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Episode Description
“As a mother of six myself,” says this week’s guest Jennifer A. Frey, “I can tell you that having a child is like getting married in at least one important respect: If you are honest with yourself, you will admit you had no idea what you were getting into.” The professor, philosopher, and podcast host joins us to break down what’s going on socially and culturally with our current demographic winter. Frey offers insights gleaned from three books that hit on the pivotal topic of parenting, all from different perspectives.
With life on the ballot this November in Florida and in several other states, Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami discusses the truth behind Amendment 4 and reminds us that as Catholics, “we are not second-class citizens.” In a recent panel, the Archbishop and pro-life physician Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie warned that the amendment uses deceptive language to lift crucial safety protections for mothers and babies such as parental consent and basic licensing requirements.
Father Roger Landry also offers us an inspiring homily as we look ahead to Respect Life Sunday.
Bios
Jennifer A. Frey is the Dean of the Honors College at the University of Tulsa and a professor of philosophy at the Department of Philosophy and Religion. She was formerly an associate professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina, where she was also a Peter and Bonnie McCausland faculty fellow at the College of Arts and Sciences. She serves as faculty fellow at the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America, and a Newbigin Interfaith Fellow with the Carver Project. She earned her PhD in philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh and her BA in Philosophy and Medieval Studies at Indiana University Bloomington.
Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski is the Archbishop of Miami and a native of Florida. He earned a Master of Divinity from the Boynton Beach Seminary and a Master of Arts in Sociology from Fordham University. He formerly served as director of the Pierre Toussaint Haitian Catholic Center in Miami’s Little Haiti and pastor of three Haitian mission parishes in the archdiocese. He became Auxiliary Bishop of Miami in 1997 and was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of the Diocese of Orlando in 2003. In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him the fourth Archbishop of Miami where he oversees seven dioceses in the state. He has served on numerous Boards and Committees, including the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Chair of the US Bishop’s Committee on Migration, and the Board of Trustees for St. Vincent de Paul Seminary in Boynton.
Father Roger Landry is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts. He writes for numerous publications, speaks on radio and TV, and is the author of the book, Plan of Life: Habits to Help You Grow Closer to God. A graduate of Harvard and the Pontifical North American College in Rome, he served as Attaché to the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the UN in New York. Father Landry recently completed the full 1500-mile Eucharist Pilgrimage this summer during his 25th year in the priesthood, and recently became the National Director of the Pontifical Missions Societies in the US.
The following transcript is machine generated.
Episode 285 Transcript
| Grazie | Hello friends, and welcome to Conversations with Consequences. And we are the radio show and podcast of the Catholic Association where we aim to change the culture one conversation at a time. You can listen to conversations with consequences on the EWTN Global Catholic Radio Network. We are also on Sirius XM Channel 130. Of course, our radio show is always a podcast. Go to the Catholic Association.org/podcasts, or directly to wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'm your hostess, Dr. Gracie Christie, and we have a whole panel of hostesses today. Betsy Fentress, my colleague at the Catholic Association, and Ashley McGuire, are joining me to interview a distinguished guests that we've been very much looking forward to having on our show. Her name is Jennifer Frey. She's a professor and dean of the Honors College at the University of Tulsa. She's a professor of philosophy and religion and she's a writer and she's the creator and host of the Sacred and Profane Love podcast. What an intriguing title, which explores philosophical themes through literature. Jennifer is a Catholic convert, coming into the faith through philosophy, reading Augustine and Aquinas. What a wonderful path towards our faith where we're going to talk to Jennifer about something that we talk about a lot on this on this radio show, which is motherhood, having children. The fact that people aren't doing that anymore to any to to any adequate amount. What's going wrong? Where where's the fly? In the ointment. Jennifer wrote a review of three interesting books recently in the Wall Street Journal, and we'll talk about them. But mostly we want to talk about what is exactly going wrong. Where is the mismatch between people, women's desire or men and women's desire to form families and their inability, apparent inability to do so? Or is the desire lacking and just to put it right out there in the beginning between the four of us, we have 22 children. So we are women who bucked the trend, are bucking the trend, and we want to sort of drill down and get right to it. So welcome to the show, Jennifer. |
| Jennifer Fey | Yeah, I'm super happy to be here. Thank you for having me. |
| Gracie | So you reviewed three interesting books that again, come at this question from different perspectives. One of them is called What Are Children For on Ambivalence, Ambivalence and Choice by Anastasia Berg and Rachel Weisman. Another one is called The Big Freeze, which is about a reporter's personal journey into the world of egg freezing. Another way of approaching motherhood, I guess, and another one is Hannah's children, the women quietly defying the birth dearth, which is us, right where we're Hannah's children, I guess the four of us now. So you you've put it you sort of put it all together in your piece in The Wall Street Journal. But you looked at these different ways of approaching the problem. What did you come up with at the end? What's what's the common thread that's running through this, this ambivalence about children? |
