Father Spitzer’s Universe - 2018-08-15 - Five Transcendental Desires Pt. 1

[Music] [Music] hello and welcome once again to father Spitzer's universe where no man has gone before but we go each week I'm Doug Keck your host coming to you live from our EWTN studios in Irondale Alabama the mothership where it all began back in 1981 and we're actually doing this program on the anniversary of EWTN the 37th anniversary August 15th when mother started it all appropriately on the Feast of the Assumption check us out on fake book of course send us a tweet on Twitter for all things that father Spitzer has to say there's the magic Center website majus center.com of course one word enough there's also that other thing we've been working on called a credible Catholic calm and a lot of ways it's incredible but it's totally credible and should check it out and that's we've been working through today's topic five transcendental desires interesting marrying desires with transcendental we'll find out more about that don't forget also that we have a special announcement coming up as part of World Youth Day we're gonna be launching a special radio feed for Ireland and the UK specifically EWTN Catholic radio for Britain and Ireland launches August 15 today as a soft launch we're gonna officially make it a big deal next week when we're in Ireland as part of the world meeting of families of course we've been available as a satellite and a radio feed over there but this is a special feed predominantly made up of programming explicitly being produced for and about Ireland and the UK and so check that out if you happen to be over there in Ireland for the world meeting of families which of course EWTN will be covering starting next Tuesday night and of course we turn once again to the west coast where we see father Spitzer coming into view from our beautiful Studios in Orange County California at the Christ Cathedral Center of course and that studio high above the grounds there and a prayer to get us started father Spitzer absolutely in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen Heavenly Father on this joyous Feast of the Assumption when we celebrate the glorification of your son's Blessed Mother we ask for peace for our church amidst the the scandals that are now happening and asked in a special way Lord that you heal all the victims who have been so affected by these acts and please Lord bless our church and heal our church as well so that we can go in the confidence and hope that your son has given us please Lord we ask - that all that we do be brought to fruition in your will send your Holy Spirit down upon us to inspire guide and protect us so that we might truly build your kingdom and all in this audience and all who hear us may be truly edified through Jesus Christ our Lord amen and Mary seat of wisdom Queen of Heaven and Mary Queen of the Assumption pray for us name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen and again topic for today five transcendental desires from our credible Catholic calm you can check out the website and follow along with us but of course it's interesting to father you alluded to it and I know you wanted to talk about the idea that incredibly in a lot of ways we're dealing with unfortunately very credible charges and issues and scandals inside the church many of which we hoped we had seen them in our rearview mirror but going back 15 years or so but some new information coming out new stories and so a lot of people out there as you know and you probably get email we hear a lot of people out there questioning and are confused and certainly people honor your wisdom we thought maybe you could give us some insights into the way people should relate and deal with what's going on yeah I would you know as usual recommend three points one concerns prayer another one concerns the way you know we're looking at the church and judging the church and the third really concerns what I would call hope and maintaining hope amidst all of this and trying to give hope to others first with respect to prayer I mean we prayer above all can heal everything I mean if we look at the church's history they're just these times that are replete with down cycles and you know times where you know there's just this enormous emergence of grace and and you know God is in control of providence in history and when these sorts of times of really human failing occur no question the church you know especially its Saints have prayed us out of this and God has come through and will never fail on his promise through the Holy Spirit to Peter so the main thing is you know first we need to pray pray first of all for the victims of these acts and and their continued healing and and that you know somehow a miracle can be worked in their lives to turn these incidents around so that they can you know get a modicum of peace that the second is to pray for the church and and I think you know you know the church itself as you know as st. Paul says if one is wounded so if these victims are wounded if that the scandals are really undermining the faith of others right if one is wounded we're all wounded if one is is is is suffering all our suffering and so in a way we need to pray for the church itself pray you know that we're going to do the right thing pray that we might be able to to you know you know in some sense not just recover but learn from what's happened and do what God always does that idea of Felix culpa that we might start higher than from where we left off due to the magnificent and and bounteous grace of God so the first thing is pray pray pray the second thing I think we have to do is support the church it's call for authentic reform you know an authentic reform particularly of clergy and ministers this has to happen for example