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Episode Description
Ahead of Election Day next Tuesday, Dr. Grazie Christie and Ashley McGuire discuss the flagrant anti-Catholic bias of Kamala Harris and her alarming objection to conscience rights when it comes to abortion. Harris believes there should be no exceptions for Catholic hospitals or physicians who would be forced to violate their faith by performing abortions. She has also worked to deny funding for pro-life health centers that support women in crisis pregnancies, among a litany of other ways she has demonstrated her bias against religious organizations and people of faith.
We also talk with Michael Lichens of Ignatius Press about the importance of reflecting on the reality of our own eventual death – especially as we enter into the month of November. In his new book, Lichens explores many of the unusual and miraculous events that have occurred throughout Catholic history from ancient times until now, giving us a unique look into the divine.
Father Roger Landry also offers an inspiring homily to prepare us for this Sunday’s Gospel.
Bios
Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie is an M.D. and Senior Fellow for The Catholic Association, and host of the nationally syndicated radio show, Conversations with Consequences with EWTN. Her articles have been printed in numerous national news publications and she has appeared on major TV networks. She and her husband, Dr. Steven Christie, worked with EWTN to produce the informative abortion mini series, In a Pro Life Minute. They share five children, including one adopted child, and a passion for the sanctity of life that is lived out in their advocacy work.
Ashley McGuire is a Senior Fellow with The Catholic Association and co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show, Conversations with Consequences. She is also the author of the book, Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female. She has written for numerous news outlets and spoken on major television networks, and serves as a prominent voice for the pro-life movement and religious liberty. She is also a mother of five children.
Michael Lichens is an author, editor, and researcher with a passion for the less explored aspects of Christian history. A former editor of Catholic Exchange and St. Austin Review, he has appeared in numerous Catholic and mainstream publications, and is a regular guest on radio and TV shows where he shares interesting facets of Catholic faith and history. He holds a Masters Degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School and a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy. He loves reading, writing, editing books, and leading tours of historic buildings in the US or Rome.
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 traversed the full 1500-mile Eucharist Pilgrimage this past summer and joined the historic Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, an event which coincided with his 25th year in the priesthood. He was recently appointed the new National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the USA.
The following transcript is machine generated.
Episode 289 Transcript
| Grazie | Hello friends, and welcome to Conversations with Consequences. 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 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 podcasts. I'm your host host, Dr. Gracie Christie, and we have a great show lined up for you today. Thank you again for joining us this week, as you do week after week. It is our pride and our honor to have so many loyal listeners. We are entering into the month of November when we remember the dead and those who have gone before us. We are also facing election week with so many things on the line, especially when it comes to life and all the ways that the dignity of life is affected by our voting. My colleague Ashley McGuire joins me shortly to discuss Kamala Harris's track record, including her anti-Catholic bias and her pro-abortion policies. But one thing you don't hear much about is adoption. With all this talk about reproductive health and the constant push for unregulated and ubiquitous abortion, but November is also National Adoption Month. And as an adoptive mother, it's just another important moment to remember that families, children come to us through biology, but they also can come to us through adoption. Adoption is in one very beautiful way. The correct answer to this problem of a child coming into the world without a mother or father to receive that child in love. Adoption is a better answer than the elimination of a child. It's a more humane answer, more a more Christian answer, a more dignified answer, a more ethical answer than aborting a child who is inconvenient or unplanned or unwanted or unloved. We all know that there are, at any one time, many thousands of American couples across the United States hoping desperately to adopt one day. I personally know at least two couples that have been waiting for a long time. They have filled out all these questionnaires and had the social worker over to their house and they would be wonderful parents. And the pain of infertility is very great. The desire to have a family and not be able to do that is very crushing for so many people. And adoption is a beautiful way to do that. And again, to save the lives of children. Unfortunate, ugly. We are in a moment right now where one of the two parties in the United States and a party which receives about half the votes of people who go vote is the party of abortion. All we've heard from the Democrats, it seems since since the new candidate was was elevated to her position is about abortion. And it and I'm sad to say that it motivates her base and motivates women. And I think that abortion is a tragedy, obviously, for babies. But it's a tremendous tragedy for women. It harms our position in the world. It harms our position with men, it harms our ability to form families, to form proper romances and proper marriages. Adoption, on the other hand, is a beautiful answer. When again, the question of an unwanted or unloved child comes up. My extreme dedication to the fight against abortion, to the fight for human dignity of the unborn, to to have a country that respects that dignity had a lot to do with my the adoption of my daughter, who was a very unwanted, unloved child. And when she became my daughter and I learned to love her, I realized that every single child in the world is that perfect and that beloved and that worthy of of affection and protection and worthy of being received with joy. I learned that with my daughter. And now I would like the entire world to know that, especially this great country. It's sad that in this great country, one of our two parties is the party of unregulated abortion, pushing it as a great good, even in the face of all the death and pain that abortion has brought us. And joining me today is my co-host is A.C. a colleague, Ashley McGuire. Welcome to the show, Ashley. |
| Ashley | Hey, Gracie. |
