Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: Skepticism and Disorder

you you uh Archbishop Fulton sheen was born 75 years ago in El Paso Illinois and became a priest in the Catholic Church just after the first world war he is considered by almost everybody a great enigma those who like to disparage his evangelism have a difficult time accounting for his extraordinary academic record those who claim him as a conservative are continually amazed at his positions in behalf of statist welfarism those who have been inspired by his anti-communist lectures which began in the early thirties cannot understand his current calls for withdrawing from Vietnam Archbishop Sheen has served as head of the worldwide department for the propagation of the faith and after that he went dutifully to Rochester New York whence he has recently been delivered in the early 50s he began a network television show opposite Milton Berle creating the scandal of the decade by beating mr. Berle in the ratings who subsequently reported ruefully that he had hired new writers namely Mark Matthew Luke and John he is the author 64 books he is my opinion the greatest preacher in English Bishop Sheen is eloquently committed to the notion that whole nations have to pay a price to Providence for their sins he quoted recently from Abraham Lincoln and I would like to ask him to explain what it was that a Lincoln said and be what it was he had in mind in quoting Lincoln was at Lincoln's statement that he never feared that America would perish from without but that he feared that it would perish from within that was a lincoln statement it wasn't the one that you quoted I have it here if you want to refresh your memory although I was under the impression that you never needed to have your memory refreshed and that's not the one that I thought when did I quote this in 1967 oh yes when I was talking about Vietnam yes well what Lincoln said was that the awful calamity of Civil War which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins to the needful end of our national Reformation as a whole people or while he asked that question and then answered by saying intoxicated with unbroken success we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace to proud to pay to the God that made us it behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended power to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness now do I understand you to be applying Lincoln's theological analysis of what it was that brought on the Civil War to the existing situation is the Vietnam thing to be understood as a form of national tribulation which is in some way related to what we have earned no mr. Buckley I did not mean to imply that I merely meant to imply that there is a moral order and that there is such a thing as retribution nations have very much gotten away from that the primitive people still retain it but I certainly did not wish to to say that it applied to the Vietnam War I had in mind for example something that a missionary told me some time ago about about an injustice that they had committed and that particular day they had stolen the missionaries acts in that particular day measles broke out in the camp and simultaneously someone had sent a plane above the camp of the cannibals to see what had happened to the missionary and they said that's the evil spirit that sent us these red blotches because we stole the missionaries Acts so these primitive peoples had a sense of retribution I was saying that Lincoln also had a sense of retribution but I did not mean to apply it necessarily to the Vietnam War except every kind of war is a kind of a retribution upon the people can that be understood in an extra theological context almost in the physical context for a reaction with the contrary in equal reaction yes well could it be as some as some might argue that a failure to prosecute the war in Vietnam might earn us a very considerable and more formidable retribution in the future no I would not mean to imply that I know you would know because well first of all this was this is a peculiar kind of war in which there was not really a great prosecution of the war how different it was in World War two what characterized this war and here America must be very much credited was restraint here we are one of the great powers of the world we take on an insignificant power as far as explosiveness and so forth is concerned we had far more than the enemy maybe the greatness of a man is often to be judged by his restraint of power that was the great wonder of Christ that having divine power he was so little of it and so America showed shows and has shown great restraint in this war well but is it always commendable to use restraint or or is it is restraint sometimes an expression of cowardice or lack of conviction it can be both first of all one may not show restraint in order to absorb evil take for example turning the other cheek if there are 10 men in a line and I preach hate to them and say you must destroy your brother and the one man turns and strikes his neighbor two strikes three when will it ever stop it will stop only at a point when one man turned around and absorbs the evil in that sense restraint can absorb evil from another point of view restraint does not absorb evil 2 sometimes may may increase it the crime certainly on our streets today the the turn of law by which there is compassion showing more for the mugger then for the mugged more for the one who does the violence than for