Understanding the New Papacy: A Conversation with Professor Christopher Moreland

TJ Blackwell: 00:00:25

First Peter 3, 8, 9 in the Christian Standard Bible say, finally, all of you, be like minded and sympathetic, love one another and be compassionate and humble.

Not paying back evil for evil or insult for insult, but on the contrary, giving a blessing, since you were called for this, so that you may inherit a blessing. And. And in this section of scripture, the author is giving instructions to the church on how to behave in community with one another.

Chris Moreland, how do you believe the church might be better able to practice this in our world today?

Chris Moreland: 00:01:00

Certainly think that in a time where we are so divided by politics and partisanship that we have to go back to what is at the core of our faith. And, and the core of our faith is Jesus Christ himself. That is the starting point. That is the ending point.

Joshua Noel: 00:01:19

Yeah, good stuff. Hey, guys, welcome back to the Whole Church Podcast, possibly your favorite church unity podcast.

And again, you're like, wait a minute, we just had a bonus. You just did a regular episode. What is this? It's another bonus. Yeah, it's.

Yeah, we're full of bonuses this May because the other podcast we help with systematic Ecology is slow in May. So we said, wait, instead of relaxing, what if we just did more work somewhere else?

So now we're here doing more work, talking about the Pope because be a shame if the Whole Church podcast was like, yeah, but we're not going to talk about that. We'd be dropping the ball. So since we we have a new pope. Pope Francis has passed. We want to reflect on Pope Francis's legacy.

Look ahead to Pope Leo xiv. And who better do it than our friend return guest that you all know very well. Professor Christopher Moreland, welcome back, man.

It's great to have you.

Chris Moreland: 00:02:12

It's been too long.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:13

Yeah, yeah, it has. And Professor Moreland, you're still teaching women in religion at untw, right?

Yes, University of North Carolina Wilmington, for those who don't know.

Chris Moreland: 00:02:21

Fantastic semester. Everyone got an A in that class this semester and only one person got an A minus. It was the group that we had this semester was phenomenal.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:32

And that's how, you know, I'm not in school anymore. I'm also here with the reason for religion for some people. Some people were like, this world seems too great with TJ in it.

There must be something more than this if TJ can exist. And that's how people discovered God, you know, TJ on podcast. I don't think that's sacrilege. It might be, but it's not, if I say so.

TJ Blackwell: 00:02:56

Might be getting close.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:58

Yeah, it's okay. Pope Leo the 14th, he's too busy to. To let us know that I'm a heretic.

TJ Blackwell: 00:03:04

Yeah, I hope.

Joshua Noel: 00:03:06

Probably.

TJ Blackwell: 00:03:07

Man, talk about a bad review.

Joshua Noel: 00:03:10

Yeah. Pope within his first hundred days. I just want to let you all know specifically, Josh Knoll has bad opinions.

TJ Blackwell: 00:03:16

Yeah, that would be great for us. Anathema. But Blow podcast, though. Yeah.

If you like what we're doing here, check out the Onzone Ministries podcast network website, the links below, and if you're listening on our YouTube channel, hit like and subscribe before the Pope exiles us.

Joshua Noel: 00:03:36

Yeah, that's right.

TJ Blackwell: 00:03:39

That extra support.

Joshua Noel: 00:03:40

Yeah. Yeah.

I like how we started this gimmick of, like, the end of season one, Francis Chan's gonna be on, and then we were like, oh, also season two is gonna have whoever the Pope is, and now the gimmick has shifted to actually, the Pope's just gonna exile us before season one ends.

TJ Blackwell: 00:03:55

Yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:03:55

Plot twist. Yeah. Oh, man. But you guys know church podcast. You have to have the holy sacrament for unity, which is silliness.

You know, it's possible to impossible to be divided when you're being as silly as I like to be. Even for bonuses, we gotta do it.

And this one is topic relative, and it's actually one that I think a lot of people are asking right now on the Internet. What's the most American thing we can imagine the new Pope having done or will have done, however you want to word it.

You know, it's hard for me because, like, I don't know how you rank, like, how American something is like, obviously eating a hot dog, I feel like is American. You know, I feel like I can imagine this Pope having gone to Disney World with friends and eating one of those giant Mickey Mouse things on a stick.

