of viewing
42:14
you know not causing scandal the
42:16
institution's more important than
42:17
individuals
42:18
that's the root problem and what's
42:19
striking to me as you say that is that
42:21
this
42:22
this desire to not cause scandal is from
42:24
the top down
42:26
in all the way in between it seems like
42:27
right like you'd ask somebody in boston
42:29
why didn't you
42:30
call the cops because your son was was
42:32
abused or your
42:34
nephew or brother whatever and they
42:36
would tell you that we didn't want to
42:37
cause a scandal and that's
42:38
exactly why we saw bishops cardinals
42:42
popes even covering things up and trying
42:44
to sweep things under the rugs
42:46
to not cause scandals so that's
42:47
culturally so you're saying
42:50
when we talk about reform and
42:51
catholicism that might be
42:53
one of the big things we need to reform
42:55
at the current moment would you agree or
42:56
not
42:57
yes i mean i do think that there's
43:00
tremendous progress from where we were
43:01
in to
43:02
i think boston broke in o2
43:06
i do think there's been real progress
43:08
since o2
43:09
i don't think there's been enough and i
43:12
think that we have a really really long
43:14
way to go
43:15
i do think there has been real advances
43:19
in how we've understood the psychology
43:22
of an abusive person
43:24
the warning signs for it i think we
43:26
we're starting to build a culture where
43:29
people feel that it's okay to come
43:31
forward
43:32
and that that's actually the right and
43:34
the good and the praiseworthy thing
43:35
rather than a kind of shameful thing
43:37
so i think we're moving in the right
43:39
direction but
43:41
this really scary thing to me as a
43:45
someone who reads a lot of early modern
43:46
history is you can see traces of this
43:49
you can see hints that this was going on
43:52
my mentor uh at marquette ulrich laner
43:55
has looked at a tremendous amount of
43:56
documentation from
43:58
uh monasteries mostly in the
44:00
german-speaking world
44:01
and um and this was clearly a problem
44:05
i mean sexual sexual abuse is always a
44:07
problem in every community right but
44:09
this was clearly a problem
44:11
and the scary thing to me is how many
44:13
generations to use
44:14
real throwback language to you know
44:16
deuteronomy and leviticus and all this
44:17
stuff about you know
44:19
third and fourth generation all stuff
44:21
how many generations
44:22
was this gestating in
44:25
and how long is it going to take to get
44:27
this poison out
44:29
because i think that the kind of you
44:31
know it came to the surface in the
44:33
re actually in the 90s to some extent i
44:36
think i'm not an expert on this
44:38
it really started coming out in the
44:39
early 2000s and we kept thinking oh
44:41
that's the big revelation
44:43
and then there was another one oh no
44:45
that's the big revelation and the
44:46
reality is it's probably
44:48
for my lifetime this will be something
44:51
that we're
44:52
dealing with at a systemic level we're
44:54
always going to deal with it at an
44:55
individual level
44:57
the hope is that we can get to the point
44:58
where it's it's
45:00
an individual problem that is dealt with
45:02
swiftly and clearly and
45:04
transparently rather than being a
45:07
systemic problem
45:09
so just dovetailing off of that a little
45:13
bit i mean me as a
45:15
protestant looking in i can say and
45:17
here's where
45:18
you know being a catholic would drive me
45:20
nuts it would actually drive me crazy
45:23
is i enjoy like we i pastor church that
45:25
is identified as evangelical for
45:28
you know 15 years since i started it and
45:31
we now are making the decision
45:32
to drop the evangelical label because we
45:34
see so much gone wrong in the
45:36
evangelical tradition we think it's
45:38
actually a barrier
45:39
to unbelievers to say if we're an
45:42
evangelical church i think there's a
45:43
whole lot of people who
45:44
have no interest in us so let's just
45:46
drop it because we can do that
45:48
i like being able to do something like
45:50
that and when i look from the outside
45:51
looking into at the catholic church
45:53
i'm just like geez louise guys can we
45:56
just
45:56
let priests get married for one thing
45:58
you wouldn't have a crisis of a lack of
46:00
priests anymore
46:01
and for another thing maybe maybe that
46:03
would help this crisis
46:05
and then you know like okay since we're
46:08
letting priests get married can we also
46:10
let women
46:11
be ordained and become priests i mean
46:13
these should just be
46:14
simple things that we could just do and
46:17
that's
46:18
a major that's just a a rough spot for
46:21
me with the catholic church is that you
46:22
just can't do what's right
46:24
what seems right to me now i'm being
46:26
very extreme here and i'm
46:27
using extreme words but i kind of think
46:30
that
46:31
well it's okay to use extreme language i
46:33
mean we're talking about
46:34
you know this uh extreme thing
46:37
right the abuse crisis so i mean it's if
46:40
it's ever warranted
46:42
it would be now um yeah i mean
46:45
the interesting thing about it you don't
46:47
really control the
46:49
the brand as it were i mean you guys can
46:52
kind of shape your brand right you just
46:53
say hey we call ourselves
46:55
first independent christian church of
46:57
milwaukee or
46:59
the name is brew city correct but you
47:02
have you have
47:03
you identify in literature or in in
47:06
in you used to identify publicly as
47:08
evangelical yeah yeah
47:11
right and then you're just removing
47:12
references to that
47:14
right okay yeah i mean i guess like so
47:17
catholic to us
47:18
is just what we are right i mean it
47:20
would be
47:22
it would be like saying you know can you
47:24
identify as not
47:25
like christian anymore not human i mean
47:28
it just is what i
47:28
am right so whether i like it or not it
47:31
is what i am
47:32
is how we would view it regarding these
47:34
specific reforms i mean
47:36
the issue of married married priests
47:39
is a really interesting issue for
47:43
roman catholicism for latin rite
47:45
catholicism which is what i am
47:47
and what most people in america are
47:50
there are catholic uh churches small
47:54
