Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #763 November 3: A Battle Between Good and Evil, Nick Shirley Inspires Gen Z

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#763 November 3: A Battle Between Good and Evil, Nick Shirley Inspires Gen Z · Claymore: Become Who You Are

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Claymore Become Who You Are podcast, the production of the John Paul Two Renewal Center.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm Jack Riegert, your host.
0:06
SPEAKER_01: So good to be with you.
0:07
SPEAKER_01: I gave a little presentation to a men's group, very short, uh talking about the midterms.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: And this group complained about bringing up politics.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: Then I get it.
0:17
SPEAKER_01: You know, hey, look at it's a Saturday morning.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I don't want to talk about politics.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: But we have the midterms coming up.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: You know, this is for our families, our marriages.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: These are important things to talk about.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: And what they're not formed about is basic Catholic social teaching.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: This is just basic teaching that's been passed down to us.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: This is all part of the church.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: You can't separate the gospel from what Jesus said to go out into the world.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: The kingdom of God is at hand, he said.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: Repent and believe in the gospel.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: We're called to be light out into the world.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: So basic Catholic social teaching, like a triangle in front of you, like a two-dimensional pyramid right in front of you.
0:57
SPEAKER_01: What's holding it up at the base, right?
1:01
SPEAKER_01: The human heart.
1:02
SPEAKER_01: Most of the evil you see manifested in the world begins in the human heart, right?
1:06
SPEAKER_01: We got to get our hearts back and we got to understand our sexuality, the marriage and the family, our relationships, to bring that love of your heart into creating families.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: And love of neighbor belongs to that.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: So that's holding up one side of this triangle again, the base.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: And the other base, of course, is Christ in the church.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: And these are linked together.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: Take one without the other.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: You see the decline that we're in right now.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: You see the attack on the human person.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: We live in this world of secular materialism, of moral relativism.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: We're disconnected from that truth.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: So we bring that light of Christ back in, and this is the base.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: But then Christ calls us to go out.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: Bring this out into the culture.
1:45
SPEAKER_01: Bring this out into the love of your country.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: So here's the three necessary societies that are flowing down to us, right?
1:52
SPEAKER_01: Marriage and the family, unite the Christ and the church.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: These are connected.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: These are the base, the basic building cell of Western civilization.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: The third part of that, what we call polity.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: Polity is really how we how we organize our government, how we organize our laws that should be informed by Judeo-Christian principles, right?
2:15
SPEAKER_01: The Ten Commandments.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: Our nation's laws should be a reflection of these two, religious liberty and supporting marriage in the family in the in the individual human person.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: What did we see?
2:26
SPEAKER_01: Just over the last decades in our lives, right?
2:28
SPEAKER_01: We've seen the separation and everything's coming down, right?
2:32
SPEAKER_01: Those laws now attack the human person.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: If you get confused, because there's a lot of noise coming in, just get back to that basic again.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: Sister Lucia, a visionary of Fatima, was very clear on the focus of this battle.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: That again, while the war between good and evil manifests itself in many ways, she wrote that the last or defining battle, and this is what we're in now between our Lord and Satan, this is why it's so important to talk about these things.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: She said, What?
2:57
SPEAKER_01: Is over marriage and the family.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: John Paul II said the future of humanity flows by marriage and the family.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: This is why this is so important.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: What are we experiencing today again?
3:07
SPEAKER_01: That attack on the institution of marriage itself, the attack on children through abortion.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: And if that child escapes the womb, the mother's womb and takes that first breath, ooh, the culture, the society, the evil just goes out and attacks it with these gender ideologies, rendering that child sterile, even, right?
3:24
SPEAKER_01: Puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, mutilating the very bodies of these children, robbing them of their innocence, even in government schools, through so-called sex education, which is anything but once that child grows into old age, ooh, let's push a suicide assisted suicide.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: We see this in youth and Asia, right?
3:43
SPEAKER_01: So on November 3rd, the country is going to vote for governors, Congress, and in four states, abortion is back on the ballot again.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: For the men of Claymore, we got to speak the truth, huh?
3:54
SPEAKER_01: And we got to bring the light into the world.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: The midterms are not primarily, listen to this about left or right, about Republican or Democrat.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: I don't get into that.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: They're a showdown and a definitive battle between good and evil.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: So how do we vote?
4:07
SPEAKER_01: What do we do?