| Grazie | We have such a great, fun topic and the time's going to go. So quickly. And the topic is Kamala Harris's anti-Catholic bias. We've read about it. We've heard about it. We felt it ourselves. And it may be that this is something very this is dispositive when it comes to the results of this election. Are a large part of the electorate is Catholic, something like 22 or 23%? I think I read recently I hope that's correct number. But that's not a small number. And there are a lot of people who are Catholic adjacent who may not be Catholic themselves, but they understand about religious freedom. They are there Christians or Jews or Muslims, and they understand that as an institution, the Catholic Church is as a kind of bulwark, an institutional bulwark against anti-religious bias because of its it's found its big institutional presence. Right. And it's able to marshal its forces. And I think that it defends people of other religions or of no religion at all when it comes to having the right to to think as we think to believe, as we believe, to express our views, to not be pushed out of the public square, to not have tests like religious tests made against us. And so let's talk about that, Ashley, about how how Kamala Harris has has stepped on some landmines on her way to what she would like to be, which is the next president of the United States. |
| Ashley | Well, I think it's interesting that she hasn't she hasn't really even. Not only has she not tried to make overtures to voters of faith, but she's really kind of leaning into her bigotry. I mean, she's you know, faith leaders have been accusing her, myself included. I wrote an op ed for The New York Post about being kind of a lame straight, old fashioned bigot. I mean, this is the woman who back when she was in the Senate and they were confirming judges basically, she asked a Catholic judge, shouldn't you, you know, revoke your membership in the Knights of Columbus because it essentially disqualifies you from being a judge. So like a straight up constitutional violation of the no test for office, you know, and also. |
| Grazie | Like a stick in the eye to the millions of Catholics who understand the Knights of Columbus to be this really sweet, charitable organization that goes around doing good luck on the community level. Like, who else? What else is the Knights of Columbus? I can't even think of what else they do. I know they do other things, but that's what we all know about them. |
| Ashley | Right. So fast forward to, you know, last week in the run up to the election, and she basically interrupts her, interview her, who's asking her, would you make any concessions on abortion, like, for example, religious liberty? Almost like the interviewer is trying to dangle her an out like, here, please say something. |
| Grazie | This is an easy. |
| Ashley | You look like a moderate. |
| Grazie | Yeah. Here, take this one. Take her. Take this fig leaf. It's going to look amazing on here. |
| Ashley | Yeah. And. And says, I don't think we should be making any concessions. And you could kind of see the shock in her interviewer's eyes. And I mean, look, we all kind of know that this is sort of what progressives think. But to hear her say it so plainly and is really shocking. So. |
| Grazie | Wait, so you're so you're you're a Catholic, Mary Catholic out in the in the in the in the wide world and you hear this where she says no concessions for religious freedom. What is your average Catholic going to think? That means? And what is what does your average progressive think that thinks that means? Because I think that there's like a disconnect between those two views. |
| Ashley | Well, you know, I think what it what it means and what it should mean to your average Catholic is that, you know, she thinks, for example, that Catholic nurses should be forced to perform, you know, abortion or participate in abortions, that Catholic doctors should be forced to perform abortions, that Catholic pharmacists. |
| Grazie | Catholic hospitals should do transgender surgeries on minors, for instance, which could be against which is against our our faith. |
| Ashley | Yeah. And this is I mean. Okay, sure. Is your average voter going to call themselves pro-choice? Probably. What does that mean to them that they probably think, you know, in the first trimester it should be legal because they're, you know, kind of a little bit skittish in this post. Real world. She's so far out there. And to say that there should be no exceptions. I mean, what that means is that she thinks you should be forced to violate your most deeply held religious beliefs on the most contentious and difficult issue of our time. And that should scare you even if you're somebody who's pro-choice. |
| Grazie | Because and it also it also means that there should be a one size fits all system, right. Like that. There shouldn't be a space in society, in men, in medicine or in health care or in any other kinds for speech or or speech where you could say, well, you know, those people are doing it that way, but we're going to do it this way. And you can choose you can choose to go to that hospital or come to our hospital, and then you come to our hospital. This is what's available and we're going to take good care of you. But if you want an abortion, you're going to have to go next door like she doesn't believe in that agreement. |
| Ashley | And and guess what? The Catholic Church stands apart and disagrees with a lot of what is accepted in our society. So I think there's no question that she's somebody who his is not only not going to make concessions, but is not going to tolerate anything that our church teaches when it disagrees and does not march in lockstep with the progressive ideology. |
| Grazie | What about the way that she has turned almost her entire campaign into a referendum on what she calls reproductive health, women's reproductive health, freedom, but what I would call a brutal, no holds barred abortion regime, 40 weeks abortion through 40 weeks of pregnancy for any reason, babies born alive, allowed to expire without assistance, just a whole everything that that the most hardcore abortion proponent would write a laundry list. She checks off every box. What about that? That's a that shows Catholics how she's not on their side. I mean, she's so far out, right? |
| Ashley | I mean, sadly, this is not new for her party. And sadly, it's it's not really a change from our current president, despite, you know, the the faith that he professes. You know, they the leader, the party leadership is so, so extreme on this issue. But honestly, I don't know that I've ever heard of a progressive, a liberal, a Democrat say that they don't even believe in exceptions for religious liberty. That's usually something they kind of go out of the way their way, even if they don't really mean it to say it. So it's just like. |
| Grazie | You think that's where you think that's where she crossed the Rubicon. Yeah. On abortion, because we've gotten used to Democrats being very far away from safe, legal and rare. We've gotten used to sell, you know, shop your abortion, reproductive health as is always great and it always includes abortion. But you think she crossed the Rubicon when she said no religious exemptions? |
