ITN 9-21-2023 SEG 1 Done Podcast

In this radio show, the host discusses local news and highlights the work of St. Francis of Assisi in feeding the poor. The pastor and bishop are praised for their dedication to serving the needy. The topic then shifts to a rosary pilgrimage organized by the Dominicans and the controversy surrounding the addition of the Luminous Mysteries. The concept of indulgences is explained, emphasizing the need for confession and detachment from sin. The host also mentions concerns about Western influence on Ghana and the pressure to promote abortion and LGBTQ rights in exchange for financial aid. The bishop of Ghana expresses his opposition to this imposition of Western values. Hello and welcome to another edition of In The News. I'm your host, Crystal Carmen Stephens, and with us in studio today is Fr. William Weary. Fr. Bill, how are you today? I'm very well, Crystal. Thank you. And we welcome everybody here to the radio and to the listening in on this show. God bless you. And to whoever you're listening, if it's on the radio, via our app, or on our website, we welcome you and thank you for listening. Fr. Today, I'd like to start off with some very local news. I'd like to start off with Bishop Sr. at St. Francis of Assisi at the food kitchen. Wasn't that wonderful? That is such an inspiration to see the bishop doing that. That is a wonderful ministry that they have had for many decades in downtown Harrisburg. And for Bishop Sr. to jump right in there, as he did, and of course got coverage in The Witness, quite an inspiration to all. He is very, as you know, orientated toward the poor because he was very involved in Catholic charities in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, where he was before. So God bless you, Bishop Sr., for what you're doing. So for 42 years, St. Francis of Assisi has been feeding the poor of Allison Hill and that section of Harrisburg, and we commend them for their work. I want to read you a quote from the pastor, Fr. Emanuel Aviles, OFM, he's there, how do I say it, is it Capetian? Capetian. Capetian. Capetian monks that are down in residence at St. Francis, and he says, Scripture tells us that Jesus said, I came to serve, not to be served. If there is something that moves our hearts, it's serving. Fr. Aviles said that when you see the bishop here among us, a pastor smelling like the sheep and serving those in need, it moves your heart. Beautiful. Absolutely. And the Capetian Franciscans are very much devoted to the poor, and they serve in parishes, oftentimes inner city parishes, where there are many ethnicities, people of color, people who are poor, and they're certainly being demonstrated at St. Francis in Harrisburg. Certainly so. I have great affinity for St. Francis. When we first moved to Harrisburg, we lived in that area, that was our parish, I was a catechist at St. Francis, and I just really would like people to know about that ministry that's been going on for so long, and if you have any way that you can support that ministry, I'm going to give you the number for their parish office, which is 717-232-1003. All right, so Bishop Senior, we thank you for leading by example. Amen. We really do. All right. And now I'd like to go on to one of my favorite topics, which is the rosary, and the Dominicans are having a rosary pilgrimage to the Basilica for Our Blessed Mother in Washington, D.C., and I just really want to point that out to everyone, that's September 30th, it's an all-day event from 9 a.m. to 4.30 is when the visual mass starts, so 9 a.m. to, let's say, 5.30, 6. So I really just wanted everyone to know that, that it's happening, the Dominicans are a wonderful order, and I wanted to talk about some things that the Dominicans really stand for. The Luminous Mysteries. Father, how do you feel about the Luminous Mysteries? Well, I think that's added by Pope St. John Paul II. I read a little bit of a controversy, some apparently, a little bit of opposition to them that messes up the 150 Hail Marys thing, but I think it's fine, I don't see any problem with it. I think that they're very beautiful. I love them. So for those of you who have an objection to the Luminous Mysteries, I want to read you the Dominican rebuttal to that 150 Psalms versus the 150 Hail Marys. That rebuttal is, on June 17th, Our Blessed Mother appeared to the three children of Fatima and asked them to add a prayer after every decade of the rosary, the Oh My Jesus, forgive us our sins prayer, so it seems that the rosary can be changed for the good of the church. Certainly. Yes. Now my favorite thing about the Luminous Mysteries is I feel that it is, I'm going to steal this from Father Calloway, the lightsaber of the rosary. And let's mention also that, according to the story, Our Lady appeared to the founder of the Dominicans, St. Dominic, and gave him the rosary, and that is, that is the legend and what a beautiful story that is. So the Dominicans are very much attached to the rosary, understandably so. Rosary is one of the most powerful weapons that we have as Catholics, that we have as Christians, and I heartily, heartily, heartily ask everyone to remember to pray your rosary. All right, I want to ask one, I want to talk about one more thing associated with the rosary pilgrimage. So there is a plenary indulgence for attending the rosary pilgrimage, and I want to talk about indulgences, sir, because it seems that a lot of Catholics don't understand what an indulgence is and the proper use of. Right. It's one of the most, I say, the two most difficult truths of the Catholic faith to really defend and explain are indulgences, number one, and number two, actually, a doctrine that I love, the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, however, even the Orthodox are conflicted on that one because of her sinlessness. In any case, indulgences