you know Bishop Robert Barron has just you know made a call to you know have a commission established a constituted mostly by laypeople to look into authentic reform for clergy we've had these calls and a good response to them in the past but obviously it's not enough I mean you know we had the Dallas Charter and the Dallas Charter did give rise to a whole series of norms for the protection of children and we can see that you know that has had a very good effect but not a good enough effect now these charges with the 300 priests throughout Pennsylvania know six dioceses there these charges you know come from seventy years so you know for example you know a good 50% of them would have happened you know people would have entered way before of the Dallas Charter and the and the offense is committed before the Dallas charged charter but nevertheless there's a 50% that happened after the Dallas Charter and this what we have to find something better than just the Dallas Charter something better than the good educational programs that have been established to help the clergy you know to report these things well and so that the first thing is you know let's join Bishop Baron and the other bishops who are calling for a commission constituted mostly by laypeople to lead the way to some deeper authentic reforms you know in in the clergy and they I would really have to say that there are several calls I think Bishop Baron has a very very good one and that might be something we could ask our own bishops to support so that this thing can really take on you know an objective and good you know deeper you know impact then then the Dallas charter again you know in the past week we instituted psychological exams and those psychological exams have been very effective so we've weeded out a lot of people you know before they enter who might have been abused and we know that an abuse person has a you know much more a much higher chance of being an abuser right and so sometimes you can find this right away you know by some indications on a psychological exam but not always it's the problem we know that narcissistic personalities have a much higher chance of also committing these you know acts and the you know to try and you know find them before they enter etcetera etc and those those psychological exams have been good you know those tests but unfortunately obviously something more is needed you know to do that because again you know 50% of the people would have you know entered before the psychological tests were ever administer but 50% entered after and so again we need something so I think we really do both on the psychological level on the seminarian entrance level on the level of just you know not just clergy education but really you know strict follow-through on the Dallas Charter if somebody does something you know that you know especially these are the children you know there has to be an immediate action that you know follows the Charter pretty directly or something which strengthens the Charter pretty directly and we need to support our bishops in that the third area just deals with hope you know ourselves we can't be good evangelizers ourselves if we're just you know mind-boggled and heart boggled you know and just sunken heads from this kind of scandal we have to you know have the hope and the promise that Jesus gave to Peter and and you know like I said the church has been struck with this in the pan and and I think the first thing we need to remember is this you know it was given to me by a really good mentor father Jerry Girard Steckler a long time ago I was sitting there trying to you know make up my mind to intensify my commitment to the church or not and these scandals you know from you know Pope Alexander the sig that happened hundreds of years ago we're really bothering me and I just came to him and I said look you know I I just can't get around this stuff and he said look you have to judge the church according to its Saints but not at sinners and he says I know that's like putting on blinders but in point of fact the Saints are the ones moved by Christ and the Holy Spirit you know the ones who are sitting at least at the time that they're sinning are being moved by another spirit and so he just basically said you know first you know and foremost don't you know get so discouraged by the sinners that you can't see the forest through the trees this huge plethora of saints you know and unsung Saints you know people just work in these Mission territories with just such great passion and conviction with great sacrifice etcetera Terry they're just everywhere the unsung heroes as well as the Sun yours that the priests as well as the laity I mean there's just you know Saints upon Saints out there and and and and so the main thing is that's the first thing that the second thing just for our own you know sake this is I think we really have to you know renew our sense you know that you know there are always these ups and downs that it seems like you know you know the prince of this world gets his way you know and in and it just happens when we let down our moral boundaries you know our safeguards within not just the church culture though certainly that but also within the general culture as a whole and and whenever there's fuzzy boundaries whenever there's a kind of you know I don't want to call it a laxity but it kind of a laxity within the church and outside the church regarding you know these these good appropriate boundaries right we're not asking priests to have no affection for you know you know people etc you know that they have to be snowed and and still awake you know I mean I mean the point is within that range we want of course the appropriate boundary and they're always these times I think culturally and the church