the victim this is a reclined of restraint which is not commendable and which I fear is bringing some trouble to our nation well if you translate that into international terms might it be argued that much too much international restraint is being shown towards those nations in the world which live by aggression and which preach our hatred and whose evil deeds might have been aborted or whose careers might have been aborted a generation ago by the use of strategic power you probably mean Russia huh yeah no I think that restraint is here commendable because I am afraid that any show of force would have brought retaliation and it could very conceivably be the last war but what when they were not in a position to retaliate effectively I'm asking a very serious question namely or is it a part of the Christian obligation in international terms to exert oneself when one can do so without bringing on Apokolips if it is predictable two reasonable men of active conscience that to do so at that moment will be to spare the world an ordeal tomorrow for instance a preemptive strike against Hitler in 1938 is now something that almost everybody wishes we had done including you yes why then not say a preemptive strike against the Soviet Union in 1949 well now we're taking back the mentality of 1972 1949 and when we go back to that mentality Russia was considered a democracy Russia was considered on our side I can remember once giving a lecture in Youngstown Ohio on the fact that Russia was going to take over Eastern Europe and some very high important person said how dare you say that this day is past we live in a democracy and in the 1949 that's what we were thinking about I think Archbishop Sheen that you're a little bit a few years old aren't you full 36 all right Missouri was 46 when the Cold War was declared and even Democratic president as about 1949 indeed rather dramatically with the Truman Doctrine and so on so whereas I think it is true that the illusions you identify were widely shared in 1945 forty four forty five or six by 1949 the animosity of Stalin was pretty plain spoken yes but I I cannot look back and feel that we should have resorted to violence in those days I think we would have brought it greater apocalypse upon the world but you can as regards 1938 yes hypothetically 1938 this obscene you in your indictments of the American role in Vietnam you have used the figure that it in fact is costing us something in the neighborhood of a million dollars per death now that has had the effect on most people saying what what a an unspeakable war it has exactly the opposite reaction on me because it seems to me that since everyone would agree that we have it within our power to kill people much more cheaply and don't it does suggest that we are going out of our way to keep from killing people if we are spending a million dollars for her death of a single enemy then doesn't it suggest that the discriminatory apparatus that we are using highly-tuned and isn't that a mark of civilization first of all what I said that it was costing a million dollars a day if there were 24 men a million dollars an hour if there were 24 men killed in a day then it would be a million dollars a day that was the statistic which is not far off which is not far off yes actress it's it's probably uh well it's it's an it's an enabler of two hundred thousand people we now how are you going to turn that what I'm saying is if if we wanted to to kill more people we could do so much more cheaply by Dresden type bombings our reluctance to do so our failure to do so it seems to me in terms of moral arithmetic is is praiseworthy and under the circumstances I had never understood the use of the high ratio of dollars per death as an argument pointing to the immorality of the war but to the contrary yes it was not so much to point just to the immorality of the war of this war but rather to the immorality of war itself what I was doing was to go back to figures that had been gathered by some historian about how much it cost to kill a man in different Wars for example it is estimated that it cost Julius Caesar seventy five cents a man in World War one it cost something like twenty thousand in World War two it costs two hundred thousand then I adduced the figure that it costs a million dollars a may an hour in Vietnam I was not speaking about moral arithmetic I was just speaking about the terrific economic burden that is thrust upon mankind in virtue of fighting so I would not you're very clever however to draw the conclusion that it was an evidence of our restraint and I I concede see the value and the deduction but that was not my purpose but your purpose surely isn't to what isn't to illegitimate to say you do do you not believe that some wars are defensible in fact some wars are imperative yes I could see a reason for a defensive war you know if we were invaded well then therefore it becomes a strategic question whether a particular war is a defensive war correct yes I mean it becomes a Cerreta chol question whether or not vietnam does relate the defense as I said and that therefore you you would not criticize as a class those people who defend the Vietnam War I certainly would not however you you you haven't yourself to feel that the time is past when it is when you would use to defend it yes and the statement that I made about it mr. Buckley was about three years ago when the statement was much more applicable than it is today and furthermore I was giving a Christian appraisal not