are difficult to explain, but it's a remission of temporal punishment due to sin, is basically what an indulgence is. A plenary indulgence is a complete remission of temporal punishment due to sin. And the conditions are, the conditions are that you go to Mass, receive communion within a few days of doing the actual act that is prescribed, in this case, the rosary pilgrimage. It could be a holy hour, a benediction of the Blessed Sacrament carries a plenary indulgence, of the cross, and also the prayers of the Pope, one Our Father, one Hail Mary, one Glory Be. We'll do it. Here's the tricky one, complete detachment from all sin, mortal and venial, the person seeking the indulgence has to have that complete detachment from all sin, confession as well, within a few days before or after the action of the act of charity or act of prayer that one carries out. There are partial indulgences, and then in this case, as you mentioned, a plenary indulgence. So controversial, especially going back to the Reformation, we used to buy and sell them. That was my next question. We don't do that anymore, but we still have, it is a basic truth of the faith. We do have indulgences, and they are commissioned and issued by the church on the diocesan level and on the universal level as well. But even though, here's my question, even though, say I bought an indulgence back in the times of Martin Luther, I still have to go, I still have had to have gone to confession and have to be detached from wanting to sin. Sure, and it's an invitation to spiritual renovation, to repentance, and to spiritual joy. I mean, confession is confessing of sins and changing your life, receiving the communion, all necessary. And then the award or reward, if you want, remission of temporal punishment due to sin, which would be related to purgatory. So it would somehow connect in some mysterious way with less time, quote-unquote, in purgatory, to whatever extent there is time in purgatory and in the next life. There are different categories of time, and I could go into that right now, but it'd be a little bit too much. That's all right. I just wanted to do a brief overview just for our listeners. And you can always look and study this for yourselves. I'm a big proponent of self-learning. All right, so I would like to talk about, Meg, let's talk about, we were discussing Ghana. Mm-hmm. Well, what's happening here, and this is an article by the Population Research Institute. Steve Moser is the founder and the president, and he watches out for this sort of thing. He's a very devout Catholic, a convert, I believe. And the bishop's conference, the president of the bishop's conference is speaking out about the visit of Kamala Harris in April to Ghana and the subtle implications that Ghana could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in United States taxpayer dollars if they don't promote abortion and the pro-LGBTQ agenda. Joseph Biden's NSC spokesman, John Kirby, last April said that, quote, LGBTQ rights are a core part of our foreign policy. You get that? So therefore, as the United States decides what countries get what aid, they're going to be looking at that. And the country has to be promoting those Western values. In an interview with Catholic Trends, the bishop, Matthew, I'm not sure I'm pronouncing this right, Guy Amphit, president of the bishop's conference of Ghana, said, turn that money down. And he's speaking to the government, and I'm quoting, I believe in this I speak on behalf of most Ghanians. We don't want anybody from outside our community to come and tell us what human rights are. We know our human rights. They have their rights. Let them have their rights. And we are not challenging them on that, that is to say, people in the West and our opinions on human rights, but by no means, I'm quoting again, but by no means should they come to Ghana, be they president or vice president, come and tell us what we should do. They have no right to do that. It seems like an economic, like colonialism. It is. That's a very good way of putting it, sort of an economical colonialism. And people don't know that this is going on. This is, it's subtle, it's behind the scenes. The bishop is saying that this is changing our culture. I'm very concerned about that in the developing world. And sub-Sahara Africa is a target for imposing these Western values on the people for two reasons. Number one, they are, it's a growing population, it is the only continent that still has a growing population, while at the same time having the fastest growing Catholic church in the world, sub-Saharan Africa. So the European Union and the United States and other Western countries are really targeting that geographical area and trying to impose these Western values on them in contradiction to their culture and connecting dollars to it. That's hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to a developing country. In all honesty, can they afford to say no? That's a good question. And there'll be tremendous pressure on a country to change its values and to cooperate with these and promote LGBTQ agenda and abortion and contraception. And but the bishop is saying here, it may be easy to say, but he's saying do not accept the money. How do we as Americans? How do we contact? Who do we contact to tell them we don't agree? I would say, yeah, contact your senator, your House of Representatives, your representative in the Congress and the Biden White House as well, which is really driving this. It is elections, elections are coming up. Your voice will be heard a lot louder. That is true. And to inform yourself also, Population Research Institute is a very, very good source on this whole sort of international morality, if I can put it that way. And they were first founded to out the Chinese one child abortion policy. And Steve Moser was beating the