| Ashley | Yeah. And you know, there was a recent New York Times poll that I think startled people when it showed her a lot. You know, her and Trump closer together than people were expecting. And this was a few weeks ago. And one of the reasons that people listed that they didn't feel like they could vote for Donald Trump I'm sorry for Kamala Harris was because she's she's too liberal. And so you'd think after something like that, she would try to tack to the center, especially in the final stretch of a campaign where she's losing momentum. So I just think that actually shows that she actually believes it. She means it like she's she's actually unable to repress or constrain or moderate verbally her extremism. |
| Grazie | But she's a San Francisco progressive. She's a hardcore San Francisco progressive that and that's what she can't help but project. Yeah, not at at the end at the end of his life I feel like Joe or Joe Biden is not really with us anymore. But at the end of of the of his public life, he was still carrying his rosary around even as he espoused an unlimited abortion. But there was something there. There was he he was able to to finesse to finesse. I think his expressions, because he had lived in a different world. He had lived in the world where you could be a pro-life Democrat and you could you could you could do that successfully. And that just doesn't exist. And she doesn't come from a world like that. I feel like maybe she's never sat down and had dinner with faithful Christians of any sort. She doesn't know what we're like. She doesn't know who we are in the least. Which brings me to her. It brings me to the Al Smith dinner, which for me, her nonappearance at the Al Smith dinner was a big of a big flash point for me as far as thinking what kind of relationship she has in her head to the Catholic Church and to Catholics. What about you? |
| Ashley | Well, I'm curious what your take is on on the video that she sent. I mean, her not going was was its own sort of eyebrow raiser. But what's your take on the video she sent? |
| Grazie | So for our listeners who maybe weren't paying attention, there's so much going on all the time. So the Al Smith dinner is a yearly dinner in New York City hosted by Cardinal Dolan. Al Smith was a famous Catholic from some decades ago who who was very charitable. And every year there's a bipartisan dinner. And the funny tradition is that they they the two nominees, they they exchange jokes and they make potshots at each other. And it's all it's all supposed to be in very good fun. And I think it can be very uncomfortable when I watched it. But the fact remains, it's a charity dinner is bipartisan. It's a Catholic staple of of of American life. Everybody goes the mayor of New York goes and Cardinal Dolan and all the famous people on everywhere, they they're all there and they're all smiling. And all the political figures are are being friendly. Even a couple of weeks before the election or a month before a big, huge election. So that's the Al Smith dinner. She decides not to go and as you mention in, instead she sends a video. And so not to go was the cake. And the icing on the cake was the video, I thought. And she has herself and a parody of a Catholic schoolgirl in the Catholic schoolgirl classic outfit of the plaid skirt. And it's not funny. The comedian, the woman, it's a woman comedian acting anxious and it's absolutely ridiculous. And it and it's making fun of Catholic schoolgirls who, I must say, are one of those those iconic, beautiful images of Catholicism is the Catholic school girl who doesn't love a Catholic schoolgirl. There's nothing more pure and decent and sweet than a girl in her plaid skirt. And so that's why she chooses just bullying at the hands of Cardinal Dolan and the other Catholics at the Al Smith dinner. |
| Ashley | Yeah. And and the thing that struck me was, you know, here we've had this series of very high profile episodes or incidents where the church has been mocked in a grotesque way. You know, let's start with the Dodgers and them inviting that horrible Sisters of the Perpetual Indulgence group that does kind of disgusting. |
| Grazie | they're trends. |
| Ashley | Of of nuns. |
| Grazie | Of men, men dressed as nuns. |
| Ashley | Right. You know, the other kind of iconic female Catholic image, you know, Catholic schoolgirl nuns. Then we have the Olympics where they do also a drag mockery of the most sort of sacred moment in Christianity, which is the Last Supper. Then we have Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, in a Harris Waltz cap, mocking the giving of communion, using a Dorito chip. I mean, that's a whole separate side. Weird. And there was. |
| Grazie | A whole sexual appearance to that. That was just. |
| Ashley | You know, I think like a psychologist needs to psychoanalyze that because it was so many levels of weird, but it was obviously mockery. She tried to say, I never meant to mock anyone. Okay. Right. And then I feel like I'm missed. and then so then we've got pictures of Kamala Harris at a rally with the Sisters of the Perpetual Indulgence. And then she sends that video mocking. It's like the mockery is what it is. So I think upsetting and should be such a alarm for Catholics, because not only is she and, you know, her political allies actively working to undo and undermine our civil liberties, the rights of the unborn, but they have no problem just mocking us. They're not even decent. They don't even try to hide it. They feel totally at ease mocking us. And these are not she is not somebody who, if she's elected, is going to extend any kind of olive branch to the church. And I just think that that lack of basic decency, I mean, Biden wouldn't do that, Like and Biden was you know, it's been a challenging four years for Catholics under his presidency, but they've just taken things to a whole new level. And it's it's disheartening and discouraging and should be very, I think, concerning to Catholics. But voters of any faith, if you are in any way somebody who cares about your religion, these people are not your friends. They laugh at you, they mock you. They think you're ignorant and and they don't have any problem doing it publicly. And and that seems like a new thing to me. |
| Grazie | What seems what would appear what I don't understand is how how siloed is her life like, how deeply she must live in in a kind of fishbowl of people that think exactly like her in order to not have in order to show this kind of insensitivity, to people who are just regular people. I mean, imagine she she makes a big push to to include in her coalition Hispanics, black Americans. These Hispanics and black Americans tend to be people of Christian faith, whether it's Catholic or Protestant. How can you think that you can appeal to these people and also not have an understanding of the the thing that that sits in the center of their lives, which is their faith, Our faith, the thing that sits at the center of our lives, through which the lens through which we see everything, and how can she think that she can appeal to people like us and not have any kind of just be completely blind to that as though it doesn't exist, as though it's it's are some some kind of as though it's not the scaffolding of our house. It's like the inside. It's not the foundations of our houses. It's a color we paint our walls with. No, it's not actually. It's not cosmetic. It's it's foundational to us. It's how we see the world. |