| Jennifer Fey | So I think really the common thread through three very different books written from three very different perspectives, right? I mean, one is written by an economist and a mother of eight, and one is written by a journalist who has no children. And one is written by two philosophers, one of whom has one child now two, and another of them is now pregnant. At the time she was writing, you know, didn't know if she was going to have kids. And I think when I was pitched by The Wall Street Journal, I was like, okay, yeah, sure. I have a lot to say about motherhood, but I had no idea kind of what I was diving into with these three books. And and I was also kind of like, I'm not super sure how these three books fit together, but having read them all, I can say that the red thread is really obvious and it's a question of control, right? So, you know, if if you think about the egg freezing as a, as a practice, it's really about having quote unquote more agency where more agency just simply means more control. Right. So it's a it's a perspective. It's a perspective on human agency and human freedom. There is really want domination and control. Like, I am more free if I am more in control. And so egg freezing is great, right? Because women and men who do, in fact, I mean, it's just a fact. It's very well demonstrated consistently that men and women have different desires when it comes to the child. QUESTION And it really comes down to our bodies. I mean, women are are facing limits that men don't face right now. And a man in the sixties can have a kid. It's not really an issue for him. |
| Gracie | Not even very difficult. No. |
| Jennifer Fey | Yeah. And and and obviously, a woman in her sixties is not having children. So we have this biological clock and and it and it just runs out on people and there are so many women in my life, really good friends of mine who have delayed childbirth and have found that you know, when it got to the right time, it was it was the right time mentally about the wrong time biologically, and a lot of trauma and pain. There. It's really, really sad, actually, because they really do want children and their bodies just aren't doing it anymore. |
| Gracie | And Jennifer, these are smart ladies you're talking about. They can open doors, are. |
| Jennifer Fey | These are really brilliant women who. |
| Gracie | Who must know basic biology. They must know that your woman is born with all the eggs you will ever have. And those those eggs start to age very rapidly. And then at a certain age, you're not fertile. Why? Why are they ignoring basic biology? |
| Jennifer Fey | I'm not sure, but I wouldn't say that they're ignoring basic biology. I would say that and a lot of different ways. The message to them has just been is it's not only fine to put it off, but like you have to you have I mean, here, speaking from personal experience, right when I was pregnant in my twenties and grad school and I told the chair of my department, his response was as following. That's too bad. I thought you were smart. Wow. And I was like, It was like, but I'm not telling you I'm quitting, but I'm just telling you I'm pregnant. And but, you know, the default assumption and it's really important to stress this, but really the default assumption for women is that if you want to have a career, certainly in academia, you will put this off not only until you get your Ph.D., but until you get tenure. Now, I had six children before I had tenure, four children in grad school, and everyone thought I was just totally nuts. And maybe I am a little bit, but but honestly, no regrets because looking back, you know, actually grad school is a great time to have kids. I just have so much flexibility. I don't think graduate students understand you're never going to get that back. So much flexibility and so much ability to be home with your kids. And yeah, I still wrote my dissertation faster, in fact, than many of my peers. Why? Because necessity is the mother of invention. All right? Like I. You gave me 10 minutes and I'm going to write because to me, it's like, okay, I have 10 minutes. Let's go. And so, you know, I just made it work. And I just did the thing that everyone said was impossible. But like, that takes a certain amount of maniacal kind of, you know, trust. And yeah, I don't I don't really think it's about ignoring biology. I think and it's also true that the message from doctors is overwhelmingly to you'll be fine. So many women in their forties do this, blah, blah, blah. So I think and this actually is something that Natalie Lambert talks about a lot in her book, is that women aren't really being fully informed here. And and so one of the things that she talks about and of course, she's extremely liberal, but one of the things that she talks about is the need for like really just being more blunt about this with women, just giving them that information, you know, because it's it's really real. And for her, you know, she's really interested in this technology precisely because it looks like it solves the problem. Right. It's like I can just freeze my eggs and I just delay this existential choice about whether or not I want to be a mother. And what's interesting to me about that is a lot of that choice is framed as just it's just a choice for the woman, right? Like, this is just this is just my my big choice that I make. But of course, that's not true. |
| Gracie | Every baby, every baby has a father, you know. |
| Jennifer Fey | Like. It's just like my mystical choice. And this is something that, interestingly, is is attacked, maybe surprisingly. And in the second book, which is written by a philosopher, a philosopher, and and a writer, you know, they're they're very critical of this kind of cultural discourse that says it's just a woman's choice, even though, of course, you know, they're very they're very upfront that they're very pro abortion and things like this. But but they really are like this is not just some lone choice that you're making on your own. I mean, that actually does a profound disservice to women to pretend that we're just on our own. We're just these autonomous units making choices for ourselves. I mean, they point out rightfully well, that's like incredibly burdensome, but also it's just not true. You need to have a partner making that choice with you two to be parents together. But, you know, I think it's. They also point out that it's a very recent thing in history for women to have this existential choice, because obviously, like the default is, was that you're going to be a mother both for social reasons and for the fact that there was really no reliable contraception until the 20th century. And and that the reality of this choice has just completely changed the way that we think of ourselves, also the way that we think of children. Right. Children are just totally optional now, and they're actually not at the center of young people's vision of a flourishing life. So there's some really like it fascinating and to my mind, honestly, pretty worrying statistics. So there are all these surveys of young people. I think I talk about it in their review, but it's they do a deep dive into this really in all three books. This comes up that for millennials and Gen Z, something like 70% of them think that work, meaningful work and career success is fundamental to a happy and flourishing life. And like 20 or 30% think that kids and family are so. Do you think that. |
