Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 30 ｜ The Tragedy of the Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, it's Allie. Welcome to Relatable. I'm in this new space. That is not my normal space

00:00:05.840 if you're watching on CRTV.com. I'm having some work done on the room where I usually record this

00:00:11.420 podcast, so we're in a new area. If you're new to Relatable, this is a podcast where we approach

00:00:16.700 culture and politics from a Christian conservative perspective. Today we are going to talk about

00:00:22.640 the sex scandal in the Catholic Church, and I wanted to get a Catholic's perspective on this

00:00:28.480 since all of you know I am very much a Protestant, so I am interviewing my favorite Catholic Michael

00:00:34.400 Knowles of The Daily Wire. To watch this episode, you should go to CRTV.com slash Allie and subscribe

00:00:40.480 using promo code Allie20, or you can stay right here and just listen to me. So first, I am going to

00:00:46.460 summarize some of the details of this scandal for those of you who don't know about it. So last week,

00:00:52.820 a jury report was released of a years-long investigation of Catholic diocese in Pennsylvania.

00:00:59.900 The report says that more than a thousand children have been abused by 300 Catholic priests over the

00:01:05.800 past 70 years. Unfortunately, this is not the first or the only scandal we've seen in the church.

00:01:12.740 If you have seen the movie Spotlight with my favorite girl, Rachel McAdams, then you know about the

00:01:18.420 abuse that was uncovered in Boston by journalists at the Boston Globe. They found that church leaders

00:01:23.640 in the Archdiocese of Boston were guilty of perpetrating and then covering up abuse of

00:01:29.000 minors in the church. And this was just one of the many investigations into the Catholic diocese

00:01:34.200 around the world. Australia, Ireland, Argentina, Canada, they all kind of had the same stuff,

00:01:39.180 which really revealed a horrific pattern of abuse and especially pedophilia.

00:01:44.080 This abuse started getting increasing publicity in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. Adults started coming

00:01:50.840 forward saying that they had been abused by priests and church leaders for decades of their life.

00:01:56.560 According to USA Today, the majority of these victims in the church were between ages 11 and

00:02:02.060 14 years old. Some victims have been as young as three years old. So awful. Pope John Paul II,

00:02:09.460 Pope Benedict, both condemned all of these acts as evil. The Holy See, which is the governing body of

00:02:16.100 the Catholic Church, in between 2001 and 2010, looked into sex abuse allegations of 3,000 priests

00:02:23.900 going back 50 years. So this is, I think it's safe to say, without a doubt, a widespread and

00:02:31.560 institutional and a devastating problem within the Catholic Church. And this particular case that we

00:02:37.180 just heard about in Pennsylvania is, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General, the biggest

00:02:42.180 investigation into the Catholic Church by the government. A thousand kids, 300 predator priests,

00:02:48.660 70 years. This is according to a jury report released last week that's been in the works for two years now,

00:02:55.360 reportedly. The details of this investigation, absolutely horrific. If you have kids with you

00:03:02.400 listening, I would recommend stopping now and listening to this later or putting headphones

00:03:07.360 in. Kids who were groomed by priests in the Catholic Church for abuse were given crucifixes

00:03:13.880 to wear so that other priests would know that these kids were ready to be sexually abused.

00:03:19.060 Boys and girls, teens and children were raped. One priest forced a boy to perform oral sex on him,

00:03:25.580 then washed his mouth out with holy water. Boys were forced to strip naked and then pose hanging

00:03:31.340 on a cross while priests took pictures. They distributed these pictures to others at the church.

00:03:37.540 Priests admitted to sadomasochistic sexual behavior with boys. A seven-year-old girl in the hospital,

00:03:44.540 recovering after getting her tonsils removed, was raped by a priest. And like I said, this abuse has

00:03:52.180 apparently been going on in Pennsylvania specifically for seven decades. I'm an 83-year-old

00:03:58.060 man who alleges abuse say that says that he is unable to show any affection to his wife or his

00:04:03.860 family because of that abuse. A woman who claims abuse says that it started when she was only 18 months

00:04:10.520 old. 18 months old. There are other quotes from adults who were victimized when they were children that

00:04:16.800 I can't even read. I don't even, I think it's even too far to say in this podcast. Uh, there are

00:04:23.220 thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people walking around today who have been sexually abused,

00:04:29.280 groomed, raped by people in the Catholic church, and they are haunted. They are irreparably ruined,

00:04:35.800 save for the redemption and healing of Jesus Christ. Um, there is no telling how many people these

