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Episode Description
Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia joins to discuss Respect Life Month, the power of the Rosary, and what news reports rarely show during the USCCB Fall Meeting. Respect for Life Month offers a special time each year to reflect on how each of us as Catholics can contribute to creating a culture of life within our inner circles and communities at large.
As we are less than 2 weeks out from election night, we also talk with Gates Garcia about what’s at stake with life on the ballot and a very deceptive abortion amendment that Floridians will confront. He shares how the bill is written in cloaked language using a technique known as “logrolling,” which effectively disguises the full extent of the amendment’s wide reaching ramifications from unsuspecting voters.
Father Roger Landry also offers an inspiring homily to prepare us for this Sunday’s Gospel.
Bios
Bishop Michael F. Burbidge is the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington. A native of Philadelphia, he holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy and Master’s Degree in Theology from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, and a Master’s in Education Administration from Villanova University. He earned his Doctorate in Education from Immaculata College. Bishop Burbridge serves on the Board of Trustees for the Catholic University of America, St. Mary’s Seminary, and numerous others, and has held a number of leadership positions with the USCCB. Currently he is Chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities. In recent years he has published pastoral letters on the topics of “In Tongues All Can Hear: Communicating the Hope of Christ in Times of Trial” and “A Catechesis on the Human Person and Gender Ideology.”
Gates Garcia is an investor and philanthropist from Tampa, Florida, and President and CEO at Pinehill Capital Partners, a private equity firm. He graduated from The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where he captained the football team. He holds an MBA from the University of Florida, and earned his certification as a private wealth advisor from the University of Chicago, as well as his certification as an investment management analyst from the Wharton School of Business. Mr. Garcia serves on a number of boards and occupies leadership positions for organizations involved in private equity, philanthropy, education, and public policy, including the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University in DC. He is married to his college sweetheart and they share three young children.
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 288 Transcript
| Grazie | Hello friends, and welcome to Conversations with Consequences. And we are the radio show and podcast on the Catholic Association where we aim to change the culture one conversation at a time. You can listen to conversations with consequences on the EWR and Global Catholic Radio Network Saturday mornings at 7 a.m. Eastern or catch the encore at 5 p.m.. We are also on Sirius XM Channel 130, of course, our radio show is always a podcast. Go to the Catholic Association, Dawgs podcasts, or directly to wherever you listen to your podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gracie Christie. And coming up next, a friend of mine joins me, and he is the husband of a woman who serves on the board of the Florida the the Board of Education of Florida with me. You would think I would know the title of my of my board I serve on. And his name is Cates Garcia. And I came across a a piece he wrote a couple of weeks ago in First Things, which is really a wonderful publication. And it was it was great to see his name on it. And it's about Florida's abortion amendment and how deceptive it is. And many of our listeners don't live in Florida, of course, although I know many of our listeners do. But many people across the United States live in states that are facing similar radical abortion measures in the ballot in a couple of weeks. And maybe it's an amendment to the Constitution, as it is in Florida or some other way of getting to that prohibition of ANA, which is unregulated, unrestricted abortion like the Wild West abortion regime, which is really what they want. And why do they want it? Well, I'm going to talk about it with Gates Garcia, my friend from Tampa, who's an investor and a Claremont scholar, and he serves on the board of visitors at the Bush Business School at the Catholic University of America. Welcome to the show, Gates. |
| Gates Garcia | Gracie, thank you so much. I just want to thank you, actually, for being such a champion of all the things that your show represents, but especially this amendment for issue. It takes courage for people to step out and put their name and their face behind defending what we're trying to do here. And I just want to thank you for that. You're an inspiration to myself as a Floridian, as a voter, but certainly to doctors and all the professionals out there. So thank you for that. |
| Grazie | thank you for saying that. You know, I actually I I've been pro-life for all my life. And then in the last few years, I've become very out there in a pro-life way, a very activist. And now I've been on the airwaves because I did an ad for the governor's office as a doctor explaining the dangers of Amendment four in Florida. And they're playing it all the time. So now I have all this notoriety that can be a little difficult because people really think that I'm lying and I'm not used to being thought of as a liar. So that's a little uncomfortable. But this is and this is what I want to talk to you about specifically, because your piece you wrote for First Things is about the deceptive nature of Amendment four. And my experience has been as I've gone out there and been face to face, I've been on debates on TV, I've I'm doing a lot of radio and people really have imbibed a completely wrong concept of amendment four that has been shoveled, you know, into their minds by a by a rapacious abortion industry that is planning to make big bucks in Florida. So let's talk about that. How is Florida's abortion amendment deceptive? |
| Gates Garcia | Well, and that's that's exactly what it is. You say that people are calling you a liar and they're not at all what has been done to us is we've been deceived and we've been deceived because the amendment is so vague. If you go through and read the language, they almost should have renamed it something else. The Florida Women's Freedom Coalition told POLITICO that they wrote this amendment. They're very proud of it and their executive director names in a hot camera and if you go read her quotes, she's she's quoted saying, quote, When you have a disagreement between one noun and another noun, one verb and another verb, you really do have to spend time and money polling these things to see whether moving a comma or changing an adverb changes what voters perceive of this language. Unquote. So we've now reduced life to grammar. If you read the amendment that she's so proud of writing, it says and it says, quote, The amendment reads, quote, amendment to limit government interference with abortion. Now, as a conservative, I don't want government interference with anything. |