seed churches the ukrainians and
47:56
the egyptians and most of the ones that
47:58
are in the kind of eastern parts of the
48:00
old roman empire that do have married
48:02
priests
48:03
because that's their tradition their
48:04
liturgical sacramental
48:06
tradition the western church
48:10
which then sent missionaries everywhere
48:13
and
48:13
in some cases sadly conquistadors the
48:16
people that
48:16
received catholicism from western
48:19
catholics
48:20
are latin right and therefore don't have
48:21
married priests it's something that's
48:23
been discussed a ton
48:24
i think it's going to be discussed more
48:26
and more and i'm i'm open to it
48:28
for reasons that are mostly independent
48:32
of the abuse crisis i don't think that
48:35
i i don't think that celibate people
48:37
people who abstain from sex then become
48:39
abusive i think you know that's putting
48:41
the cart before the horse
48:43
with the understanding of abuse and we
48:45
do have abuse of course with
48:47
people who are married and people who
48:48
are openly sexually active can also of
48:50
course be
48:51
abusive people where i would see
48:54
merit in the way you're approaching it
48:56
is that
48:58
we need to find a way whether it's
49:00
through married priests or whether it's
49:02
through
49:03
a reform of how people are formed in the
49:06
priesthood
49:07
of identifying the psychological
49:12
profile of people who are prone to this
49:15
sort of thing
49:16
so in that there is an indirect way
49:19
i think that allowing married priests
49:21
would increase a kind of transparency
49:24
but i don't it wouldn't eliminate the
49:26
problem
49:27
because i i know protestant uh
49:30
situation i mean from my own personal
49:32
experience of hearing about this place
49:34
in that place and
49:35
there was cov there were cover-ups and
49:36
there were some people went to the
49:38
police and some people contradicted
49:39
their reports and these were married men
49:42
but they were megalomaniacs right i mean
49:43
that's the problem the problem is
49:45
is men who are who are asserting a kind
49:48
of
49:48
a sick sort of dominance over other
49:50
people
49:52
nevertheless i don't want to say that
49:53
what you're saying doesn't have merit
49:55
because i do
49:56
think that there is a problem with a
49:59
kind of
50:00
secrecy or a view of the priesthood as
50:03
as completely other
50:04
that we have uh at times in the catholic
50:07
church
50:08
and that's that's damaging and celibacy
50:11
can be a component of that i don't think
50:13
it needs to be i think there's tons and
50:15
tons of
50:16
beautiful healthy um celibate folks
50:19
uh out there of course and i think it's
50:21
a real call i mean it's a call in the
50:23
gospel
50:24
um jesus and paul have you know very
50:27
um i think beautiful words about what it
50:29
means to be celibate and
50:31
and serve the kingdom so i i think the
50:34
last pope
50:34
benedict the 16th po joseph ratzinger he
50:38
was worried about
50:39
he knew he could change it and he knew
50:41
there are good arguments for doing so
50:44
but i think what he was worried about is
50:45
this witness of celibate ministry
50:48
disappearing
50:49
and it being seen that there was a kind
50:51
of pressure of sort of secular modernity
50:53
to abandon
50:54
this ancient christian practice i don't
50:56
think that would happen
50:57
because in the orthodox church you have
50:59
very strong
51:00
eastern catholics and eastern orthodox
51:02
you have very strong
51:04
cultures of married priesthood and of
51:07
celibate priesthood
51:09
regarding mary regarding women priests i
51:13
again i so i converted catholicism in
51:16
2006.
51:17
i was baptized because we were reformed
51:19
baptist so we didn't baptize babies so i
51:21
was baptized catholic
51:22
so it was like a sacrament circus i was
51:24
baptized confirmed
51:26
and um first communion all in the same
51:29
night
51:30
easter vigil i just had to die and get
51:32
ordained and go to confession and i
51:33
would have all of them but
51:35
boom didn't happen all right get married
51:38
right i was gonna say
51:40
to get the seventh right um the seventh
51:42
the seventh seal
51:43
um there was a huge debate
51:46
about women priests in the 70s and 80s
51:49
and john paul ii
51:50
released an encyclical very very
51:52
strongly coming out against
51:55
women being ordained that debate
51:58
which of course many people just don't
51:59
agree with so in that sense the debate
52:01
has carried on but at the ecclesial
52:03
level
52:04
that debate has been sidelined or put on
52:07
ice and the current debate
52:08
is women in the diaconate which
52:11
is very much a live debate and pope
52:13
francis has has established a committee
52:15
to examine that question which is a very
52:18
interesting historical question because
52:19
of course you have female deacons in the
52:20
new testament
52:22
so then the question becomes what were
52:24
these women actually doing
52:26
is this the same as the the male deacons
52:28
that we see in acts
52:29
uh the seven first male deacons there's
52:32
the historical question and there's also
52:34
the theological question so anyway
52:35
that's being examined
52:37
i'm open to whatever these reports find
52:40
i'm open to examining these arguments
52:42
it certainly seems prima facie that
52:44
there's a precedent
52:46
for uh for women deacons of of some kind
52:49
the real issue to me is women in genuine
52:53
leadership having genuine leadership
52:56
opportunities in the church
52:57
we are seeing that it's very slow but we
53:00
are seeing women who are on curial
53:02
congregation so these are kind of like
53:04
the rome like the cabinet like the
53:05
pope's cabinet i guess would be a good
53:08
analogy so we are seeing more female
53:12
leadership in the church which to me is
53:14
ultimately the important question
53:17
and sorry kyle it's all right
53:20
just one more about that because here's
53:22
the other happen francis just said the
53:23
other day
53:24
that he thinks that catholics should
53:25
allow for civil unions between
53:28
uh gay and lesbian people you have these
53:31
three things
53:32
that people have talked about for you
53:34
know i would say for decades because i'm