00:04:41.140 victims have abused themselves since we know that hurt people typically hurt people, uh, as a way to

00:04:46.860 deal with their trauma. Uh, the Vatican released a statement after the report was released last week

00:04:52.380 saying, um, I acknowledge once more the suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse, the

00:04:58.860 abuse of power and the abuse of conscience perpetrated by a significant number of clerics and consecrated

00:05:04.180 persons. Uh, looking back to the past, no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm

00:05:10.080 will ever be sufficient. Uh, looking ahead to the future, no effort must be spared to create a

00:05:15.460 culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility

00:05:20.340 of their being covered up and perpetuated. Uh, the Pope released a letter yesterday to the church

00:05:26.220 calling for penance and for sorrow and, uh, restoration, which I think is very good. I agree with

00:05:32.980 all of those statements. Um, but you have to wonder if this is truly going to be a turning point for the

00:05:38.540 Catholic church and you have to hope that it is. Um, I think the only way for there to be true

00:05:43.060 change is obviously through the power of Christ via the Holy spirit. But I think the question has to

00:05:48.720 be asked why, why is this so prevalent in the Catholic church? Why is this kind of institutional

00:05:56.820 abuse so rampant? Yes, sin, but sin exists everywhere. Not, not in every institution and every

00:06:03.440 holy institution. Um, is it like this, uh, where someone is guilty of this kind of, uh, pervasive

00:06:09.700 atrocity? Uh, I've seen a lot of Catholics understandably on the defense after this. I

00:06:15.300 totally get that. I would be really defensive too. Um, but I don't see enough people asking why

00:06:22.120 this is so rampant in the Catholic church versus other churches. And look, Protestants, we have our

00:06:27.480 issues. Uh, the former president of the Southern Baptist convention was found guilty of covering up a

00:06:32.640 rape allegation earlier this year, for example. Um, but if I were Catholic, I would be wondering why

00:06:39.060 this kind of particular evil has happened universally in the Catholic church and for so long. Um, so this

00:06:45.520 is the question that I am going to discuss with Michael Knowles. Michael, thank you so much for

00:06:50.220 joining me. Thanks for having me. Yes. You are my favorite Catholic. I always, uh, I always say that.

00:06:55.680 I think I've probably said that on this podcast before. I have a lot of Catholic listeners, um,

00:07:01.340 who also follow you and really like you. So I'm excited to talk to you. Um, I wish I always wonder

00:07:06.560 if this is damning with faint praise though. Am I your only Catholic friend? Cause that could be

00:07:11.720 your favorite Catholic, your least favorite. You're my token. So when I say all of these bad things about

00:07:16.260 Catholics, I can be like, Oh, but I'm actually, I'm friends with Michael Knowles. So it makes it

00:07:20.400 better. No, you and Liz Wheeler in, in Matt Walsh, I just kind of put y'all on a shelf and say,

00:07:25.320 no, these are my Catholic friends. So it's fine that I'm saying all this stuff. Um, but really I wish it

00:07:30.360 was under better circumstances that we were talking. So I want to get your perspective

00:07:34.340 about this Catholic sex scandal. I know that you're probably devastated as I am, as every

00:07:39.380 Catholic that I've spoken to is. Uh, so can you tell me kind of your first reaction upon reading

00:07:43.920 this, uh, this investigation? Well, I'm not surprised by it. Uh, and this is an aspect of the

00:07:51.560 whole, uh, awful, this whole tragedy that people seem to miss is we've known that this happened.

00:07:58.180 We've known this since the early two thousands, uh, this investigation in Pennsylvania was,

00:08:02.960 uh, really important because it, it cataloged cases from 1947 all the way up to the present.

00:08:08.580 But it is, it is worth pointing out that the vast majority, virtually all of them took place

00:08:13.480 in the 1960s, seventies and eighties. So if there is possible, uh, if it's possible for there to be a

00:08:20.260 silver lining in all of this, it's that most of these priests are already dead and they, and many of

00:08:24.320 them have been dead for decades. Unfortunately, the flip side of that is because this mostly

00:08:29.480 happened a very long time ago, the priests who are not dead will probably not be prosecuted because

00:08:34.920 of statutes of limitations. Uh, the, the most jarring aspect of this, we, we know that a percentage

00:08:42.000 of priests abused children and other seminarians and other priests over a number of decades.

