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Speaker 1: By Billy Cunningham, The Great American. When Pope Leo the

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Speaker 1: fourteenth was elected, it was a thought that would never occur.

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Speaker 1: As a practicing in Roman Catholic the idea of a

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Speaker 1: American pope was almost impossible. And then I read the

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Speaker 1: book of American Pope Leo the fourteenth and his planned

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Speaker 1: to heal the church, and I thought, you know what,

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Speaker 1: I guess I should have looked back in time and said, no,

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Speaker 1: that was possible, because this guy is the least American

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Speaker 1: pope that we could have had. But at least he's

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Speaker 1: an American. So joan you and I now is doctor

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Speaker 1: Paul ken Gore New York Times best selling author American Pontiff,

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Speaker 1: the first bio of the new Pope, Pope Leo the fourteenth,

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Speaker 1: and doctor Paul will welcome again to the Bill Cunningham Show.

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Speaker 1: And first of all, who is Leo the fourteenth?

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Speaker 2: Well, it's gonna be with you again, Bill, You're a legend.

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Speaker 2: I think the last time I did your show, what

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Speaker 2: was probably talking about Ronald Reagan was a guy that

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Speaker 2: I'm really a biographer of, So I never and I

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Speaker 2: should say I've written books on Pope John Paul the second,

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Speaker 2: but I never thought I'd be writing a book about

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Speaker 2: an American pope, So I mean just absolutely astonishing. You know,

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Speaker 2: when in fact, with when I was asked to do

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Speaker 2: this book, a biography of the next Pope, that was,

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Speaker 2: you know, basically the day after the death of Pope Francis,

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Speaker 2: and I thought, yeah, you know, I'll be really into

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Speaker 2: the next pope. You know, I'm a Catholic and I

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Speaker 2: actually know Italian, and you know, it'll be one of

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Speaker 2: those guys, you know, Parolan or Pizza Bola. Cool name, right,

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Speaker 2: Pizza Bola, somebody like that. I'd never ever occurred to

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Speaker 2: me that would ever be an American. But but you know,

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Speaker 2: lo and behold, you know the you know, the the

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Speaker 2: proto Deacon Cardinal man Berdi comes out and says, you know,

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Speaker 2: Robert Roberto Frinchiscoonman. And I'm thinking at that point maybe

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Speaker 2: Robert Sarah, the guy from Africa, and I thought, great,

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Speaker 2: I like this guy, right, and then they said Prevost,

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Speaker 2: and everybody, I think was just dumbfounded, right yeah, and yeah,

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Speaker 2: and then the announcer said it's Cardinal Prevost, an American,

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Speaker 2: and I was I was just kind of speechless. I

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Speaker 2: immediately got a request from Newsmax CNN it's come on.

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Speaker 2: I said, look, guys, I'm not going to come on

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Speaker 2: and wing it and fake it. I know nothing about

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Speaker 2: this guy. You call somebody else. But you know, I

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Speaker 2: obviously know a lot about him now. But at the

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Speaker 2: moment that it was just really an astonishing thing.

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Speaker 1: And he was a White Sox fan. In fact, there's

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Speaker 1: clips at him during the White Sox World Series Championship

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Speaker 1: about twenty one years ago, sitting in the stands. It

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Speaker 1: looked to be him. And why was it thought to

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Speaker 1: be impossible to have an American pope? Why was that

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Speaker 1: like impossible?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really good question, and the kind of

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Speaker 2: thing that you know, now that it's happened, it doesn't

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Speaker 2: seem so inconceivable, right, But it was always thought that

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Speaker 2: the leader of the world's spiritual power, which would be

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Speaker 2: the head of the Roman Catholic Church, and the leader

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Speaker 2: of the world's temporal power, which would usually be the

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Speaker 2: President of the United States. It's just they couldn't both

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Speaker 2: be Americans, right, And especially at a time when you

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Speaker 2: had the president, the new president second term in office,

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Speaker 2: being Donald Trump, who was a strong president chief executive,

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Speaker 2: so you would get, you know, you'd have somebody else, right,