| Ashley | Yeah. And, you know, starting maybe ten or 15 years ago, there was a series of slips with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and and Democrats using the expression freedom of worship. And I think that was, you know, revealing that to your point. I think that they think religion is something that should not be anywhere in the public square. You shouldn't take it into the voting booth with you, which, by the way, our faith teaches us the exact opposite. The church is explicit that we are to vote with a well-formed conscience and think about, you know, the order of moral goods when we're voting. Pope Francis said, I quote, A good Catholic metals in politics. You know, we're called to when we're called to use our faith to advance the common good in the political arena. So they think we should keep it out of politics, because obviously, when our faith collides with politics, it doesn't align with the progressive agenda. And they think we should keep it basically out of everywhere. But but things have changed recently, and I think that has gone even more extreme where, you know, like you look at what's happening in the county where I live, Montgomery County, where if you're a public school student, they think that if you're a parent who doesn't want your child to be read explicit sexual books, starting in kindergarten, that you need to straight up leave. They don't even think that parents should be informed when those books are going to be read so that they can opt their kids out. So it's not even like, keep your religion out of our, you know, public public spheres, but we're going to force our as Bill Barr has written about our sort of new civil religion, which is progressive ideology on you and your family. And if you don't like it, basically stay home, you know, and that goes back to the whole Catholic doctors, like don't you dare, in their mind, be a Catholic doctor and bring your faith into into the room where you practice and you're a doctor. I mean, you know that that's not that's not how it works. Your faith informs everything that you do. |
| Grazie | You bring up a really good point, which is about parental rights. And for people of faith. Parental rights, I think has is it's it's highlighted in a way maybe that for people of no faith and it might seem a little different to us, we feel very strongly that the formation of our children is our first responsibility and that we should be able to direct their education like that idea that we are the first educators of our children. I think that's missing from Kamala Harris's worldview and progressives in general. And that's going to run counter that has to run counter to two Catholic Americans who who can sense and I think correctly, that parental rights is not anywhere on her agenda like shit that really comes very low on her agenda. |
| Ashley | You know, it's interesting you say that because in Maryland, just like you in Florida, have an amendment on your ballot relating to reproductive rights and ours is like yours. It's it's vaguely worded and absolutely jeopardizes parental rights as it relates to consent for abortion, but also parental rights over decisions about gender, ideology and surgeries. And I'm in the heart, the beating heart of the most sort of liberal part of, you know, Maryland. And I spoke at all four of our masses. And I really emphasized parental rights and what the church teaches about that. And people erupted into applause. And it surprised me because you just you don't hear people talking about it. But I think you're right that people sense that there is a movement afoot to take away our rights as parents, to protect our children, to educate our children, to teach our children what we believe. And if you were to ask me, you know, what is really at stake in this election, you know, in a personal way for voters, That is what I would say. And that's not hyperbolic. That is the truth. |
| Grazie | And do you think that specifically resonates with a Catholic with the Catholic electorate? The Catholic portion of the electorate? |
| Ashley | Yeah, I do. I do. I mean, I think we still you know, we we can't stop speaking about it until Election Day because people people need to hear it. And so, you know, there's so much confusion out there. But I do think it resonates with people because, you know, your family, that's I think what's most important to people at the end of the day. And and I think you're absolutely right that that the rights of parents is is absent from the progressive worldview because they straight up don't believe it. They think that like the government should be educating your children if they don't like what you're teaching your kids. |
| Grazie | Well, thank you so much, Ashley, for a great discussion on Kamala Harris and her anti-Catholic bias. I think we covered a lot of the ways that she has. She has, I think, significantly lost her Catholic. Her Catholic, her ability to connect with Catholics. And she's shown her disdain. So we'll see what happens. I have already voted myself. I even went online and I checked that my vote has been counted. And I think a lot of I know I've been watching the news. A lot of people, a lot of non progressive have gone out already. A lot of conservatives have gone out and voted early, which is, I think, new for for many for many people on the right. But there's enthusiasm out there and maybe part of that has to do with the Catholics in the country looking around and saying maybe, maybe she's not our friend. So let's see what happens. Thank you, Ashley. Let's bring welcome back to Conversations with Consequences. I'm your host is Dr. Christie. Christie and this is the week in which we celebrate all souls and all saints. And there are so many beautiful Catholic traditions and ideas around our beloved dead and I'm also the Saints. Sometimes those two things don't coincide. We hope they do. And I thought it'd be wonderful to have Michael Lichens on. He is an editor at Sophia Institute Press who has a book coming out very soon, and he'll tell us all about it. And it's called Weird Catholic Handbook, and it addresses and explains many of these beautiful customs and traditions that we Catholics have around the inevitable, which is each human being's death. Welcome to the show, Michael. |
| Michael Lichens | Thank you for having me. Dr. Krista, it's great to join you. |