oftentimes takes what's going on right into itself in the culture and we got to be careful that we and that's we just need to come out of us I think part of the call that Bishop Baron is asking for is for everyone to be countercultural for the lady to support the priest the priest to support the lady to be counter-cultural about what's going on particularly in in in in sexuality in sexual mores and you know not to get sucked in and right now it is so easy to get sucked in there's everything from the Internet to the television to the just the culture itself to what's going on with you know selfies to you know it's just so easy to get sucked in and not just sucked into you know sexual things but sucked into narcissism you know and in and so forth and it just plays on itself again and again so the one thing is just we just have to as part of this call know that part of what we're doing has got to be countercultural but above all we must maintain hope in Jesus's promise that the jaws of the nether world are never going to prevail against us that Christ's promise is inviolable and that the Holy Spirit will come through and help us but those are some of the things you know prayer you know support of the reformed and keeping our own hope alive so that we could be good events so we have to keep our focus on our Lord and understand that as Peter said you where am I to go Lord that you have the words of eternal life so we know it's in the sense of the church itself we're not talking about that we're talking about individuals and people inside the church that being said obviously some people as you were commenting a couple of things come to mind from what I've heard people say or concerns are some of it has to do with the idea of saying well you know we trusted the bishops once before okay fool me once you know as the expression goes so now we're having people come back and say the same thing and then then stories come out and maybe it'll show that some of those people have their own issues or problems and so it makes people feel a little more wary which is why I think the idea of having lay people obviously involved in a positive way of because it's always difficult for any group to police itself there's a there's a certain culture that exists in any organization that to some degree becomes protective of itself and oh yeah there's a concern I think people have like that and so that that's why that's important the other issue quite honestly has to do with understanding the issue at the level of you know and I haven't looked at the recent numbers for Pittsburgh and for Pennsylvania but coming out of the John Jay study etc like that when you're talking about prepubescent and prose progressed and you see that usually you're talking about a predominance of post-pubescent which really is not pedophilia which is the most horrible thing in the universe and which any of this evil needs to be eradicated from the church obviously and I think we want to make that point that if anybody knows that firsthand they need to come forward and tell people about it and get this stuff eradicated from the church at the same time we also have to realize a lot of this has to do with other sexual predilections that have to do with same-sex attractions that are out there and which there's been debates in the inside the church over these many years though Pope Benedict came out and so did actually the recent Holy Father told the Italian bishops about that situation as well but many times it was kind of well everybody can be fine and now there's a question of whether in fact that's true yeah well you know with regard to both of your points I do think we have to have a very concerted study and look at you know just how it is that we're going to evaluate potential people who are going to enter the seminary and we've got to have a strict set of criteria that's really based on what the statistics say are the likelihood of violations and so we should really look at that take a hard look at that not what we want to see but what really is the case and then try to make appropriate recommendations you know for how to assess these things how to psychologically evaluate them and in you know what we're going to do if we find that the presence of you know a high degree of narcissism or whatever other factors that you know you know was this person abused when they were younger etc and whatever other factors we find we've just got a look at that the hard truth of it and and and then make judgments accordingly and and you know we sometimes want to put on and you know Here I am with my little dark glasses or rose-colored glasses you know and and try to you know sometimes say well that problems not going to be of significance what let's we better look at the statistics and we better look at them truthfully or else we're never going to get around this problem and that's the first thing the second thing just is with respect to bureaucracy I just have to say all bureaucracies protect themselves I mean the church let's face it we're a bureaucracy whether we like it or not we are the government is a bureaucracy a big corporation is a bureaucracy right the military is a bureaucracy whether we like it or not all Bureau kradic agencies and we can see this from the time of Montesquieu one night what do they do they protect themselves they circle the wagons it's their typical conduct of course we should rise above that as a church a bureaucracy but I mean the point is we do succumb you know to some of these natural proclivities you know bringing me back just the one last point and that is you know what we have to be counterculture we just have to be countercultural it's so easy to get sucked in it's so easy for me to get sucked in you know and so I just have to say you know Menino we just