53:36
young
53:36
but probably for longer than that not
53:39
the
53:39
lgbtq thing but celibacy women in
53:42
leadership
53:43
and now honoring our gay and lesbian
53:45
brothers and sisters
53:47
if there's a vatican three within the
53:49
next hundred years say
53:50
there probably will be right would you
53:52
say
53:54
yeah i just hope it's in my lifetime i'm
53:56
worried i'm gonna be
53:57
recently dead yeah just missed the
54:00
second one
54:01
yeah so what would you say would be like
54:03
will any of those things be on the table
54:05
at vatican iii i think i mean it's so
54:09
perilous to sort of like you know
54:10
because i look at
54:12
let's say vatican 3 is in
54:15
2070 you know roughly 100 years after
54:18
vatican ii
54:19
and then what i say now is the
54:21
equivalent of what people would have
54:22
thought in like
54:23
1915 or 1920 and i just can't see
54:26
anybody getting that right i mean there
54:28
were people who were saying like hey we
54:30
need to look into
54:31
dialogue with protestants and other
54:32
people are saying no that's crazy why
54:34
would you know
54:35
so there were people raising the issues
54:38
which are eventually on the table at
54:40
vatican ii so there's clearly precedent
54:41
for that
54:42
but nobody it would have been utterly
54:45
impossible to predict
54:46
kind of what is the confluence of
54:49
theological thought and whatever's going
54:52
on in the culture and whatever is going
54:54
on pastorally that
54:55
that all sort of ferments and all comes
54:57
together to make an ecumenical council
54:59
what it is
55:00
nevertheless i would say that um i mean
55:02
married priests was on the agenda in a
55:04
kind of indirect way
55:06
very recently about can
55:09
married men be ordained to serve these
55:12
areas
55:12
of the amazon that have very limited
55:16
access to priests because of geography
55:18
and stuff like that
55:19
the majority of bishops there i believe
55:21
it was a two-thirds majority i might be
55:23
wrong about that
55:23
said yes we should do that francis
55:27
ultimately said no
55:28
not because he thinks that he can't do
55:31
it or that it would be heretical or
55:33
something like that but because he
55:34
he deemed it was not the right time or
55:36
it was imprudent for some other reason
55:38
so a lot of this stuff is not issues of
55:41
kind of black and white doctrine
55:44
but his issues of what is the church
55:46
deciding to do right now
55:48
and what is prudent to do what is wise
55:50
to do
55:51
because the church could say you know
55:54
tomorrow the pope could say
55:55
latin right priests can get married
55:57
there's no doctrinal reason that they
55:59
can't get married they used to be
56:00
married
56:01
and our eastern catholic friends have
56:04
married priests he could do it
56:06
but he isn't doing it for prudential
56:09
practical reasons not that theology
56:12
doesn't come into it there is a theology
56:14
behind it
56:15
regarding this the civil union stuff is
56:17
really really interesting
56:19
francis is very clear that he doesn't
56:21
think that men should be having sex with
56:23
men and women should be having sex with
56:25
women
56:26
nevertheless they are so in light of
56:30
that
56:30
what do we do and i think this is how
56:33
pope francis
56:34
approaches most problems i mean it's
56:36
very pastoral and it's very practical
56:39
what do i do as a pastor when
56:43
two 19 year olds are sleeping together
56:45
and they don't want to get married
56:46
or they're in tons of debt and they
56:48
can't get married or
56:50
what have you okay so a lot of a lot of
56:53
francis's pontificate
56:54
is he has a kind of radical view
56:58
it's frankly probably not that radical
57:00
for a parish priest but it is for a pope
57:02
the way that he speaks about this stuff
57:04
he has a radical view of how
57:06
can i genuinely include everyone
57:10
given that the human family is super
57:12
diverse and
57:13
we all sin and there's tons of non-ideal
57:17
things going on so the the reality which
57:20
a lot of catholics don't like to talk
57:22
about
57:22
is that the church condemns birth
57:23
control which means that
57:26
the vast majority of married catholics
57:28
straight married catholics
57:30
in the northern hemisphere by the letter
57:32
of the law should not be receiving
57:34
communion
57:35
technically but there's been an enormous
57:38
sort of accommodation
57:40
to this reality okay
57:44
most priests if you push them would
57:46
never dream of
57:48
cracking down on this and denying
57:50
communion to everyone who doesn't
57:52
make clear in the confessional that
57:54
they're not using contraception or
57:56
they've repented of past use of it or
57:58
whatever it might be
57:59
and i know of examples of priests who
58:01
have tried to do this and it hasn't gone
58:03
down well
58:04
with their parish or with their bishop
58:06
so there's been an accommodation on that
58:09
there's an accommodation on divorce and
58:12
remarriage in many situations and
58:13
francis i think francis is thinking of
58:16
the issue of gay marriage gay civil
58:18
union along the same lines
58:20
that he thinks of divorce divorce is a
58:22
civic reality
58:24
and it's culturally pervasive right now
58:28
and the church has responded to that the
58:29
church fought tooth and nail
58:31
in the late 19th and early 20th century
58:34
against the legalization of birth
58:35
control and against the legalization of
58:37
divorce
58:38
it lost those legal battles and it
58:40
adjusted
58:41
and i think we're seeing the beginnings
58:43
of a what will
58:44
no doubt be a traumatic and painful
58:47
intra-catholic
58:48
discussion that's happening with the
58:51
reality
58:52
of gay families and francis in my
58:55
opinion just says look it is what it is
58:57
i want these people coming to mass i
59:00
want these people
59:01
included i want these people thriving
59:04
as much as i can make that possible for
59:06
them that's how i read him on it can we
59:08
just
59:09
make francis pope indefinitely and
59:13
prop him up like weakened at bernie's or
59:15
something i mean like
59:16
man oh man what a guy
59:20
i mean i don't know i i get i get the
59:21
sentiment but i feel like
59:24