| Grazie | I'm really interested in this topic and in your book because I've long thought that in modern society, in our culture today, we are very disconnected from death. And I'll give you a I'll give you an example of something that's become very common where I am, and maybe it's common everywhere that a person dies. And I, I call around during email that I text. So when's the funeral? I expect of a person dies on like a monday. The funeral should be like on a Friday or Saturday. And they tell me we are going to have a mass or a memorial when everybody can make it back into town, into town in two or three months. And I'm just sort of left empty. And I think, well, that's where is the time for mourning. And this is becoming more common in my experience. And we're seem to be missing a lot of our of our traditions and rituals around death, which I find very comforting. Now, this this is is this is is this book that you've written a way to sort of reconnect Catholics with these traditions that have have served a really good purpose over the centuries? |
| Michael Lichens | Absolutely. It's one of my goals when writing this. I call it weird, but I'm using weird. What I hope is an affectionate term, which is basically, to use the common parlance, overlooked or misunderstood. But I also like it in the traditional Anglo-Saxon way that they use the word weird, which was basically a way of describing fate or when God's providence intervenes in our life. |
| Grazie | so like the weird, like the weird sisters of Shakespeare. |
| Michael Lichens | Exactly. |
| Grazie | You know what? Explain that. Explain that to us. Because I didn't know that connection and explain that. |
| Michael Lichens | Yeah. So weird in Anglo-Saxon, where we get English from, it's weird. And it literally means fate. So when you talk about the weird sisters there, the fates, like the ancient Greeks and that's where that comes from. And so when they were using weird, like the old monasteries in the medieval England, they were talking about it with God's providence intervening in daily life as a way of just saying that, yes, it's weird because God intervened here. So that's how I also like to use the word. And go back to your point about. |
| Grazie | So is it is it something like when our our our our material, our mundane life intersects with a transcendent in ways that we can appreciate? |
| Michael Lichens | Exactly. It's weird. Some people like to use the phrase that's almost a similar phrase called high strangeness when just we encounter the supernatural, or in this case, as we're talking about today, when we encounter death in our funerary customs and we realize they might be a little strange, but they're also very beautiful and comforting the longer you look at them and study them. |
| Grazie | Maybe the problem is that because people don't believe in the afterlife very much anymore, even people who maybe go to church on Sundays, they seem to doubt it in some fundamental way. Then when death comes, they're not able to to make that weird connection or high strangeness, as you said. Right. Where you say, okay, things have been mundane, things have been terrestrial, but now we're moving to a different plane like this loved one of mine is moving to a different plane where I can still access that person and that connection. But it has to be has to be weird or a higher strangeness. |
| Michael Lichens | Yes, exactly. And it's also, I think, makes it worse to go back to some of our Catholic traditions. It confronts our modern conception of death, which I think was best summarized by Ayn Rand, the famous atheist philosopher, when she was asked, what will you do when you die? She said, I will die. The world will die. And that was her philosophy that she was not actually going to die. And I think a lot of us have internalized that, even if we don't realize that we've internalized this modern American conception that, no, no, I'm not going to die, there's going to be something to intervene to keep me alive. Or when I die, it will be like the world will just stop existing and I'll fall asleep. But we don't believe that as Catholics. And when we have to actually confront that, it's a little strange at times to our modern ideas. |
| Grazie | But maybe modern people find some of our practices and we're going to go through them. From from your book, because you do a wonderful job of explaining them and connecting us back to that. They find thinking about death macabre or they find it sort of grim or dark and they. Okay, so here's another example. I keep saying, when people die around me, people say, we're not having a funeral. We're having a celebration of life. So there's that. There's a moment where they say, well, yes, someone died, but I want to rush to this next stage where I'm just happy that they were alive. So maybe they feel it's macabre or. |
| Michael Lichens | Grim, which is understandable. Again, we don't like to think of it because it's the end of the story from our modern perspective. And I think we're Catholicism is especially helpful. Robert Bellarmine puts it wonderfully in his book The Art of Dying. Well, I, Robert Bellarmine, one of the great saints of the Counter-Reformation and a doctor of the church. But he points out that when we think about death, when we have to meditate and come to terms with it, a paradoxical thing happens, and that is that we are, one more grateful for life, not just ours, but the lives of others. That it's a little miracle that people's lives intersected with ours. But also we live a better life because we realize it is going to end that whatever it is we're going through, joy, suffering, whatever its temporary, our conflicts are temporary. They're all going to have to come to an end at some point, and therefore we're able to really understand that this is a momentary thing. And for me at least, that brings a great amount of joy to me. |
| Grazie | You're making me think of that beautiful phrase, memento mori. |
| Michael Lichens | Yes, I use that phrase a lot in this book. |
| Grazie | Okay. And tell me, what does that mean when people say memento mori? |
| Michael Lichens | It means remember your death or remember you will die. And this is a it has many concepts in Catholicism. It's influenced a lot of great art, funerary customs, but it's also a purpose of meditation. Monks and nuns started it, but it also, especially during the plague years, spread to the laity. And this is the idea that we need to contemplate, not just that we're going to die, but contemplate death itself, that it is something that comes for us all, whether you're rich or poor, whether you're the pope or you're a layman, it is something that will come for us all. And so what does that mean? How do we change our lives then, when we have to contemplate it and realize it's inevitability comes to terms with? It means your life is going to change now. And hopefully if you're following the Catholic Saints especially, you'll realize that it's a joy that life itself is a gift. That even though it's only temporary, it's a gift, but a even greater gift is what happens after we die, which is that we have the resurrection and something to look forward to when we're united to our flesh and our bodies and to each other. |