have to take that that step now and and we can't either lady as priests right not be conical and I like the point that you made earlier which i think is all your points but obviously one that struck me the whole kind of fuzzy idea it seems like you know you're in a situation where you have to err on the side of safety and say you know you have to protect people and children you know so you say okay maybe this person wouldn't act out or maybe this person is the one out of a hundred but we can't take that risk and we live in a culture today where this kind of utopian idea that well you can't say that just because this person has XYZ they're going to do this without getting into the idea yeah but they have as you said statistically a much more likelihood opportunity that they will do something and why do we want to take that risk aren't we better off keeping people away from what used to be referred to as occasions of sin or temptation if you know you have a problem drinking don't hang out in bars okay realize that that's not a good place for you to spend time on and if you have some other issues with pornography then make sure you don't have a computer or something that's in a hidden place or a place you can be by yourself work on those things as best you can right I totally agree and I think you know this is the I mean it's just a dilemma that all of us face I mean all of us and there but for the grace of God go I write all of us face these these temptations from the culture all of us have various proclivities but we do have to be really honest about assessing you know where the dangers may lie right and especially there are some courses that that many priests do have to take you know on an annual basis in that courses they're like little mini units on a computer that has it look like a test afterwards you know make sure you got it and and one of the big parts of the test is to be able to recognize as a reporter all of us are are you know frankly reporters we're mandatory reporters of sexual abuse right because we're around the kids etc etc so the main thing is is for the protection of the children you take these things you look for grooming habits you look for these kinds of conduct and you know and you know to do you know the mandatory reporting if you see a problem so the main thing anyway you know and I digress a little bit right is is that I think we we do have to be honestly very truthful and I think having a lay Commission that mostly late Commission that Bishop Baron is calling for this is a really good start and being countercultural visa vie the cultural mores is a really good start let me ask you one other question the point you were making earlier and it just struck me I want to get your impression of this you know at least to some degree and maybe this is a fallacy and we're seeing that these things have gone on in the past maybe at a greater number than we were aware because things like this didn't come out so to speak but and at a parish you know let's say I'm growing up at a kid as a kid there may be a pastor in two or three other priests so in some ways at the rectory there's there's a level of accountability that you know in effect you have when you're married you know you just don't kind of wander in and out without somebody saying hey what are you doing you know that kind of thing we have a lot of priests today who because of the numbers and stuff are working one or multiple parishes and so they might be dealing with not only levels of exhaustion and and you know being overwhelmed with their workload which again not on the on the level we're talking about here but if we're talking about some other kinds of addiction it's easy for a person to maybe allow themselves to get into something because there's not that person to say hey what are you doing yeah yeah I know absolutely true I mean and these are conducts that you know in in most dioceses and in most religious orders there are these little mini courses that you get particularly to spot these things not only within yourself but even maybe within a fellow priest etc I mean you've got a double whammy there and in the double whammy is really first you know the the person who is stretched to the limit and you know I mean work and seven days a week work and you know 60 hours you know a week not 40 right more MORE these people are very vulnerable because they do not have the requisite psychic energy to control their imaginations and so what winds up happening in these states of exhaustion is that they have so little psychic energy that that by the time they get home their imagination has gone free flight I mean free flight and they might be as you pointed out completely isolated in a rectory etc and this is a recipe for disaster I'm not trying to excuse anything I'm just saying like this can help yeah this can happen and so and when it does happen then of course you know if nobody if somebody notices something and doesn't report it it's just oh you know it's the the disaster area is compounded but the main thing with part of these many courses is that you do notice these things right that you are like unhide and alert that if if you know your buddy your fellow priest who lives in a rectory with you if you start seeing something odd or you start seeing some conduct with with you know a young child or you know you know with even a post-pubescent adolescent etc you see something odd going on or you see some grooming activity that right away right you not only pointed out to the man but if but if you see it continue you really have to point it out to your religious superior and then there's a whole protocol for what happens now and that's post Dallas chartered and so these things are are in effect but obviously they need to be they need to be strengthened