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Speaker 2: somebody else. But in the case of Robert Francis Pravost,

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Speaker 2: as the Italians put it, they called him the least

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Speaker 2: American of the American cardinals. And I tell you, somebody

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Speaker 2: like myself who watches all of this stuff, follows it

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Speaker 2: very closely. Pray Vost was a cardinal, an American cardinal

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Speaker 2: that I didn't even know that we had until maybe

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Speaker 2: about maybe a few weeks when when his name was

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Speaker 2: at least mentioned among the American cardinals. It's somebody, you know,

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Speaker 2: about a thousand to one odds could maybe get named pope.

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Speaker 2: In fact, at that point, if you would have laid

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Speaker 2: out money on the guy, you probably would have won

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Speaker 2: a million bucks in the vega, the literal vegas betting ons.

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Speaker 2: But it was just thought that you could never have,

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Speaker 2: you know, an American in the head of the Vatican,

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Speaker 2: head of the Roman Catholic Church, just like you would have,

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Speaker 2: you know, the president, also be an American. It just

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Speaker 2: it just seemed too much, and we just didn't think

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Speaker 2: it was going to happen.

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Speaker 1: And Paul at least American, he spent more time in Peru.

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Speaker 1: Was that I've read some other stuff, including your treaties

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Speaker 1: on Pope Leo. But there was a thought he was

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Speaker 1: more of a South American, shall we say, a cardinal

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Speaker 1: than an American cardinal. Is that correct?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. He spent twenty two years in Latin America,

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Speaker 2: and I mean really that that's just the way that

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Speaker 2: it turned out. I mean that that's where he was

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Speaker 2: designated to. And he always said he'd be loyal to

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Speaker 2: his bishop, he'd be loyal to his pope. Wherever he

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Speaker 2: was asked to go. He would serve his his mother.

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Speaker 2: His mother spoke Spanish growing up. I mean she was

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Speaker 2: she was American. She spoke English as her main language,

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Speaker 2: but she had Spanish origins, so she spoke Spanish. So

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Speaker 2: he knew Spanish, and so he was he was a

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Speaker 2: good fit there. It's interesting that when of all the people,

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Speaker 2: of all the American cardinals that Pope Francis had picked,

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Speaker 2: I mean, most of them were, you know, frankly liberals,

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Speaker 2: like left wingers, kind of Robert McElroy Cardinal Soupitch kind

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Speaker 2: of left wingers. And in this case, so a lot

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Speaker 2: of people thought, well that Pravosts must be too. No,

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Speaker 2: because at that point, Francis when he picked Bishop Pravost

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Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three, He's not really looking at him

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Speaker 2: as an American, right, he knew him as somebody who

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Speaker 2: had spent most of his time in Latin America and

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Speaker 2: the outside of Latin America. The guy was actually the

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Speaker 2: head of the Augustinian Order, head of the Augusta you know,

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Speaker 2: the group name after Sant Augustine. He calls himself a

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Speaker 2: son of Augustine. Then it goes to Rome appointed as

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Speaker 2: a cardinal in twenty twenty three, so he ended up

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Speaker 2: spending the Yeah, the vast majority of this sort of

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Speaker 2: ordained priestly service outside of America. But at the same time,

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Speaker 2: like you said, Billy, he's I mean, he's an American too.

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Speaker 2: I mean, gosh, the guys a Chicago White Sox fan

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Speaker 2: of all things, so at least American of the American cardinals,

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Speaker 2: but also thoroughly American.

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Speaker 1: Right, there's the thought that the new pope, normally, if

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Speaker 1: it's not Italy, goes back to his homeland. I can

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Speaker 1: recall the John Paul the second going back to Poland.