a political appraisal and I was then speaking of what I've spoken of before namely about the value of restraint that I felt that if we gave up in Vietnam we would have given a moral example to the world and perhaps would have won the moral opinion of the world three years later it's impossible to do it but we are withdrawing and we're withdrawing to now at a time when it makes it possible for the world to conclude that we've lost our first war well let me ask you sir if I may in that connection to what extent does a nation feel a corporate Christian obligation to step in in order to defend one's one's brother using the metaphor national terms suppose I put it this way we we suffer in America I think it is accurate to say some kind of a trauma as a result of our Thalian to go to the help of the Jewish people in Germany who as a result of our defective reflexes were practically wiped out as a people now it seems to me that two things are playing from that experience one that we cannot bring them back to life and two that the purpose of reminding ourselves Mukul Valen rest I thought it was to keep the conscience from going to sleep again now if there is evidence that a genocide is continuing in other parts of the world is this something concerning which we ought to be more active ralph Hawkwood writes a very successful play in Broadway which criticizes Pope Pius the 12th for his delinquency I think historically inaccurate in not moving faster to mobilize sentiment on behalf of the rescue mission to the Jewish people in German in Germany now will somebody be writing a play about us or about the present Pope for failure to mobilize sentiment to rescue for instance the Christians who were being exterminated in China yes but given genocide given the extinction of Christians in China and in northern Vietnam emitting in the quarter of them got down to the South expelled his war the only means are there not other means one of course is dialogue which is not always successful but I wonder if we for example did not begin to use spend more of our money in helping people maybe Jung directly we are seventh in the world in helping the poor of other nations we are the richest nation of the world we own six we are only six percent of the world's population we control 46 percent of the world's goods would it not be better if instead of all of this money spent on armaments if we didn't come to the rescue of the people of China northern Vietnam the Catholics there and the Jewish victims in some other way than by war I wonder if war today is not outlawed well I think I think that that's a point that I know a lot of very active people worried about almost full-time but before we we press that question would it make sense to acknowledge that America understands itself to be helping people by using as much money as America does almost for instance to what extent there's one value or freedom now a lot of people we know uh value freedom even above life because people are constantly dying behalf of freedom in fact the eighty billion dollars that we spend is can be interpreted as an act of international philanthropy since we are providing a shield not only for ourselves but for instance for Western Europe for Canada for Latin America and and therefore isn't that a form of philanthropy oh it would be another way to put it if you will let's say an Italian would you prefer that America continue to spend as much money as America is spending on almonds or spend less on that and warn direct relief for Italians I should think this would depend on the extent to which you understood the strategical situation and that you might very responsibly get down on your knees at night and thank the American people for accepting a great military burden which has direct the film traffic consequences I do not wish to argue against that because I do not know all of the facts but at the same time I am mindful of the Maginot Line where a tremendous military defense was built up which proved from a military point of view totally ineffective and I believe therefore that the social approach we just think if we spent the same amount of money that we're spending on armaments today to help the world how much better we would be how much better the world would be I think would be much worse because because the barbarians would be in complete control do you think that the people are better off in in China because we didn't resist them even though we had an opportunity to do so 40 years ago it seems to be plain that most of the most of the misery of the world is the result in lot of natural conditions but is the result of the active operations of governments which are administered by my men it took government to translate Buchenwald into a mine content abuse involved and under the circumstances isn't America's unique challenge to accept the political of responsibility and an owner responsibility yes now I concede you have a point here and a very good one one because governments have no eternal and they have only a temporal endure and having such they have being such they have to use temporal means in order to attain it we simply cannot apply ideal social goods and Christian principles Christians that have eternal ends to the temporal ends of government and I certainly would not want to be pushed into the corner of saying that there that there should be no prepared there's any more than I would say we shouldn't have a lock on the front door but it's time I do matter balance yes and you think that there