and again as you point out someone can point something out and raise it up but if it doesn't get dealt with that's another problem and that's where we're seeing probably in some of the stories too where people did bring stuff forward and it didn't seem to go anywhere but hopefully those days are behind us and we will start to see some positive steps even more so than before and that to some degree we're cleaning house on some of these things and again that people who have first-hand knowledge can come forward so we make sure that we're not tarnishing people who shouldn't be tarnished but at the same time spotlighting those who need to be dealt with and dealt with severely over this horrible horrible scandal in the church and certainly EWTN news and the register and others have been and CNA have been covering these stories and I think being very upfront and dealing with it straight on as you are yourself father and I appreciate you taking the time to to talk about it okay thanks dad all right we're gonna take a break much more ahead here on father Spitzer's universe we'll get back to our our topic right after this short break thanks [Music] back here in the heart of father Spitzer's universe and we'll begin talking about the five transcendental desires with father Spitzer who we rejoin again out in sunny California and let's get to a couple of questions it will see if we get to credible Catholic this week because we still have a lot of questions and we kind of spoke about the recent scandal breaking in the first half of the show dear father a few weeks ago you distinguish between the genetic Adam and Eve and the couple who received souls tens of thousands of years later if the Adam and Eve who received souls are descendants of another Adam and Eve then what happened to these previous descendants without souls this theory is very new to me please elaborate so maybe you want to go back and explain kind of what you were positing then yeah well I'm not sure you know first of all I'm not sure that that you know mitochondrial Eve and Y chromosome at Adam didn't have a soul right I just I inferred it from the fact that they and their progeny for a hundred thousand years didn't do very much so you know they you know they pretty much remain the same and they still are our genetic progeny but then all of a sudden you get to that seventy thousand year ago point and KaBlam it's like we're totally different I mean we're not just hanging around as I said cracking coconuts and stuff we're basically moving out of Africa throughout the entire globe I mean everything's covered like in 5,000 years it's it's absolutely amazing we're starting new languages everywhere we go we have this fantastic that's in tactical linguistic ability that no other animal has and is manifest in the sheer proliferation of languages it never occurred before and and the mathematical you know ingenuity that suddenly occurs and keeps proliferating you know throughout all these cultures you know and then you know of course burying the dead with articles you know that clearly indicate not just burying the dead but a belief that you know they're gonna need these things in the life to come having a sense of eternity and transcendence you know not just a sense of grieving and respect and and then of course we have that the symbolic you know the the the stuff on the walls of the cave etc etc there's these symbolic artistic things but it's it's not just one or two of these things present it's all seven of them you know that suddenly you know find this confluence that sort of made me infer that maybe the more that the date that might be more significant is seventy thousand years ago that I called in sold Adam and Eve but you know if if in fact I'm right and and maybe our genetic ancestors prior to in sold Adam and Eve I didn't have a soul and they might have am I to know maybe it was a soul that just was sort of in dormancy you know for a hundred thousand years it just didn't you know and then clicked who knows but that the point is even if that were the case do I believe that these beings are going to in some sense be restored in the Kingdom of Heaven well you know there's there's first of all we know that the post Adam and Eve ones are intended for that transcendent destiny now you know would these other beings these none and soul beings have the same thing well if we look at Paul's letter to the Romans where the whole creation is yearning and and and and you know longing for redemption in the Kingdom of Heaven do we interpret that as literally that God's going to redeem these creatures is certainly we see you know people like CS Lewis who thinks that you know that's that's you know clear possibility right his vision of heaven is filled with you know kind of this all these redeemed creatures not just you know dogs and cats you know but you know all these human ancestors of ours and they would be in a way inheriting the kingdom and glorified in their own little way not as an insult Asian right but you know but you know the redemption of their bodies as it were and and they're brought into a kind of fullness of life that's appropriate to their condition and and so that's a certain possibility but then again there's another possibility where people say no you know that's just not going to happen they enjoyed all the life that they could have in other words they didn't have a soul so they didn't really recognize the possibility of an eternal life they really didn't suffer the consequence of knowing what death was they didn't have self reflectivity so I mean dying is just dying you know the your the the dog goes into the corner by itself and simply falls asleep for the last time and that's that you know there's no anticipation of an eternal life that can be frustrated God