| Gracie | These do you think that these young people tend tend to come from families that didn't have positive they don't have positive experiences around family life? I mean, they're coming there's so many there's a huge percentage of people now that grew up in in broken families that didn't used to happen. Right. People used to stay married generations ago. |
| Jennifer Fey | True. |
| Gracie | And women, you hear you hear women saying, I've heard women all my life say around their first it around their first child or second child. no more children. You know, I have to a way that's more than enough. I never want another one. You know, they speak like that around their children. So they're they're absorbing all this negativity around family. And that's very significant now that they. How did that how do you feel positive about something that has become a choice if it's been presented to you as like a huge dysfunction and also something very burdensome by your own mother? |
| Jennifer Fey | Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure like what data we have tracking that. I mean, I do think, though, if we just look at things culturally, I don't think we live in a culture that really prizes children. And I and I don't think that we live in a culture that prizes motherhood. I think I think that we have problematize that to a great extent. And I think that we've set up a false dichotomy or a false choice for women, that it's really a choice between motherhood or or yourself or your happiness or. |
| Gracie | Your autonomy, your metonymy, which is in the end result in our culture. The highest good and the highest form of happiness is to wake up in the morning and decide what you're going to do that day. |
| Jennifer Fey | Yeah, and. How do how do we get out of this? I mean, in in the book, in the review you wrote in the end, Weisman Berg Land in a surprising place, suggesting the rightness of loving the broken world and fallen humanity loved that. And so my question is, you're a philosopher. You have a lot of poets on your podcast. How might the humanities guide today's women and men to this surprising place? Wow, That's a that's a great question. Yeah, it's kind of funny. I mean, my initial and my initial draft to the Wall Street Journal, I said they land in a rather Dostoyevsky place. But that got cut. But I think it's really apt, you know, you know, this idea that really the only thing you can do in the face of evil and suffering is affirm the world. And and, you know, for Dostoevsky, this very religious posture, hard fight, I think for Weissmann and Berg, both of whom are not religious, very secular women, it's also hard fought. You know, they talk a lot about people who say they don't want to have children because of climate change. And, you know, the world is such a mess and people are so evil and there's so much suffering like, how can I bring a kid into this world sort of thing? And and and they they counsel their readers like, no, you can love the world. Even though yeah, I'm not denying that. It's very, very broken as kind of crooked timber of humanity. And around young people a lot. So I'm just curious to know. Yeah. And I think, you know, I want to say, I mean, I'm a philosopher, I'm a dean of an honors college that focuses on great books. And so I want to tell you that, yeah, just read Dostoyevsky and it's all going to be better. I do think there's something to that, by the way, but I really think it's a question of how this stuff is presented. So, you know, here's one way to read ISIS here. You just sit down with a book, you encounter it. You talk about all the questions that it raises and you allow students to have a conversation about it, like, that's what we doing. Honors college. Here's another way to encounter it. Right? You read it through a lot of ideology and critique. And so I think we have to get real that some people are encountering Dostoyevsky one way and a lot of other people are encountering it another way. So I think when we just talk about the humanities, there's just a lot of diversity there. I think the value of sort of good old fashioned liberal arts education, the kind that is not afraid to say, hey, you know, we're doing this because we're trying to figure out what is true, good and beautiful. And we believe that those things are real and worth searching towards. I think that it can be profoundly helpful. And I think it's not accidental that Rachel and Anastasia have that kind of education and advocate for that kind of education. And I think it's really powerful and important that they're very secular, elite, educated millennial women. And I love their books so much for that reason. And I and I really just cannot recommend it enough because I think it does kind of chart a way forward that is not partizan. Their book is not Partizan. It's really humane. I don't agree with everything in it, but I think they land in, in a powerful place that a lot of people need to hear. You know, a lot of people that are never, never going to listen to this podcast, but they need to hear women like them saying, You can love the world and you can be a mother. It's not just I'm giving you permission to do that, but I am arguing that this is a flourishing life that you should consider, even though it's really hard. One thing that I also love about that book is it's not sentimental, right? I mean, she talks about how hard it is to be a mother and write a book and like, you know, everything that she's gone through and that it's not just you know, it's not all roses. And