is an imbalance in the existence yes I do but isn't that caused rather by the Soviet Union than by us I mean are we redundant Li protective do we have too many locks on the door I don't know that's a matter of a fact and statistics I wouldn't know Archbishop I wonder if I could ask you to to comment on something which fascinates a lot of people non-catholics for instance and de-stresses a lot of people catholics for instance which is the the apparent erosion of a faith i saw recently a statistic that the church-going population of america has declined from 49 percent to 43 percent in the past 10 years but that whereas the the protestant slide has been about 15 percent the Catholic slide has been more substantial now I know there are those who wonder whether this is simply that we're all being manipulated by the zeitgeist or whether there is a causal relationship between the erosion of faith and the acumen ISM of the Vatican Council no I should not say that acumen ISM was the cause of the erosion certainly this slide zeitgeist is part of the cause and very much the cause from one point of view mr. Buckley there probably was never before as much faith as there is today now I'm putting faith in quotation marks when God is disposed of the gods arise faith today is taking the form of superstition we have 2,200 newspapers I believe daily newspapers in the United States 1,700 of them carry astrological columns was there ever such faith before in the stars as there is now and as Shakespeare said think of the think of the new face that are arising without any basis of credibility and Shakespeare says what damned error but some sober brow will bless it and approve it with the text and so on the one side faith without quotes is indeed declining partly on account of zeitgeist and on the other hand it is increasing the gods are multiplying we have almost polytheism instead of monotheism well could it be could it be though that the singular attraction of the Catholic Church over the years namely its dogmatic constancy has now been so diluted as to cease to to be singularly appealing to those people who were looking for a transcendent waring and had over a period of centuries founded in the Catholic Church in in a way that they were able to justify rationally is this something that was surrendered during the 60s as a result of the ecumenical passions I will arrive at your conclusion from the different premise it's an old trick and no but really almost to supplement it the church and Christianity has pretty much had a kind of a monopoly about God and particularly the supernatural it aggrandize to itself this divine order and kept the natural order outside so our distinction between the two was quite rigid and severe with the result that the natural order the political social order had to find its own deities develop its own religions and naturalism humanism and existentialism scientism scientism Pietism whatever you please at the Vatican Council which I one did not find any discussion of that rigid distinction between the supernatural and the natural order in other words we are today paying a price for a kind of a monopolistic theological capitalism well is it is it a price that in in fact yields to the very very old passion of many people to imminent eyes the eschaton and to utopian eyes the world are all weaned in in fact attemping attempting really a secular idealism to which much of religion is shrunk yes the secular of course has indeed a great appeal today but there's a reaction against that who is more dead today than Harvey Cox the secular city because the secular city didn't turn out to be quite as idealistic as Harvey Cox thought it was and even in this secular order today look at those who were trying to find hope for example a Jurgen Moltmann the Lutheran German theologian who has written so much about hope says that he went into into Prague one day to attend a communist Congress and he picked up a copy of time and on the cover god is dead he went to the communist Congress the programs had already been printed weeks before and the title was God is not dead quite dead then he went to a a communist Congress in Marienbad in Czechoslovakia where there were Protestants and Catholics and communists and discussion all of the cap Protestants and the Catholics talked about the necessity of the church getting into the world imminent ISM involvement secularism what did the Communists talk about transcendent and now even time has changed its cover god is dead yes he might not be might may not be quite there Abbie Hoffman says God is dead and he did it for the kids there are those who do wonder about the the apparently infinite capacity of the Catholic Church to to coexist with heresy or as a matter of fact apostasy Francis McMahon a theologian is referred to the two eminent APUs apostates his point being that in incidentally I should say that he's a very liberal theologian and has been over the years identified with what one calls left-wing causes but all of a sudden he has become mr. orthodoxy and he says that the Pope ought to or to affirm Catholic dogma by excluding people from the church facts communicating who in fact plainly refused to to subscribe to the basic articles of faith and there was a considerable question why that in fact doesn't happen or is this an expression of a charity in mid-century mood it's too bad that he didn't read the parable about the cockle and the wheat remind us what that says well the wheat was sown by the farmer and