4:08
SPEAKER_01: We must take it upon ourselves to be clear in our own hearts, minds, consciences, the core issues, or we're going to lose our way in the midst of this darkness.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: We'll get into all into the weeds, and the progressives love to get in the weeds on all these issues.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: You just say, no, no, let's get back to these core things, right?
4:24
SPEAKER_01: The darkness is not only in the secular world either, is it?
4:28
SPEAKER_01: It's a confusing time as priests like Father James Martin spewing heresies and they're allowed to remain in good standing while faithful priests and bishops are censored and canceled.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: You know, Pope Paul VI said the smoke of Satan has somehow entered into the church itself.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: And uh and we see this.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: You know, good and evil have been battling all the way from the very beginning of time.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: I kind of like the idea that everything's in the open.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: That evil was here before, evil in men's hearts.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, I chose 12 of you, and one of you is Satan, right?
4:59
SPEAKER_01: One that would betray him.
5:01
SPEAKER_01: So I want to just clarify those issues again.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, when I'm speaking to people, I always ask them, where do you stand on life?
5:08
SPEAKER_01: Where do you stand on marriage?
5:10
SPEAKER_01: And once I understand where they're coming from there, where do you stand on religious freedom to be able to speak about these things?
5:17
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I always bring the discussion down to.
5:20
SPEAKER_01: Because if they don't get that, this is what we have to talk about.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: And if they don't want to talk about that, there's no sense talking about anything else, right?
5:27
SPEAKER_01: In today's gospel, as I'm recording this, it was from Luke chapter 12, verses 1 through 7.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, beware of the leaven of Pharisees, he said, which is hypocrisy.
5:39
SPEAKER_01: What does just a little leaven do?
5:41
SPEAKER_01: This is outside the gospel right now.
5:43
SPEAKER_01: What does a little leaven do when mixed with this batch of dough?
5:46
SPEAKER_01: What is he talking about, right?
5:47
SPEAKER_01: It changes the whole batch.
5:49
SPEAKER_01: It infects the whole body.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: So we have to be very, very careful when we hear hypocrites or heretics to call it out.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, do it in a good way.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: Frame it any way you want to, but you have to stand up for the truth because what they're doing is slowly seeping this in.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, we see we see this in the church.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: They call it past being pastoral, being kind, compassionate.
6:11
SPEAKER_01: The same verbiage they use in the secular world.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: Of course, we're supposed to be empathetic, compassionate.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Himself said, I came with mercy.
6:21
SPEAKER_01: This is divine mercy, right?
6:23
SPEAKER_01: I want everybody to know about my mercy.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: But he said, the kingdom of God is at hand.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: Repent and believe in the gospel.
6:30
SPEAKER_01: We're here for a very short time.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: We got to get this right because this battle is going to take us right into eternal life.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: We got to stand up for all that's true, good, and beautiful in the world, right?
6:42
SPEAKER_01: And do it the way you want to.
6:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, be careful.
6:45
SPEAKER_01: We have to be empathetic because a lot of people haven't been formed.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: So it's up to each of us today to know our faith, to live it.
6:51
SPEAKER_01: Uh Jesus went on and said this in the in that gospel nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: Whatever you say in the dark shall be heard in the light.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: And then his warning of the severity of the battle we're in.
7:09
SPEAKER_01: He said, I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who can kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: But I warn you who to fear, he said, Fear him who after he has killed has the power to cast into hell.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I tell you, fear him.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: So much falls on the shoulders of the faithful today.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: Are you up to the task?
7:31
SPEAKER_01: Gotta know your faith, right?
7:32
SPEAKER_01: So in this epic battle, it's important to ask, are the citizens of the United States a moral and religious people?
7:39
SPEAKER_01: Do we today still have the faith, the courage, and the fortitude to build the culture of life, John Paul called it, for our children, our grandchildren, our culture to thrive in, our nation?
7:51
SPEAKER_01: Or will we settle for the inevitable decline of our nation?
7:54
SPEAKER_01: And what John Paul called the rival claim, the culture of death, and with it the acceptance again of abortion, assisted suicide, and the redefinition of marriage itself to mean anything and so everything.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: John Paul II was clear.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, he said, it's never licit to obey it or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law or vote on it.
8:26
SPEAKER_01: That's from Evangelium Vitae, the gospel of life number 73, if you want to look that up.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: The good news, amid all the confusion, we're meeting young people, especially young men, who are seeing clearly through this darkness and bringing light into the world.
