Hi everyone. This story next story we're going to cover comes from the Religion News Service. It was written by Jack Jenkins, and it talks about a group of more than thirty Catholic Democrats in the US House of Representatives who unveiled a new statement in principles last week reaffirming their support for abortion rights and expanding on a similar letter that they had sent back two years ago from through the American Catholic Bishop. So it seems like a pretty big move for people in
our government. But I'd like to see what SR has to say about it. Totally. Totally. I think, you know, at the very least we should take we should take a quick second to just say round of applause, like you hang on, hang on, Phoebe, You'll have your time,
You'll have your time. I think this is one of those moments where even though it feels to me as if like, hey, congratulations, you finally figured out that slavery's not a good thing, Like wow, it's took you long enough, you know, but this is still good in my eyes for a lot of different I think oftentimes on the non religious or secular side, we are too quick to cut off the individuals on the religious side who agree with us in so many things, and I think this isn't this is
an opportunity for us to capitalize us right. One reason I say that is they reference a poll from twenty twenty two from the Public Religion Research Institute that shows sixty one percent of Hispanic Catholics, sixty two percent of White Catholics, and seventy one percent of Catholics of color all say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. That's huge. I think, so, yeah, Phoebe, why do you why do you disagree? Where do I stop?
You have people who follow a religion that he's run by the head of state of another country, making laws in another country. That is a problem to begin with. A man who is elected by a secretive enclaven colored smoke out of a chimney, giving you his rantings on a Sunday morning in Saint Peter's Square, going oh, yes, look at all this, And these people are now going, yes, we still believe that, but we now also disagree on that. This is the open face of hypocrisy within Catholicism. These
Catholic donkey party residents. I don't trust these people. I don't like these people. And I don't want them making laws that affect me. These people are the problem. Yes, they have decided that, for once in their life, they are going to realize that humanity has something that isn't coming out of the backside of a papal head dress. But guess what. We shouldn't be congratulating these people for doing the basics. Oh good, you didn't stab
me today. I'm not going to cheer you for not stabbing me today. You would have done it yesterday. Ah you didn't do it today. Oh, how wonderful for you. These people actually doing the bay six we should just be going these are the basis. Could we get some movement on actual socialt issues that will last far longer than the pole numbers which have turned to dusk. Who won the West and who lost the South? Whether the Nasdaq is up or the Footsie is down? Who gives up monkeys about all these
things? The social issues will last longer. Nobody knows the polls that Abraham Lincoln was looking at when he decided that he was going to sign the Emancipation Doctorate Declaration. But the Emancipation Declaration is still enforced, and that social issue will last far longer. Than this bare faced nonsensical Graham to try and go, well, we're actually, you know, not that bad as human beings.
Yeah that Helena so as son that was formerly Catholic. I have seen the church go through many iterations over the time, and one of the major reasons I left church was the sex abuse scandal that happened. Remember that happened twenty years ago? Remember that? Yeah, remember still happening today. I'm still having Now that's twenty years old. Now, okay, so what's older than that. We just found out about her twenty years now years old. Yeah, well, you know, all this, all this dust. But
the thing that's so frustrating is everybody's recognizing this for what this is. Like, if you have a brain in your head, you know that this is the people in the pew, Because, as we keep talking about on the show, people are leaving and they have to be and they're may like, oh you know what, Oh, there's this feminism thing happening. Oh oh, there's a big reaction from all the people in the United States when you know, Robust's awake got turned over. Oh no, people are now starting
to getting scared. They're scared in their fancy boots, and they're going to see people tweeping out of the churches, especially again younger and younger people. And also people are deciding not to have children. They're already making these decisions. So they're just like, well, you know where we're a little slow on the up keep, but here we are now, you know. And I just but this is nothing. This is a nothing burger. Like when
they say they'd being gay, you shouldn't be criminalized the same crap. You know. It's I've been trying to keep up at the time, trying to be progressive whatever that means, but still hold on to those old timey Catholic values. So I don't find this appealing. I just see it as another paragraph and like, I just don't this, This is not This isn't coming
from a genuine place of learning. This comes from fear. And I can smell it and I know it. I know, I know misogyny really really well, and I know when I see it just to appeal to people just same. Actually, it looks it looks like I might be the only one that's that's positive about But what do you think, Kelly, Well, I was cynical too when I read it. Not quite as much as Phoebe. But I had some problems with it. And you know what, well, my first thought was, who cares? Who really cares? The cat the