B, you know, it's it's really rough. And of course it is Motherhood is extremely hard. And I think we get caught in this bind, you know, as mothers where it's like it's like hard to be honest about motherhood because we don't want to discourage young people from it. Young women, you know, we want to be like, yeah, it's it's great and it is great. It's wonderful. But like all wonderful things, it's also really hard and it doesn't always feel good, right? Like, sometimes it feels really terrible and that's okay because that is what it's like to be a human being and do wonderful things. Like every good thing is also very hard and challenging. And so I really appreciate how honest they are about that. Like they're not sugarcoating it. I think it's a great book. Yeah. You mentioned the numbers about people who, you know, say that work is what's essential to their happiness, you know, and the lopsidedness of that with the percentage who say that children are. And it made me think of this line that the writer and thinker Leon Castle and said in a speech where he said that, you know, we're not just at work when we're at our workplace, we're at work when we're humanly at work, which is our most important work, which is, you know, work that men and women do, which is the work of the home. It's it's the work of caring for people who are dependent on us, whether it's our children or our, you know, adult parents. How do we how do we set about, you know, convincing a culture where everything's so monetary based, where your only work is that's valued as the work that's financially rewarded? How do we change the culture to appreciate the human work that we do and that, you know, in that capacity? I think women do the majority of it as mothers. Yeah, yeah, I think it's changing a little bit. But yeah, I think the reality is, you know, women still do the bulk of the domestic work and some of that. I just think is preferences. I think women kind of have higher standards. But the how the how the home might be. Men. |
| Gracie | Men are men are like well I make the bed, I'm going to sleep in it tonight. You know. |
| Jennifer Fey | I always laugh with my I joke with my children that if I die, they will never have ironed clothing ever again. But, you know, because he just doesn't care. It's fine. It does not occur to him. So. So I think that's fair. How do we get people to value domestic work? You know, gosh. By domestic, I mean, you know, raising children not so much like chores, but but what we do as mothers, that is is part that contributes to the, you know, the flourishing of culture. Yeah. I mean. |
| Gracie | Yeah, you're 49. You're 49th drive this week to the orthodontist, that kind of thing. |
| Jennifer Fey | Yes. Yes, we are. My husband and I joke that we're just really professional chauffeurs. |
| Gracie | My husband and I used to joke for years and years. We said we always said what we need is a wife. |
| Jennifer Fey | I know, I know. If only we had a wife. I am completely in such good shape. Yeah, I had Betsy. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think it is it is really depressing to me. I have to say, the statistic of people who like the most important thing to them is their career, because I think they don't understand that when they retire. Right. And when they are no longer valuable to a company and when they can no longer define themselves in terms of their work, they might not know who they are. And I think, you know, I've written about this before. Ezekiel Emanuel wrote this really, really disturbing essay in The Atlantic a few years back about why he hopes he doesn't live much longer past 75. And basically his argument is, well, I'll kind of be useless by then. And then I'd just rather be dead. And that really is a really stunning encapsulation of what I think is a cultural shift in the D a D, emphasizing like our dignity and value as human beings. And I think that is related to related to the devaluing of of motherhood precisely because other hood, you know, is really about this kind of cherishing and nourishing and raising up of the next generation of humans. And this this idea that my values is my productivity and my usefulness. |
| Gracie | And maybe, maybe your highest value might be the the the possibility that others have in caring for you. The the beauty, the beauty that you bring out out of their lot into their hearts because they care for you. I was just thinking and you were saying that the most the most productive part of my father's life, who died of ALS at 85, were the last two years of his life where he required constant care that might have been the most productive time of his life because he developed in us such qualities of of of love that we would have had. |
| Jennifer Fey | It really is tied, I think, to this devaluation of nurturing and fear. |
| Gracie | And being nurtured and cared for, even. |
| Jennifer Fey | Exactly. Being dependent. |
| Gracie | Being dependent. |
| Jennifer Fey | So Alice, Sarah MacIntyre, who's as a philosopher, Notre Dame and a brilliant man and a hero of mine, wrote a beautiful book called Dependent Rational Animal, which I recommend so highly. And, you know, he just points out that these virtues of mutual dependance are actually so critical to human flourishing. And I just think that honestly, on the right and on the left, we've really started to lose our sense of this. You have this kind of, you know, hypermasculinity on the right, which is like all about, you know, being strong and not needing anyone and almost being like an ubermensch. And then you have on the left, which somebody like Ezekiel Emanuel, it's like, you know, it's just about productivity and being useful and, and work. And I think what gets lost on both sides is, is our actual human dignity and the realization that all of us are born vulnerable and dependent and we all become vulnerable and dependent in the end. And the thing to see all along the way is that we're the same, right? I mean, this is the same human life cycle and that there's nothing wrong with it. And one reason why I find it so distressing is because I also think it's connected to the way that we understand end of life now and the really dramatic increase and acceptance of euthanasia and assisted suicide, because the whole push there is to say, well, I don't want to be a burden, you know, to my children. So so I'll just kill myself. And it's a way of loving them. And there's such a distortion of humanity involved in that. And I think it's all somehow very deeply connected and I think it's something that I wish I had some magic, some some magic answer there. I really don't. I mean, I think we all need to think about ways that we can contribute to a culture of of human dignity and understanding that our dependance is is our humanity. |