00:08:48.760 We know all of that. The, the aspect that is so horrifying about this, which I know because I

00:08:54.500 read that whole grand jury report is the particular wickedness of it. You know, uh, St. Paul writes

00:09:01.200 about spiritual wickedness in high places. It's not just the fleshy aspect that some priests with

00:09:07.800 disordered sexual desires, uh, committed crimes that I actually can sort of understand that. What is much

00:09:14.700 harder to understand is the level of evil and wickedness. You had these satanic rituals going

00:09:20.900 on. You had some priests in the 1970s and eighties would have the little boys pose as Christ on the

00:09:28.120 cross and take photos of it. They had one priest washed out a boy's mouth after he had, uh, used him

00:09:34.360 with, uh, holy water. You had another priest, uh, use a seven inch long crucifix to abuse children. I

00:09:42.200 mean, this is a degree of evil that seems gratuitous until you realize the real culprit of all this

00:09:50.060 in our, in our modern age, in our modern politics. What we really want is to say, okay, there's going

00:09:54.660 to be some new policy, some new, there's going to be a new reform and we're going to reform the

00:09:59.340 X, Y, and Z policy. And then this will stop. There isn't a policy for this. The cause of this is

00:10:06.140 that evil exists and evil has a personality. Antonin Scalia did a great interview in 2013 with

00:10:12.500 this very flippant New York magazine reporter. And he said, you're looking at me like I'm weird

00:10:17.140 because I believe in the devil. Many more intelligent people than you and I have believed

00:10:21.960 in the devil. Most people throughout history have believed in the devil. And that I think is the,

00:10:26.720 the essence here is the devil exists. It's the only way to make sense of the particular evil of this

00:10:31.540 crime. And if we deny that the problem will not be fixed. Yes. I agree that that's at the core of

00:10:38.340 every evil that we see. I mean, as conservatives, we kind of talk about this a lot. There are liberals

00:10:43.180 who continually want to slap on some kind of regulation in order to stop evil. We know that

00:10:48.100 that's not going to, not going to happen because it exists in the heart of man. However, I do think

00:10:53.720 that, I do think that there are other aspects of this that can be discussed within the Catholic

00:11:00.040 church. I heard a father, Jonathan Morris, who, as you know, he's on Fox news. Um, he's from my old

00:11:06.320 neighborhood that I would go grocery shopping and in the Bronx, these are great. There he seems like

00:11:11.120 a, he just seems like a great guy. I don't know him personally, but I thought his analysis last week

00:11:15.960 on this on Fox was really interesting. He said, you know, the, the crime isn't necessarily unique to

00:11:22.000 the Catholic church. This kind of abuse does happen everywhere, but he said the coverup is unique.

00:11:28.280 The coverup does not happen everywhere. And I don't hear a lot of Catholics saying that, that,

00:11:34.880 Hey, you know, we know that this sin exists because everyone is sinful, uh, everywhere. However,

00:11:41.500 the coverup like this doesn't happen in every sector of society that it's this pervasive, this

00:11:48.020 institutionalized. So why is that? Why is the Catholic church so kind of unique in the coverup

00:11:55.380 of pedophilia and predation? Well, because it's the largest and longest living institution in the

00:12:01.020 world. So I entirely agree with father Morris's point and with your point on that, there is a unique,

00:12:07.560 uh, bureaucracy to all of this, which seems to add to the evil. But this is because of course,

00:12:13.080 a 300 or 3000 person church somewhere simply doesn't have the, uh, institutional bureaucratic

00:12:19.980 decay that, uh, the, the Catholic church does. And, and this bureaucratic element is really key here

00:12:26.760 because we all know about the abuse of the children that took place over several, many decades.

00:12:32.680 Uh, one aspect that's really going untalked about is the priests and the cardinals and the bishops

00:12:40.320 who are abusing seminarians and young priests and their subordinates, a sort of me too moment for the

00:12:47.200 Catholic church. And what is so awful about that is we, we see this, I know a number of priests and

00:12:54.340 bizarrely, some of the best priests I know, some of the best priests in the world never seem to get

00:13:00.140 promoted. Why is that? Well, these sort of, uh, bland politician priests who turn a blind eye

00:13:07.400 to wickedness and corruption, they do seem to get promoted. Now, from everything we know about

00:13:12.080 bureaucracy, this makes perfect sense, but it's a real problem. And, uh, I, I, this might not be a

00:13:17.860 popular opinion because it's not totally satisfying, but the way to fix that is this, uh, Josh Shapiro,

00:13:24.700 the attorney general in Pennsylvania is doing that, that just by shedding light on this, the problem is