| Grazie | They had me they had me right there. Limit government interference. I'm like, yes, let's go. What is it? |
| Gates Garcia | If you walk into a ballot box and know nothing else as a conservative, your pencil is is leaning. |
| Grazie | Yes, Exactly. |
| Gates Garcia | Now what it what it should read and we can get into why it should read some of these things. It should read amendment to legalize full term abortion for any age with no parental consent in Florida. But if this is really what people wanted, okay, you could just write it like that. But it's not what people want. So they have to deceive us and make it very vague. |
| Grazie | That's interesting what you say that the woman who spearheaded the writing of this amendment with the big box of big abortion behind her, of course, she's very proud that she that she was able to produce this amendment, which creates complete cognitive dissonance in the minds of the people who read it. That's what it's doing. |
| Gates Garcia | That's exactly right. And just follow the money with anything else in life. All the if you look at who's funding this, they've gotten $15 million to get this on our ballot. And it's from out of state money. It's people trying to use Florida as a pawn to represent a model for other states in the country and pass it here first. And George Soros is behind it. And you can go look up, you know, other things that he's funded and what he's all about. And this is huge because Florida Post call it 2016 post-Trump Post, DeSantis has, regardless of what you think of any politician, Florida's certainly built a proud reputation on being a red state, red state of freedom. Really, COVID is what did that for the state of Florida. And and and if this can pass in Florida and thank God it needs 60% and not 50%, if this can pass in Florida, this will be a death knell to amendments like this on abortion across the rest of the country. So I'm proud to be a Floridian and I'm proud that Florida has been such a shining example of good policy over the last 4 to 8 years. But but this could undo a lot of that. I'm optimistic that it won't. But but but voters really need voters in Florida. But but people all over the country need to watch this and know what's at stake here. |
| Grazie | I was with Governor DeSantis yesterday at a presser that went really well. |
| Gates Garcia | You did a fantastic job. |
| Grazie | Well, thank you. I think that's not why I brought it up. But thank you for that. And he said something so interesting, and he he he said it he explained it in a way that I hadn't heard explained about how anti-democratic these amendments are. And maybe your state is looking at a constitutional amendment. Some of our listeners, their states might be looking at something similar. He was saying that if you don't think so. So right now in Florida, there is completely unrestricted elective abortion through week six, and then from 6 to 15, there are lots of reasons you can have a legal abortion in Florida and then through 40 weeks for the health, the health of the mother, the physical health of the mother. But he was saying that these constitutional amendments are anti-democratic, because if you think that we should have elective abortion in Florida, not till six weeks, maybe till eight weeks, which I keep hearing people keep saying to me, well, it's too soon for a mom to know if she's pregnant at six weeks, which isn't true. But, you know, people are very concerned about that. Then you can go to the to your elected representative. You can form, you know, a neighborhood group and and collect signatures and have your voice heard in a democratic way and and move that needle. Maybe you maybe you think it should be eight weeks for you. That's why we're citizens of a free country. Right. But these amendments are anti-democratic because they take away the ability of voters and citizens of our state to make changes according to their their their morals and ethics and their opinions on these very difficult topics. |
| Gates Garcia | Well, a couple points there. So what you're basically referring to is, is laws and policies versus constitutional amendments. Laws and policies are very significant, but they're they're more malleable than a constitutional amendment. A constitutional amendment is fought ever. And because it's forever, you need to default. You should default to a no vote. When you look at a constitutional need that your your mind, regardless of your politics, when something is going on a ballot that could affect your life forever. And I don't mean life in the abortion sense, just sort of our everyday lives. You should default to no cause. That's that's significant. And then you need to be the drafters of that amendment are forced to convince you of their case. And this specific amendment fails that miserably. We've talked about the vagueness. We can talk about this term law ruling that I brought up in my essay. But but if we do that or before we do that, I just want to go back to some some other information that you you talked about in posing this question. We're worry somewhat reasonable state on abortion as we sit here today. We're not a no abortion under any circumstances type of state. And that's where the deception is coming in. If you read the fliers that are going out in the mail, they have absolute lies on them about the abortion laws and restrictions in this state. So so people are already coming in with a misguided notion on what abortion is all about in this state. And they need to be educated on that. First, you can get an abortion for any reason up to six weeks. You can get an abortion up to 15 weeks for certain health care issues that the child's having. And then beyond that, it's determined by the health of the mother. And now we can talk about that definition. But most. |
| Grazie | Of all. So if I could mention gate sorry to interrupt you, but also rape and incest and human trafficking, which are which, you know, people are very concerned about and rightfully. I understand that. |
| Gates Garcia | That's exactly right. And so I wish people, before they have to go vote on something so consequential. I almost wish I wish we could educate them in a very short period of time about how we sit today. Because if you look at the data and I can talk about some of the data, most people fall in the middle and Florida is somewhat in the middle right now with that already. |
| Grazie | Yeah, I frankly, I find Florida abortion laws way too liberal about that. Me, you know, I'm a I'm a human dignity. I'm a crazy woman about human dignity. And I wish everybody was. But that's not who we are, right? I mean, we've had many decades of 40 week legal abortion because of Roe v Wade. I mean, just a few years ago, Florida was a big abortion state. We had lots of abortion clinics operating, doing second and third trimester abortions all up and down Florida. And thankfully, our current legislature under under wonderful Governor DeSantis was able to roll that back in the last, you know, and in 2020 and 2022 was able to roll that back to something that's more commensurate with a state that is actually full of lots of conservative people and lots of people of good heart who understand that second and third trimester abortion is so unjust and so brutal, not just for the baby, but also for the mothers. |