| Grazie | So to remember to die that you're going to die is to first of all, tell me if you think this is true to to first of all, it battles our pride, right? The sense that we are in we are in control, and we're going to be able to manage beautifully and move all the chess pieces around the chessboard. But no, if you remember, you're going to die, then you know that there's this there's this hard, hard limit, right, Like a hard threshold. And you can you can do and do and think and want and want as much as you want. But there's a point at which everything will end for you in this world. And that controls our pride, I think. And and I want to hear what you think about that, but also the fact that our life here on Earth is only a brief moment when compared to eternity, right? So to death. So it puts our puts everything into perspective, not just the things not not just the things that are difficult for us, but also even the things that where we triumph or where we can be so proud of our achievements. That's just like a blip in the in the radar of God. |
| Michael Lichens | Exactly. No, that's beautifully put. Medieval monks, often you will see this in sweeps and other medieval philosophers. They will talk about the Wheel of Fortune, which is basically that everything, no matter what in this life, is going to be temporary. You will try and one day and you may fail the next day. Likewise, you're going to fail one day and triumph the next day. But the wheel just keeps churning until we finally pass away. But I think that's beautifully put, that it also keeps us keeps our pride in check because no matter how much we accumulate, no matter how much we accomplish, we all end in the same place. |
| Grazie | You have many You have many ways that you explore our traditions on death in your book. And one of them is relics. The recently a traveling team came to our parish just a couple of weeks ago, and they brought relics from Our Lady of Fatima from her apparition relics of I forget which of the child saints, but we lined up to be blessed and touch with the relics at Mass. And this went on for several days. And there was there was a huge outpouring of desire to be close to the relics, to be prayed over with. The relics explained that to Catholics who haven't had that experience or who've been away, you've been away from tradition for some reason or another. |
| Michael Lichens | Well, where I started in the book, as I talk about in the gospel when the woman was suffering from images, touches that hem of Christ's robe and is healed. What we realized then is that the robe, the Hippocrates robe, wasn't holy, it was a garment. But God was able to use that very material object to work a supernatural grace in someone's life. And that's very much what relics are a focus of in a way that the hem of Christ's garment was a. It would be actually declared a second class relic today, which is objects that belong to a saint or to the Lord. And what we believe in relics is that God who uses these objects such as the bones, the clothing, the personal prayer objects. So sometimes you'll see a rosary that belonged to a saint or something like that, and that God can use those to work great miracles, and that they are a testament to the wonderful power our God brings about through us, through the people in our lives, through the saints that work and pray for us daily. Because we have to remember the Saints are always praying for us, which I know I forget about constantly. |
| Grazie | What would you say to people who hear about relics or are listening to this and not quite sure who say, Well, that seems a little superstitious, a throwback to a more superstitious age. What would be your response to that? |
| Michael Lichens | I think that's a good question. And my response would be that we're not the important distinction is we're not making the object itself a matter of holiness, like the pieces of the crucifixion that have been shown with miraculous power throughout years. At the end of the day, they are pieces of wood. They're only powerful and have supernatural grace through God's work using ordinary objects. And that's the important distinction. So we're not making an idol of any of these things or anything like that. We're recognizing that God's still working the supernatural power through these objects. And when you think, that's kind of strange, you have to remember God uses everyday objects in everyday people to work grace through our lives in big and little ways each and every day. And that doesn't take away from him. That doesn't take away from our belief in a supernatural, omnipotent God. It actually reinforces that he is willing to use whatever he needs to get through to us. |
| Grazie | And I think it and it also revivify his that idea that God is not some distant, some distant, I don't know, creature or of spirit who is sort of willing good things for us in a general kind of way. He's actually living amongst us. He is in contact with us constantly. He's interacting with us on the on the material level in a way that we can't quite grasp but that he has full control over. That's what I think about the relics, right? So it it helps us to walk away from that deist idea of God that he's just some some vague spirit making things work somehow. |
| Michael Lichens | Exactly. No, I think that's especially important for today, because so much of what we think is a very deist theism of God is the prime mover that moves things. But he's uninterested in our daily lives, the most important teaching of the incarnation of God becoming man in the form of Jesus Christ is that he use material. That material we're not like Gnostics material. Things aren't. God created them and they are good. |
| Grazie | This is this week is again, All Souls and All Saints. What are some beautiful or interesting traditions around all saints and all souls that you can tell us about? Maybe, maybe it'll spike some some idea of living these beautiful days a little more deeply as Catholics, certainly. |
| Michael Lichens | Well, for example, what I was talking about with the Saints, something I forget very frequently is that the Saints are praying for us, intervening in our lives constantly. One of the couple of the stories I talk about in the book is that the Saints can actually visit people. Most famously, of course, are the Marian apparitions. But Saint Augustine talks about when Felix of Nola visited people, the city of Nola, while it was under siege. He was an early church martyr who was very loved by the city. Still is. And he visited the people while they were under siege, showing that the Saints are interested in our lives. They take a keen interest in our lives, in fact, and are interested in helping us out. And that's something I think when we realize on All Saints Day is that we're not just relying on these famous saints like Augustine or Felix and Nola. There are many more saints out there. The Catholic Church, technically, we don't know how many saints there are. We only know the ones that are revealed to us and that means that there are so many people on our side praying for us who have maybe been separated from us by years and years after death. But they're still involved in our lives and with the old souls. What also delights me too, about praying for all souls, praying for the dead and things like that is we remember that our time together is united in the church as being brothers and sisters in Christ doesn't end when we die. We're still brothers and sisters. We still pray for each other and we still watch over each other. And that continues on even after death. |