00:13:30.040 being fixed. You had Cardinal McCarrick who resigned from the college of cardinals just a couple of weeks

00:13:35.300 ago. He's the first cardinal to resign since 1927. And, and that was a political matter of a

00:13:40.940 monarchist cardinal and, uh, some, uh, political issues then. Uh, this is massive. And I, I know

00:13:47.600 firsthand from priests who say that Cardinal McCarrick was preying on them and others, uh,

00:13:52.620 just shedding the light on it does help to solve the problem a little bit, but the problem won't go

00:13:57.740 away. It's, it's perfectly easy to say, oh, you know, all of the social science show that, uh, other,

00:14:04.020 other denominations have the same rates of abuse. Another line is that, uh, public schools or, or,

00:14:10.940 school teachers in the United States abuse children at a much higher rate than priests do.

00:14:15.760 Sure. That that's all right. But one that that's not an excuse, is it? Yeah. Give some context,

00:14:21.560 but it's not an excuse. And, uh, what must happen in the church, the only real practical matter of

00:14:28.560 reform I could see is, uh, to uncover the bishops who have covered it up and who have moved priests

00:14:35.280 around. Uh, but that said that the, the, the corruption in the bureaucracies is pretty deep

00:14:41.300 and I don't know how quickly that's going to be fixed. Yeah. And I appreciate you saying that

00:14:45.540 because I think that's something that not a lot of people are saying, uh, like you said,

00:14:49.260 this happens everywhere. I hear a lot of Catholics saying that. I think that it's perfectly justifiable

00:14:53.900 for Catholics like you and other people to feel a little bit defensive. Uh, there are a lot of people

00:14:58.420 attacking the faith itself inherently that saying, you know, Catholicism itself is corrupt. And that's why

00:15:04.240 this is happening. And this is representative of all Catholics. Well, we know that's not true. And

00:15:08.760 I appreciate, um, the need or the feeling to be defensive over that. However, I, I do think that

00:15:16.220 it's, that it's good to acknowledge that it's not the same as the public school system. It's not the

00:15:20.600 same as, you know, uh, college football, because we know that Christians are held to a higher standard.

00:15:26.220 We're supposed to be above reproach. We have the Holy spirit inside of us, which compels us to

00:15:30.560 something else. And so we are to a higher standard than secular institutions who don't claim holiness.

00:15:36.020 Um, so my question is, I guess, is there something wrong with bureaucracy when it comes to religious

00:15:43.340 institutions? Yes, we can say all we want to sure. The bureaucracy is bad, but shouldn't you break up

00:15:50.020 that bureaucracy? If that is perpetuating this kind of institutionalized sin in a, an otherwise

00:15:55.980 holy institution? Well, we see the, because we see the same rates of abuse everywhere that this

00:16:02.300 doesn't seem to me a good argument, uh, against the church itself. Uh, if we saw far lower rates of

00:16:08.220 abuse among smaller denominations, then perhaps we would. Another one of the reforms that people have

00:16:13.380 proposed is we need to end priestly celibacy. And the, some people make what seem to me obviously

00:16:19.740 mistaken theological arguments for that. And other people make a practical common sense arguments.

00:16:25.920 They say, well, they have to be celibate. So they have these deviant sexual desires and actions,

00:16:30.100 but here it is important to look at the social scientific data. There was a very long study by

00:16:35.140 John Jake criminal college, um, a five year long study, which showed no link between celibacy and

00:16:41.600 child abuse. It actually showed no link between same sex attraction and child abuse as well. So I think

00:16:47.200 some of those, uh, some of those easy fixes, you know, uh, I don't know, break up the bridge to

00:16:54.300 break up the Catholic church, which isn't going to happen necessarily, but break up some of the

00:17:00.700 bureaucracy. And obviously I'm a Protestant. We've had many conversations about Catholicism and

00:17:05.300 Protestantism and, and I know all of the wonderful things that the Catholic church has accomplished.

00:17:09.940 They've been spearheading justice and mercy for centuries. So I don't, I know all of that.

00:17:17.760 But I think that the thing that I have problem with is that when a priest is ordained as a priest,

00:17:22.980 he is a priest forever, no matter what. I mean, Donald world, the, the guy who oversaw all of

00:17:28.480 this in Pittsburgh for 18 years, he spoke at the funeral of one of the abusers. And he said

00:17:33.060 verbatim that a priest is a priest forever, no matter what that to me is an inherent problem.