a lot of my lgbtq friends would see it
59:26
quite for sure right
59:27
absolutely because inclusion up to a
59:29
point is not inclusion
59:31
accommodation is not inclusion so
59:35
well it depends on i mean you got again
59:38
you got to remember what
59:39
what country are you talking about i
59:41
take this to be an a-priori truth i'm
59:43
not speaking
59:44
contingently culturally i'm saying
59:48
yeah but he has to right because he's
59:51
the pope of
59:52
africa philippines japan into the
59:55
netherlands
59:56
alabama he has to in his role so maybe
59:59
this gets me to my next question
60:00
actually so
60:01
two two aspects of this question i'll
60:04
start with the one that's most relevant
60:06
and this will be maybe a nice segue into
60:08
some of the papal infallibility stuff
60:09
that i know that you work on so
60:11
thinking about authority structures as
60:13
we have been for a while now
60:15
why not say because you know admitting
60:17
as you have that
60:19
uh the sex abuse scandal has a huge
60:22
institutional component to it that the
60:24
core part of the problem as you put it
60:27
is a kind of love of institutional power
60:30
over the the hurting person in front of
60:33
you so
60:34
recognizing that that tendency
60:37
of large institutions and systems
60:40
to be breeding grounds for that kind of
60:43
sin that kind of love of power
60:45
why not say as a lot of feminists have
60:48
said for example
60:49
that it is the institution itself that
60:52
is the problem so let me
60:54
quote from one of my favorite historical
60:56
feminists all right this is mary
60:57
wallstonecraft
60:58
and i love this quote because of the way
61:00
she puts it she says
61:01
it is the pastiferous purple which
61:04
renders the progress of civilization a
61:06
curse
61:07
and warps the understanding till men of
61:09
sensibility doubt whether the expansion
61:11
of intellect produces a greater portion
61:13
of happiness
61:14
or misery i love that now of course
61:16
she's referring to she sounds like
61:18
jefferson or voltaire yeah i think they
61:20
probably stole a lot from
61:21
her and her predecessors what year
61:24
what year did she die oh my goodness
61:26
that you have this late 18th century i
61:28
don't have it though i'd have to google
61:29
that
61:30
oh okay okay um but she's of course
61:32
speaking about
61:34
monarchy but you you've written yeah
61:36
recently about
61:38
how the papacy is a de facto monarchy
61:41
more or less yeah um yeah and so i think
61:43
a lot of the same critiques
61:45
would apply in this case why not just
61:47
say that concentrating that much power
61:49
in an
61:50
individual or a small group of
61:51
individuals is
61:53
itself a sin it is itself something that
61:56
is intrinsically
61:58
morally untenable and that
62:02
there are better ways to structure a
62:04
body that that submits itself to the
62:06
headship of christ why not
62:08
go that route well uh
62:12
i i think uh you know the the famous
62:14
quote
62:15
from uh from lord acton
62:18
uh power corrupts and absolute power
62:20
corrupts absolutely i mean that
62:22
lord acton was a catholic who was
62:24
opposing papal infallibility a lot of
62:26
people don't
62:27
don't know the the the providence of the
62:29
of that quote
62:30
he was a what what you would call a
62:32
liberal catholic in the
62:34
in the 19th century since capital l
62:36
liberal catholic so liberal democracy
62:38
free speech
62:39
press all that kind of stuff the way
62:42
that catholics
62:43
approach this issue is not
62:46
to try to lessen
62:49
the kind of prerogatives of the office
62:52
of the of the papacy
62:53
but rather to try to empower other
62:57
facets of the church and one big reason
63:00
for that is the first vatican
63:02
council the first vatican council
63:04
defines
63:05
papal jurisdictional supremacy which is
63:08
actually the more important teaching
63:10
and i'm sorry for the impenetrability of
63:12
some of my writing on vatican one but
63:14
it was uh you know the 150th anniversary
63:18
so i knew it was
63:19
primarily aimed at catholic theologians
63:22
so
63:22
the the idea of papal infallibility of
63:24
the pope teaching
63:25
infallibly i think is
63:29
a very thorny concept not because i
63:31
would deny the possibility of it but
63:33
because of
63:35
how useful or not useful it's actually
63:38
been
63:39
in the history of the church the reality
63:42
is
63:42
things stop being contested when they
63:45
are universally received
63:48
sometimes that happens through a pope
63:50
sometimes that happens through
63:52
um just everyone prays the same liturgy
63:54
and you know so
63:55
something like jesus is lord is just
63:58
inherent
63:59
in scripture liturgy prayer whatever
64:02
other kind of statements are considered
64:06
sacrosanct because of a council the
64:08
council of nicaea the council of
64:09
constantinople and then there are other
64:11
statements which
64:13
which come from the papacy though which
64:15
were are seen to be
64:16
infallible papal declarations but really
64:18
were not contested
64:20
the immaculate conception of mary the
64:22
assumption of mary they weren't
64:23
contested at the time they were declared
64:25
they were very much contested before
64:27
that
64:28
so the issue to me is more the kind of
64:30
absolute power of the papacy the issue
64:32
to me is more
64:34
the fact that the pope has supreme
64:36
jurisdiction
64:37
over the church that's the really thorny
64:39
issue
64:41
and if you're if there's ever to be
64:42
reunion with the eastern orthodox or
64:44
there's ever to be a kind of
64:46
methodist right catholicism or something
64:49
like that of protestants
64:52
as a group becoming a kind of church
64:55
within the umbrella of the catholic
64:57
church which is how it would happen it
64:58
would never happen through
65:00
individuals it would have to be some
65:01
sort of corporate unification
65:03
the issue of the pope's jurisdiction is
65:06
going to have to be
65:08
tackled and i would think rethought in
65:11
some
65:11
fashion but the idea that there's
65:14
a i i don't think that the corruption
65:17
stems from
65:18
that i think the corruption sometimes
65:21
the papacy is
65:23
on the right side so to speak of an