| Grazie | What would you say to somebody who's who is missing in an All Souls Day, missing a relative, someone they love very much, a good friend who has gone on before them? What would be a beautiful way that as an American Catholic, maybe who's a who's who's far from the traditions of my youth, for instance, of visiting cemeteries. And I grew up in Mexico where the Day of the Dead is, is is so beautifully observed in ways that I think for American Catholics, they might find shocking and maybe irreverent. Right. Like eating at the at the gravesite and or maybe they think it's more spiritualist and less religious. But in any case, we don't have to get into the Day of the Dead. But what are some what are some ways that someone someone like me, for instance, I lost my father not very long ago to ALS, and I miss him very much. What's what's the what's a wonderful way to be with him on All Souls? |
| Michael Lichens | I lost a friend ten years ago. He was my mentor and one of the finest people I ever met. And I miss him daily. I when I was writing this book, I kept wishing he would help me out. And what I found very comforting was I continue to pray for him. I continue to ask God to please bless him and let him know that he is loved and that he is not forgotten. And I think that's one of the most beautiful things we have, like whether it's the Day of the Dead in Mexico or I talk about the various ways we've bejeweled skeletons or created like created funerary monuments to remember people is that we remember that they that they are still part of our lives, even though we don't get to see them the way we want to, at least not yet. And the other thing I like to point out to people to remember that in Christ, all of us are united. Saint Paul says we don't mourn like those who have no hope. We are a hopeful people. And while we can't presume anyone to say it, then that's why it's important to pray for the dead and to always ask God to remember them and to bless them. We do have hope in our hearts that God will someday unite us together after the resurrection, and that therefore are just like all things in life, our separation from them is still temporary. |
| Grazie | Well, that's a beautiful point to end that. Michael Richards, author and editor at Sophia Institute Press there. And your new book is called Weird Catholic Handbook. And it it will be out very soon. Tell me when, please. I didn't ask you what, when, when, when it actually is released, it. |
| Michael Lichens | Will be hitting bookstores November 19th. Please support your local Catholic bookstores if you can. |
| Grazie | And otherwise, you can visit Sophia, Institute Presseye.com and order it directly from the publisher. Thank you so much. Michael Richards. That was a lovely conversation, setting us up for a perfect All Saints and All Souls Day this week. |
| Michael Lichens | Thank you, Dr. Christie. Praying for all of you this week as well. |
| 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, and it's a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation. There is a Lord Jesus wants up with each of us this Sunday as we participate in the dialog between the Lord Jesus and a scribe, basically a scripture professor with a specialty in Mosaic Law about the first of all, the commandment Jesus answer to the scribes question is well known to us. Quoting the book of Deuteronomy, perhaps the most famous passage of the Hebrew Bible. Jesus said, Hero Israel, the Lord, our God is Lord alone. You shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Then he volunteered what he thought was the second of all 613 Commandments, the scribes that enumerated in what we now call the Old Testament. You shall love your neighbor as yourself, taken from the Book of Leviticus before concluding by saying There's no other commandment greater than these. Upon hearing Jesus answer, the scribe exclaimed, Well, said teacher, and expressed his agreement that loving God neighbor is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices worth more, in other words, than all the worship given a God in the temple, the worship that is most important. The priority we should have in our relationship with God is to love Him and love our neighbor with everything we have. Jesus concludes the conversation by saying of the scribe somewhat curiously, You are not far from the Kingdom of God through his understanding. In other words, he was close to the Kingdom, but not yet in it. Why say Luke's gospel? After a similar conversation with another scholar in law who would ask not, which is the first of all, the commandments, but what must I do to inherit eternal life? To which the same answer was given about loving God and others. Jesus said to him, Do this in you will live. The upshot is that to enter the kingdom, we must do more than know about what we need to do. We must actually do what we know we need to do. So we have to ask ourselves, Do I really love God? To love God is more than to acknowledge His existence. It means more than to fulfill certain duties. The amount of justice needs to be willing to sacrifice for him willingly, the way we sacrifice readily for anyone we love, like a man in love. Sacrifice for the woman he wants to be, his wife or mother. Sacrifices for a beloved child needs to care about what God cares about, needs to seek to please him as much as we can. Many of us think our relationship with God is fine if basically we love the Lord with most of our heart, with some of our mind, with a little of our strength, and with the majority of our soul. So long as we're not committing mortal sense, we tell ourselves, as long as we're not betraying God outright or angry at Him or despising him, we're doing anything evil against him, then things are basically fine in our relationship with him. We think. Or we can deem that we love the Lord simply because we have good thoughts about Him, admire him, think he's kind, generous, and merciful. But Jesus calling for way more than that. Love is more than having good feelings or impressions about another. Love is the unconquerable benevolence that leads to willing to choose in consistently the good of the other for the other sake. Love is opting as a habit to give ourselves for another. Putting someone else ahead of ourselves, like Jesus would say during the Last Supper and put into action the following afternoon, laying down one's life for one's friends in little ways, or supremely, there are many solid Christians who love God to the point of making some sacrifice for them. But as this Sunday's gospel shows us, it's not enough to sacrifice some of the time and gifts he's given for him and for his glory. It's not enough to give God some of our mind, heart, soul and strength. Jesus calling us to love God and deeds and affections with all with God. And so we need to get practical. Jesus calls us to love Him with