Michael Knowles (20:19)
Okay, now right off the bat, I know that there are many people who want me to come out with some sizzling hot take to totally own the Pope with facts and logic or something like that. And though it pains me to disappoint you, that will not happen. I'm a Catholic, I'm a mackerel snapping papist And I think as a matter of not only Catholic discipline, But in the 2000 year tradition of the Church, it is good to have respect for priests, for prelates, for the Holy Father to have obedience, a kind of filial piety. That's a good thing, actually. It's contrary to our liberal and lowercase d democratic, egalitarian age. I know it's contrary to all that, the hyper individualism that typifies modernity. But too bad, I don't. We don't do that. We speak in a respectful way on this show. We speak in a respectful way about the Holy Father, even if he says things that are, raise eyebrows. Even, even if he says something that's wrong, because don't forget that the Pope is fallible, except when he's infallible. So let's get to the point that he's making here. He says, look, yeah, I don't want to, I basically don't want to smack this Democrat senator too hard. And I probably, the subtext is I don't want to needlessly go after this cardinal, this particularly troublesome cardinal in Illinois, where this issue was probably being resolved behind the scenes anyway. And Durbin said he wasn't gonna get the award and there was gonna be a denunciation by the bishops. And so there was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes. Then he comes out and he makes the point that it's actually an issue here. He says, look, plenty of people support the death penalty and they call themselves pro life. So, you know, pro life, it's a much bigger issue than just abortion. You can't support the death penalty and be pro life. And the point I would observe here is, I suppose by a certain definition of pro life, I suppose that's true, right? I mean, with a sufficiently broad definition of the term pro life, I guess, you know, if I kill a spider, I might not be considered pro life, because pro life is not a term of theology. Pro life is not a moral category. Pro life is a political slogan. And it can be useful as a political slogan. I think it's useful. I use the slogan, but that's what it is, it's a political slogan. And so I think we should be more precise about this. The objection to what was going on in Chicago is that a prince of the church was going to give a lifetime achievement award to an infanticidal politician. And, and that is wrong. And it was right for the senator to say he wasn't going to accept it. And it was right of the bishops to denounce this award from this Cardinal Blase Cupich, that that was all good. Abortion is a different kind of issue from other issues. So when it comes to the death penalty for 2,000 years, just about, I don't know, 1990 years, the Catholic Church was generally in favor of the death penalty beginning, okay, 1950 years or something. So 1970 years now, beginning with the pontificate of John Paul II, St. John Paul II, the church began to say, okay, look, in principle, the death penalty is okay, but in practice, it really should not be done. It should not be carried out, because as a prudential matter now with modern technology and modern social order, we can protect the public from criminals sufficiently with prisons, and they're not gonna escape. So we just don't, practically don't need to carry it out that much. But in principle, there's nothing wrong with it. And it was important that John Paul II made this point because one many popes had actually personally carried out the death penalty. Blessed Pius ix oversaw some 500 executions in the Papal States. He was asked for a reprieve for the last execution. He said, I do not want to gr. Grant a reprieve. I cannot grant a reprieve, okay? We see in the writings of St. Paul that the civil authority does not bear the sword in vain. That's in inerrant Scripture. In the Letter to the Romans, we see doctors of the Church defending capital punishment. So the Church cannot say the capital punishment is intrinsically evil. And so when Pope Benedict comes around after John Paul ii, Pope Benedict says, look, I personally oppose the death penalty as a judgment of my own, but that is not to say that the death penalty is intrinsically evil. The Church cannot contradict herself in this way. And so he said, reasonable minds can differ on the death penalty. Pope Francis elevated this a step further. He said that the death penalty is morally inadmissible, which is a confusing phrase, but it's a precise phrase in the sense that he is avoiding saying it's intrinsically evil because he can't do that. That's not how doctrine develops. The Catholic Church cannot contradict herself, cannot contradict 2000 years of magisterial teaching, cannot contradict Sacred Scripture. So that was, again, a prudential measure. And Pope Leo here obviously opposes the death penalty and is making this point on the slogan pro life. Okay? Unlike this matter, which again, is not a contradiction. In as much as for 2,000 years, the church has said that the death penalty is permissible in certain conditions. And then more recently, they're focusing on those conditions. And Saying, well, because certain conditions exist today, we don't advocate carrying it out. Okay? Unlike the death penalty, where reasonable minds apparently can disagree, really going all the way back to Genesis, I think this is something that people mistake about the death penalty. They think that the conservatives are in favor of capital punishment because we're mean and bloodthirsty or something, when in fact it's the opposite. They think that we don't respect human dignity. In fact, it's the opposite because the original scriptural basis for the death penalty goes back to the early chapters of Genesis which say, whosoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for man is made in the image and likeness of God. So it's precisely because human beings have a kind of dignity that we see capital punishment. Okay? Unlike that issue, there is no