| Gates Garcia | And I want to emphasize something. Look, there there are good people on both sides. |
| Grazie | Absolutely. |
| Gates Garcia | Good pro-life people, good pro-choice people. Too often this gets stuck in political purgatory. And when that's the only way we can think is with a red hat or a blue hat. But but but this bill and this is so rare in in in politics. And I truly believe what I'm about to say. This voting no on Amendment four is actually quite bipartisan. |
| Grazie | Yes, I agree with you. |
| Gates Garcia | Or unless you are emphatically pro-life or indirectly pro-choice and the data suggests very few people are at the very end of either spectrum, you will be conflicted in the ballot box due to that log rolling issue that I that I do talk about. |
| Grazie | Well, you used you've used that term a couple of times. Why don't you explain what that means? |
| Gates Garcia | Yeah, sure. It's essentially when you put something up for a constitutional amendment, you should be voting on one issue. You should walk into the ballot box and say they're going to put an amendment towards the Constitution. They're going to try to amend the Constitution. It needs to be a one issue type of amendment. And in this case, the other side would tell you that the issue it is one issue, it's abortion. But but it really isn't. There's effectively what law ruling is allowing them to do is aggregate the votes they need. It's denying Floridians the opportunity to make a distinction when they walk into the ballot box. So it's effectively eight bans. There's four verbs prohibit penalties, delay, restrict, and there's two subjects abortion before viability and abortion to protect the mother's health. So let's talk about some conflicts. You may favor broad abortion access, broad abortion access. You're all for it, but you favor a waiting period. Well, by prohibiting, quote, delay, it eliminates this or nearly all voters, Gracey, are horrified by partial partial birth abortions. But now with this, quote, health issue of the mother that's thrown out the window, because we can have an abortion up until the last day or beyond the pregnancy of the mother because of mental health, financial health, any sort of because health isn't defined, that sort of throws that that element out the window. And going back to my bipartisan point, I mean, overwhelming majority of people fall somewhere in the middle, which which, by the way, is pretty much where we are now with the heartbeat bill, which we just talked about. Two thirds of Americans want to limit abortion in the first trimester, and 70% believe abortionists should be required to notify parents for girls under 18. I mean, this is a very bipartisan bill. I know it's not being presented that way, but when you know what it what the underlying elements are, it really is which which is which is a beautiful thing. |
| Grazie | But my husband talked about that way. My husband made that point in the presser. He was at the presser yesterday and three or four doctors we got to speak with after Governor DeSantis and my husband made that point because he said that in very often. Well, I'm just repeating what you said, Gates, But very often this this abortion issue cleaves people and into two camps. But Amendment four actually has a lot of overlap that pro-choice and pro life people can agree on. And you mentioned one, you mentioned parental consent to an egregious thing that we lose if Amendment four passes. And this is something that because of the way the amendment is worded and maybe you can explain this to us, people don't understand that. The second the second sentence of the amendment, it's a two sentence long amendment. This is the second sentence. |
| Gates Garcia | Well, but Grayson, let me let me go back to something. Let me add on to some things that you and your husband were saying yesterday and saying, now we're talking about politics, whether this is bipartisan or not. People want to people basically wear, you know, two hats when they walk in the voting booths, political hats and religious hats. And people are trying to pit this as politics versus religion. It is not this is not a political issue. This is not a religious issue. This is a common sense issue. And I say it's not a religious issue. As a pro-life Catholic, I'm proud of that. But this is a common sense issue. DeLay. We can't allow at least 24 hours for a person to sleep on whether or not they want to take the life of a child. Yet we enforce this for a gun purchase. Crazy. Why do we enforce that for a gun purchase? Because it's in an effort to prevent violent individuals from making an emotional decision about harming someone else. Why is it any different? I change. I change what I want. Want to eat for lunch by the hour and we Delaying a decision is not always a bad thing. And then you just brought up parental consent. Okay. You have to be 18 to get a tattoo. You have to be 21 to drink a beer to pierce one. |
| Grazie | You have to be 18 to pierce your ear. |
| Gates Garcia | You have to be 21 to rent a car. But an abortion would essentially become the only medical procedure a minor can have without their their parents consent. Forget religion, forget politics. I'm just going to put my commonsense hat on as a as a just average, you know, someone with an average intellectual level of intellect. I can't fathom that. |
| Grazie | You know, can I say something that I've been I've been doing in my interviews that I've done to explain this parental consent issue is because people have like these pictures in their head, right? They think, parental consent is not important because a girl, they're thinking this girl is almost 18. Her parents are very I don't know. Well, they're very Christian conservative, and they're not going to allow her to get this abortion. She really needs so she can continue her education. They have all these narratives in their heads, Right. And they're like maybe consent, You know, maybe notification is good enough. But then I want to put other narratives in their head. I want to put the narrative in their head of I've seen girls as young as 12 get abortions and 13. I wish that didn't happen, but it happens. I want to put in their heads a girl who's being manipulated by an older man, a 12 year old, a 13 year old being abused in some terrible situation. Maybe she's being trafficked by a gang rape and she's being she's she's taken to an abortion clinic to receive an abortion. Maybe just pills. And you have a little girl going through something which I wouldn't wish on my 42 year old neighbor. I don't these are tremendously impactful procedures that are painful and traumatic and a girls and a girl, a young girl's parents are not going to be involved every step of the way to protect her from bad actors or just to to guide her through the procedure. They sit with little girls. Women are having abortions by themselves in their bathroom because that's what chemical abortion is. And who's going to hold that girl's hand? |
| Gates Garcia | That's right. And let's let's put our Catholic hat on, our Christian hat, and just talk more about the the attack on the nuclear family. |
| Grazie | Yes, exactly. Exactly. |