| Gracie | Jennifer That's a wonderful place to end. And and I think that you're doing a lot in your work. I know you're doing a lot in your work to to refocus, to refocus all of us on, on the on the essential necessity to understand human dignity properly and how it can enrich all of us. So your professor, Jennifer Frey, and your podcast is sacred and profane love. And I hope all our listeners look you up and listen to your podcast. Thank you for joining us. |
| Jennifer Fey | Thanks so much for having me. It's really fun to have this conversation. |
| Gracie | Welcome back to Conversations with Consequences. I'm your host is Dr. Gracie Christie, and we have the archbishop of Miami with us, my own my own personal archbishop, Archbishop Thomas Wenski, joining us to talk about a topic that's been consuming all of our energies here in pro-life Florida, which is the terrible amendment for which is facing us on the ballot on November 4th. Archbishop Wenski is working really hard, along with the rest of the Council of Bishops, on this amendment, fighting this amendment. So welcome to the show, Your Excellency. |
| Archbishop Thomas Wenski | Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Christie. |
| Gracie | You and I were on a panel together at Saint Thomas University, which I thought was rather fabulous. I hope it's on the on the archdiocese website. I hope that recording. |
| Archbishop Thomas Wenski | Yes, it's on our website and I hope it's getting picked up by people across the state because it turned out very well. I thought. |
| Gracie | Yes, there were some there was some amazing it was an amazing testimony from a couple who who got a prenatal diagnosis while the mother was pregnant of of a fatal trisomy. And for the baby and they brought the baby to to live. They received the baby and then honored her her short life. And then the baby died. And they gave they gave a wonderful testimony. I'd love for the whole world to hear that, because so much of so much of all these amendments and and that are going on in different states and this push toward deregulating abortion through all 40 weeks of pregnancy, a lot of that is tied up with the to say about disabled children, about making making sure that people can abort their disabled children. So that was a beautiful testimony. But you, Archbishop Wenski, you spoke very eloquently about something that I thought we could talk about here on our radio show, which is what's what's philosophically underlying this terrible drive towards making abortion so ubiquitous and so brutal and so widespread and making it sort of like the default choice in for for any for any problem in doubt during pregnancy. You spoke very beautifully about this. So I thought we could we could talk about it. |
| Archbishop Thomas Wenski | I thought it as it was stemming from this also understanding of human autonomy, that horror that as individuals, we are not responsible to, others that we're not. As the famous poem said, no man is an island or a part of the continent. And this this idea of human autonomy. And often we hear them chanting the word autonomy as justify and a reason for abortion. But, you know, and asserting that autonomy, we're saying that we have we have no responsibilities to others around us, that the child, the unborn child has no has no claim on our own, our conscience. And and and this is this is really you know, I would think one of the reasons why people today also are feeling so, so lonely because this autonomy has made them retreat into themselves, made them more artistic, more individualistic, and has been owned. And our culture today. |
| Gracie | A world, a world in which every person considers ourselves an autonomous being and that autonomy is the highest value is necessarily a world of of complete disconnect of one from another. Right? I mean, it's a it's a world of, of of people as units, not as people of relationship nested and complex webs that that to me and I think to most people who take a moment to think about it is the actually the natural place for a human being to find themselves psychologically and spiritually. |
| Archbishop Thomas Wenski | Well, as the first book of the Bible, God says, is not good for man to be alone. And so that's why, in the story of Genesis, Adam is given a help by an equal help, and he decides to compliment him and to complete him. And so therefore, you know, it's in our DNA that we're built for relationships that we could live by ourselves or without reference to others, and without accepting that sometimes we put demands on others and sometimes they put demands on a child is not only helpless when he's in the mother's womb, he's helpless until he's about 18 and sometimes even older. |
| Gracie | Yes, most times even older, I'd say. And then and then all of us become helpless in our older years. And and during our lives in times of sickness. |
| Archbishop Thomas Wenski | So we we we need those relationships that are that are basically what we call family and and, and without those relationships, we we, we we have a hard time finding meaning to our lives. |
| Gracie | And we are people today are suffering from a crisis of meaninglessness, wouldn't you say? |
| Archbishop Thomas Wenski | That's right. And that's why I think we see these is that of despair through drug addiction and suicide. |
| Gracie | I find, Your Excellency, that my the greatest meaning that I that I derive in my life, the thing that is most foundational to my life is my my duties and responsibilities are what give me the most meaning. And in a world of of this, this this highlighting know of individual choice and and self agency what people are rejecting as wrong as something that that's bad for them is un chosen duties and obligations, right? |
| Archbishop Thomas Wenski | That's right. And in the sense that you know you know, we realize ourselves by giving ourselves away. That's that's that's the you know, the secret for happiness is it's not about taking, but it but it's about giving. It's about the self giving oneself and every if we claim human autonomy where we don't accept the responsibilities of others, we don't we don't allow ourselves any space to give to others and as a gift of ourselves that we can find fulfillment in and truly happiness. |
