My Monday afternoon in the Tri State. Welcome again to the Bill Cunningham Show. Reds Baseball kicks off first pitch about six forty air time, about five forty tonight. As you may know, the Reds beat up on the Baltimore Orioles big time. Twenty forty two. That's right, twenty four to two. They allowed us safety. That's all they allowed, as Baltimore went down hard than out back to five hundred. See what happens tonight in Miami. Three in Miami, then
three in Colorado and away we go. But this morning I had the very sad news the passing of Pope. The Pope has died and Francis is now in heaven. We got almighty we anticipate. And then he took over from Benedict who resigned in twenty thirteen. So Francis has been the Pope for about twelve years or so. And joining you and I now is Michael McDonald of the Catholic League in New York City. And Michael McDonald, welcome
again to the Bill Cunningham Show. And first of all, give me your reaction on his passing earlier today.
Hey, Bill Cunningham, great to be with you as always. Yeah, this is really sad news. You know, whenever holy man, especially as someone high ranking as Pope Francis, has died, as a moment for prayers and reflection, not only for the repose of his soul, but also for where the church goes from here. And just keep praying that the Holy ghost guides the cardinals to make the right decision in the coming weeks for the successor.
I've seen the movie Conclave.
I'm not sure it's going to go that way, but nonetheless, I watched Cardinal Dolan this morning who said that if one head of fashion his own demise, it would have been the way that this pope went out, Francis by having one last lap in the popemobile around Vatican Square and saying goodbye. I mean, he looked good enough to live, but we don't know the circumstances of death. No autopsies are ever performs, so we anticipate it was a respiratory failure.
Give me the legacy.
Looking back, the last thirty or forty years had Jeohn Paul the Second, with John Paul the First who was in office about a month, and John Paul the Second. Then it went to Benedict the German. And this was historical because Berglio from Rendzsaurus was perceived as a liberal. He was perceived they're going to change things, and he put his own imprint on the papacy. Many liberals thought, Okay, he's going to reprove the same sex marriage, or women can be priest, or priest can marry. A lot of
those things did not happen. But I know many conservative Catholics who were not happy with his rule, and many liberals at times were not happy either. Did he live out when he was selected about twelve years ago in March at twenty thirteen, And if somebody could have looked over the last the next twelve years of his papacy in a way, did he anger both sides? Did he anger a little bit liberals and conservatives both?
You know, Bill, I think that's actually probably the right take here, Pote Francis. For all the glowing reviews he got in the media, he did kind of struggle a little bit with both sort of wings of the Catholic Church, the more liberal, reform minded, very pro Vatican Two. Even the people that think Vatican Two didn't go far enough. They wanted to see obviously wanted to see more out of Pope Francis's tenure in the chair of Saint Peter.
And then again on the more traditional side of things, he was not the most vocal champion of traditional morals. He pretty much just canceled the Latin mass across the church, kind of seemed to be butting heads a lot with the American cardinals, the American bishops, and some of he had, you know, again getting into the weeds a little bit
on some of these reforms. Definitely did try to centralize power in himself and the Vatican really trying to move the ball, but the institution of the Church itself, it just kind of seemed to be a bit of a bridge too far to get a lot of these more reformist goals initiated. So yeah, it does sort of seem
to be a bit of a checkered past. Probably didn't do enough from one side of the equation, probably did too much from the other side, but sort of left things somewhere in the middle, and now the Vatican's going to have to pick up the pieces and try and figure out which direction are we going to continue in sort of the mold of Francis and try and move things more in the direction of reform, or are we going to go with someone like Saint John Paul, the
second Pope Benedict the sixteenth, who were much more of the traditionalist school of thought.
Yeah, no question where we go from here.
There was a hope by some that he would approve a priest to marry, which isn't a new concept, as Tony Bender knows, for the first one thousand years of our existence. But priest did marry and so that wouldn't have been a big deal. But women as priest that would be a much different situation. He also reached out to gay individuals who said that you are part of this church, which was a concern to some. He did not get into the transgender debate much about males and females,
but just on the idea that priest can marry. Can you tell us why that would not be so revolutionary?