00:17:39.520 That's a very good point. I wouldn't be quoting Cardinal world though. I think Cardinal world has a lot

00:17:43.820 of problems. But he's just quoting the catechism. He's just quoting the sacrament of orders.

00:17:49.340 Well, he is in a certain sense, but in a practical sense, he isn't because we know that

00:17:53.460 recent popes certainly in the current Pope have laicized a number of priests,

00:17:58.100 defrocked them, taken the collar off as, as they should be. And in a spiritual sense,

00:18:03.660 I suppose they are still priests, but they're, they're, they're not in front of congregations

00:18:08.440 or parishes. They're not working with people. Pope Francis and Pope Benedict have sent priests

00:18:14.180 to live a life of seclusion and penance and prayer. So they, they maintain the spiritual order

00:18:19.440 of priesthood, but no practical application of it. The, uh, the, you know, all of this is an argument,

00:18:24.660 it seems to me for the, uh, Catholicity of the church, because when you, when you look at the

00:18:32.800 particular evil, even if the rates of abuse aren't higher, you look at the particular evil of this

00:18:36.960 men of God, like Cardinal Wuerl says, you're a priest forever in a, in a certain sense, uh, men

00:18:43.620 who are supposed to be representatives of Christ on earth. And they're doing these horrific and

00:18:47.200 satanic things. Uh, father Gabriele Amorth, who was the Vatican exorcist for a quarter of a century,

00:18:54.400 he said before he died that the devil resides in the Vatican, resides in the Vatican. And this makes

00:19:00.220 a great deal of sense to me. One, because we had just had two of the greatest men of the century,

00:19:04.900 John Paul II and, uh, Benedict XVI, who were the, uh, pontiffs, but also because if you were the

00:19:12.800 devil, where would you go? Where would you concentrate your efforts? It seems to me I would,

00:19:16.780 uh, concentrate them on the church. And we see, uh, the horrific consequences of that as Gabriele

00:19:22.300 Amorth pointed out, but this doesn't seem to me an argument against the church. It seems to me an

00:19:26.440 argument against the devil. So do you feel like lay people in the Catholic church, and I truly don't

00:19:31.940 know the answer to this, have the ability to hold their priests accountable, even though you guys

00:19:36.320 believe that the priests are on another level of holiness? Well, certainly we're, we're seeing them

00:19:41.640 hold the priests accountable. Yeah. What does it mean? Once, once the crimes are uncovered, then the

00:19:46.340 priests, uh, can be held accountable. Very fortunately, these incidents of, of abuse have

00:19:51.760 waned substantially in recent decades. Uh, so we're, we're not seeing much. Why do you think that is?

00:19:57.340 Why, why do you think it's waned? What's changed? Well, uh, uh, in a very practical and criminal

00:20:03.360 matter, uh, the, the investigations in 2002, 2003 shed so much light on this that there,

00:20:08.940 that there's simply more light and that, that it gets rid of the corruption. Right. But, uh,

00:20:13.060 there is a question. Why did it crop up during the 60s, 70s, and 80s? Because even before these

00:20:18.500 investigations, the rates of incidents declined dramatically. Why is that? It seems that it has

00:20:23.080 something to do with the sexual revolution of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Yeah. It seems to have something

00:20:28.020 to do with the cultural revolutions of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. It perhaps has something to do with

00:20:32.840 revolutions within the Catholic church, which, uh, discarded so much of the traditional liturgy,

00:20:38.820 so much of the traditional reverence for insipid, saccharine, new age-leaning, uh, liturgies

00:20:46.560 and practices. And, uh, one wonders if those don't go hand in hand. Fortunately, right now,

00:20:52.500 we're in a period of reforming the reform. You're seeing a resurgence in the Latin mass.

00:20:56.900 Some of those acoustic guitars are disappearing. And, uh, you're seeing a return to seriousness.

00:21:01.660 And then on the, on the, in the most serious matter, in this child abuse, you're seeing these

00:21:05.860 priests defrocked, laicized, and dying. Uh, this, this is all cause for hope. But, uh, but,

00:21:12.480 you know, we're not out of the woods yet. And, uh, it's, it's easy to say there were a thousand

00:21:17.940 victims over 70 years. Oh, you know, that isn't a thousand victims over one year. But the particular

00:21:23.860 wickedness of it is something that one has to grapple with even decades after the incidents.

00:21:29.520 Well, do you think the Vatican has done a good job of responding?