8:42
SPEAKER_01: One of them is Nick Shirley.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: You've heard me talk about this young guy who, in my opinion, is a national hero at only 24 years old.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: How inspiring is this guy?
8:52
SPEAKER_01: He's got that bass, that core, and he understands it and he understands the mission.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: So I want to play a recent clip.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: He was speaking to an audience of young people to motivate them.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: And I just want to give you a little taste of him.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: I'll put this in the in the show notes, a link to this on YouTube.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: It's only about 15 minutes, the whole thing, 14, 15 minutes.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: Let me shear this.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: Hello everybody.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Sweet.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm super excited to be here today.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: Not too often do I come to Texas.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: I do hear there's quite a bit of fraud here in Texas, so I need to come back.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: I only have today, but I know there's a lot of fraud taking place here in Texas to Actually start investigating.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: So maybe you guys can expect some new videos in the next coming months.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: Now, my talk might be a bit different than everyone else.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: I just want to tell you guys a bit about uh how I've been able to do what I've done and hopefully inspire a lot of the youth here.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Um and if you're not a part of the youth, maybe you can share my message with one of your grandkids or one of your kids.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's super easy to do.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: Okay, now I'm gonna play up a little bit.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: Again, I I I would like you to watch this whole thing.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: This is about the 10-minute mark.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: And if you think back um like down to the history, whenever someone's doing good, the the more evil comes against them.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, just think about what happened just over a year ago with Charlie Kirk.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: Somebody was doing so much good, talking the truth, and they literally did what they did to him because they were afraid of what he was talking about because of the truth he was explaining to people.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: And it's so sad to think.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think of like literally going all the way back to the beginning of time, those that go out and do the best and do good are those that they want to take down.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: And uh I want to I I'm gonna play the last minute or so of this.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: Let's see here.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: This will be about if you want to if you want to watch this yourself, almost to the 13-minute mark.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh people tend to forget that the United States became became the greatest country in 250 years because of what we believe in.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: And so when all these other people want to come and bring these new ideas that have been proven to never work in other societies or in other countries, yet they're trying to tell you that that's gonna that's the way forward.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's actually not.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: It's the way to go backwards.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: What made America the greatest country in 250 years is the same thing that's gonna continue to make America even greater for the next 250 years.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: And I actually do believe.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: And I actually do believe it is our duty to uphold all those values that made America our great nation that it is today.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: And for me, my part in doing it is to go out and expose what's going on, show people the truth.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people don't have it these days, but each of you also have your own obligations, whether it be inside your neighborhood, inside your school, inside your chapter, uh, at your church, whatever it is, we all have our own obligations, and God has a mission for each and every single one of us.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: And as long as you're doing your best to go and uh pursue the truth, you have nothing to fear.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: And that that's my message to you guys today.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: Have high goals, have standards, high standards, and then go out and crush all your goals and be ready for what will come.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: And I promise it'll be a fun adventure.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: What an inspiring, what an inspiring young guy, isn't he?
12:46
SPEAKER_01: So again, you have this fierce battle taking place between good and evil.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
12:51
SPEAKER_01: We dare not sit this one out.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: If that young guy, 24 years old, can can do what he's doing today, just go right into the the midst of this battle and face it, it uh all of us got to step up to the plate, right?
13:05
SPEAKER_01: Even after our ballot then is cast, even if we got the outcome we voted for, which we can't just expect, don't expect, though, uh a grand political savior or a political system and able to rescue our nation on its own.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: Again, this is a this triangle, right?
13:22
SPEAKER_01: This is just one part of it.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: For one thing, God already gave us a savior, right?
13:26
SPEAKER_01: And secondly, we are each called to pick up that Claymore sword and follow Jesus Christ, our our leader into battle.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: You're expected to go to war.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: See, it's not only about our nation, but when you act like this, like Nick Shirley, it's your heart that's going to change.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, when you when you bring that what's true, good, and beautiful into the world, you change what John Paul called self-determination.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: You determine who you are by your actions, right?
13:54
SPEAKER_01: And so when you think about the nation and when you go into the world and you do good things, you have to remember that it's your heart.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: First of all, this is the bottom, right?
14:04
SPEAKER_01: Remember the the base?
14:06
SPEAKER_01: Your heart is being contended for between good and evil.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: Do you accept this stuff?
14:10
SPEAKER_01: Do you become this this just this wimpy person in the world?
14:14
SPEAKER_01: Are you to become a real man?