65:25
issue or a problem and sometimes they're
65:27
on the wrong side i think
65:29
the the the problem with this you know
65:31
you're referencing i presume the sex
65:33
abuse crisis primarily
65:35
the problem unfortunately is so
65:38
multifaceted it's not like there's a
65:40
sort of
65:41
corruption that originated in rome and
65:43
spread everywhere else and we can't do
65:45
anything about it because the pope is a
65:46
sort of
65:47
absolute emperor over us that's not the
65:49
problem the problem is
65:52
local it's in parishes it's in diocesan
65:55
offices and it's
65:57
and it's in rome so i you know
66:00
is there a problem that needs to be
66:03
tackled
66:04
yes but i don't know that the
66:07
that the na i view the nature of the
66:09
problem more to do with ecumenism of
66:12
relations with other bodies of
66:13
christians and less to do with
66:16
intra-catholic issues of corruption
66:19
if that makes sense yeah i highlighted
66:23
some stuff in your article
66:25
uh that i thought might be relevant oh
66:27
god maybe i've contradicted myself
66:28
i don't no i don't think you did but i
66:30
mean on the topic of
66:32
pope as monarch or pope as celebrity
66:35
because that's something you talk about
66:36
a lot too pope has the focus of the
66:38
church and also the world outside the
66:40
church when they think of catholics so
66:41
you say
66:42
now much more so than in 1870 the pope
66:45
is
66:45
the ordinary and immediate pastor of
66:47
every catholic i like that it kind of
66:49
brought it home yeah and you also said
66:51
something in that article that struck me
66:53
because i didn't know this
66:54
that there have been discussions about
66:58
the infallibility of the whole church
67:01
right how did that go yeah where where
67:04
is that now
67:06
yeah yeah that's a really interesting
67:08
thing so that this is
67:09
along the lines of what i was just
67:10
saying which is that that
67:12
the way that you reform in the catholic
67:15
church often
67:16
is not to deny something previously
67:18
taught but to
67:20
expand and the really interesting thing
67:23
about what happened at the second
67:24
vatican council which was
67:27
to 1965 is that on one hand they were
67:30
they were progressing they were they
67:32
were you know incorporating new ideas
67:35
but on the other hand
67:36
most of these new ideas are things that
67:38
they were reading in the bible and the
67:40
church fathers
67:41
in the kind of practice of the early
67:43
church so the initial commitment that
67:45
christians had
67:47
was that the church was infallible
67:51
in the sense that the church could
67:54
teach a truth about the gospel without
67:58
error
67:59
so the idea of the nicene creed there
68:02
was a certainty
68:04
that the nicene creed was a true
68:06
interpretation of the gospel
68:07
that is primary or is is is
68:11
is is before it comes before any notion
68:13
of
68:14
bishops or popes being infallible is
68:17
that the believing community
68:19
through the holy spirit can know with
68:21
certainty
68:23
truths about the gospel not all truths
68:26
not every single detail but that the
68:29
church is not fundamentally mistaken
68:31
that god is triune
68:32
that jesus is true god of true god took
68:35
flesh from mary et cetera et cetera and
68:37
that's because you
68:38
would say not you but the catholic
68:39
church would say because of the
68:40
inspiration of the holy spirit correct
68:43
yes so this is one of the one of the
68:45
really important things about
68:46
understanding papal infallibility in a
68:48
way that doesn't make the pope
68:50
into a kind of oracle which i think
68:52
sadly
68:54
this is not always understood by by
68:56
protestants looking
68:57
in and by catholics the way catholics
68:59
themselves understand it or express it
69:02
the the pope is not infallible
69:05
no person is infallible the belief
69:08
of the church is that the holy spirit
69:10
can preserve
69:12
teachings from error now this gets
69:15
really thorny because one of those
69:17
teachings
69:18
traditionally was that there is no
69:20
salvation outside the church
69:22
then spanish dominicans and franciscans
69:25
come to mexico and they realize
69:28
well the gospel has not been proclaimed
69:31
to the entire world
69:32
so the idea here was jews and muslims
69:35
are are
69:35
sort of culpably in error they know that
69:38
they they've been presented with the
69:39
gospel and they've chosen to reject it
69:42
that was the kind of medieval late
69:43
medieval understanding
69:45
they go to the new world and they
69:46
realize there's millions and millions of
69:47
people here
69:49
who know nothing of the gospel so they
69:51
start
69:52
thinking okay we have a commitment to an
69:55
idea that
69:55
outside the church there's no salvation
69:57
how do we rethink this
69:59
because we believe that god is merciful
70:00
we believe that god communicates grace
70:02
through nature
70:03
that he communicates to hearts that are
70:06
repentant
70:07
so they start talking about baptism of
70:09
desire they start talking about all
70:10
these ways that
70:12
a an aztec could have been a member of
70:15
the body of christ
70:16
and not known it okay so they'll never
70:18
say
70:19
there is salvation outside the church
70:21
what they'll say is
70:23
there are people who don't appear to be
70:25
in the church that in fact are in the
70:26
church
70:27
that's how reform and development works
70:30
in catholicism
70:32
so the sa you see the same thing with
70:33
with infallible teaching and the kind of
70:36
locus the places that it can occur
70:38
so there was a real danger in the late
70:41
1800s for
70:42
a variety of reasons theological
70:44
political cultural of concentrating all
70:46
authority in the pope
70:48
the second vatican council to really
70:50
oversimplify things
70:51
was trying to say well really the pope
70:53
is the head
70:54
of a college of bishops who are the
70:58
successors of the apostles
70:59
so the gift of the holy spirit goes to
71:01
the apostles the bishops are the
71:03
successors of those apostles and the
71:05
pope is the head of the college
71:06
so there was a re-orientation
71:11
of infallibility as the successors of
71:13
the apostles and also as