| Gracie | And this is something that that's it's built into our DNA, I believe. I mean, we can call it natural law if we're speaking theologically or we can say DNA. As you said, people man is not meant to be along. He wasn't built to be alone. |
| Archbishop Thomas Wenski | So and that's a natural law is not just a theological concept as a philosophical concept. It's something that's assessable to human reason. You know, you don't have to be a believer to believe in natural law in the sense that it is written in our DNA, it's written in the human heart. And natural law basically tells us that every human being has access to this. Is that lying is wrong. We know that. We cannot not know that lying is wrong. We cannot know that stealing is wrong. We cannot not know that murder is wrong. And that because of our darkened conscience, because of human sin, we seek to rationalize that some lying, some stealing, some murders are not really lying, stealing or murder. And that's what happens when we we we try to justify abortion. We have to darken our conscience as we have that we have to turn off that that voice that speaks to us in our hearts and that makes us coarser, coarser people, makes our culture very coarse as well. |
| Gracie | Then then they ask you what you think about this. These modern people who who that we're talking about, who put such a high value on autonomy, yet they still subject themselves to all sorts of strictures, for instance, in favor of the climate. Right. Right. So you'll find someone who believes very fiercely in their own autonomy when it comes to things like abortion. But they would never litter, right? They would never finish a bottle, a plastic bottle of water and toss it out their car window, because they do value that more than their personal autonomy. They value the environmentalism, for instance. Where why is I mean, I have my own ideas and I think it has to do with sexual liberation and that the very high value that that that that that takes. |
| Archbishop Thomas Wenski | But again, you know, since the sixties with the sexual revolution, you know, sex has been seen mostly as a recreational activity. And it can be pursued without any reference to commitment or or responsibility. And because of that, you know, abortion is always a fails fail safe passage or a method or when contraception pills or a pregnancy results from sexual intercourse. And that's, I think, part of the the push for this, you know, to keep abortion widely available to everybody and for any reason is to as to protect the the so-called gains of the sexual revolution and these so-called gains are not gains or losses because they undermine the family today in the United States, for example, there are more adults that are not married or never married. Then there are adults that are married and and this is and this is you know, this for those ill for the future of this of this country and the transmission of values to the next generation. Also, you know, abortion, you know, helps the sexual revolution because it gives the the the the a man an escape. He can avoid responsibility because he can just walk away and and maybe leave a few dollars for the woman that he casually met or had sex with and for her to take care of it. And again, this I think, destroys any possible trust between men and women. And we see that today as well as that it's hard for me, the opposite sexes to trust each other and ways that that they can believe that yes means yes and no means no. I said or. |
| Gracie | Archbishop, as you as you roll out this this very strong campaign that you have been involved in against Amendment four, are you is it troubling your priests and are they being troubled by accusations of mixing up politics and religion? |
| Archbishop Thomas Wenski | Well, I hope they're not troubled by it, because I think they still get those accusations once in a while from people, sometimes from even from people in the pew, but from other people as well. But I think, you know, we have to remind people that as as Catholics, we're not second class citizens. We're we're citizens of the First Amendment protects our right to religious freedom and the Religious Freedom Amendment. The First Amendment is is not the people or religious people out of the affairs of the state, but to keep the state out of the affairs of religion. That's the purpose of the First Amendment. So as as as Catholics so we have a right to participate in the public square and we have a right to make our proposal. And sometimes we hear this old canard that that, you know, we're trying to impose our views on others. Well, we can't impose our views, but we can make a proposal and we hope that they get our proposal. We do so with sufficient clarity that we can convince people of the rightness of our proposal and have them agree with us and work with us. And so, you know, we've been telling people that, you know, even if you're pro-choice, there's enough reasons in this poorly written amendment to oppose it, like taking away the right of parents to consent. Well, without defining who you know, that a doctor has to be involved, etc.. But, you know, we put in this whole process of participating in the public square and trying to, you know, use our raise our voices and share something that we believe in with our neighbors. This is really, you know, as American as apple pie. You know, we have to remember that the civil rights movement of the 1960s was religious movement. Dr. Luther King was a Baptist preacher. And when he, you know, organized his marches against Jim Crow segregation and the racism of that time, he knew that he could not impose his view on others, which is why he opted for nonviolence. But through nonviolent protest to his is witness and the witness of thousands of people of faith, because those marches began in churches throughout the South, especially throughout the United States. But through that witness, they touched the conscience of the nation and the laws were changed. And so in our in our advocacy, we do want to touch the conscience of our nation. And this conscience has become quite hardened with 50 years of debate. Thank God for God because Dobbs helped, correct? Aye, aye, aye. A grave constitutional error when the judges legislated from the bench with Roe v Wade. Dobbs helped correct that. But that could not erase 50 years of the corruption of our culture, the corruption of our politics because of the abortion regime. So we're in it for the long haul. We're going to have to struggle a long time to to make abortion not only illegal, but unthinkable. Unthinkable. But but, you know, we can't dismiss these these efforts like opposing amendment or, you know, Aristotle once said that laws of teacher and, you know, Roe v Wade was it was very poor pedagogy, was very poor teaching teachings that affected the way people think and think about reality. So we we we keep struggling on and we do so with for the greater glory and honor of God, but also for the sake of our brothers and sisters, because we want to, you know, help them also see a a path to a truly fulfilling life. And that and that a child, even of unexpected, is not an obstacle to a full and happy life. |