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Speaker 1: I can recall Frances going back to Argentina, and he

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Speaker 1: was welcomed, and he was invited to come here by

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Speaker 1: the VP when he visited with him, you know, many

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Speaker 1: many months ago in the Vatican, and he took the

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Speaker 1: letter and said, nodded his head. Is there a reluctance

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Speaker 1: of Leo the fourteen to come back to America and

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Speaker 1: tour it the way John Paul the Second that he

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Speaker 1: was a rock star? Is there a sense that he

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Speaker 1: would be too aligned with Americans or Donald Trump or JD. Vans,

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Speaker 1: the war in Iran, whatever it might be. Is he

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Speaker 1: hesitating to come back to America.

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Speaker 2: No, I don't think so. I think it'll come in time.

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Speaker 2: And right now we're not even a full year into

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Speaker 2: his papacy. Now, with John Paul the Second, there was

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Speaker 2: an urgency because he was Polish and given that the

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Speaker 2: Communists were occupying Poland. And when John Paul the Second

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Speaker 2: was asked, okay, new Holy Father, where would you like

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Speaker 2: to go for your first trip abroad? He said Poland?

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Speaker 2: And they said, well, I'll tell you that's really gonna

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Speaker 2: upset the Moscow Kremlin and Brezhnev and the Communists in

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Speaker 2: your country. And he pounded his fist on the table.

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Speaker 2: In fact, he even said, you know, the Pope needs

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Speaker 2: to learn to pound his fist on the table. And

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Speaker 2: he said, and he said, we know, you know, we

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Speaker 2: are going to Poland period, and so so in his case,

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Speaker 2: that's why he went back right away and then had

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Speaker 2: nine really you know, history altering days in June nineteen

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Speaker 2: seventy nine. But with this new American Pope, I think

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Speaker 2: it's only a matter of time. I wouldn't be surprised

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Speaker 2: if it's sometime this year. And if not this year,

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Speaker 2: then you know, certainly, you know, certainly not long after that.

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Speaker 2: I don't think there's any hesitation or anything that's stopping

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Speaker 2: him from coming.

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Speaker 1: Why did you choose Why did you choose the name Leo?

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Speaker 1: And as a fan of Pete Rose, there's that number again, fourteen,

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Speaker 1: Leo the fourteenth, Pete Rose fourteen. Why did you pick

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Speaker 1: the name Leo?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I love Pete Rose. But even though at Pittsburgh

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Speaker 2: pirates them and we lost to the mighty the Big

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Speaker 2: Red Machine in those nineteen seventies games man, but he was, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: he was great. So I fit Leo the fourteenth in

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Speaker 2: honor of Leo the thirteenth, even though again he called

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Speaker 2: it's not Augustin and he quotes Augustine the fourth fifth

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Speaker 2: century saint more than more than any other figure. But

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Speaker 2: among other things, he pointed to Leo the thirteenth, great

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Speaker 2: and cyclical wear him no harm, and that warned of

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Speaker 2: new things. And the fact fact that modern industrial industrialization

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Speaker 2: machinery was displacing workers, replacing him with, you know, effectively

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Speaker 2: a kind of early form of robots. Right. And Leo

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Speaker 2: the fourteenth, Robert Francis Prevost, among other things, is really

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Speaker 2: worried about AI, and he's really worried about AI replacing doctors, nurses,

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Speaker 2: you know, writers, editors, people, any different types of form

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Speaker 2: of work. And Leo the thirteenth had I have a

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Speaker 2: long chapter in this book, in the book on Leo

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Speaker 2: the thirteenth. He was just such an influential pope in

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Speaker 2: so many different areas, and I should know two of

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Speaker 2: the last one hundred and fifty years of popes, he's

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Speaker 2: probably the one pope that everybody liked, kind of left right, conservative,

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Speaker 2: liberal center. And Robert Francis Prevost was elected. And by

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Speaker 2: the way, we shouldn't know this information because the cardinals

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Speaker 2: were sworn to secrecy. But it looks like he got

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Speaker 2: one hundred and eight votes out of one hundred and

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Speaker 2: thirty three in the conclave, and he was praised from

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Speaker 2: everybody by you know, the liberal activists, you know Jesuits,

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Speaker 2: priest's father James Martin, to the conservative traditionalist Cardinal Burke.