71:15
the entire believing community so the
71:18
entire believing community receives the
71:20
holy spirit
71:21
and when we are united in a belief the
71:24
the catholic understanding is that that
71:26
that that belief is is without error
71:29
this would be very basic things jesus is
71:32
lord
71:33
these sort of affirmations that the
71:35
entire believing community affirms
71:40
as we talk shaun i'm i'm thinking of the
71:43
people
71:43
and there's probably several listeners
71:46
who who are listening to this right now
71:48
and have been victims of abuse
71:52
not only sexual abuse and not only by
71:55
catholic priests but just
71:56
victims of manipulation
72:00
of abuse of all sorts of ugly things who
72:04
feel
72:05
just chewed up and spit out and rejected
72:07
by the church and then all of a sudden
72:09
we hear words like authority and we hear
72:12
words like infallibility
72:14
and that sounds potentially
72:17
traumatizing to me and not just on the
72:20
catholic side it's easier on the
72:21
catholic side because of these words are
72:23
so clear and heavy and
72:24
and weighty but you know even someone in
72:26
my position who's a
72:28
person in authority a pastor of a
72:29
protestant church who's kind of like
72:32
the end-all be-all for for i wouldn't
72:34
say for better for worse for worse
72:36
in my tradition i'm sure sometimes let's
72:39
let's hope so but
72:40
i'm just listening and feeling like
72:44
man this language has just got to be
72:47
potentially so painful for people who
72:49
have been
72:49
manipulated by and abused by people in
72:52
authority and power over them
72:54
particularly in the church because we're
72:55
talking about god now and so i'm saying
72:58
this as a pastor and one authority
73:00
you who have been abused you who have
73:02
been manipulated you who have been
73:03
rejected
73:04
you who have been marginalized by the
73:07
church
73:08
we have to listen to you like that
73:10
there's there's
73:12
there's you have a sacred story to tell
73:15
that's more than just as important
73:19
more important than a lot of the stuff
73:21
we're talking about i just want to say
73:23
and i'm sure shaun you seem like a very
73:25
compassionate
73:26
pastoral man i'm sure you'd have you
73:28
feel that as well as we're talking
73:30
certainly yeah no i i completely agree
73:32
and i mean i
73:34
we're having a certain genre of
73:36
conversation when we start talking about
73:38
people infallibility and vatican 1 and
73:40
vatican 2 and and the reality is
73:42
the vast majority of catholics in the
73:44
pew and this is even not even
73:45
considering the
73:47
the the abuse crisis but the vast
73:49
majority of catholics in the pew
73:51
this just isn't on their radar
73:55
right i mean they go to mass because
73:57
they want to go
73:59
or their spouse wants them to go or
74:00
their community expects them to go but
74:02
they go
74:03
and they listen to the scripture they
74:06
hear songs being sung hopefully they
74:08
sing along
74:09
and they receive sacraments
74:12
and they pray a rosary and they look at
74:14
a painting and they i mean so
74:15
catholicism for most people is
74:18
not delving into the kinds of issues
74:21
that that we're discussing
74:22
those issues filter down to them when
74:25
bishops disagree or when
74:27
you know a priest gives a particular
74:29
homily at a particular time but
74:31
in general i mean take my wife's faith
74:33
for example my wife is very highly
74:35
educated woman she's a doctorate in
74:37
english
74:38
her catholic faith is about
74:41
waking up in the morning making a pot of
74:43
tea looking at a
74:44
picture of jesus which would have
74:46
completely freaked me out as a 16 year
74:49
old calvinist
74:50
he kind of looks like ewan mcgregor as
74:52
obi-wan but
74:55
looks at a picture of jesus and
74:57
meditates praise her
74:59
rosary or praise a decade of the rosary
75:01
or something like that
75:03
maybe reads a couple psalms maybe reads
75:06
a chapter from the gospel does not do a
75:09
study of the book
75:10
of numbers as i would have done as a kid
75:12
um
75:13
you know so a very different kind of
75:14
piety and a very different
75:16
understanding of the faith to as an
75:18
academic theologian i have to kind of
75:20
encounter
75:22
and and wrestle with these
75:24
jurisdictional
75:25
technical languages nevertheless what
75:28
you're saying
75:29
i think has real merit in that when the
75:32
catholic church
75:33
leads with you know we are the you know
75:36
the infallible bulwark of truth and
75:39
sorry we covered up
75:40
2500 abusive priests in your diocese or
75:44
whatever
75:45
you know whatever the number is that is
75:48
a
75:49
counter witness to the gospel i
75:50
completely agree with that
75:52
when i teach intro to theology i am not
75:56
talking about jurisdictional supremacy
75:59
and
75:59
infallibility and stuff like that i'm
76:02
trying to say okay
76:03
at my university at my small university
76:06
in baton rouge
76:06
louisiana most of my students are going
76:09
into health care in some form
76:11
so i'm saying okay let's read the gospel
76:13
of luke together
76:14
let's talk about what are the kind of
76:16
fundamental christian commitments here
76:18
jesus says lord jesus is messiah
76:20
jesus brings salvation to encounter
76:23
jesus is to encounter god
76:25
let's read these passages let's talk
76:26
about them so
76:28
that's where i'm trying to meet the vast
76:30
majority of people
76:32
nevertheless i'm a member of an
76:35
institution with 1.2 billion people
76:38
we have to have these conversations we
76:40
have to deal with this doctrinal legacy
76:43
for better or worse hopefully for better
76:45
and hopefully these
76:47
debates can can trickle down if you will
76:51
in a way that is affirming and healthy
76:53
and
76:54
life-giving rather than in a way that
76:57
speaks to
76:59
irreformability and and static and
77:02
we're this kind of bulwark of authority
77:05
and the big
77:06
problem to me the biggest problem is if
77:08
the infallibility of
77:10
teaching religious truths is confused
77:13
with
77:14
an inability to sin
77:17
and that happens the german word for
77:19
infallible is
77:20
uh which means like
77:23
uh lacking nothing like that's like one