| Gracie | Well, thank you so much, Archbishop Wenski of Miami. And we're all are all our listeners I know are praying along with with us Floridians and with all the other states in which this struggle is going on to to keep the to keep unregulated abortion away from from babies, from their mothers whether women or girls, and also just in general, from coarsening the the life of everyone who lives in Florida. |
| Archbishop Thomas Wenski | Okay. Well, thank you, Doctor. Thank you for listening to me. And greetings to all the listeners of EWTN. |
| Gracie | Every morning, the Catholic Association reviews all the latest news and sends our subscribers a carefully curated collection of the most important news of the day. Items are specifically selected for a smart Catholic audience like you don't let the world take you by surprise. Subscribe to our daily media roundup at the Catholic Association dot org. And now Father Roger Landry offers us, as is customary, a short and inspiring homily to prepare us for this Sunday's gospel. |
| Fr. Landry | This is Father Roger Landry and privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation. There is an orgy each Wednesday with each of us. This Sunday, when we will be eyewitnesses and participants in the dialog Jesus had with the Pharisees when they approached him to ask him a question about marriage. We're now living in an age in which many experts say that the greatest vocations crisis facing the church is not to the priesthood or religious life, but to the sacrament of holy matrimony. Many young people no longer sensitive in calling or even naturally aspire, it seems, to marriage and family. Far fewer are getting married. Those who do so are having much smaller families. But the church and many of our societies are struggling as a result. Saint John Paul, the second one, said that the future of humanity passes. By the way, the family and the marriage and family crisis is therefore threatening. That's why Jesus words about marriage this Sunday are so important and urgent. When the Pharisees approached us to ask them about marriage wasn't a question to learn or even of curiosity, St Mark tells us they were testing him. They were in the area across the Jordan from the Holy Land where John the Baptist had been preaching and baptizing test Jesus about the lawfulness of marriage and of divorce. There was to ask him a political question for which John the Baptist had already been killed by Herod Antipas trying to told terror that it wasn't lawful for him to be married to the wife of his brother Philip. Not just because this incest by infinity was contrary to God's plan, but because marrying another person's wife certainly was Herod thought that John Jesus was John risen from the dead test. Jesus about marriage and divorce was to invite him to criticize the same king and potentially suffer the same consequence. Jesus responded courageously, however, not just by citing the Book of Genesis, but by invoking, in a sense, his own memory of how things were at the dawn of creation. In the beginning. Genesis teaches God created man in his image and likeness. In the image of God. He created them, male and female. He created them. Man is most fully in God's image and likeness. One is united to the woman in a communion of persons in love, just as in God. The mutual love of Father and Son eternally generated the Holy Spirit. So the mutual love of husband and wife can generate a third person was both a living fruit of their love and a means for that love to grow. In God's plan, marriage is a singular sign of participation in God's image and likeness. Therefore, what God has joined together, Jesus adds, No human being must separate. Marriage is part of God's wisdom from the beginning and to bring us into a loving union of the Trinity. In recent years, however, we know that the wisdom of God's plan with regard to marriage and divorce has been getting challenged from both inside and outside the church. Many have begun to question openly whether God's plan for marriage taught boldly and consistently by the church since Christ founded her, is true and relevant. These doubts and confusions about marriage are fraught with enormous consequences for since God designed marriage to help us discover who we are and His image and likeness, and to reflect by analogy, God's own relationship with His people. If we misunderstand what marriage is, we'll misunderstand who we are, who God is, and how we're called to live out our life in God's image and likeness. I think that there are three main challenges about marriage that are contemporaries race. The first comes from those who try to say that God's plan for marriage shown in the Bible is irrelevant, that marriage isn't necessary. The second comes from those who say that God's plan for marriage is too demanding as a divorce rate over 40% of tests to be married to one person until death is an unrealistic expectation. The third comes from those who argue that marriage is bigoted because it excludes two people from the same sex. From marrying To make marriage require a husband and a wife is to base it on biology rather than love. They argue, and this is just in effect of a heteronormative bias. How would Jesus respond to these three categories of challenges? I think he would do the same thing he did 2000 years ago by taking us back to what marriage really means and then applying it to the particular questions we have. As he did in this Sunday's gospel, she would challenge our contemporaries to overcome the hardness of heart due said that clouds our judgments on marriage. Then I think he would repeat the same words about the origin, meaning and mystery of marriage. He said to the Pharisees. The three