00:21:33.840 The Pope sent out a letter today expressing his condolences and, you know, great regret and,

00:21:40.240 and all of that. Uh, when, when this, when these sexual abuse stories came out,

00:21:44.800 Pope John Paul II was still the Pope. And then Pope Benedict XVI was the Pope. And because we have

00:21:50.940 more time, uh, and it was so, so much closer to the original incident in the early 2000s,

00:21:57.240 we can look at what they did. And what they did was wonderful. I mean, they, they handled it very

00:22:01.220 openly. They, they laicized priests. They were pretty direct about it. They were very clear. There was

00:22:08.580 a lot of moral clarity there. I'm hoping that we get some moral clarity from Pope Francis, but,

00:22:14.440 but, uh, one of the aspects of his pontificate has been a little bit of confusion. He has, I know for,

00:22:20.120 uh, Protestants, uh, you might not be as familiar with some of these apostolic exhortations and,

00:22:25.300 uh, documents and statements that have come out of the Vatican, but there have been documents such as

00:22:29.680 Amoris Laetitia, uh, and, and others that have bred a little bit of confusion, confusion with regard to

00:22:35.240 sexual ethic, confusion with regard to Catholic doctrine. Uh, the Pope recently changed the

00:22:40.580 catechism of the church to say that, uh, uh, the death penalty is an attack on the inviolability of

00:22:48.200 the human person and on his dignity. This is in contradiction to 2000 years of Catholic teaching.

00:22:53.820 There's just been a lot of confusion. And I hope that Pope Francis can rise to the occasion

00:22:58.280 and get, have moral clarity here. He hasn't, he's been clear on sexual abuse so far. I, I just hope

00:23:04.860 that, uh, the more confusing aspects of his pontificate don't overshadow that. Yeah. Okay. If

00:23:09.840 there's one thing that you would say to people who maybe they are struggling with thinking that,

00:23:15.240 you know, this is all Catholics or this is something inherent in the Catholic church,

00:23:19.340 what would you say to them? Well, I don't, I always go back to Chesterton when it comes to attacks

00:23:25.780 on the Catholic church because he was so articulate and recent, a Catholic apologist. Uh, he, he actually

00:23:31.220 wrote Orthodoxy, I think before he was a Catholic and yet it sums it up very well. And in Orthodoxy,

00:23:36.200 he says the, the way he knows the true faith is, uh, because Catholicism is attacked for opposite

00:23:43.580 reasons. It's both too ascetic and it's too decadent. You know, there's, uh, too much celibacy and

00:23:49.320 there's too much crazy sex for lack of, uh, clearer terms. Uh, the, all it takes is to look

00:23:57.960 at the social scientific data on rates of abuse that should dispel any notion that this is a

00:24:02.780 particularly Catholic problem. Uh, the same goes for the 2000 years of history. Well, I do have a

00:24:07.420 question about that. How, why, why does this was going to be my last question, but now I have a

00:24:12.480 question. Um, why has the Catholic church become a stereotype for pedophilia? Well, because the

00:24:20.480 Catholic church is the church. Uh, when, when people refer to the church and I'm speaking broadly

00:24:27.700 and ecumenically, they're, they always picture the Catholic church. Hollywood always pictures the

00:24:32.680 Catholic church. The mainstream media always picture the Catholic church. We, we know that, uh, we know

00:24:39.660 that these incidents are not happening at a larger scale in the Catholic church, but the church is

00:24:43.340 taken to be a representative of, uh, all Christians on earth. And, uh, for myself as a Catholic, this

00:24:48.980 seems to make a lot of sense. Um, but it's important to remind ourselves that, uh, one can

00:24:55.120 appreciate the particular spiritual wickedness of these crimes without believing so much of the

00:25:01.160 misleading information that this is all happening right now and that the rates are much, much higher

00:25:05.620 than this. And because I think it was, uh, uh, who was it? Was it a Schlesinger? Arthur Schlesinger

00:25:11.200 said that anti-Catholic bias is the most enduring bias in the history of the United States. It's been

00:25:16.060 around since the beginning. We were founded by my ancestors in Plymouth. Well, I can tell you why.

00:25:21.900 I can tell you why it's because, well, so much of Protestantism and the Protestant reformation,

00:25:28.300 whether you like it or not, you know, helped with the founding of the United States. That's really

00:25:32.680 neither here nor there, but a lot of it was determined by Protestantism. So I could see how

00:25:37.680 there would be this undertone of not liking the hierarchy of the Catholic church, whether that's

00:25:41.600 informed or not. Um, but I could definitely see that. I could, I could see that that could be the

00:25:46.500 motivation behind some of this bias. It certainly seems like it's more pervasive in the Catholic

00:25:50.960 church, but I don't know all of those social studies that, that you've cited. Um, and if that's

00:25:57.180 the case, then maybe it truly is just evil and maybe that's the only common thread.