| Gates Garcia | Her attack. And I think if we lose it, which I do not think we have, but if we lose a nuclear family, I think we lose our country. And abortion, you know, sort of a culture of death versus a culture of life, taking lives away rather than bringing life into the world is certainly a direct attack on the nuclear family. But there are these sort of are also alternative consequences to this abortion piece that attack the nuclear family as well. And it's this parental consent. Where are the parents in the picture? Your parents should be. We need to promote every conversation possible between a minor and their parent. Your parent should be under the, you know, normal good circumstances should be the first place you go for any guidance you need in your life. It shouldn't be, you know, society. It shouldn't be. |
| Grazie | The receptionist that was a receptionist at the at the fly the fly spec clinic on Skid Row. |
| Gates Garcia | This is like a double attack on the nuclear family. And even if in your in your example, not necessarily your example, but as you bring up, obviously you don't want a minor or anyone to have an abortion. But but if they do, okay, and they're traumatized by that experience, we now may lose another life. Okay. And that's that's someone that, you know, we can eventually save, get to heaven and help them, you know, come around to being pro-life and remorseful for their decisions later in life. |
| Gates Garcia | But if the parents aren't involved in that decision, we may lose them to depression, suicide, whatever, down the road, no close to our gates. |
| Grazie | We may lose them to the procedure. I mean, we have last month, two women lost their lives in Georgia from chemical abortion. These these ladies were in their thirties, I think, or early forties. These were grown women who mismanage, who were mismanaged, who mismanaged their abortions themselves. And these are chemical abortions. So now we're going to have minor girls without and just managing their own abortions at home. Who thinks that that's safe? |
| Gates Garcia | That's why if you shoot and kill a pregnant woman in California, you get charged with double murder because you're taking two lives. But here or not necessarily here, but but under the terms of, you know, under in an abortion world, you know, that's that's all well and good. Certainly in California. It is. So, again, that goes back to my point. There's there's just some basic common sense here that I don't think people are implementing. |
| Grazie | Kate's. Why do you what kind of money interest does the abortion industry have, do you think, in Florida to pass this amendment? |
| Gates Garcia | Well, money interest from from from from whom? |
| Grazie | I feel well, they're they've they've invested many tens of millions of dollars, I don't think. And I don't think anyone really knows the number because because there's so much money pouring in across from from from outside the state. And what do you think is there? You say follow the money. Why do they want Florida to go for, you know, North Korea abortion status? |
| Gates Garcia | Well, I don't I don't know that I'm the best qualified to answer that question. But I would say that, you know, I know that the the the vote. Yes, vote. Excuse me, excuse me. The vote no on four people are much under-funded. They're significantly less funded than the vote. Yes is and I don't know necessarily where all of that money is coming from, but typically you can you can determine where it is coming from. If you dig deep enough and if you follow the money, it probably leads back back to why no leads back to Planned Parenthood. I know it leads back to George Soros. I know it leads back to out-of-state money. I think I think people people see Florida as a as a place that they shot for the moon. Okay. They said, if we can get this done in Florida, we can get this done. So let's let's go. Let's go there first. |
| Grazie | Yeah, Florida, sort of like that. If we could just knock down that castle, breach that wall, then nothing can stop us kind of state. |
| Gates Garcia | That's right. And there's. There's precedent. Also, one thing we haven't discussed and we don't have to go go too deep on it, but, you know, sort of like, you know, things that will happen, you know, if this goes through, you know, it's not just, okay, so-and-so can go get an abortion when she wants to. I may I'm not going to. But if I'm a person that's going to vote yes on four because I favor some sort of part of abortion, I'm not considering that I may be funding those abortions, because if you look at Minnesota, Minnesota just passed an amendment to their constitution that's very similar to this. And they turn right back around, the supporters of it, and they're suing the state to get the abortions paid for by taxpayers. That could happen in Florida. So that's just another example. |
| Grazie | Right. And explain why under this constitutional amendment, we would taxpayers would be liable for abortion, have to pay for it? |
| Gates Garcia | They would have there. Not yet. No, not yet. But they could be if Amendment four goes through. There is a model out there in Minnesota right now where the taxpayers, the supporters are immediately suing the state to provide taxpayer funding for abortions. We have one. |
| Grazie | But why does the why do you think this amendment could make that happen? Like legally, how does the amendment lead from that? From from that those two sentence, that big wording to taxpayer funded abortion? In a practical. |
| Gates Garcia | Sense, it's just a legal process. It just it just if people think that, you know, this is so, so wanted in Florida, they'll just you know, the other side that we're up against does not stop. And and abortions are expensive, okay? The money has to come from somewhere. It's typically you know, there's plenty of instances where the people walking in to get abortions can't can't fund them. And I don't know how the insurance works on them or anything like that. But if there's insurance shortages or whatever, the doctors are going to want to be paid for the for these services. And if we increase the number of abortions that are, you know, the numbers predict will increase in Florida, they're going to have to be paid for. |
| Grazie | And that would cause a delay in receiving an abortion. Right. And that's what can't happen according to amendment for lack of a woman, if a woman is poor and she goes to get an abortion and they tell her that'll be $700 for these two pills, which that's how they know they charge $700 for two pills, I want you to know that. Which then you manage on your own at home. So they don't they don't try to save these poor women any money. I know this because I call and I call insurance clinic sorry, abortion clinics all the time to ask for the prices because I'm curious and yeah, so that that's the kind of delay and restriction right. Of a woman has to go find the money. Then the state will say, well, then I guess taxpayers should step in and erase that delay. |
| Gates Garcia | Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. And this is not bringing us back to pre Roe. I want to be clear about that. Well, we're we're still talking. That's sort of what what people are arguing. This is a bait and switch. Okay. I'm quoting the governor on that. But he's exactly right. This is trying to make Florida into the wild west of abortions, is trying to make Florida an abortion mecca. And I don't think we are talking about that enough that this is not free Roe. Okay. This is this is significantly more extreme than that pre Roe case. |