14:17
SPEAKER_01: You know, you got to stand up for what's true, good, and beautiful.
14:20
SPEAKER_01: So buckle up, set your standards high, like Nick Shirley said, and make a decision to be a force for truth and goodness in this world.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: It changes everything.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: Such obedience, of course, is not easy in a fallen world as a result of that mysterious original sin committed at the prompting of Satan, the one who Jesus said is a liar and the father of lies.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: So what happens?
14:43
SPEAKER_01: Man, men and women are constantly tempted to turn our gaze away from the living and true God in order to direct it toward idols, Saint Paul said, exchanging, he went on to say, the truth about God for a lie.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: Our capacity to know the truth is also darkened then, and our will to submit to it is weakened, thus giving ourselves over to relativism and skepticism.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: This is from John's gospel.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: Mankind, he says, goes on in search of an illusory freedom apart from truth itself.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: You'll never find it.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: St.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: Paul warned us, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and they're going to turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: Don't we see that today?
15:33
SPEAKER_01: As for you, though, he said, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
15:41
SPEAKER_01: From 2 Timothy chapter 4.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: Scripture's prohibition on the shedding of innocent blood and the historic Christian definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman are why Catholics and other Christians can stand in the same place as a brotherhood, even when we don't share the same magisterium.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: The polling place then is not the whole of discipleship, of course, but it's one piece, and it's an important one, where discipleship becomes public.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: As Christians, we have an obligation to vote against the culture of death.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: And here are three claims again that meet that test with unusual clarity.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: Two of them, abortion and assisted suicide, are deliberately ending a human life.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: You can't do it.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: The third, the redefinition of natural marriage, the lifelong union of one man and one woman, ordered to the good of the spouses and to the procreation and upbringing of children, is number three.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: On October 7th, 1979, while visiting the United States, John Paul was speaking on the Capitol Mall.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: And he said this.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: He said, Do not hesitate to proclaim this before you and before the world that all human life, from the moment of conception and through all subsequent stages, is sacred because human life is created in the image and likeness of God.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: He continued, when the sacredness of life before birth is attacked, we will stand up and proclaim that no one ever has the authority to destroy unborn life.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: Abortion always constitutes a grave moral disorder since it's a deliberate killing of an innocent human being.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: The human being is to be respected, he said, and treated as a person from the moment of conception.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: The conflict, he wrote, is a war of the powerful against the weak, striking especially at the more significant moments of existence.
17:33
SPEAKER_01: The moment of conception and then birth and the moment of death.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: We're weak, we're vulnerable.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: We have to protect each other then.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: But John Paul II did not stop at judgment.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: He said to women who have had abortions, he said what was happening, of course, there is gravely wrong.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: But then he told them repeatedly not to give in to despair, because the father of mercies, again, this is the divine mercy behind us.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, I want to bring mercy into the world, especially now at this time.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: And John Paul wrote, The Father of mercies, God the Father, sending his son, is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the sacrament of reconciliation.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: It's such a gift in the church here.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: Go to confession.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: You will be forgiven.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: See, a law can be opposed without abandoning the person who broke it.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: We're all sinners.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: We've all been there.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: The state of Illinois now, for one, to give you an example, has written the contrary claim into statute, into law.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: This is why we have to go out and worry about polity.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: The Reproductive Health Act of 2019 here in Illinois makes abortion a fundamental right.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: Today in Illinois, there's no waiting period for an abortion.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: You can just go in.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: They don't say, well, do you want to think about this a little bit?
18:48
SPEAKER_01: You know, you're killing a child here, you're killing your child here.
18:53
SPEAKER_01: And that wasn't even enough.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: As of June 1st, 2022, that act of 2019 was updated so that minors, listen to this, so minors of any age don't even need parental notification for an abortion.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: A little girl, 13 years old, 12 years old, can walk in and have an abortion.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: Signing these laws, Governor Pritzer Pritzker called Illinois a beacon of hope in the heart of this nation.
19:20
SPEAKER_01: On November 3rd, that record is on the ballot.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: Pritzker is seeking a third term against Darren Bailey, who he describes as having radical views for opposing abortion.
19:31
SPEAKER_01: So these are the things that are on the ballot.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: And again, you have to get back to the root of things, you know, that that's a human being.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: You have to know that that's a human being, and we're being judged on whether we protect that human being or destroy it.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: Look, these are not easy issues, are they?
19:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, especially if you haven't been formed.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: It's very easy to get caught up in this culture.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: The National Democratic Platform of 2024 uses that same frame as the Illinois law.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: It says the party believes unequivocally that every woman should have access to safe and legal abortion.
20:06
SPEAKER_01: And it commits Democrats to pass national legislation to make Roe the law of the land again.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to tell you how to vote, but you either vote for the culture of life or the culture of death, and you make your best choices there, right?
20:21
SPEAKER_01: John Paul II's rule for law is not ambiguous.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize, he said.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: There's no obligation in conscience to obey such laws.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: Instead, there's a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection.
20:40
SPEAKER_01: In the case of an intrinsically unjust law permitting abortion or euthanasia, he said, it is therefore never illicit to obey it or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law or vote for it.
20:53
SPEAKER_01: Evangelium Vitae applies the identical judgment to the other end of life, euthanasia, an action or omission which of itself and by intention causes death with the purpose of eliminating all suffering, John Paul says, is a grave violation of the law of God, since it's deliberate, again, a moral, unacceptable killing of a human person.
21:17
SPEAKER_01: You can't partake in that.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: He's blind, uh, he's uh hard of hearing.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: But I can't say, well, let's, dad, let's take this pill and you're gonna be you're gonna stop suffering.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: You know, suffering is part of who we are.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: And as human beings, you know, we offer up that suffering.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: And as Catholics, especially, we offer up that suffering, don't we?
21:46
SPEAKER_01: We saw John Paul at the end of his life still uh going out into the public, even with Parkinson's disease.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: This is tough when you got to cure your cross.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: This is all part of the sacrifice.
21:57
SPEAKER_01: Jesus was hanging on the cross.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: This is my body.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Given for you, we have to carry our cross too, right?
22:02
SPEAKER_01: And John Paul and the Catholic teaching distinguish this from foregoing disappropriate or futile attempts to keep up life.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: In other words, if my uh dad had to go on a respirator uh that would prolong uh dying, and we know he's he's dying, and we just try to keep him alive for a couple more weeks, you don't have to do that.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: It's not the same thing as choosing a drug in order to die, right?
22:26
SPEAKER_01: I I'm not gonna force feed my dad.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: If he decides at the end he he lost his appetite, he's not gonna eat anymore.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: Those things happen.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: So this is a natural death.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to try to keep somebody alive, but let them naturally uh uh die, huh?
22:42
SPEAKER_01: He warned that a utilitarian mode of utilitarian just using one another, would propose to eliminate malformed babies, the severely handicapped, the disabled, the elderly, especially when they're not self-sufficient and the terminally ill.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: On the mall, again in that talk in 1979, he had already said that when the sick, the age of the dying are abandoned, the Christian response is to proclaim that they are worthy of love, care, and respect.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: Illinois crossed that line in stature on December twelfth, twenty twenty five, when Pritzker signed the end of life options for terminally ill patients, effective September twelfth of this year.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: Competent adult residents expected to die within six months may request and self-administer a lethal prescription.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: This is the the the first step.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: Pretty soon it's going to, and it's it's already happening in some states.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: You know, you can you can uh kill young people now that are depressed or get a lot of headaches or whatever, and you just give them a pill and they're yeah, just say, hey, we're gonna eliminate your suffering.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: You know, when you find people in weak moments like this, it's not out of the question that they're gonna say, yeah, give me a pill, I'm in so much pain, and I'll be done with this thing.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: We we're not allowed to do that.
23:58
SPEAKER_01: But Governor Britzger said he had been moved by those standing up for freedom and choice at the end of life.
24:04
SPEAKER_01: They use these words again.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: And that the law helps patients avoid unnecessary pain and suffering through decisions made with authority, autonomy, and empathy.
24:13
SPEAKER_01: Again, all of these words, right?
24:16
SPEAKER_01: They always have to come back into the truth and how we're created.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: The church's name for that act remains euthanasia or assisted suicide, no matter what other terms you put on it.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: Changing the statutory label does not change the intention to cause death.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's just talk about marriage before we go here.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: The third claim is not about killing, and the church does not treat it as identical in gravity to abortion.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: It does treat it as a truth that civil law may not rewrite.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: In familiaris consortio and the letter to families, John Paul taught that marriage is the covenant of a man and a woman, it's indissoluble in the ordinary setting in which human life is welcomed.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: In 2003, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with John Paul's approval, published considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: And he said this no ideology can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man and a woman.