church don't care what they did. The Pope is not quaking in his bed, hiding under their covers because these thirty democrats signed a freaking piece of paper, wasn't it, Richard Jilliver, there was looking underneath the pope's covers. We can send them over there to check out and just check it out to make sure. But I mean anti abortion and anti freedom advocates, they don't care. They are all Republicans anyway. They don't give a shit what these
Democrats have to say. They could care less with these COMMI freedom hateum democrats have to say, So who is this really for? Who is it for? It's for their constituents back home, so that they can say, hey, look I did something without actually doing anything. You know, I'm off for stepping up and supporting these worthwhile causes. But if you're gonna put your energy into something useful, do something useful. That's what that was my cynicism
in this. I just don't I just look at it as just a baseless symbolic thing. SR. You want to you want to bring some positism back to it. Yeah, I'll I'll give some thoughts and then I can let Phoebe slam us back down again. All right, So I got a little bit more, I think when when I first read this, um, I think I took it a little bit more charitably than than the rest of y'all did. I did first one, not first, but go ahead. Sorry.
So, when when I saw this statement, as I have seen similar statements in the past, UM, my belief was that this was for nobody but the thirty individuals who signed it. This is this is a true, sincere statement that these individuals actually believed. I don't think this was a ploy, because if it was a ploy, it seems like the worst way to do it in my eyes. That doesn't mean that it isn't. It just seems to me that the way that they're doing it here is literally the exact
same thing that has been done for decades. Um. So I don't see this as being a way to try and keep people in the church. I also don't see this as a way exactly to sway the religion. This seems to me just thirty individuals who genuinely believed things and wanted to put it out there, and that's what you do as a pub official. It's literally your
whole job, So not doing that would be disingenuous in opinion. But the other thing I would add that I see the positives here is that, unfortunately or fortunately however you know folks feel about it, your in group has more sway than your out and all of us here would be more likely to listen to somebody who's on our side on an issue that we disagree on, rather
than somebody from the other side who we already clearly disagree on. So funny enough, just in case people don't know, there are literally millions of registered independence in this country, millions of registered individuals who vote every election but do not have hardcore stances on thing. I guarantee in that group there is somebody out there who is both religious and against abortion who see something like this and does get value out of it, And I think that pulls more people to
the side of secular humanism. I do think that. But yeah, Phoebe, tell me why I'm wrong. Straight up, you don't get it. Don't get it. You have not lived in a country which has an established religion having people sitting in its legislature. There are twenty four members of the Church of England who have seats in the House of Lords and they are Head of the Church of England. Is the head of state of this country.
You don't get how dangerous these people are by having what is effectively an existential individual guiding what they're doing. These people believe that the head of state of the world's smallest country makes declarations that they should be following. That's how dangerous this is. Well, they're actually going against the Pope, though, aren't they. Yeah, But that's how dangerous is though, because it's now bare
faced hypocrisy. You can't have in the one hand, I follow Catholicism and therefore I accept the Pope and then go but I disagree with the Pope on this, on this, and this. It's not a pick and choose. Is not pick and mixed down at Walworth's. You take Catholicism and you take the Pope with it. You don't come around and go, well, I'll take the Pope on this. I'll take the Pope on this. I believe that I'm eating Jesus. I believe I'm drinking Jesus. I believe in this,
and I believe in that we have it. In the UK. We have twenty four people who are religious bishops, actual bishops in our legislature. At least we're open about it. In America you have people who are not open about these things. To head, any person who just self describes himself as an Anglican is taking direction from the King of England on how they should
run their life. Think about it. You have the melding of religion and the state in so many religions, two big ones the King of England on the Pope, and if you follow either of those religions and you're a legislator in another country, you are effectively taking your cues from the head of state of another country on how to make laws in your own country. Yeah. I think I think those are all very good points. I would like to
make clear though. I think there's a really big difference from saying we don't want religion and government and we don't want religious in government. One is attacking the ideology and one is attacking and I think the first one is the way to go, not the second one. Um. But Helen, what what do you think on this? We thee and I've been going back and forth a little of this, so, UM, I don't I don't think there's an easy answer to this. But um, because I'm seeing both sides,
because like you're both the angels and devils on my shoulders. So there's this like combat going on. But and I'm saying like, well, that's let's go in now. And um, I'm but whenever I see stuff like this, I just feel like there's, um, you know, a rat in the kitchen, you know. Um that And that's the things that I get so worried about because it has the face of being progressive. It has a face that maybe we'll, you know, we can't come to an agreement.