drum on that when nobody else was. And a policy that has since been backtracked on by the Chinese government. They go back and forth on it. But I think there has been considerable backtracking because they're sort of approaching a demographic winner right now. Exactly. Well, that was not true in the past. One of the most populated countries in the world, and it still is. But they're a little bit concerned now about the lowering of population rate. All right. So, Father, on that note, we're going to take a break and we'll be right back after these messages. Welcome back to In the News. I'm your host, Crystal Carmen Stevens, along with Father Bill Weary here in studio. Father, in our last segment, we were talking about Ghana in sub-Saharan Africa. Now I'd like to go up a bit to northern Africa. And I just want to remember the floods that happened in Libya. The Pope called for solidarity with our brothers and sisters there. And I just wanted to take a moment to maybe have a little history moment and remember that we have very deep ties. Yes, we do. Northern Africa was largely Catholic up until the approximately 7th century, well, from 300, legalization of Christianity on the land of St. Augustine, of Hippo, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Egypt, and many, many saints. No longer it's all Islamic now, but we do have a connection. You're so correct there. And first of all, Islam is monotheistic as we are. But these floods were terrible. And this is where the concept of the global village really comes home to roost. And we are all in this ship called planet Earth together. And I think it's wonderful when we reach out to these people. The Pope speaks out about it and that there is this international concern. We prayed in my parish church for Libya. And so people are coming together on this, and hopefully they'll be able to turn this around. You had some thoughts about the climate change versus some human input here. I do indeed. I do indeed. So since 2014, Libya has been in a big civil war, and it's resulted in two governments. A ceasefire was signed in 2020, but that has not stopped the war from happening. And they've not been able to keep up with their infrastructure because one side keeps blowing up the other side's roads, and one side keeps blowing up the other side's dams. So bad things happen. And I want to talk about, we want to blame things like this on climate change. And I think humans have to take responsibility for the destruction that we do on a very large level. Well, you know, nobody wins with war. That is so true. And this is an example of that, and it's probably a combination of one-two punch of the climate and the human fault as well. And the peace efforts are so important to do. People kind of laugh at the United Nations, but boy, if we did not have it, they laugh because it seems like a toothless tiger. Nonetheless, what the United Nations provides is dialogue and calling people to accountability and things like the civil war and the Ukrainian situation as well. And we need that accountability, even if there's no enforcement power very much. But just riffing off of what you're saying, you know, to confront these conflicts and to point out, you know, the terrible devastation that it does for people. And so important to come to the negotiation, to the dialogue table, to the diplomatic table, and to interact and to talk your way to peace. Yes, because we must remember that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. That's right. Yeah. So I just want everybody to pray with Pope Francis as he has asked us all to pray for those people who are affected by this tragedy. Pope Francis did willingly invoke the divine blessings of consolation, strength and perseverance to those affected. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right. So we're moving from there. And now we're going to come back home to Perry-Cohen County School District, in which on Friday, the students staged a walkout because the school board had not enacted a measure that made transgender students use their biologically correct bathrooms. So the students took it onto their own hands to protest. Yes. And that is definitely an inspiration to see young people, you know, adhering to, in this case, traditional values. And it certainly is a mess. And especially on the part of the girls concerned of guys in the girls' bathroom who have supposedly changed over their genders, and there have been some reports of assaults going on. And so certainly this walkout is very significant. And everybody should take notice that young people are objecting to this. Yeah, of course they are. It's not just the oldsters. I remember being in high school and how traumatic it was just to take showers with just girls. I can't imagine being boys in there, too. Yeah. So I don't know where that's going to go. This is a real split, I mean, in society. And I just, it's hard to deal with this. Because there's a lot of shaming going on. For those of us who object to the transgender agenda, we are oftentimes put down and persecuted. White martyrdom, I call it. We love all human beings. And the Pope has definitely reached out to the LGBTQ community and sort of extolled their humanities, said very nice things to them and received them in audience. I think he's a good example to follow. Because I think he's basically adhering to the doctrine, even though he's not always real clear about it. The word chastity doesn't, I don't think, I don't know if it ever came out of his mouth. Nevertheless, push comes to shove, he does hold the line. But he values all of these LGBT people as adherents, all in the movement as human beings who are deserving of God's love. I did a little research here. So in Perkielman School District, there's 4,993 students, K through 12. Okay, so there's 5,000 students through the whole school