hasn't frustrated as it were this creatures intrinsic desire for eternal life and now he's given a self reflectivity he's given us a soul he's given us a desire for eternal life and so yes if we the insult creature just were summarily to die without any possibility of a resurrection you know st. Agustin would say well that's a frustration of our nature so father what would you say to somebody who said well you've you you've come up with a theory as to why this this kind of punctuated equilibrium or whatever occurred seven thousand years ago right well what about Erich von Daniken and the boys and the chariots you know gods you know talking about aliens coming see that's what happened these aliens showed up and that that's why we suddenly got so smart what do we say to that yeah well you know here's the thing Doug the the fallacy in that argument is that you have to have the capacity let's suppose the aliens came just for the sake of argument let's suppose aliens came but we didn't have a soul so we had no syntactical language we had no capacity for mathematics whatsoever we had no capacity for sense of geometry or trigonometry to build things no sense of conscience whatsoever to learn a moral law or the the the you know the foundations of society we had no capacity for any of that well then we couldn't have had the capacity to learn anything from the aliens they would have talked to us and we would have been like the chimps just sitting there going give me my banana you know you know as you tap that out on the keys I mean that's all there would be to it so if God didn't give us a soul mm-hmm some juncture aliens notwithstanding you know right it wouldn't have mattered whether the aliens came and talked to us so the first thing we got to get off the ground is no soul the alien explanation doesn't work because we have no intrinsic capacity to understand anything they could have taught us anyway point number two what's the evidence for the aliens it's all like hyper conjecture I mean you know under the pretense of a lot of you know very find you know evidence like you know you know look at the pyramids how could anybody in ancient culture have done this and so of course we now know that yeah well they did have techniques for carrying these blocks from one place to another you know that they that they were they had the use of inclines they knew how to you know put sand down you know on these inclines and you know and and how to you know drag these you know items across the wet wet it's and you know we know that they had the capacity to set blocks on wheels that they had the capacity for inclines and you say well they they couldn't have had the capacity to have this kind of geometry to put these things together hey they had trigonometry and you can bring down trigonometry to the precision of your measuring device you don't need an alien to tell you how to do this once you understand the rudiments of measurement trigonometry etc you can figure out angles from sides and sides from angles and the only thing that will deter you from doing this is essentially the precision of your measuring device and their measuring devices were incredibly precise so what we have to say is these look like you know hypothetical conjectures but I just don't see the evidence coming in for this at all okay I don't see any need for an alien hypothesis to explain the ingenuity of human beings once they have a soul and you can see the evolution of the intellect that takes place over the course of time and you see you know there's no punctuated thing where suddenly we become like super super intelligent there is a gradual ascendancy of how we learn how to use our rational faculties linguistically mathematically socially morally religiously artistically symbolically right geographically there's you can see a very smooth ascendancy right sometimes there's a punctuation where a discovery is me but it's a discovery by a human author like a Euclid or in Archimedes or a Plato or you know whoever the Egyptian guy was who you know obviously discovered you know trigonometric functions etc so the main thing is you know to just say you know why postulate you know a you know a deus ex machina if you will why propose postulate an unneeded way out there a causal explanation for something that has a perfectly good nan way out there explanation that we can detect from human history and that's called Occam's razor and Occam's razor basically means right it's that it's the Canon of parsimony and in philosophy right that that you don't want to nature favors human beings favor right oh you know nature favors explanations with the least possible assumptions and the least possible convolution so if you got a simple explanation that's a human explanation why would you postulate a way out their explanation which is completely unnecessary baguette just take the one that is really simple that's very natural that's probably the best explanation sorry to get going like a duck and quacks like a duck okay we also have another question having to do with seoul's father when do we receive our souls do they exist before we are conceived is it created by God at the time we are conceived or at some other time if God places his soul in us at the time of conception could he also decide not to place a soul in some of us or take it away thanks for the wonderful enlightenment you give to us all this is from John okay John the church is really clear on this one yes God places the soul within us at the moment of conception so at the very moment of conception doesn't depend on attachment non attachment etc etc at the very moment of khuns conception the human authors of life through their biology are you know Koch in a co-creative participation with God who gives us our soul at that very moment