during the night the enemy came and sowed the cockle and it was suggested that the will be torn up the Lord said no you will also destroy the wheat let both grow until the harvest we must remember that the church is not just made up of saints it's made up of sinners and if it were made up for Saints there wouldn't be any room for me we wouldn't want that you mind if I go on water power as well as wind power there's a while well do I do I understand that the situation today is different Archbishop from what it was during those other periods in religious history when it was thought that the act of excommunication was actually an affirmation of Christian solidarity which was strategically necessary and even strategically kind is a situation different now from when let us say the Manicheans were were excommunicated yes I mean importantly obvious differences there remember excommunication holds only for those who have the faith it does not hold for those who have not remember how many appeal to Pius the 12th to have him excommunicated what good would it do excommunicate Hitler so we're living in entirely different times today no but Hitler never pretended to be a Catholic no that's precisely what I'm saying that you cannot use excommunication with those that have not the face no but I'm talking about people who do pretend to be Catholics for instance the gang who runs the National Catholic Reporter incidentally an organization which I sponsored when it when it was founded that but in any in any case I should think that he couldn't get past the second phrase of the Apostles Creed without gagging and the question is I mean who runs this joint they or the Pope and I should think that a pretty good argument for for salvaging any meaning at all the Christianity is to insist that there is a distinction between let's say Nazi doing and yourself and that if mount Satan claims to be a Catholic there's got to be somebody around who says no he isn't does that follow yes now what conclusion are you going to draw well I'm asking you why the present Pope doesn't excommunicate anybody reacts communicate some people refuse integration and South Carolina can think of it a New Orleans they were to suspend a chest oh they're excited I know cuz he told me from the under Perez Doheny was excommunicated incidentally you'd be glad to know that he sneaked away to Mississippi to go to church on Sunday which is nice but uh my point is that why are in midst mid 20th century is the act of excommunication not invoked whereas it has been invoked throughout history Terrell was excommunicated for far lesser offenses then are recited every day in Coffeyville magazine right I'm asking you to explain that to me well again it's the change of the of the spirit of the times I think the church has become much more patient and kind it's more related to the world than it was then the church was very much locked up in itself after all what the Vatican Council did was to relate it to the world first of all in the Vatican Council the world came into the church and the church went out to the world but did it yes well then why doesn't it follow that more people welcomed it that more people go to church more people take vocations studied to become priests nun it's going to take a long time for the East to work through the dole but there was the principal at Vatican Council one there was not one single bishop from Asia or Africa in 1870 not one in the Vatican Council to 61% of the bishops we're from America's Asia and Africa so that the church has become much more related to the world being related to the world I think has become much more compassionate of sinners and I would say that perhaps that is the spirit that has changed us from the rigidity of excommunication to the patient bearing offenses well would you describe to me an X communicable offense I would say willful and deliberate desecration the Blessed Sacrament breaking the seal of confession what this would of course applied to a priest he's right but for laymen again desecration the Blessed Sacrament could apply to him and is it possible to desecrate the Blessed Sacrament by let us say of participating in a black mass I would depend upon the degree of participation and the degree of proof is going to be very difficult to prove any participation in a black mass if an individual says I cannot believe in the divinity of Christ is that next communicable statement no church would not a communicative man for saying that there would not be a true statement but it would not be excusable to be in field going back to what you were discussing earlier I get a sense in recent days of a kind of much sharper separation between what I used to think of as religious conscious conscience and the so-called real world the natural world and I think of it in political terms I have to admit it seems that most Americans are more upset by the fact that for instance newspapers discussed what happened in song me in Vietnam the killing of women and children than they are about the actual episodes that American soldiers allegedly almost certainly gunned down women and children in cold blood a sense that almost that we've come to a point in America where if we can de hue Minh eyes other people enough we don't really care what happens to it whether we call them Black Panthers or whether we call them Dinks or gooks in Vietnam do you think that perhaps at some risk to itself that the church might have to begin reaffirming if not the Christianity at least the