| Grazie | We only have one minute left. But I want to I want to ask you to give us in one minute your pitch, if we have any listeners, which we must, that are a little bit on the fence on Amendment four or if maybe they're in a different state, which is facing something similar, give us your one minute pitch on why unregulated abortion is just wrong for Florida and every other state of our nation. |
| Gates Garcia | Well, I turn the question around on that and say, do you believe in an unregulated abortion? Because the data suggest that the overwhelming majority of people, if exposed to them as a yes or no question, would say no. So then we can have a further conversation and say, okay, if you're opposed to an unregulated abortion, how does breaking this bill down into those eight issues that I mentioned fall within that spectrum? And they're going to see that when they read this bill. It is unregulated abortion. It's that simple. And if they need to be further convinced, we can walk them through the vagueness that it was written with. And when people realized that they're being deceived, they typically don't like that. And typically when you have to deceive someone, it's it's it's for bad reasons. Like like we said earlier with the language, it should just say this is a bill to change the Constitution, to have unregulated abortion. If if it were that simple, they would have written it that way. But it's not that simple. And the data shows that the way it's written, there is a very, very, very small minority of people that fall into who would be in favor of something like this. |
| Grazie | That's perfect. GATES Thank you. And to our listeners, you can read his piece in First things dot com. It's called Florida's Abortion Amendment is Deceptive. It was published on 925 and his name is Gage Garcia. Thank you so much for joining us. |
| Gates Garcia | GATES Thank you. Grazie. |
| Grazie | Welcome back to Conversations with Consequences. I'm your host is Dr. Gracie Christie. And we have a special guest today who's been on the show before. I think we can call him a friend of the shows. His name is Bishop Michael Burbidge, and he's the bishop of Arlington and the chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities here on Conversations with Consequences. We are all about pro-life, as well as the dignity of human life is the foundation of every aspect of not just of our faith, but also of everything that we do in this complicated world. If we can keep the dignity of life front and center, then it'll be much harder for us to make mistakes. So welcome to the show. |
| Bishop Michael Burbidge | Bishop Burbage Thank you so much. Dr. Christie Great to be with you and your listeners. And yes, please consider me a friend of your show because I am in great admiration of your your work and all that you do to proclaim the gospel of life, to announce the good news. So thank you for your dedicated service. |
| Grazie | Well, this month has been a very important month. This is October. It's the month of our Lady, the month of the rosary. It's the the our pro-life month. You are right in the middle of all that. Bishop Burbage, how have you how has this month developed for you? The month of October 2024. It's a very important month. |
| Bishop Michael Burbidge | You are right. And the church, in her great wisdom, chooses to highlight those events, those celebrations that you just mentioned, including the fact that we are in respect life month. Every every day is respect Life Day every month is respect Life month. But we all need these reminders. The emphasis let's spend this month really focus on what must be part of our lives every year. So we've had some beautiful celebrations within the church, even within my own dioceses, our own respect, life mass or mass of persons with disabilities, Catholic Charities, gatherings is it of course is in the service of life and all with this month dedicated to Mary, our blessed mother, especially under the title of Our Lady of Rosary. So, so many joyful celebrations that unite us. And it's great to be able to speak to them about them. With you. |
| Grazie | Bishop, in your view, why is what I mentioned in the the top of this episode the centrality of the dignity of human life? Tony, in your view, why is that central for for us Christians and for us humans in general? |
| Bishop Michael Burbidge | Because a proper understanding of who we are in the sight of God is essential, is the foundation from everything else that we do. That's why we say it is our preeminent. Our priority issue is that we have to get it right from the beginning. And so we have to believe, which is the truth, that God has created each one of us uniquely, uniquely in His own image and likeness, and that his very spirit lives and dwells within us. That is who we are. We are created in God's image and likeness, temples of His spirit. And this is sacred. This is sacred. The sacredness of life. We proclaim from that very moment of conception to natural death. And when we believe that, and when we are convinced of that truth, then the way we treat others will be reflected. We veer the sacredness of every person's life. As a child of God, we respect the dignity that belongs to every person, the child of God, and treat each other in such a way. And so as we embrace the gospel of life, we are proclaiming the love that God has for each one of us. We celebrate life. We protect life, we defend life. And I always highlight that need to celebrate life, to celebrate the life I did in our schools just yesterday. In fact, celebrate student life that year. And don't be worried about trying to be like someone else or, you know, the gifts that you have or don't have or someone of the person be that person God creates you to be. He knows you. He knows you by name in your precious in his sight. Imagine if we saw ourselves that way. And so every person that way or that world, and how different our nation was. |
| Grazie | When we talk about human dignity, we talk a lot about abortion because it is the the legal destruction since 1973 of millions of little American boys and girls. And it has permeated our society that that idea that that life when it's in the way, can be eliminated. But there are other ways that the dignity of life that missing that concept of the dignity of life in our society, you know, as we lose our Christian roots and we become more secular, we lose sight of that, that foundational value. What are other ways that that forgetting the dignity of human life has affected our society? |