and that soul is very active in who we become right it's not just the unfolding of the genome that that will you know unfold who we are the soul is a very active participant in bringing consciousness to bear right remember from our near-death experiences when we talked and terminal lucidity we talked about consciousness and self consciousness specifically and transcendental consciousness specifically that it had its origins in the soul right remember when you die you know and in these near-death experiences show that your consciousness is going to actually survive bodily death your Nicoll death and so that soul that you have is a nexus of consciousness the brain yes as the brain develops it becomes a facilitator and mediator of your consciousness but your consciousness is completely capable of self reflectivity your consciousness is completely capable of thought and an even memory and hearing even without your bodily organs and your bodily brain however God has chosen to infuse that consciousness through a human body through the cope of participative creative act with the parents at the very moment of conception that little you know zygote has consciousness we believe that and that consciousness is busy adapting itself to its human context it's you know potential grain its potential embodiment throughout the entire course of its development in the womb and so we believe that I believe it totally and that's why I think terminal lucidity makes sense to me near-death experiences it were we see these self conscious souls you know clearly surviving bodily death blind people seeing for the first time when their bodily dead and remembering what they saw etc all these things I think are happening at that moment does God take away the soul no he doesn't I mean even if that little zygote might turn out to be hydrocephalic let's say or something else some other you know the embodiment just the the genome was not present so that the consciousness could adapt into the brain of that little child it that child still has a soul and so we have to treat that little hydrocephalic child as if he has full human dignity because he does he does in fact have it by the grace of God I think it's utterly detectable I think people who do not look at the full ramifications of the origin of consciousness from the evidence who are getting from you know self-consciousness from near-death experiences from terminal lucidity and other kinds of studies I do think we are making a huge not just ontological mistake but a huge moral mistake but the church is really clear on that John let me answer yeah okay great let me ask you as a follow up on that and because certain times a while back there was some discussion about you know the concept of Hell and the idea that people go to hell and it was some quotes some people claim they were miss quotes in reference where it seemed like the Holy Father might be saying that well nobody really goes to hell or the either go to heaven or you kind of like disappear or what other witnesses might have called the soul extinction that you know your souls annihilated but that's not the teaching of the church right no the teaching of the church and and the Holy Father has not violated the teaching of the church obviously you know but the key thing is the teaching of the church is a soul was created for eternity right that is the teaching of the church we have the freedom to determine you know which direction were we want to go you know do we want to fundamentally go toward the Lord that he is our Lord and to go fundamentally toward a communion and community of love that will be you know it will culminate an unconditional love forever in in heaven or do we want to go the path of narcissism of darkness of domination and and cruelty if we want to go that path if that's what we're choosing not only with our intention but our actions then you know that's our return all destiny and like I said there are you know this has been the perpetual teaching of the church so this is not like new revelation or something and and you know what is hell according to the Catechism it's the self exclusion from the kingdom of God and the blessing right and our Lord spent a lot of time talking about it if it didn't really exist but we didn't have to worry about it yeah that's right he spent a lot of time worried about what we were thinking and doing for nothing you know if it exists yeah sorry okay dear father here we're very popular this week here dear father I was disappointed by father Spitzer's comments on a recent episode about evolution father Spitzer seems very smart but his evolution theory only seems useful to reconcile a secular school of thought with God the number of verses in scripture that allude to God as the sole creator of the universe are numerous there is no evidence for evolution well I'm sorry to say this but there is a ton of evidence for evolution and if you're talking about scriptural evidence for evolution evolution is a scientific theory I mean the people who at the time were our biblical authors to be frank with you did not have any of the scientific evidence which is credible evidence for evolution at all so the first thing I want to say is you can't hold the biblical author who had no knowledge of these scientific facts responsible for not incorporating that into his teaching as Pope Pius the 12th clearly tells us in human EJ nurus you know and also in Divino allanté Spiritu the biblical teaching is sacred truths that are necessary for salvation to try and judge whether or not a scientific theory is true on the basis of its presence in Scripture is a mistake it's a mistake now John Paul st. John Paul the second has been very clear in this it's not just me who's saying these things right if you could just go to your internet