humanity of people that we don't like to think of as very pleasant people say communists or Black Panthers while radicals you know I'd agree with you absolutely because one there is a great potential even in the enemies it take for example Paul when Paul was persecuting the church within five five or ten years after the resurrection I am sure that there must have been thousands of Christians who were praying that the good Lord would send a good case of coronary thrombosis to Paul get rid of this enemy here was a learned man the rest of the men were all fishermen except the one man who came from from Judea who was on the right side of the tracks namely Judas here was a learned man and they must have said send somebody to answer Saul and God said alright I'll send somebody to answer Saul I will send Saul so in answer to your question I agree with you yes we must get back to the human and to see the divine image in everyone did you think in what just to follow that up in more immediate terms that it might in fact be necessary for the church to take some rather unpopular positions when it does in fact reaffirm the humanity of people who other people most every position the church takes today as I talked to her missing co-ed I've noticed lately a lack of the idea of community worship in the average parish church around somehow the the satisfaction of worshiping together like the early Christians had seems to be missing it rather for functor II I have to go to Mass on Sunday kind of kind of thing and I had a lecture by Clive Barnes that I attended recently he mentioned an interesting idea that religion used to serve the purpose of this community gathering and that now that this is passing people are looking for that and other things the the football game type fraternity spirit that the rock concert and things like that do you think that this lack of community spirit could be a reason for the decline in attendance Church that mr. Buckley was speaking of yes it could in part but something to remember miss is that the world is always on a teeter-totter and yeah just as in literature we had one moment the classicism of dryden then we got into the romanticism with the lake poets so in religion we had too much emphasis on the individual complete neglect of the community today we got a cry for community we must all get together boys and girls and this indeed has to be emphasized now it is being so emphasized we got to keep balance that the individual is alone too but he's also got to save his own soul as well as saving the community the while there must be much more relevance in the world we also have to have considerable irrelevance because there are some things we think about in our own heart that have relations to the transcendent and there must be a place for this we cannot we cannot so emphasize the community that were like a drop of water in a glass of wine absorbed in even a spiritual kind of totalitarianism and and while this has to be stressed I'm only saying watch the balance let's not go overboard with communism and forget there such a thing is the individual I'd like to talk about a problem that I think the church has found itself related to and that's the urban crisis that we have right now and certainly we're all aware of it and recently there's been talk about the church's non commitment to that crisis and I think we have examples of it in all the cities in one problem that relates to property that the church owns let's take the property that isn't specifically a church or a rectory but that is used for private enterprise that is not taxable do you think that the church in a similar way that you talked about the government before should make a recommitment a monetary commitment to involve itself in the city because it would seem to me in relation for example the extent of land that the church controls in the District of Columbia that there is a lot of good tax money that is certainly necessary to feed house run the city that seems to kind of trickle away and that people never get a hold of it that's a very good question there are two really two points to your question and one is the church that's related mister property and the other was the church since relatedness to the urban problem first of all is regards property the church doesn't have nearly as much wealth as is generally assumed but as regards property which you mentioned I think that we must make a distinction one between that which is used for religious purposes like schools and churches to that property which will be used within a period of three or five years for religious and social purposes and thirdly property that was not within the planning of three to five years that I think should be on the tax roll that for property now then as regards the urban crises there's rather popular to say that the church is not interested in the in the urban crises I I came from the diocese where we paid six hundred and thirty nine dollars a day to just the urban crises of one city alone six hundred and thirty nine dollars a day seven days a week we're simply because there was nothing being done for housing we went out and bought 19 houses for blacks that had families and they were living in impoverished conditions unfortunately the church has no megaphone and has not been able to express all that it is doing for the urban crisis and then it's not to be forgotten that in one place there was an attempt to give away a church in a school and everything else in order to start housing for the poor