77:27
way to understand that word like that's
77:28
a very bad
77:32
you know a very unfortunate word
77:35
to have as meaning not no error in this
77:39
statement
77:39
about a theological truth that's a very
77:42
different concept so
77:44
i i very much sympathize with what
77:46
you're saying and i'm not sure that i
77:47
know exactly how to how to balance this
77:50
yeah and i can say thanks be to god that
77:52
people like you
77:53
are the ones having this conversation
77:55
and banging this out because uh
77:58
i trust you and that's well that's very
78:01
kind of you to say i don't know that i
78:03
trust myself yeah
78:04
that's the key to trustworthy people
78:06
they don't believe
78:08
that they are infallible yeah let me let
78:11
me ask the follow-up to the one that i
78:13
asked earlier that i didn't actually get
78:14
to since i said i had two at the time
78:16
i think i'm an epistemologist so i think
78:19
a lot about
78:20
things like why don't people trust
78:22
experts that's something i've been
78:23
thinking about a lot recently actually
78:25
right and
78:26
it seems to me that many not being
78:29
historian okay so i defer to your
78:30
expertise here
78:32
it seems to me that at many junctures in
78:34
the history of the catholic church
78:36
a large part of the ways that it has
78:38
gone wrong is its failure to trust
78:40
expertise that didn't exist within the
78:42
church
78:43
and that and that didn't rely on some
78:46
kind of authority whether papal
78:47
authority or magisterial authority or
78:49
or whatever the authority of the bishops
78:51
or whatever i don't know how that works
78:52
but
78:53
you know there's the famous galileo
78:54
affair and there have been many such
78:56
uh things in the in the history of the
78:58
church so at what point
79:00
would you say does it become necessary
79:03
for
79:03
an institution as large as the catholic
79:05
church to recognize
79:07
a consensus of experts outside its
79:09
borders for example the consensus of
79:11
experts about human sexuality
79:14
or the consensus of experts about some
79:16
moral issues
79:17
there are actually some consensuses
79:19
amongst non-catholic ethicists
79:22
about various moral issues that you will
79:24
get a very
79:26
what seems like a very parochial view
79:28
inside the church
79:29
when viewed from from outside the church
79:31
so this is this is an issue that we've
79:33
talked about in relation to
79:34
evangelicalism i freely admit
79:36
evangelicals are much much worse at this
79:39
than catholics are but there is still
79:42
that
79:42
strand of we possess the truth
79:47
and that you know as aquinas apparently
79:49
thought the truth is universal but
79:51
coincidentally all the arguments lead to
79:53
my view
79:55
um so you know so when people outside
79:57
the church
79:58
their arguments don't lead to that view
80:00
or they're not convinced by your clever
80:01
apologetic
80:02
well they must be deceived somehow or in
80:05
some way untrustworthy that we can't
80:07
seemingly admit that the expertise
80:09
sometimes lies outside our tradition
80:11
altogether
80:12
um so how do you understand that as a as
80:15
a catholic theologian but
80:16
yeah we we have that issue for sure
80:19
the irony of what you're saying is i
80:21
just because of so many recent events i
80:23
thought well like the catholic church
80:25
is totally on board with climate change
80:27
science
80:28
you know the catholic church is is is
80:31
is i think right about uh the refugee
80:35
crisis
80:36
and all these other things that they're
80:37
getting just
80:39
hammered for in the united states in
80:41
their own parishes
80:42
sometimes by their own priests and
80:44
bishops they're getting
80:46
hammered for so coming from
80:48
evangelicalism and no offense to my
80:50
evangelical brothers and sisters coming
80:52
from evangelicalism it is refreshing
80:55
to hear catholics say well we believe in
80:58
systemic racism
80:59
as a reality because everyone who
81:01
studies it
81:02
says it's real black people say they
81:05
experience it
81:07
people who study zoning laws and and
81:10
voting and housing and all this stuff
81:13
say that this
81:14
happens so we accept it so i think that
81:17
the catholic church has
81:18
has is in i mean i don't know what issue
81:22
i mean you mentioned issues about human
81:24
sexuality i mean
81:27
yeah the interesting thing about it is
81:29
there's a kind of
81:31
descriptive reality
81:35
that i think the church i mean most
81:37
catholics accept
81:39
there are people that are exclusively
81:40
homosexual you know they don't say
81:43
that's a myth
81:44
we can we can fix them if they go to a
81:47
accountability camp or whatever you know
81:49
i don't know what these
81:50
places are where they try to fix these
81:52
you know fix people
81:54
that's not what the catholic church does
81:57
nevertheless there's a an adherence to a
82:01
traditional doctrine about
82:04
this is how sexual relationships are
82:08
should be conducted but then there's
82:09
also a kind of
82:11
pastoral accommodation which as you said
82:13
before accommodation is not what
82:15
a lot of people are looking for but an
82:18
acceptance of
82:18
a reality of the complexities of human
82:22
sexuality so
82:24
in depending on where you are
82:27
what community you're in the catholic
82:29
church could be a very welcoming place
82:31
for someone who
82:33
is gay or or is trans or or whatever
82:36
or or it could sadly be a very uh
82:39
condemning and ostracizing place and i
82:42
think this gets to an
82:43
important caveat of this entire
82:46
discussion is
82:47
i'm talking to you as an individual from
82:53
kind of a podunk part of north carolina
82:56
that i love
82:57
but you know a relatively backwater
82:59
place educated in specific context with
83:02
a specific take
83:03
and i'm speaking about a tradition that
83:05
is on every continent and 1.2 billion
83:08
people
83:10
so i don't know that's i i hope that's
83:12
helpful yeah yeah i think so so you
83:14
mentioned that you thought that was a
83:15
fair critique the other part of that
83:16
question that i was reserving so i'm
83:18
glad you brought it up is
83:20
what do you think maybe just name one
