← Kennedy Saves the World
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Foreign. Hello and welcome to this episode of Kennedy Saves the World. I got to see the American Pope in Rome give the easter blessing in St. Peter's Square on Easter Sunday. And it was amazing. My 17 year old daughter and I went to Rome. She studied Roman history last year and we've been planning the trip for a while and it happened that her spring break, as is the case with many schools, as we found out, because there were a lot of high schoolers and tourists in big groups doing various trips to the Vatican and the Coliseum and it was fun to see all of them, but they made the city a little crowded. I mad so it fell on Easter Sunday. Western Easter, our Easter is not until this coming Sunday. So in the Eastern Orthodox Church, we are still in the middle of Holy Week, but for Christians from around the world, many of them congregated in St. Peter's Square and we got to hear and receive the blessing from the Pope and it was pretty amazing. And I turned to my daughter and I said, this is the only time in your lifetime that you will see an American Pope and you got to witness his very first Easter blessing because he became Pope last year, last May, when Pope Francis passed away. So Pope Leo, I didn't hear the Chicago accent. He gave his blessing and I'm not, I'm, I'm not even going to try and say it because I'm going to say it wrong. It's like Irby et ori orbi. Yeah, I'm not gonna, it might be the other way around. The point is he gave an Italian and his Italian sounded to me quite lovely and he did a masterful job. And then he, you know, when he left the balcony, he waved goodbye and everyone waved goodbye and it was a special moment. And so of course I posted on X we saw the Pope and I could not believe the barrage of negativity. There are a lot of Pope haters out there and it makes me wonder, why are you so mad at the pop. You're not a Catholic. Why do you care? Uh, if you are Catholic, oftentimes you are going to have idealists who ascend to the papacy who tend to be leftists. And I think that is probably the case for Pope Leo. But I never assume that someone is going to inhabit my politics. And I think it's foolish to think that you are going to control people or that you should be easily offended if someone doesn't share your politics. Now, obviously the Pope has a great deal of influence, not only on the Catholic Church, but also on Christendom. And people listen to the Pope and the Pope has been not very excited about, you don't have to call it a war, but it sure feels like one with Iran. And now the Trump administration is coming down pretty hard on the Vatican and there is some friction there, I would say, of the unnecessary variety. Now it used to be you'd look at the Pope and go, oh cool, he is powerful and spiritual and holy respect. But now everyone has to attack everybody else. And if you are a non Catholic, it's for a lot of people open season on the Pope. And they were calling them all sorts of mean names on my X feed. I'm not, not a Catholic technically, but in the Eastern Orthodox faith we also recite the Nicene Creed. I believe in one holy apostolic Catholic Church. And, and that is pretty sacred. Now we do not believe that the power of the entire Church should be concentrated in one person who runs the whole thing, as do the Catholics. We have archbishops from various domains. And in the Orthodox faith, the Pope is seen as the Archbishop of Rome. So I have a great deal of respect for him. It was very special and wonderful to see. And as you may or may not know, the Catholic faith has always had a strong history of scientific exploration and debating scientific ideas. People think, and this is misleading, that the Catholic Church is anti science. And that is absolutely not the case. There is interesting discussion always on things like alien and the existence of aliens. And whenever human beings launch themselves into space, it brings up a lot of wonderful existential questions. And I think that is one of the coolest things about space exploration. As a libertarian, I would love to see private industry leading the way and not draining the resources of the federal government in order to explore space. And you know, if, if there is a contest, a sausage swinging contest with various billionaires trying to build their own private space programs, I think that could be ultimately a great benefit to humanity. I love the Artemis 2 expedition. I love hearing the stories and I love hearing about the camaraderie of the four astronauts who are currently in space who are going to make that a precarious re entry into the atmosphere tomorrow. The weather has to be right, the angle has to be perfect. They are refining their systems and using AI to guide them. And I have a great deal of faith not only in God, but also in science, in math and in physics and in AI, which is a tool that has been utilized obviously by NASA as they have expanded their space program to the moon in two years and ultimately to Mars. And this Artemis 2 mission, sending human beings farther into space than they have ever been from Earth is a precursor to a lunar landing, an actual one. For people who think that the moon landing, moon landings, plural, were fake. They weren't. I believe we went there. I'm a bluff old traditionalist and I very strongly believe we are going back. And I don't believe that it is a green screen hoax and that these four astronauts are just floating around in a Burbank sound studio. I believe that they are really there. Don't go anywhere more. Kennedy Saves the World right after this. I think that this has been a profound experience for people who question our existence on this planet and question, you know, why am I here? What is the point of all of this? There is something about going into space that leaves us in awe, that satisfies a curiosity inside of us when we look up and wonder, what is it all for? What is it all about? And that there are four people who maybe have an even greater answer for those deep philosophical longings. I think that that is something so cool that brings us together the way the Pope used to bring people together. And I hope people aren't mad at Pope Leo forever. And, you know, if there is a spiritual curiosity that has somehow also been entertained by the Artemis 2 mission, I think ultimately that is a great thing for humanity, for math and physics, for. For philosophy, for spirituality. Because when we can push the boundaries of human existence, that is something that does bring us together. Because so much of the discourse that we hear, that we experience, that we are disgusted by, is about dividing people, about insulting people. And I do it too. You know, I make fun of people. I point out the absurdities constantly. But I also do my best to try and find the things that bring us together. Sometimes making fun of people brings us together. Sometimes laughing at absurd things brings us together. But there are also aspects of being that we may not understand, that we may not even share, but we can have a mutual respect for, I. E. The Pope. And there are also things, you know. Yes. Emily Compagno brought this up on Outnumbered, and I thought it was a great point. Sports has always been the thing that kind of unites us, but even our sports are politically divided, stupidly, at this point. But space, there is something about it. There is something about the profound experience of leaving the planet, abstracting yourself and looking at the Earth from a totally different vantage point. That the astronauts that I have talked to, the interviews that I have seen, the books that I have read, people who have seen the. The planet from that perspective, it changes them. They see Earth differently They see humanity differently. They see that we are special and they try and impart that on anyone who is curious enough to ask the question. And that is what we can take away from Artemis 2 is that there is still more that binds us together than separates us. And hopefully there are kids who are struggling in math class, there are kids who are struggling, struggling in science and physics who look at this mission and go, man, you know, maybe there is an understanding there that I have not stumbled upon yet, but maybe I can get there. And I love that there is an entire new generation of astronauts who are being inspired into a life of math and physics and engineering who thought that they were misfits. But they will hopefully find their place in a public or even better private space program in the future. And what they will find based on these astronauts and how they have talked honestly about their philosophies and about their faith, hopefully they will find that science and faith are not incompatible with with one another. And respect and curiosity is the best foundation for understanding and moving yourself forward, even far enough to reach the dark side of the moon and maybe even someday Mars. I don't know if I would want to go right now. I got to make a lot more room in my closet before I consider that journey. But just getting a glimpse of the Pope at the same time the Artemis astronauts are in space, I feel satisfied and connected in a way that I didn't anticipate. There was a little bit of discouragement maybe a couple weeks ago, but now, hopefully we are hitting a cultural and societal sweet spot. And when we have these moments, we have to be satisfied with them. This has been Kennedy Saves the World. I'm Kennedy. Listen ad free. With a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts and Amazon prime, members can listen to this show ad free on the Amazon music app. Oh, go ahead and leave me a review while you're there. I'd love to hear what you have to say. You've been listening to Kennedy Saves the World on the Fox News Podcast Network.