and the poor man was knocked in the head or he was the screen view I was going to ask you about whoever this man was because it it was an impression mr. Buckley with sorrow and myself with some happiness share it that that you began your public career in a reasonably Orthodox tradition okay political and and theological and that and that in recent years particularly up in Rochester there seemed to be a shift of direction into this kind of activity that you described and I wonder if you could just it's a fair question to tell us what what led you to that to that decision that you first you're assuming that I'm an entirely different clock at six o'clock in the morning a nine o'clock at night I am not actually the change was not in me the change was in what was outside the Sun shines upon wax and softens it it shines upon mud and hardens it and the seeming change in character is often due to the environment that surrounds him I was no different well they were hungry and poor people in the 50s as well as the 60s listen there's a great deal of difference I do mr. Greenfield between the poor of 50 in the poor of today and this is something of which we have to take cotton there are angrier yes but today the big difference is the poor today no they that's the great difference you mentioned that the church is trying to change with the change of the spirit of the times but that it'll take time like waiting for yeast to go through dough but so many parishes low on church on the local level seem to be living in the past where the you have a pastor who keeps on preaching that dances are horrible terrible things that are leading the you know the children away and that girl should stay in the home and things like that this kind of thing seems to me to be alienating the youth and that the time that it's going to take for this yeast to spread of the dough it's just not going to be soon and that so many people are being lost what can be done about things like that well first of all I think there are very very few priests who would be opposed to dancing I I don't know any in any case but you are quite right in saying that there should be a change but something to remember is this you cannot put a bomb under a baby and make it a man there is the seed and then there is the nourishment all all great permanent changes most great permanent changes that involved life demand time we live in an age of immediacy it's got to be aspirin immediate relief listen to the clock tick if you had only taken that aspirin five seconds before now you wouldn't have a headache now you're all smiles because you took it a little early instant coffee everything has to be instant and then it's instantly forgotten so I agree with you I'm always trying to strike a balance I've agree with you I'm saying that no we're beyond those who take this position that there should be no dancing and so forth but on the other hand we we must allow for a certain amount of growth I asked I fished up a guide in Seville a few years ago how they were getting along without Cardinal seguro who died a month or so before and she replied very piously well since the Cardinal died he and we have passed on into a better world [Laughter] I was de Burgh yes pursuing a last question it seems to me that that one of the beauties and the strengths of religion is is oftentimes tradition the good parts of the traditions and certainly we have to make that distinction but in viewing such things as the folk Mass the Jazz Mass and all these attempts that it seems to me various factions of the church have made to get into it but they've kind of petered out and and maybe that these things form a percentage of that drop in church attendance and I was wondering how you feel about that you mean there's a decline in the folk mass and so forth well my personal feeling is that it really not that it's not appropriate but it's not effective and that it's the traditional thing that really is the strength of religion is the attempt one makes to grasp I was surprised because I have heard some evidence to that there has been a decline now as regards your your expression of tradition tradition is a memory law has present a precedent an individual without memory is suffering from amnesia a church a nation that has not a history is apt also to be without memory so no children are born into the world to give us novelty there are old people that are born into the world to remind us that there is such a thing as a heritage and again we have to keep both together the Nova and the Vitara and do you think that the dissatisfaction with the folk Mass is related to what mr. Burrowes said that people are discovering that they did not go there for that kind of experience of just a few cents I'm not so sure he could answer that question better than I could I'm afraid he doesn't have time okay thank you all thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Firing Line with William F. Buckley, Jr.

Views: 230,566

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Keywords: Firing Line, William F. Buckley Jr, Fulton John Sheen, Applied Ethics, Foreign Relations, Political Ethics

Id: -ZwcU4EfJYM

Length: 53min 19sec (3199 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 04 2019

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[u/JuiceSqueezer88]

Venerable (soon to be Blessed) Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

[u/Dweeker]

Watching these two is like watching a chess game: gripping and movements measured in millimeters.