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Speaker 2: So he ended up being the overwhelming favorite of somebody

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Speaker 2: who everybody said, you know, we had enough of the

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Speaker 2: kind of division and chaos and mess under Francis. We

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Speaker 2: need to get back to somebody who's just more kind

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Speaker 2: of moderate in the sense of temperament. And that's who

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Speaker 2: they think that they that they got in Robert Francis.

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Speaker 1: Pravos received So he received some criticism going to a

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Speaker 1: mosque in Turkey. I look at the horrible treatment of

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Speaker 1: girls and women in most of the Islamic world, in

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Speaker 1: which children, girl brides are commissioned to marry a forty

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Speaker 1: five year old man. There's terrible treatment of women. He

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Speaker 1: did not pray in the mosque, He simply observed it

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Speaker 1: like a museum. Do you see him speaking out a

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Speaker 1: little more and large parts of the Islamic world. I

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Speaker 1: think about Nigeria and the slaughter of Christians there. He

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Speaker 1: has no problem with peers criticizing Donald Trump on immigration.

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Speaker 1: But when it comes to child molestation, child mutilation, child brides,

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Speaker 1: or Boca Haram slaughtering Christians, I don't think you've spoken

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Speaker 1: out as forcefully your comment on that.

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Speaker 2: No, he has, and unfortunately most of the modern popes haven't.

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Speaker 2: I hate to say this as an admirer of John

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Speaker 2: Paul the second, but he infamously picked up the Koran

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Speaker 2: and kissed it. And yeah, there was just a shocking moment,

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Speaker 2: a shocking moment. Benedict the sixteenth gave this famous Reagansburg

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Speaker 2: address which was critical of Islam. I thought kind of

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Speaker 2: mild way, and people just lost it over that. Reportedly,

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Speaker 2: even Cardinal Bergoglio, who became Pope Francis, lost it and

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Speaker 2: was angry over that. And he was very accommodating and

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Speaker 2: over the top. And his response to is so, I yeah,

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Speaker 2: I'm hoping that this pope will be better. I think

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Speaker 2: the fact that he didn't pray and Hagia Sophia and

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Speaker 2: what happened in Turkey really was very important. He's very diplomatic,

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Speaker 2: but he's also very thoughtful and very measured. He's somebody

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Speaker 2: that you're not going to, you know, forty thousand feet

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Speaker 2: in the air flying over Europe say something to a

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Speaker 2: bunch of reporters. It seems to call in a question

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Speaker 2: two thousand years of church doctrine. I think that's the

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Speaker 2: one thing that will avoid with him mercifully.

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Speaker 1: Of course, he's somewhat new. He was picked I think

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Speaker 1: May eighth, the face of the Immaculate Conception of last year.

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Speaker 1: So it's been about eleven months. Assuming he serves another

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Speaker 1: fifteen or twenty years, what's going to be his goal

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Speaker 1: to put his imprint on the Catholic Church. Pope Leo

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Speaker 1: the fourteenth, Well.

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Speaker 2: I think part of it will just be to bring

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Speaker 2: things back to normal. And I'm reading a lot right

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Speaker 2: now from conservative Catholic friends of mine who are kind

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Speaker 2: of looking for the latest thing from Leo as a

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Speaker 2: way to sort of blow up at him and say, oh,

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Speaker 2: here we go again, right And I'm telling and I'm

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Speaker 2: telling them, I'm like, listen, guys, this isn't Francis, and

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Speaker 2: and he's the Pope, and every pope is going to

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Speaker 2: say something every now and then that you're not going

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Speaker 2: to like. But don't have such a short leash. I know,

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Speaker 2: I know, after Francis, everybody has a short fuse. Right

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Speaker 2: that they defended Francis for six, eight, ten years and

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Speaker 2: then came to see the worst. Uh. And this guy

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Speaker 2: with this guy would tell people you be a little

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Speaker 2: more laid back. It's going to be, I think, a

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Speaker 2: more normal papacy. And and and when the when the

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Speaker 2: pope right now is praying for peace and ask policy

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Speaker 2: makers to examine their conscience. You know, don't look at