| Bishop Michael Burbidge | Well, as you mention, and certainly Pope Francis as Pope Benedict, Pope John Paul, the second you talk about the great concern of this culture of death, where life can just be discarded, dismissed, you know, for various reasons. And so we see it not only, as you said, the innocent everyday taking innocent lives, the most vulnerable, the voiceless, in a sense, the child in the womb. But then the gospel of life is is embracing all persons. How sad it is for us to see, for example, persons with disability, you know, often discarded, often not part of the community, often not lifted up as a blessing, as a gift that they are to all of society. How sad it is to see the the aged, the elderly, lonely, forgotten. What a great concern we have now with the advancement of an aggressive agenda, trying to push assisted suicide as if we decide when life ends rather than allowing people taking great medical care of them, providing comfort, but allowing them to unite their sufferings to the Lord through knowing that the glory that awaits them and just look, look at how so many people are living in poverty, lacking the basic necessities of life. And so we as a church consistently proclaim the gospel of life by serving life, we see how we as a church will walk with moms in need. Mom knows and every dad, when they want to walk on that life of a child into our world, even though they are experiencing some difficulties or hardships, may be lacking employment, may be lacking finances, maybe lacking the basic necessities that they need to provide for the child. Well, there we are. There is the church to walk right with them right in their midst. We speak about the beautiful project. Gabriel. What is that you need? You need diapers, the clothes. What do you need? We want to walk with you. Catholic Charities are providing counseling at many, many dioceses like my own, providing homes for single moms, rental assistance for parents who are welcoming children into life but don't have adequate housing. You know, for example, in my own diocese last year, we provided almost 300 car seats. That's something moms and dads need for their children but they can't afford. Well, there's the church providing for that over $1.8 million in rental assistance. We did. And this is what I do across the country. So everyone knows our position about it. We are absolutely against the taking of innocent life, the life of the preborn, the life of the vulnerable, any life at any stage and must be revered and protected. But I think we as a church must continue to allow people to know what we do in service of life. And I just commend all the parishioners throughout this country who in so many ways, through their financial support, through their prayers, through their own, volunteer through their services, serve, serve life. |
| Grazie | It is really wonderful to see how that that beautiful impulse in the human soul to help Another is translated into the presence of so many wonderful people that show up at the pregnancy care centers to pack bags and bring boxes of diapers and give classes and donate their money, as you say, for rental assistance for young families. And I have found in my experience, what I've been very involved in all these activities and on all these different levels. And I have found that many times, it's that that first generous impulse that brings people to to come out and help. And when they feel that they're a part of this beautiful faith project, then their hearts turn to God and our lady and the church I find I find many people come to the church, come to their faith and to live their faith in a deep way that maybe they weren't living it before or didn't even know about it. They come through this personal, generous participation in the assistance of others in charity. |
| Bishop Michael Burbidge | You are so right, Dr. Christy. We we know that one of the most effective ways that we invite others to return to the Lord, to return to the church, one of our most effective ways that we evangelize, actually, which was what you were just speaking about, is by inviting a personal invitation to invite a family member or friend or someone who's been away from church to participate in a work of charity so we can do together to help people in need. And through we know true beauty, goodness, we proclaim. So to invite people to participate in goodness as you said, helps to transform hearts. And so feel free parishioners to invite people to participate in the good work you're doing. Sometimes that's all anyone ever needs is a personal invitation. |
| Grazie | People are very lonely and they are very atomized, and they're not one of the wonderful things about the church, our Catholic church, but other churches and temples and synagogues is that we're meant to be connected and nested in communities of faith and and of value and meaning. And I think a lot of the the despair and chaos we see out there is that that that terrible loneliness of not being connected to others. Yeah. As we see in our churches, I don't know how people get by. I don't know without that kind of support of an entire your entire parish, your entire, you know, we all work where it feels so beautiful to be part of something greater than oneself and be involved in a in a in a real noble project, whether that's evangelization or works of charity or, you know, everything together. Because the church does all these things and invites us to participate. One of the things the church teaches is the practice of praying the Rosary, and this is the month of the rosary. And tell us, Bishop, what is the power of that prayer? |
| Bishop Michael Burbidge | Well, the power of the prayer is, first of all, to realize the great gift that Jesus gave us from the cross. He gave his mother to us as our mother, as someone to love us, to embrace us, to protect us, to walk with us. We have such a powerful intercessor in Mary, our mother. It is a gift that her son gave to us. And she's there to walk with us every step of the way. And I'm sure we can all tell stories of how we have felt that powerful protection and help of a mother who loves us, who calls us her own sons and children. So we must turn to her. We honor her. We honor her well, we pray the rosary. We meditate upon the mystery of her son's life and how much he has loved us. And yet we also seek her help. And the specific. Mary, I need your help to deal with this temptation. Mary, I need your help to deal with this cross. It's a little one, but it's way you or me or Mary. I need your help because this is a very heavy cross, and I know you are there for me. That is why. And also how to grow and holiness. We need Mary to lead us closer to her son. That's why all the Saints Saint Dominic century care, Calcutta, Saint Torres. So certainly Pope Francis, Saint John Paul the second all told us the importance of praying, of praying the rosary they guide us to to holiness. Pope I love Pope John Paul. The second slide when he says rosaries or prayer or great significance that is destined to bring forth a harvest of holiness, why wouldn't we pray the rosary? Pope Francis is encouraging us to pray the rosary for peace in the world. We're longing for that peace. We're in a world that's at war, a nation that is so divided and restless and and harsh. We are all in our own lives. The stress and the demands and the anxiety. So pray to Mary under that title, Our Lady, Queen of Peace. Our Lady of the Rosary. We have a great friend and she is there for us as mother and protector. |