sentences of this Sunday's gospel contain a nucleus Jesus response to the questions of modern man and of every age to those who think marriage is only a piece of paper. Jesus tells us that marriage is part of God's plan for man and woman from the beginning. Man, he says, is called to leave his father and mother and cling not to his girlfriend, not to just anyone he pleases, but to his wife, to someone with whom he has been joined in a one flesh union by God and to whom he has made a lifelong commitment. Those who claim that marriage is simply a piece of paper want some of the goods of marriage, like sex and accompaniment, without wanting selflessly to make that commitment that true love demands. For that reason, as long as the situation persists, they'll probably never fully experience love, which is based on a total exchange itself gifts. They'll probably never truly discover who they really are and the greatness of their dignity, which comes only through the selfless gift of self to God and others. And they will probably never truly understand or experience the love of God, which becomes intelligible by God's design, mainly through the experience of true human love. Second, to those who think that the indissoluble marriage and God's plan is too hard, Jesus states clearly that once God joins a man and woman in marriage, they're bound to each other until God separates them through death. For this reason, he says, divorce is nothing more than a human legal declaration that cannot change one's marital status before God and therefore remarriage is adultery and seriously sinful. She doesn't say that divorce itself is sinful, but only whoever divorces his wife and marries another what we would call divorce and remarriage. The church is founded, Karen, whose mission is always recognize that sometimes for the protection of one spouse from the other, for the welfare of children, some legal sanction may be necessary against one of the parties. It's not divorce itself that the church always opposes, but thinking and acting as if divorce severs the one flesh bond that God has brought about through marriage. The church wants always to remain close to those who have experienced this pain and help them recover. It wants to help them remain faithful to God and to the promises they have made. If they think that something was defective in their consent on the day of their marriage. Church also seeks to help them to determine whether their marriage was valid or no to the third and final group of challenges. We think that marriage traditionally has been a form of bigotry. We sometimes hear the claim that Jesus never spoke out in opposition to same sex marriage. That's because to do so would have been absurd. The Jewish context of his time and his response to the Pharisees. However, Jesus gave all of the principles necessary for us to know why He would have absolutely opposed this radical revolution in the meaning of marriage. I go through this not to be polemical or to offend anyone, but to get at the truth about marriage to which Jesus witnesses what Jesus said that in the beginning, God made the human person, male and female, not male and male or female and female. For this reason, he continued, a man leaves not as two mommies or two daddies, but his mother and father, and clings not to him. Everyone's not to his best guy friend, but to his wife. And they become one flesh. This one flesh union is not simply the ephemeral contact a man and a woman have in the act of making love, but the incorporation of both of their flesh in the new child was the instantiated fruit of their union and means by which their love will grow. This type of union is obviously impossible to those of the same sex. We can go so far as to say that the whole purpose of the differentiation of the sexes by God in the beginning is to allow for procreation, which is man's and women's participation. God's continuous act of the creation of new men and new women, made not only in God's image, but in their moms and dads images. Finally, Jesus says what God has joined man must not divide. This refers, I think, to more than merely the union of a particular man and a particular woman in marriage. But the heterosexual union of man and woman in marriage in general. God has created man and woman with this complementarity, and for this reason, marriage should never be allowed to be a husband less or wife, less institution. Permit me to share one more thought on the first Sunday of October each year. The church in the United States marks life Sunday, on which we pray in a special way for pregnant moms and for children and commit ourselves to helping them. Marriage is so important in the fight against the destructive, innocent human life in the womb. Recent statistics have shown that marriage is the best protector of unborn children. 4% of babies conceived in marriage will be aborted compared to 40% ten times more of children conceived outside of marriage. Meanwhile, 13% of women who have abortions are married, while 87% are unmarried. Is Ryan Anderson argued in a recent article. Non-marital sex is the main cause of abortion. Marriage is the best protector of unborn human life, he said. And if we're going to change our culture in a pro-life direction after the Dobbs decision, it will happen through a culture of marriage and of chastity outside of marriage. We can pray for those intentions as we come to mass this Sunday to the questions men and women have in every epic about marriage. Christ provides the answer by taking us back to the beginning. Cuts across particular fads and misunderstandings flowing from our heart and hearts that are so often prone to substitute lust for love, selfishness for sacrifice, and fleeting pleasure for faithful permanence. With precision and clarity, Christ sketches for us the deep and abiding beauty of the great institution and sacrament of marriage to guide us and through us to guide the world. Unlike the Pharisees who came to test Jesus, let's come this Sunday, ready to hear Him with gratitude, to follow Him, and to become His echoes in the world of the beauty of human love in the Divine Plan. God bless you. |
| Gracie | Thank you so much for another exceptional homily, Father Landry. To check out more from Father Roger Landry, make sure to read all of his writings at the National Catholic Register at NC, Register dot com. And you can listen to his homilies at Catholic Preacher Income. We hope to have you back next week. And until then, you go with our prayers. |