00:26:00.640 Well, it is, but it doesn't mean we can't do anything about it. You know,

00:26:04.640 Christ in the gospel of Matthew, uh, tells his disciples to fast and pray. These are things

00:26:11.000 that we can do that. I believe the Pope quoted this in his letter today. He said, we can fast and

00:26:15.640 pray. And I think a lot of secular people and even some Christians scoff at this. They say we need

00:26:22.360 something else. Fasting and prayer is an important thing to begin. I totally agree. Firing bad cardinals

00:26:27.960 and bishops is another place to begin. These people aren't, uh, uh, perfect. You know, they,

00:26:33.420 the, the, even the Pope is not infallible except when he is infallible, which is on very rare

00:26:39.000 occasions. So there are practical things that we can do, but we, we won't root out the main problem

00:26:44.800 until we reform the human person and the human people who are in these positions of power in the

00:26:49.920 church. And that goes to attacking that old jerk, the devil. Yeah. Which can only be done through

00:26:55.380 Christ, which like you said, is accomplished through things like fasting and praying. So

00:26:58.700 I think that's a great word of advice, Michael. Thank you so much for your wisdom. I really

00:27:02.920 appreciate it. Always good to see you, Allie. My favorite Catholic, uh, where can everyone find you?

00:27:08.960 So you can find me on Twitter, uh, uh, Michael J. Knowles, and then you can see me on my show in,

00:27:14.140 I think about five minutes on the daily wire. Uh, we go Monday through Thursday. So go to dailywire.com

00:27:19.940 or Facebook and YouTube until they completely censor us and kick us off of all of those. And then you can

00:27:24.300 probably see me in the cardboard box on the street in Los Angeles. True. Another conversation for

00:27:28.700 another day. Thank you so much. See you, Allie. So obviously Michael feels the weight of this like

00:27:35.660 so many other Catholics do. And even Protestant Christians do. Um, I know Catholics who are

00:27:40.880 absolutely grieved by this. Uh, like I've said, Catholics have done, um, so much incredible good in

00:27:47.580 the world. And I, by no means, uh, condemn them for the sins of a few in the same way that I hope

00:27:54.020 that, uh, my, my cat, my Catholic friends wouldn't condemn me for the sins of a few Protestants or

00:27:59.400 Baptists. Um, but if this were happening in the Baptist church rampantly, I would want to get to

00:28:05.220 the bottom of it. I would wonder maybe the systems that we have set up are not working. Um,

00:28:12.000 I appreciate Michael acknowledging that bureaucracy within the Catholic church is a problem to me.

00:28:18.620 Bureaucracy is a problem anywhere. Uh, but it can pose a, a special danger in a holy institution

00:28:25.960 in which the bureaucracy is seen as above reproach. And I know that this isn't going to be a popular

00:28:33.300 stance to take, especially with my Catholic listeners, whom by the way, I really love. Um,

00:28:39.480 but to me that that is a fundamental flaw in Catholic doctrine. Uh, you guys know that I am

00:28:45.220 a Protestant. So I have my disagreements with Catholicism as you guys who are Catholic have

00:28:49.700 disagreements with my beliefs. And one of my disagreements is how Catholics view priests as

00:28:55.180 holier than lay people as you and me. Um, so as you heard me say to Michael, the sacrament of order

00:29:01.500 states that once a priest is ordained, he is a priest forever spiritually. Uh, they believe this

00:29:06.600 models after Christ, whom the Bible says is a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. Um,

00:29:11.020 Cardinal world, like I said, spoke at the funeral of one of the accused abusers and reiterated at his

00:29:16.400 funeral that he is a priest forever. This guy who sexually abused kids. Um, so my concern is that

00:29:23.600 because Catholic doctrine views priests as inherently higher, inherently holier than lay people as privy to

00:29:31.240 the will and wisdom of God in a way that you and I aren't, that they are able to get away with things

00:29:36.500 that they otherwise wouldn't be able to get away with, uh, that church members aren't able to hold

00:29:41.300 their leadership accountable because who are they to hold their leadership accountable? Um, Catholic

00:29:46.420 priests are almost, almost, it seems like impervious to real punishment, uh, because they are protected

00:29:52.420 by this, uh, hedge of holiness that they claim to have through ordination. Uh, Protestants just don't

00:29:59.000 believe that. That's a difference in doctrine. Um, I don't believe that my pastor or elders in my

00:30:04.200 church are any holier than I am or are even closer to God than I am simply because of their station.