question for 2000 years consistently going back to the didache and further back that the Church has said that it is wrong to murder babies in the womb. Outside the womb, it's wrong to murder human babies. And so I just think if we're discussing the finer points of morality and theology, I guess this political slogan doesn't necessarily work. It's not precise, it's not helpful. So, okay, we'll just be clear about it. The Church should not be giving lifetime achievement awards to infanticidal politicians. In my humble opinion, as a layman, I think that's clear. I think most bishops probably agree with that as simple enough. And the Church can offer prudential judgments about certain policies, although when those policies get into questions of efficiency or the competency of the state, sometimes that falls outside of the Church's own competency. And so therefore, sometimes those are less weighty opinions than on matters of morals and faith. Ex cathedra. In any case, you don't need to own the Pope with facts and logic. You don't need to do any. I don't think that's the right attitude. I don't think that's the right corrective to our spirit of hyper individualism and hyper egalitarianism and all the rest. We just say it's wrong to kill babies. The Church should not do that. And when it comes to the death penalty, I suppose the reasonable mind of Pope Benedict persuades me about. About how reasonable people can disagree. Okay, now you know what's unreasonable? 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I got that from Columbia. I got that from a lot of other medical institutions. I even got it from Tylenol. And then the right started posting this tweet from Tylenol in 2017 saying, we don't recommend pregnant mothers take our product. So you see, by 2017, they already knew. Well, actually now it turns out Tylenol acknowledged the potential autism connection almost ten years earlier than that. This is calling to the Daily Caller. Leslie Schure, the head of the division of Johnson and Johnson that monitors the side effects of drugs already on the market, received an alert in 2012 about concerns about acetaminophen and autism from a concerned father. So you already in 20. Excuse the number. It wasn't 2008, it was 2012. So five years earlier than was previously reported. This is just like the healthcare for illegals claim. This is just like it. They say, no, no, no, it's not true. It's not. That's a lie. It's a lie. It's a lie. Then when you show them dispositive proof, the narrative starts to change. They say, okay, well, no, it's true, but it's not a big deal. No, it's not that big a deal. Next. I don't know. Now they're going to be prescribing Tylenol to every pregnant mother. So you need to give your child neurological disorders. Speaking of acknowledging wrongdoing, really good story coming out of YouTube. YouTube has just settled with President Trump. For almost $25 million, YouTube will pay not to President Trump directly, but to groups that President Trump has identified. $25 million almost for censoring him. Remember, YouTube thought they could get away with it. They thought when Trump looked like he was out politically, all the big tech platforms got rid of him. The payment processors debanked him. The prosecutors tried to throw him in prison. The feds raided his house. They tried. The Dems tried to kick him off the ballot. But then Trump came back, and there's no substitute for victory. Now they come groveling again. YouTube has settled with Trump. They're not formally admitting fault, though they have admitted that the Biden administration was pressuring them to censor conservatives. YouTube will give $22 million to the nonprofit Trust for the National Mall to help fund the construction of the White House State Ballroom at Trump's behest. They will also give an additional two and a half million to a group of his supporters, including the American Conservative Union, which puts on cpac. This is the way. So, first of all, notice Trump is not personally enriching himself here. That's what the libs always claim. He is personally enriching himself. Trump is the richest president in American history. He was very, very rich before he became president. Unlike Barack Obama, who goes in penniless and shortly after he leaves the presidency, he's a very rich man. Unlike Bill Clinton, who was a debtor actually in the White House, and then somehow magically becomes a very, very rich man after he leaves the White House, shaken down people all around the world to take bribes for his wife's presidential campaign. Unlike those guys, unlike the Democrat politicians, Trump really didn't need the money. And even here, he's saying, YouTube, you gotta pay. You have to pay to be punished for your very, very bad behavior. That was dangerous to our political order. So you're gonna pay a lot of money. You're gonna pay $24.5 million. You're not gonna pay it to me personally. We're gonna make you fund this important new ballroom at the White House. And you want to talk about the art of the deal. Trump said he's going to beautify the White House. He's donated personally. Nice big flag poles on the north and south lawns. He says we need this ballroom cuz we were not able to host state dinners. And he doesn't make the taxpayer pay for it. And he personally doesn't have to pay for all of it. At least he's going to shake down this corporation and say, you acted badly, you're gonna be punished. And I am gonna make you do the right thing by giving your money to Public Works. This is good. We're not quite at the point of Caesar Augustus, you know, finding Rome in dirt and leaving it in marble, but we're getting pretty close. Speaking of setting higher standards, the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, has just caught a lot of flack because he gave a speech to generals saying that we need high standards in the military. And if this means that we have to prioritize military readiness over social engineering, so be it. If this means that 4 foot 1190 pound women don't get to be Navy Seals, you know, that's just the price we have to pay for being able to defend our country.