| Grazie | In the last few years, my husband and I have have become we the Rosary daily. And it's something that, as I was growing up Catholic, I did once in a while and now I don't know how to get through my day without the rosary. And one thing that's been so beautiful and I'm sure a lot of our listeners do this is to pray with your family members or your spouse. And my husband and I have found it such a remedy for our normal marital difficulties, because to live together and have this life project and raise children obviously brings difficulties in a relationship. And the rosary just seems to patch everything up between us. As soon as we start to get into a bad a bad back and forth with each other, you know, we we now have learned to look at each other and say what we need is the rosary. And we get sometimes we just get in our car and drive around and pray the rosary, or we go somewhere where the view is pretty and it just fixes everything. There's something magical about that. |
| Bishop Michael Burbidge | I'm so glad you share that because of how you know the rosary can be of help to a couple striving to help each other to become holier, which is the source of their vocation, of course, but also for families. If we want a peaceful home, if we want harmony within our home, what better way than to to join in honoring our blessed mother? Reflecting on what her son did for us out of love for us, it cannot help but to create that peaceful, serene spirit that we want in our hearts, in our homes, in our marriages, and in our lives. |
| Grazie | Bishop Povich We only have a couple of minutes left, but I want to ask you, next month the bishops all meet for their fall meeting. What are your highest priorities for this meeting? |
| Bishop Michael Burbidge | Well, first of all, it is a great joy to I actually look forward to this meeting every year in November in Baltimore. And first of all, it brings all the bishops of the country together. And I would really want and I really hope our parishioners could really see that when the bishops gather, despite what you might read or blogs or headlines, there is from the very first moment we are together is the sense of a fraternal bond and so of unity. We pray together. We begin our meetings with a day of mourning, a recollection and mass prayer. So we are united as brother bishops. We are united in prayer. We begin with the asking the Holy Spirit to enlightening guide us through our discussions and deliberations. And we will discuss various issues, of course, And sometimes there are different opinions or different ways of looking at things. But always done so respectfully and real engagement. So first of all, I just pray that that bond continues to be fostered and that we will address the issues that face us throughout our agenda with that spirit of the Spirit of God leading us and guiding us. |
| Grazie | Well, us all our all the listeners, all the people who who have the wonderful bishops leading us, leading the flock. We are the flock. And we I pledge personally to pray along with you that the two that the Holy Spirit enlightened your minds and hearts, and you keep leading the church towards towards greater holiness and sanctity for all of us. Because the only reason we're here at all is to get back get back to God when we die. I think. |
| Bishop Michael Burbidge | It's great. And thank you for those prayers, because we really I know before I leave every week, I just ask everyone my brother, priests and throughout the dioceses to to pray for us, because that's that's what we seek to do also. We just seek it with our weaknesses, our limitations, whatever we seek and strive and pray that we will be faithful shepherds after the heart of Christ, and that we will lead and guide as the Lord himself asks us. But we cannot do that without His grace, without the help of our blessed Mother and without the prayers of the faithful we are so privileged to serve. |
| Grazie | Well, thank you so much, Bishop Burbage. |
| Bishop Michael Burbidge | And thank you, Doctor. |
| Grazie | For your time especially. And our prayers go with you. |
| Bishop Michael Burbidge | I really appreciate that. Thanks. Always a great joy to speak with you. |
| Grazie | 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. It's a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation. Presume what Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday, when we will travel with Jesus to Jericho, the lowest place on earth, more below sea level than any other location on the planet. Jesus passing through that place representative of the moral pit of the world in order to ascend from there, the 15 mile uphill road that leads to Jerusalem, where he would suffer and die to lift up the human race sin, Mark tells us that Jesus was passing through the town to me as a blind man. The Senate, to me, as I sat by the roadside, begging pomace, was not born blind, but had become blind. Over the course of time. We see that in the verb he himself uses later on a black Poe asking Jesus in the Greek to see again. But he hadn't just lost his sight to some degree. He lost his dignity. He was sitting by the roadside, begging. He couldn't take care of himself. He needed basic help. It hit rock bottom. He was an adept that. The Valley of Darkness is the lowest place on earth. But it was precisely in that spiritual poverty that Jesus would come to meet him. We may have heard that Jesus was passing by. He didn't cry out for alms, which would have been a small request. He didn't cry out at that point, even for a miracle. He cried out simply for mercy. Jesus, son of David, have pity on me. He doubtless heard of Jesus reputation for working miracles to the North, and Galilee was responding with faith. The fact that he called himself Son of David was a sign that he believed Jesus was the Messiah in his prayer would be answered. Jesus stopped and said, Call him like rabbis were accustomed to doing all their pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the major feasts Jesus was teaching the crowds along the journey when he'd heard, Part of me is bottomless. Please. He stopped in its tracks and ordered that barmaids be brought to him for Jesus. Caring for this man was more important than what he was teaching at that moment because he was about to show the gospel rather than just verbally describe. It is also going to manifest how he responds to persistent prayer. They said to Barton May is take courage, get up. Jesus is calling you words that should encourage anyone, but the words are nevertheless surprising. If Jesus knew we were blind, why wouldn't he have gone over to where the blind man was begging? The reason is that she loved him too much and understood the human heart too well to do that instead, he drew near. He got close, but then he had bardhaman make the effort to get up and come to him to exercise Bardem's his freedom to stoke his desire to grow his faith, and to give him greater participation in the miracle Jesus himself was able to accomplish. It takes courage to get up and leave our comfort zones to respond to the Lord. Farmers have that courage and did too, Mark tells us. He threw aside his cloak, sprang up and came to Jesus. The cloak was his outer garment that kept him warm at night. It was, in a sense, his security blanket was quite valuable to him and part of his life. But in crying out and taking courage and going to Jesus's calling, he was intentionally embracing a new life and establishing a new security. He left his cloak behind to not just a fact, but an important symbol of how he was thinking more about clinging to Jesus and a new life for which he was hoping than grasping the past. Even though he's blind, he got up immediately. He raced to