But as Phode pointed out, the all the bishops, the cardinals and everybody take word from the pope. He is the word of God and he is God's representative honors. So because he is the representative of an invisible sky daddy, Um, people have to listen to him. And we know from Rome having a wild history with cardinals and popes and you know them having in being in charge of state and then that falling apart and then they had to create their own damn country. So for me, I'm I just see this as
just another performance Pete. You know, yes, they might be since here. You know, I don't know the hearts and hearts and minds every every person, you know, just my own, but I don't like it makes it's making me go on. I can see how this can turn bad. This can turn bad. And and this is the thing that I'm also gonnacerned about we were talking about before, is like these are this like he gets this campaign, you know, this type of stuff. It is to wrap
religion and this nice fluffy blanket, you know. But the thing is that the ship leaking out the blanket. But they're trying, you know, they're trying to keep it in. And I'm just sitting here going okay, great, but you know, for hundreds of years you allowed people, people in charge of children to hurt. You don't get a free paciting. I'm sorry, I'm done. I can't. I just can't. You know, I
understand, but I can't. But like for me, I'm like, why you sell part of an organization that can done child And that's something I that's where I when people mores are bendable like that, it makes me deeply uncomfortable anyway, Kelly, what do you have something else to say? Yeah, just just one quick thing. Um, my real problem was, and uh sorry you said that, this this was this is you know what their job
basically is to do this. I don't agree with that. The time that they spent fighting this up, they could have been working on writing up a bill to explained abortion options for women. They could have been working on improving extra funding to help raise the kids whose mothers didn't want to have an abortion but couldn't make ends meet. I'm always talking about people getting up and doing something to make the world a better place, really encouraging regular people like you
and I to get up and do it. And these thirty people promised to make those changes. They dedicated their life to it. They stood up before people and say we're going to fight to make those changes, and this is
what we get out of them instead? This is bullshit to me. And this is why I saw this so cynically, is because I could think of a million better ways that these representatives could have spent their time than writing up a bullshit thing that really doesn't seem like it's going to matter to anybody. So go ahead, Phoebe. You take it out, take it away from me. I don't understand America. Sometimes I try very hard. I mean
I try really, really, really hard to understand America. But this is what I don't understand about America. You don't have an established religion, but you have established religions in your government. You don't have church and state melding, yet you have churches melding the state. I don't understand what on earth has allowed this level of religiosity. One of the people, the people I've got nothing against. It's the idea that you have allowed religiosity to come in
and to start running the show, start running the absolute show. You've got all this madness. There are I think at last count two people out of five hundred and thirty five who do not have a religion or declare themselves to be atheist. Two two for crying out loud. You have every religion under the sun, except those with no religion. Because it's not sin as the way that you get into the building to actually make the rule. It's not
sin as the way that you get it onto the ballot paper. And instead of people laughing these people off the ballot paper, they go, yeah, they'll do nicely. That's what I don't understand about America, and that's what I don't understand about these thirty people. I just don't get America sometimes. Yeah, I gotta say, y'all. That is a great place to wrap it up from our friend across the pond, and for everybody listening, whether you're in America or not. If you want to hear more, clicking