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Speaker 2: that as some sort of nasty dig a Donald Trump

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Speaker 2: or even his Catholic aides, right VP Vance Secretary of

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Speaker 2: Marco Rubio. Just look at that as a pope. During Lent,

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Speaker 2: popes pray for peace. That's what they do, right. First

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Speaker 2: word on Loggia last May eight was lapace cia contuti

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Speaker 2: voi peace be with all of you. Pope should be

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Speaker 2: urging Catholics and Christians everywhere to examine their conscience during Lent. Yes, obviously,

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Speaker 2: don't look at it, you know, in a in a

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Speaker 2: negative way. I mean, in a lot of ways. This

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Speaker 2: is just a pope being a pope. And this guy's

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Speaker 2: much more careful than the previous pope.

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Speaker 1: For those who want priest to marry, for those who

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Speaker 1: think women should become priest, one is possible. The other impossible,

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Speaker 1: would you agree?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think in fact, even Pope Francis said right,

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Speaker 2: Francis said the door has been closed right on female deacons,

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Speaker 2: female priests. And as much as Francis caused confusion, he

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Speaker 2: you know, never came out of support of same sex

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Speaker 2: marriage or more than two genders. It's actually really good

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Speaker 2: on abortion and everything that I've seen from the life

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Speaker 2: of Robert Francis Prevost statements he made in the early

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Speaker 2: two thousands, he's really rock solid, you know, Catholic. He's

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Speaker 2: Catholic on those issues now.

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Speaker 1: Lastly, as far as they scandals in the church continue

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Speaker 1: to proliferate, there are many of my friends Roman Catholics

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Speaker 1: grow up who got out of the church, can't take

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Speaker 1: it anymore because of the lack of the hierarchy to

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Speaker 1: radequally respond. That issue is still out there to a

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Speaker 1: much lesser degree, much lesser degree. But will he address

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Speaker 1: that specifically in America?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think it's a much lesser degree now because

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Speaker 2: the church hasn't been the priesthood hasn't been infiltrated and

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Speaker 2: infected with that like it was in the forties and

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Speaker 2: fifties and sixties. If you look at the new data

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Speaker 2: on seminarians today. I mean, these guys are like overwhelmingly

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Speaker 2: orthodox conservative, by the way, heterosexual, It's very very clear,

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Speaker 2: and they're now being screened very carefully for that. Even

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Speaker 2: Pope Francis said, don't let homosexuals into the seminaries, right,

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Speaker 2: Francis even said that. And so now I have a

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Speaker 2: son who's in seminary and they get they get asked

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Speaker 2: those questions in a really in depth way that they

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Speaker 2: plainly weren't being asked in the forties and fifties and sixties.

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Speaker 2: So I think it's simply not going to occur anywhere

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Speaker 2: near the level that it once did. And yeah, well

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Speaker 2: he tried to get to a lot of it. I'm

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Speaker 2: from Pennsylvania. We had the Attorney General's report in Pennsylvania

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Speaker 2: a few years ago. Under Attorney General Joshapiro. We might

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Speaker 2: still see reports like that come out from different states

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Speaker 2: across the country. I don't know how much he can

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Speaker 2: do at this point. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, yeah, it's Look,

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Speaker 2: it's an ongoing issue as long as justice hasn't been

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Speaker 2: served in so many of these cases.

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Speaker 1: Full disclosure. My wife is on the board of a seminary,

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Speaker 1: and I know for certain that this reading procedures are

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Speaker 1: much different than they were before. The title of the

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Speaker 1: book is American Pontiff the first bio Pope Leo the

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Speaker 1: fourteenth and has planned to heal the church. And Paul

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Speaker 1: ken Gore PhD again, thanks for coming on the Bill

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Speaker 1: Cunningham Show and the next bio you do. Let's do

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Speaker 1: it again.

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Speaker 2: Happy to Bill anytime.

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Speaker 1: Take care, God bless America. Paul, thank you very much.

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Speaker 1: Let's continue. Bill Cunningham News Radio seven hundred WLW