respond to his being called by the Lord. What do you want me to do for you? He asked him. Bottomless, replied Master, I want to see the Latin words for this have become a very popular Christian aspiration, made especially famous by San Jose. Maria dominate watch video Lord, I want to see. But amazed was essentially saying I want to live in the light. I want to see things as they really are. I want to see you. The verb used here in Greek, as I mentioned earlier, is I want to see again. He wanted to live in grace again. He wanted to see life anew. When the light he knew what he had lost and he knew where to find it. To say to Jesus, I want to see. It's not just to turn to a healer and ask him to restore his vision, to say, I want to live in your vision. Saint John would write in this gospel about Jesus words I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will have the light of life. That is the gift for which Barnabas was begging. But Jesus gave him something more. He said to him, Go your way. Your has saved. You are not only granted his wish to see, but heard his initial cry. Have mercy on Jesus generosity. Pharaoh did Bartomeu's imagination to ask faith in response to God leads to salvation. And even though Bartomeu's didn't dare ask for that, God gave it to him. Mark tells us immediately He received his sight and followed him on the way, but misused his freedom to follow Jesus. He left the depths of Jericho behind and follows up to Jerusalem, followed him to Palm Sunday, followed him to the way the cross. He followed him all the way, said Luke, in his version of the same scene comments, he immediately received a sight and followed him giving glory to God. And when they all saw this, they gave praise to God. But He me have spent the rest of his life glorifying God in such a way that others joined him in that divine praise. The essence of the Christian life is encapsulated by that. To glorify God in a contagious way that others join us in. Doing so is what the Christian life is all about. The same Jesus who has part of me is What do you want me to do for you? Puts the same question. You and me were called to learn from the blind man in Jericho how to begs for the gift of sight. We want to see Jesus in prayer. We want to see Jesus in the sacraments. Passion of the Holy Eucharist. We are Jesus and others in the face of those we love. In the face of those we find so difficult to love. We want to see Jesus behind the distressing mask to the poor, the sick, the lonely, the homeless, the abandoned and the blind want to behold Christ face in the beauties of creation. We want to see him behind each of the commandments, teaching us how to love. We want to see his will in our daily life, in the present, and for the future. We want to see him in the deliberations of conscience and in the choices we have to make. As Pope Francis said in his new encyclical on the Sacred Heart, released on Thursday, we want to see him pouring out his love for us and mercy. Ultimately, we want to see him face to face in heaven, smiling on us. But so often we're blinded. Sin blinds us, worries blind us, pain and suffering, blindness, hatreds and prejudices blind out. Others, including those we love, can sometimes get in the way and remove our line of vision. This Sunday is an occasion to ask the Lord to take out whatever blanks are in our eyes so that we may see Him clearly and follow him. Glorifying him like part of me is before us. There's also an important application of this gospel to our Christian mission in the world today. Last Sunday, as you recall, we marked World Mission Sunday and pondered how we're called not just to pray for and financially support the spread of the gospel throughout the world, but to grasp that each of us is a missionary called by our baptism to spread the faith. Back in 2012, Pope Benedict focused precisely on this dimension, using the cure burn. Part of me is to describe what you and I need to do to help the blind men and women of our day encounter Crisis. Passing by the state of blindness has great significance in the Gospels, Pope Benedict wrote. It represents man who needs God's light, the light of faith. If he is to know reality truly and walk the path of life. It is essential to acknowledge one's blindness, one's need for light. Otherwise one could remain blind forever. Bottomless is presented as a mortal who is not blind from birth. But he lost his sight. He represents a man who is lost for light and knows it, but is not yet lost hope. He knows how to seize the opportunity to encounter Jesus, and he entrusts himself to him for healing, but misrepresents me man. Aware of his pain and crying out to the Lord, confident of being healed. His simple and sincere plea is exemplary, and indeed it is found its way into the tradition of Christian prayer. From this perspective, bottomless could represent those who live in regions that were evangelized long ago, where the light of faith has grown dim and people have drifted away from God, no longer considering them relevant for their lives. These people have therefore lost a precious treasure. They have fallen from a lofty dignity. Their lives are lost, secure in sound direction. They become often unconsciously, beggars for the meaning of his existence. There are the many in need of a new encounter with Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, who can open their eyes afresh and teach them the path of course. Pope Benedict is talking, among other places, about the United States, where five or six Catholics have given up the practice of the faith every Lord's day. He is simply talking about Canada, many European countries, and some in Latin America, where many more are now beggars for the meaning of existence. Pope Benedict concludes that we who have had the experience of being healed by God through Jesus Christ, are called out call to go out to the present culture of the West. Like in ancient Jericho, where so many blind men and women are crying out for meaning and mercy, perhaps without explicitly realizing it, and to go with the light of Christ lived in daily life in the hope that we may guide them to the source of that life. Jesus himself, who wants to lead them from the depths of the darkness of the modern Jericho to the radiant heights of the celestial Jerusalem and Mass. The sun we like bottoms, will cry out over and again. Kyrie lays on crystallized on correlation. Christ Jesus, son of David, have mercy on us. She will come and ask, What do you want me to do for you? In response to our petition to see, dwell and live in his life, he'll seek to illuminate by his word, and that will give us an even greater gift than he gave. Bottomless will give us himself in the inside. No matter what difficulties we're experiencing, no matter the depths to which we might have sunk, Jesus Christ will be passing by. Let us take courage because Jesus is calling us but is throw off our security blankets and attachments. Spring up and come to him and let us like those following, listening to Jesus along the journey, go to those who are on the sides of our modern road, begging for meaning in. Tell them take courage. Jesus is calling you to God bless you. |
| Grazie | 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. We hope to have you back next week. And until then, you go with our prayers. |