district. All right, by the CDC's own admission, 1.4% of children 13 through 17 think that they're LG, think that they're transgender. Okay, so if you take all the kids in the whole school district from K through 12, that's still only 70 kids. Why are we bending over backwards for such a small percentage? It's the mentality of the underdog, and it's big in modern American society, that the minorities are to be upheld and protected and loved because they're marginalized, and that's not good, and they can have all kinds of psychological problems. That's I'm playing devil's advocate here. That's why for 70 people, we're jumping through hoops and bending over backwards. But from the Catholic standpoint, we do know that the mutilation of the body is serious sin, and we were made male and female, Book of Genesis, and we have to adhere to that. Somebody once said, the Pope has said, God loves you the way you are, and others in the transgender movement are, God loves me the way I am. Well, the way you are was you were once male, stay male. You were once female, stay male. God loves you the way you are. And to change over is very traumatic for the body and for the soul, I would say, as well. People would very vehemently disagree with me on that. I know that. Nevertheless, we have to uphold God's law and God's creation as he has created it. If the majority of minors are telling you that they don't feel comfortable about something, should they not be protected because they're minors? That is correct. I mean, especially as minors, there should be strong laws against this surgery and the chemical injections as well, and it just should not, I don't think it should be permitted at all. Even in school, which is supposed to be a safe place, should I be psychologically traumatized at 14 walking in on a guy in the bathroom or a guy walking in when I'm in the restroom? Well, I think it would be a normal traumatization, I think, definitely, to see somebody of the opposite sex there, even though a trans, you know, a transgender. I mean, as a woman, that's like a seriously vulnerable place to be, is the restroom. That's right. You know, and I just don't understand why this is an argument and why this is a fight. Well, I don't know how it's going to play out. As I said, it's a big split, and it seems a big split in society, but you've also pointed out the small numbers. Nevertheless, the voices, you know, advocating for this are very strong in the media, social media and news media are very much, you know, promoting this. You know, I went on the website and I looked at the pvsc.org school board, and I looked, and it's predominantly women, and I don't understand why they are pushing forth this agenda so drastically. Well, it's certainly a wake-up call for them with hundreds of students walking out. So we'll see how that plays out. All right, I want some good news now, Father. Oh, good. All right. Rinaldo, Rinaldo, world-renowned soccer player, Rinaldo, on the World Cup team for Brazil in 1994 and 2002, has become a Catholic at the age of 46. Baptized. Baptized. That is wonderful. I have a quote here from him, and he says that today is a very special day. I have been baptized. The Christian faith has always been a fundamental part of my life since I was a child, although I had not yet been baptized with the sacrament. I feel regenerated as a child of God in a more conscious, deeper way. How about that? What a great inspiration to young people. Yes, and he put that out on his Instagram page, which has almost 30 million followers. Yes, that's right. To me, it's always wonderful when celebrities, not too many of them, but actors and singers come out as Catholic, come out as out of closet, so to speak, in a good way. I'm thinking of Mark Wahlberg, an actor, of course, Jonathan Rumi, who's the lead in The Chosen, playing Jesus Christ, and Lady Gaga, believe it or not. What? Yes. He's Catholic. Patricia Heaton, who was the wife, and everybody loves Raymond, also very devout Catholic. Gary Sinise, who was in Forrest Gump, and he played the military man. Of Mice and Men. Yes, and they're all practicing Catholics. Martin Sheen is another one, and so that's great, and I make use of that in homilies and all that, that there are celebrities who are on our side and are embracing the faith. And this soccer player, what a great thing. I'm going to talk to Mark at the education conference about the title is Making Difficult Catholic Crews Attractive to Students, or at least trying to. And one of the points I'm going to make is the celebrities, I'm going to mention the soccer star, that teachers can bring this stuff out in the classroom and bring kids on board. And in the modern day soccer star, Cristiano Ronaldo, he plays for Saudi Arabia right now, and also for Brazil. He was playing a game in Brazil, scored a goal, made the sign of the cross in Saudi Arabia. Did he really? Yeah. Yeah, and you see that on the baseball field. That's right. At times, and I think it's good seeing prayer in high school before and after the game. I know that can be controversial as well. Sure, it can be, but they do it, professionals do it. There you go. You know, so, Father, this has been a wonderful chat. I thank you for it. Thank you. Can you please close us out with a prayer? In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord God, Heavenly Father, fill us with your grace, your peace, and your light, by the power of your Holy Spirit, touch us in heart, mind, body, and soul, raise us up in union with your Son's resurrection. And may Almighty God bless you all, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Amen. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to In the News. I'm your host, Crystal Carmen Stevens, with Father Bill Wehry, and our wonderful producer, Joe Nevistinsky. We'll look forward to chatting again with you next time.