all our mind. How much of our mind do we dedicate to God? Do we try to think as God thinks in our decisions, to truly fill our minds with His thoughts through prayer or reading the Bible in good spiritual books? Do we fill them with the world's thoughts, the reading, the news more than the Bible or surfing the Internet and watching television more than we pray? Jesus likewise calls them to love them with all our heart. Do we really love God more than we love everything and everyone else in our life? She says. Elsewhere in the Gospel that we're not fit to be his disciple unless we love him more than our family members, more than our stuff, more than even our own life. This is obviously challenging, but do we try to love him with all our heart? He calls us to love him with all our strength. How much effort do we put into loving him to battle through distractions and prayer? Do we prioritize mass adoration and time with him making the effort to get to prayer, especially during those times when it's challenging? When we do attend, do we seek to give 100% trying to pay attention and he calls us to love him with all our soul. That means he wants us full of grace. Do we seek to stay free of all sin or do we compromise with sin and given to gossip, complaining, holding grudges and the like? Do we take advantage of the opportunities for the sacrament of confession so that whatever in our soul is not of God can be forgiven? Jesus similarly calls us to love our neighbor. The love we have for God will be shown by our love for those whom He loves. Jesus says, not love me as I have loved you, but love one another as I have loved you. So we likewise have to ask, are we striving to love our neighbor with our mind? Are we thinking about our neighbor trying to understand our neighbor, lead our neighbor to God through our neighbors own categories? Do we think good things about others noticing their good points rather than their weaknesses, giving them the benefit of the doubt rather than thinking the worst? To love our neighbor with our heart? Do we only half love trying to keep appearances of loving while inside, not loving with mercy and understanding for the things in our neighbors we don't like. Do we love our neighbor with affection, including those who are difficult to love in making the effort to care for the wounds in their heart, to strive to love our neighbor with our strength. Are we sacrificing for our neighbors in going the extra mile to help them with deeds, to summon the strength to forgive them? Finally, do we love our neighbor with our soul sense when we're in the state of grace? God is in our soul. Do we strive to love our neighbor together with God? Do we care in a special way for their souls that they be full of God? I think most of us here in these questions will recognize we have a lot of work to do, but Jesus doesn't leave us on our own. He can command us to love because He first loves us. He puts his love into our hearts so that may overflow into our mind. Will emotions, soul and even muscles. He enters into us so that together with him from the inside, we may love our neighbor as he is loved us. First he makes it simpler for us, allowing us to love God in Him and to love him in our neighbor promise and in whatever we do to the least of our brothers and sisters. He takes personally ensure Jesus makes it possible for us through love to enter His kingdom, to do what he teaches and live. But we need to keep before us the challenge he gives us to love, to give, to sacrifice for God and for others. This consequential conversation about the two most important things we need to do is a fitting context to consider as we begin this month. In November. On Friday, we celebrated All Saints Day, which we not only remember the famous heroes of our faith, as well as the humble saints next door and of our families who have made the Eternal Hall of Fame. But All Saints Day is also a time for us to ponder that we too are called to sanctity. There are various ways we can define holiness, but especially as we approach Sunday's gospel. One of the best is that holiness is the perfection of love. Sanctity means loving God with all we've got and loving our neighbor with the love of God and St Luke's Gospel. As I mentioned a little earlier, the scribe asked Jesus, What must they do to inherit eternal life? We could rephrase the question as What must I do to become a saint? To move from not being far from the Kingdom of God to entering into the Kingdom of Heaven is to love Jesus and love as Jesus describes. And so it's important for us to focus on the love we put into our life, into our living, our faith. At Mass on All Saints Day and that great consequential conversation, Jesus gave us the Beatitudes. We know them. We can examine, However, whether we love God and others by putting these Beatitudes into practice. Do we love God another so much that we're born? Spirit devalue into the things of this world because we treasure God and sharing what we have with those in need and who need it more than we do? Do we love God and others to the point of mourning whenever others are suffering and seek to comfort them with the consolation we receive from God? Do we love God and others enough to become meek, gentle and humble before them? Rather than try to affirm ourselves in our rights and our strength? Do we love God and others to hunger and thirst for holiness, for justice, for our right relationship with God and other, and to be passionate, to remedy any injustice that they suffer against God and others? Do we love God enough to become merciful, like His merciful and readily forgive and reconcile with others seven times, seven times to love God and others to be pure of heart, chaste, and see God in others, refusing ever to use them for our pleasure. Need to love God and others enough to be called children of God by seeking peace rather than strife. Even putting our own lives to risk and restore harmony to war torn areas. Do we love God and others enough to be persecuted and witness to our Christian faith? To be canceled, to be insulted, mocked in culminated the path to Heaven? The path to holiness is a path of love. Jesus indicated to us in the conversation He has with describing the gospel that He wants to have. Likewise with each of us this Sunday and to help us on the road to sanctity through love, he gives us himself and his body and blood in preparation. Let us ask him to help us pray Master, with all our heart, mind, soul and strength to be strengthened by Jesus on the inside by means of Holy Communion. To do this in memory of Him giving our bodies our blood, our sweat, tears, mind, heart, soul and strength for the good of others. Is Jesus, given all He had for us in our salvation. This is the path so that in future Novembers others will be praying through our intercession and seeking to follow our truly Christian indeed holy example of twofold love. God bless you all. |
| 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. And you can listen to his homilies at Catholic Preaching income. We hope to have you back next week. And until then, you go with our prayers. |