Well, you know, as you pointed out that that was a reform in the Middle Ages to put a stop to that, and at the time, the reasoning was that the church was losing control of the parishes themselves. The families were taking control of them and leaving it to their sons to continue running the church. So yeah, personally, I think that was probably the right thing to do at the time and probably something we should keep on the books for now. But just a real quick bill
on the subject of transgenderismo. Francis actually was a little bit more vocal on the US at times, very very confusing, because the only stories that you really see about Pope Francis and the transgender question was he had a bunch of them over for dinner one night or breakfast in the Vatican, whatever it was. But in the past he's called it demonic, he has called the transgenderism a form of ideological colonization, and he has been a little bit
more forced wellness. Just the left wing media was doing a lot to prop up their man and try and present him as the loving guy that was just really caring about poor people and was worried about climate change. But there are some things that traditionalists would actually appreciate
about Pope Francis. But again, he was very prone to speaking off the cuff, very prone to just you know, suffering from jet lag, getting on the Vatican plane and saying and here's how I really feel about things, and not actually thinking through everything, which obviously created a lot of headaches for people working in the church.
You know, one thing I've noticed sixty minutes even to the story on this about a year ago, the renaissance of Christianity, especially among the young. And they return to shall I say to the faith and that young people in the last election, this is certainly probably Trump's behavior is not the Pope's a favorite. But nonetheless there was a renaissance of the young turning toward more conservative values, which is why Trump was elected president. And now there's
a renaissance of Christianity among colleges. There was this plaintive crime in Kentucky, Missouri elsewhere that colleges have a large group of practicing evangelistic Christians and or Roman Catholics, which I haven't seen before. I go to a little Catholic church here in Cincinnati called Saint Gertrude's and an Easter vigil.
Penny and I had to get there at eight thirty to get a seat, and the proceedings to not begin to after nine pm Saturday night, and we were there until midnight, three hours, and there was young and old, and it was just a fabulous service put on by the Dominicans. It was wonderful, and I spoke to a couple of the priests thereafter. It was late, it was early in the morning in fact, But nonetheless there's a sense that Christian and Catholic schools are doing quite well.
Have you sense some the Catholic Lake in New York City, Mike McDonald, a return to traditional values that we didn't think would happened.
Yeah, you know what, And there is a very interesting point on that. It does seem to be particularly the within the Catholic Church, the more traditional minded orders of nuns, the brothers, parishes, dioceses, they seem to be the ones that are doing the best in terms of preserving the faith and bringing in new people, growing the community. We actually did a report on this on Catholic League dot org probably about two years ago, comparing the Church in
Germany and the Church in Nigeria. Church in Germany obviously very rich, richest diocese in the world. Church in Nigeria very poor. They're they're constantly being attacked by Muslim extremists, very hard times, but the Church in Nigeria is flourishing. The Church in Germany is dying off, and the Nigerians are very quick to hold two traditional values, whereas the Germans are you ready to jettisen in them for the next new thing. So that does seem to be a trend.
And even in the Christian community more broadly, even though within the evangelical circles, the more traditionally minded evangelical pastors, their churches are the ones that are growing that they are actually the ones with the young families in them. Whereas you look at the mainline Protestants like the Episcopalians, you got a bunch of white haired people that are you know, just sitting in God's waiting room. The churches are slowly dying, very very sad deaths, and so there
is something to this. And you know, the return of Trump to the White House definitely that more traditional mind is attitude, particularly young people reverting to their faith going back in greater numbers. This is definitely going to have a massive impact on society moving forward. It's unfortunate that Pope Francis was kind of the urch nemesis within the Catholic Church anyway of the more traditional stuff. You who's vehemently opposed to Latin Mass and things of that nature.
So a lot of these things kind of seem to happen in spite of Pope Francis's leadership.
And one thing is next well, one thing in the media there is the obliteration of Christianity and Catholics buried alive, tortured. The Muslim attacks on Catholics happening all over Africa is not well reported. You've seen some of the videos. I've seen some of the videos. People are being killed because of their faith. That would never happen in Germany. It would never happen in France. And in fact, most of the churches and cathedrals in France are like tourist attractions.
They're not real churches, even Notre Dame Cathedral as a tourist attraction because the practice is almost non existent. Now, lastly, before I let you go, Mike McDonald of the Catholic League, who's the next Pope? I saw the movie Conclave and they selected someone that, shall we say, an amorphi dite or something like that from Afghanistan?
Do you see that happening?
That We're going to have some conclave in about two weeks and there's going to be two hundred and fifty two cardinals, but only one hundred and thirty eight or electors one hundred and thirty eight or so, they're going to be in the Sistine Chapel, And what's the early pick for the pope h.