00:30:10.460 Uh, they don't have the power to forgive my sins. They are not my mediator. Uh, they are shepherds

00:30:16.020 and they are teachers. These are their spiritual gifts. This is their calling. Uh, but they are not

00:30:20.800 higher up than I am or, uh, than anyone else is. I just fear, and maybe this is just my Protestant

00:30:27.940 misunderstanding, but I just fear that it is the hierarchy of the Catholic church coupled with this

00:30:33.740 kind of emphasis, uh, on external righteousness rather than internal repentance that creates

00:30:39.740 this environment in which church bureaucracy can get away with anything. Um, and let me say again,

00:30:46.300 I know the amazing good that the Catholic church has done. I know quite a few Catholic Christians that

00:30:51.660 are amazing ministers for the kingdom. Um, I also know that they are devastated by these reports,

00:30:57.180 and I am in no way condemning every single Catholic. Uh, Michael said that the rates of

00:31:02.920 abuse in the Catholic church are no higher than in other denominations. I'll have to research that.

00:31:08.420 I, I personally haven't seen that, but that doesn't mean it's not out there. Um, it certainly seems

00:31:12.780 like it's much more rampant in the Catholic church and much more institutional and pervasive,

00:31:16.840 uh, than in other places, but I will be more than happy to be proven wrong on that. So I will

00:31:21.760 certainly look into it. Um, I just wonder if it isn't worth taking a second look at the hierarchy

00:31:27.500 of the Catholic church at the sacrament of ordination, uh, reconsideration of the pedestal

00:31:32.640 that priests are placed on. That's my view. Um, okay. Feel free to email me on that. I have gotten a lot

00:31:39.420 of emails from my Catholic listeners about positions that I take from a Protestant perspective.

00:31:43.320 I love engaging with you guys. So feel free to push back and, uh, we can discuss our differences.

00:31:48.820 Um, now let's talk about something that Catholics and Protestants agree on. Um, in other religious

00:31:55.940 news, the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, AKA the Mormons, uh, said that they do not

00:32:02.660 want to be called Mormons anymore. They don't want to be called LDS either. They want to just be

00:32:07.880 referred to as the church or the church of Jesus Christ. Uh, Russell Nelson is the church's

00:32:13.160 president. And he said, uh, the Lord has impressed upon my mind, the importance of the name he has

00:32:18.800 revealed for his church. Uh, even the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Uh, we have

00:32:26.680 work before us to bring ourselves in harmony with his will. In recent weeks, various church leaders

00:32:31.420 and departments have initiated the necessary steps to do so. Um, they feel Mormons feel basically that

00:32:37.980 it obscures the name Mormon, obscures the Christian nature of the religion.

00:32:41.820 Okay. I totally understand that concern, but that's not going to happen. And the reason

00:32:49.420 that's not going to happen is because Catholics and Protestant Christians don't believe that

00:32:53.300 Mormonism is Christianity. So they're just not going to call Mormons the church or the church

00:32:58.840 of Jesus Christ. Uh, we don't believe it is the church of Jesus Christ. I appreciate the common

00:33:04.200 ground that we have with Mormons, especially politically and morally. Uh, but the Mormon doctrine

00:33:08.580 doesn't align with Christian doctrine at all. Uh, Mormons believe that you have to be Mormon to be

00:33:13.560 saved. They believe that God is one of many gods, that we can become gods one day, um, among many

00:33:19.680 other parts of the Mormon doctrine that is just antithetical to the Christian gospel. Um, I know I

00:33:24.800 have Mormon followers and listeners, and I love you dearly, but I do not agree with you. Uh, people are

00:33:29.780 going to continue to call Mormons Mormons because to call them the church or the church of Jesus Christ

00:33:35.740 would be to betray our own faith. Um, okay. Now that I've made everyone sufficiently mad,

00:33:41.380 I think that's all for today. Uh, remember we can love each other and still disagree. Feel free to

00:33:46.980 reach out to me with your thoughts. You can also follow me on social media. If you so desire,

00:33:51.840 love you guys. See you on Thursday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 21, 2018

Ep 30 ｜ The Tragedy of the Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal

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