and just go to st. John Paul's allocution to the papal Academy of Sciences believe it was in 1998 I have to get that date down but it's just put st. John Paul Alec yueshen on evolution to the papal Academy Sciences you'll get the whole thing where he says evolution is more than a theory it is more certainly more than a hypothesis it's more than a theory there is a lot of scientific evidence for it and it culminates in a very you know sound scientific teaching now do I think as you pointed out that this teaching is commensurate with Scripture yes I do i under the rubric of the way Pope Pius the 12th told us to understand it and st. john paul ii told us to understand it namely that the bible is to give us salvific truths needed for salvation all right sacred shoes needed for salvation and that science is to give us an input an appropriate description and explanation of the natural world the natural universe according to a scientific methodology which is mathematical empirical so the main thing is is does do we acknowledge as Catholics that that scientists have a right to do science absolutely and that if scientists find that there's credible evidence genetic evidence fossil evidence I mean just tons and tons of evidence for evolution and and and they come to a judgment that it's truth of course Catholics can believe this and why because the st. Thomas Aquinas said long ago faith and reason are compatible because they come from the same source yes they have different methodologies and Thomas Aquinas knew that the methodology of philosophy and logic and reason was different from the methodology of inspiration in Scripture he also saw that the two could influence each other and he also saw clearly that they had to be compatible with one another at the end of the day because they came from the same sort the same source namely God so I appreciate you know your question however I just have to tell you that you know you you really do have to read those encyclicals of Pope Pius to try that's divino allanté Spiritu and Humana generous and you must read the the papal allocution of st. John Paul the second to the papal Academy of Sciences I think it was 1998 just go to your internet the whole thing's there and I think you know I have ample justification for my position and certainly know Pope's that are teaching otherwise one last comment Catholics have two sources of truth we have what's called the extraordinary and ordinary Magisterium of the church or what's called tradition and we have scripture you have to use both you just can't go to Scripture and say why you know I've run out of evidence you have to look at how the church herself interprets Scripture and what is the statements that are being made the ordinary Magisterium extraordinary Magisterium that are being made to interpret the scriptures and to reconcile issues like faith and science so remember we're not locked in right you know to just Sola scriptura was Scripture we are you know literally liberated by church teaching right it's it's a both/and thing as you indicated let me ask you one quick question just before we go so let's say I'm a Bible believing Christian and I love our Lord and I'm Catholic and I choose not to believe in evolution does that matter for my salvation no it doesn't matter at all you have every right to choose that it's it's believing in evolution is not necessary for your salvation at all so you can choose honestly you could choose young Earth Creationism and and of course that'll be completely commensurate with your salvation the church does not require that you believe anything that science says it only says that you may believe what science says based on credible evidence so long as Pope then this is Pope Pius the 12th thing so long as you do not deny the unique creation of a soul for every human being by God at the moment of conception if you hold that along with your evolutionary theory you're going to be just fine so you may believe it don't have to believe and line up with Bishop Ussher and 4004 BC if your so choose yep very good father Spitzer thank you so much if you give us a closing blessing absolutely please bow your heads and pray for God's blessing and may Almighty God send his holy spirit down upon you with great wisdom compassion and discernment so that as we enter into yet another era in which we may be plagued by scandal we can see the hope that comes from the promise that Christ made to st. Peter and we can see Heavenly Father this compassionate heart that you have for all the victims and for your church itself so that we might truly be part of a reform part of an effort to redeem our past sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen amen thank you so much father and may we all stand up for the truth thank you so very much father Spitzer we shall see you next week take care and all of you don't forget that EWTN family conference is coming together and that's coming up later in the year but also the world meeting of families that's what I'm supposed to be talking about the world meeting of families that's next week live from Dublin in Ireland uh Jeanette Bank a pic of myself be anchoring some of that coverage for you and next time we're actually gonna get to the five transcendental desires I think we'll have to get to part one because we were so busy talking about everything else we didn't get to part one so we're not gonna jump to part two that would be two transcendental I'm Doug Keck thanks for joining us at the intersection of faith and reason that's where we spend our time we hope to see you next time and pray for everyone in the church thanks [Music] you

Channel: EWTN

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Length: 56min 2sec (3362 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 16 2018