S bill your guests is as good as mine, just looking around at how it went last time with the election of Pope Francis. Even Patty Power, the famous gambling website, they didn't even give outs on They didn't give odds on Fancas. As we know from writing the elections, typically the gamblers tend to predict the outcome much more accurately than the pollsters do, and so they couldn't get it. So this is really down to the guidance of the
Holy Ghost here. Looking at even last time, just looking at the headlines, I found one mention of Pope Francis Cardinal Bogoglio in anything, and I think it was the Guardian said, you know, he came in second to Pope Benedict the sixteenth, so he's probably not going to do anything in this time, Clay. But next thing, you know,
he's the elected guy. But yes, I'm fairly certain that it's not going to have a surprise twist at the ending with some hermaphrodite getting elected and like they did, in Hollywood and now that that was just a bizarre They just were ripping on us.
Bizarre.
I'm watching this, I'm thinking the political training at Satura. Of course, the websites are out with some of the names being mentioned. There's no chance I would assume a Cardinal Dolwan getting the gig.
Is that correct?
You know? I don't think so. I mean, most people don't know this, but at the age of seventy five, the bishops are supposed to send in their letter of resignation, and Cardinal Dolan just turned seventy five in February, so it's probably probably a little too old, which is unfortunately. He did a lot of good things here in New
York and we're lucky that we still have him. Hopefully we keep him a little bit longer, but it would be great to get an American hope in there, but probably I don't think it's in the cards this time.
The media likes Cardinal or Robert Sarah. He's seventy nine years old, is a former Vatican official from Guinea. He's an African, he's black, and that's the favorite of the mainstream media. And if it's someone other than Italian or European. That would be a big surprise.
Yeah, you know, that'd be very interesting, and it is kind of odd to see Sarah's name getting floating around that. I mean, he is older than Dolwan, and I know that is something that they're going to be taken into consideration. But he's also very strong on the social issues, very forceful on the moral teachings of the church. So definitely not some that the mainstream media would like. I mean, they'll probably do the same thing, downplay that as much
as possible anytime that Pope Francis. I mean, we can't even say. Some of the things that Pope Francis said about homosexuals in the church on radio, he would rip into them, but you would never hear a word about that in the mainstream media because he you know, he was there to fight global warming and do nice outreach to the homosexuals, and he really cared about poor people.
Never Mind, he never said anything about moral teaching, and he did, to his credit, he did say some things a little convoluted, could have been a little bit clear, a little bit more forceful, But you know, the media just completely ignored those issues because they had a narrative that needed protecting at all costs, and unfortunately some of the good things that Pope Francis did kind of did
get lost in that narrative. We'll see they'll probably try and do the same thing with Sarah, but he's actually much more of a traditional mindset. He is one of the great ap African prelates, and it's good the cardinals should give a lot of credence to the great things
that the Church in Africa has done. As you were mentioning that they're besieged by Islamic extremists and yet somehow their communities are still flourishing when martyrdom is generally the price that people do have to pay to be a Christian in Africa, So that's they're doing the Lord's work there and maybe we do need someone with that sort of mindset back in the Vatican, kind of taking us back to the older days when Christians were thrown into the lions den eating alive.
And Cardinal Sarah has been called the Clarence Thomas of the papacy, So I don't imagine the Liberals have much to do with Clarence Thomas, and that's Cardinal Sarah.
We'll see what happens JD.
Vance, who goes to my church by the way, Saint Gertrud's and Madeira. We saw the pope that day or two before he died, and that some have remarked that maybe Donald Trump is going to take over the papacy and appoint JD.
Vance.
Can we say, can we say that that's a long shot?
Draft Kings, I.
Think that's but I think that one's a bit of a long shot. But you know, we live in a strange times, so you don't have to.
Be a priest to be you might have to be a priest to be the pope, right, anybody could be the pope?
So why why this was?
Yeah, this was actually one of the things that I forget, which vasking counsel. They had to tighten this up. But yeah, it used to pretty much be just whoever it was from the wealthiest noble family in Rome could get their offspring elected, male offspring elected to the papers. Here again another great reform that the Catholics did back in the day to really make sure that we're adhering to the actual word of God.
So we'd bet against it, but you know, otter things have happened. But we'll see what occurs. But once again, Michael McDonald, there's going to be several days of morning, nine days, and then the conclave gets together, called by the Secretary of State, so to speak, of the Vatican, and maybe in two or three weeks we'll have white smoke and not black.
We'll see what happens.
And Mychael McDonald of the Catholic League, once again, thank you for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show.
Mike, you're a great American.
Thank you, Thank you, Bill, You're a great American as well.
God bless you.
Let's continue with more kind of broke up Michael McDonald there with Trump taking over the Vatican and apporting jd Vance, it's possible, it's possible. Keep Hope alive on news radio seven hundred WLW