25:17
SPEAKER_01: There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage in the family.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: A child does not come out of this, right?
25:31
SPEAKER_01: This is not sexual union.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: Sexual union takes a complementary sex organs, huh?
25:36
SPEAKER_01: To produce life.
25:37
SPEAKER_01: This is natural.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to have the church's teaching to tell you that what is natural.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: The document condemns unjust discrimination now against anybody with homosexual attractions or even homosexual persons that say, hey, you know, I don't believe in the church.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: This is what I want to live.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: We don't go after them condemning them.
25:57
SPEAKER_01: In fact, you have to love them.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: But in the same breath, it says that approval of homosexual acts contradicts the moral truth.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: This is why it's not allowed.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: You cannot have same-sex people getting married within the church.
26:11
SPEAKER_01: It's not about hatred.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: It's about the church saying that it can't change that which is already established.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: It has no authority to change what God created, good, right?
26:22
SPEAKER_01: It then addresses politicians directly.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: If it is true that all Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians, John Paul said, are obliged to do so in a particular way.
26:35
SPEAKER_01: And this is tough for politicians too.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: This is not about condemning individual people.
26:40
SPEAKER_01: This is about saying as Catholics and as Christians, we have to stand up for our faith.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: So the polling booth comes.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: The catechism calls the exercise of the vote, a moral obligation in service of the common good.
26:53
SPEAKER_01: You hear that?
26:54
SPEAKER_01: For us to vote is a moral obligation in the service of the common good.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: We have to bring good into the culture.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: We have to protect the innocent, the vulnerable.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: We have to stand up for a natural marriage, right?
27:09
SPEAKER_01: Catechism number 2240 says you have a moral obligation to pay taxes, to exercise the right to vote, and to defend one's country.
27:18
SPEAKER_01: Catholics may not promote laws that attack human life, and they may not vote for a political program that contradicts fundamental contents of faith and morals.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: The U.S.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: bishops wrote a paper called Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, and it states the voters' rule in one sentence.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who favors a policy promoting an intrinsically evil act such as abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and redefining marriages in a way that violate its essential meaning.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: The bishops add that the obligation to oppose policies promoting intrinsically evil acts has a special claim on conscience, and that a voter may legitimately disqualify a candidate on any one of those acts.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: So November 3rd does not ask for a perfect ticket.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: It asks whether you and I, as voters, will refuse to intend the evil, prefer the candidate or the measure that limits it when limitation is the real choice, and decline to call compassion the killing of the innocent.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: The voting booth is not the last word because that same duty that refuses an unjust law also loves and feeds the woman that finds herself pregnant, maybe alone.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: We have to be with them.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: We have to show mercy and go out into the world and help that woman.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: We have to take the time to sit with the old.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: We have to support the pregnancy help centers and the hospices that will not kill.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: A vote that limits the evil and a parish that receives the child and the dying, and the people in those parishes are one witness.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: We stand against evil, but we also stand for those that were hurt by evil, or maybe by miseducation, or whatever reason.
29:01
SPEAKER_01: We have to love God and we have to love our neighbor no matter what.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: See, one without the other is not fully living out our Christian duty, is it?
29:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, life is a messy business.
29:11
SPEAKER_01: Politics is a messy business.
29:13
SPEAKER_01: Standing for the truth sometimes can be a messy business.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: We have to be compassionate, we have to be merciful.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: Somebody is in a homosexual relationship.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't just go out and condemn them.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: I know people that are in uh same-sex relationships.
29:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm not out to condemn them.
29:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go out and I'll have dinner with them and I'll talk, right?
29:31
SPEAKER_01: We have to treat them as persons.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: But if the discussion comes in what is the truth of things, I'm not gonna be afraid to say, hey, I'm Catholic, man.
29:39
SPEAKER_01: You know, you can't get married in the church.
29:41
SPEAKER_01: We say, Well, you're haters.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: I said, No, the church cannot change what God has created.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: Saint Teresa Benedicta on the way to the gas chamber when she was in the concentration camp said, you know, speak the truth in love and love people in the truth.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: Because one without the other is a destructive lie.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: Remember, this is the salvation of souls at the end.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: This is not about how you're gonna live the next five years, ten years, twenty years, whatever.
30:10
SPEAKER_01: We want you to live with God forever.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: This is our goal, isn't it?
30:14
SPEAKER_01: Hey, God bless you.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: Good to be with you.