83:21
what do you think is maybe the most
83:23
common or most important
83:24
unfair critique leveled against
83:26
catholics that you encounter
83:28
i think today it's the idea that
83:31
catholicism is incapable of reform
83:35
that ultimately it says what it says
83:37
that's it
83:38
discussion over now when you actually
83:40
study catholicism
83:42
that's actually not the case it's it's
83:44
very complicated it doesn't mean
83:46
that we don't have a prob that we don't
83:48
have these systemic problems
83:50
which we've talked about many of them
83:51
tonight we do
83:53
but we do have a grammar we have a way
83:56
of making sense
83:57
of change in a way that we believe we
84:01
hope
84:02
is true to the gospel is true to our
84:05
tradition
84:06
but is also capable of a kind of genuine
84:08
reassessment
84:09
in light of new information as kyle
84:12
brought up
84:13
new circumstances we see this clearly
84:16
with something like the death penalty
84:18
the church now says the death penalty is
84:21
completely invalid in any circumstance
84:24
it used to say
84:26
the death penalty is not only valid but
84:28
actually the appropriate response
84:31
to certain circumstances that's what the
84:33
catechism of pius iv says
84:35
from the 1560s so we've seen a
84:37
tremendous
84:38
change it's a genuine change but
84:42
is it true to the gospel is it true to
84:44
our principles
84:45
i think it is some people think it isn't
84:47
they're really mad about it
84:49
i think it is and i see this as healthy
84:52
and as an example of the holy spirit
84:54
guiding us rather than
84:56
an example of us uh you know tampering
84:58
with
84:59
with revelation or something like that
85:01
there's way more we could
85:03
go into there yeah but we're going to
85:05
have to call it at some point
85:06
this seems to seems like it's good a
85:08
point is anything yeah and i've got
85:10
i've got a host of other questions so it
85:12
would be super fun shaun to have you on
85:14
again
85:14
it would give me an excuse to drink
85:16
bourbon on a tuesday night there you go
85:19
so i would embrace it yeah yeah um so
85:21
before we do go
85:23
is there anything you want to plug for
85:24
our listeners anything you're working on
85:26
now or
85:27
have out that you would want to direct
85:29
people to where can they find you online
85:31
and if you want to say that in your
85:33
woody harrelson impersonation that
85:35
would be acceptable as well well the
85:38
first thing i want to do is apologize if
85:40
i've been too long-winded because again
85:42
i've been teaching zoom classes for
85:44
you know the last six months and that's
85:46
great and often
85:47
as kyle knows being long-winded is the
85:49
only way to get through 75 minutes of
85:51
zoom
85:53
you know what i'm working on what i'm
85:54
working on now that might have a little
85:56
bit of wider
85:57
appeal compared to some of the more kind
85:59
of in-house stuff is i am writing a
86:01
short book on vatican 2
86:03
with um an english theologian named
86:05
stephen bulvan who's a good friend of
86:06
mine from
86:07
from back in the day you guys would love
86:09
stephen i've seen his name and i
86:10
i don't remember where that's familiar
86:12
yeah he does he he originally did
86:14
systematic theology but he started doing
86:16
sociology of religion so he does all
86:18
kinds of
86:19
uh statistical he does interviews and
86:21
statistical research about
86:23
uh the nuns meaning people who who are
86:26
non-practicing or
86:27
no re who take no religion on census so
86:30
he's a very interesting guy but anyway
86:31
we're writing a short book together for
86:33
oxford university press's very short
86:35
introduction series
86:37
so it's about 35 40 000 words on vatican
86:40
ii
86:41
and he's a great writer so i'm i'm
86:42
looking forward to that
86:44
as far as woody harrelson goes uh
86:47
kyle and i were were carpooling to
86:50
german together and you know kyle these
86:53
philosopher guys will go off on
86:55
really weird [ __ ] and and i um
86:58
so i would pretend to be woody it would
87:00
you know woody harrelson in the car with
87:01
matthew mcconaughey and kyle
87:03
is i agree with y'all he sounds southern
87:06
to my ears
87:07
kentucky is the south to me it's
87:09
probably not the people in baton rouge
87:11
but he would just be going on about
87:12
whatever open theism or whatever
87:14
you know and i would be like i actually
87:18
enjoyed it but i would pretend to be
87:19
woody harrelson and i'd be like
87:21
why don't we make the car shut the [ __ ]
87:23
up time kyle
87:27
you know and then of course then he
87:28
would sort of rip off that
87:30
and be like i don't know man i'm just
87:32
thinking about you know
87:33
nothingness or whatever [ __ ] and and i
87:37
would be like
87:38
people in this town don't think like
87:40
that kyle you gotta
87:41
you gotta cut that [ __ ] out if you come
87:43
over for dinner man
87:46
so that's the woody harrelson that's
87:48
that's uh yeah it's not that good of
87:49
woody harrelson
87:50
you got to watch trudeau yep
87:54
excellent well shaun thanks for joining
87:56
us thanks for spending time
87:57
and uh really really was a a pleasure i
88:00
think
88:01
will be helpful for a lot of listeners
88:03
to be able to understand catholicism and
88:05
respect hopefully the way yeah the way
88:08
catholics go about their
88:09
their spirituality theology is really
88:12
fun good thanks so much i really enjoyed
88:14
it guys i appreciate the
88:15
the challenging questions and i also
88:17
appreciate the the the genuine warmth
88:20
of it thanks for spending this time with
88:22
us we
88:23
really hope that you're enjoying these
88:24
conversations as much as we are
88:26
and if you are help us get the word out
88:29
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88:31
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88:32
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88:33
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88:35
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88:36
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88:37
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88:39
a pastor and a philosopher walk into a
88:41
bar
88:44
[Music]