I can see that being something that might have happened, and I feel like that's pretty American, so I'm gonna stick with that deep fried thing on a stick in Disney World. I think it's possible. TJ Before Dr. Moylan, who I say Professor Moylan before he gives probably a real answer.

He probably knows enough that he's gonna school us on our silly question. But, tj, what. What's. Where you going?

TJ Blackwell: 00:05:12

Hot dog on Wrigley Field in Chicago. That doesn't even seem like a possibility for me. That seems like an almost guarantee.

Joshua Noel: 00:05:20

Yeah, that seems almost certain, but that's.

TJ Blackwell: 00:05:22

That's as American as it gets.

Joshua Noel: 00:05:24

All right. All right, Professor Moreland, how about you, man? What's the most American thing you can imagine this Pope having done?

Chris Moreland: 00:05:29

I imagine that this is probably the first pope that has ever had a shot of Malort before.

TJ Blackwell: 00:05:36

Oh, that's probably true.

Chris Moreland: 00:05:38

Yeah. An experience.

Joshua Noel: 00:05:41

That's a. Yeah. And an American experience indeed. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if this pope has a favorite bourbon. That's something I would like to know.

But as someone whose family came from Kentucky, I'd be interested.

TJ Blackwell: 00:05:55

But this is a special episode in honor of the new Roman Catholic Pope. And before we discuss the change, what should we gleam from and reflect on from Pope Francis time in the papacy?

For me, I know, like, I don't think we ever had a pope as humble as Pope Francis.

His processional popemobile, I think they switched it for his funeral proceedings, but was like a bone stock minimum options, Mexican built Dodge Ram. That was pretty great. For me, that's a symbol. But what do you think, Professor Christopher Moreland?

Chris Moreland: 00:06:38

Well, I think that something we have to be on guard against is performative humility. I think we have, I think that it's very deadly. I think that pride comes in many forms.

And the sort of pride that we recognize instantly is a form of pride.

But pride also can be by attracting too much attention to oneself, by sort of over emphasizing humility and being like, look at me, look at me, look how humble I am. So I think that it's something that to some people, some people obviously found it very inspirational.

Others, I think, had a different approach to some of these what you would sort of call ostentatious displays of humility.

Joshua Noel: 00:07:24

Yeah, I, I see where you're coming from. It always came off as genuine to me, but maybe it's because I don't speak his language.

But also, yeah, like we mentioned earlier, I read most of his books. I know he made a lot of off the cuff remarks outside of that. So I mostly encountered him through like this polished.

Someone editor probably saw it beforehand and then someone translated it and then, you know, was like, oh, this is nice. Actually, one of my favorite books on the Sermon on the Mount is from while he was Pope. And I have it on my bookshelf over there proudly. I love it.

For me, the thing that really stood out to me is I don't know if I've, in my lifetime I've seen a world leader who seemed like he cared for other people so much. But at the same time, I do know, like you mentioned some of the off the cuff remarks.

A lot of Christian leaders where, you know, we were seeing a time where Baptists were kind of like, hey, we agree with some of this traditional views of Catholicism. We agree with some of this stuff and we see a little bit Brutus building and then he would start seeing some of the stuff.

And it felt to me, and this is just my perspective, a lot of the Catholics were like, well, I don't like this guy who were more conservative. And then more of the progressives were trying to really cheer him on.

And then other churches, if they were more progressive, suddenly were like, oh, we like Catholics now, than some of the ones that were traditional. It felt like a lot of divisions were made off of some of these off the cuff remarks of like and stuff that I probably agreed with.

But it was kind of one of those, when you're a world leader, you can't just say something like that. If you're going to make a statement, make a statement, have it well thought out, something like that.

Not just kind of a, hey, you know, we care about this too. And it's like, hold up, what do you mean by that? So that's kind of my sentence I wanted to read for me. So this is a song that speaks a lot to me.

And we're going to. Me and Pastor Will Rose are going to do a review of the song later on. But part of the song really made me think of Pope Francis.

So if you want to know, just kind of my take and what this is just. I don't know why the message of the song makes me think of what I think his biggest message probably was. So I'm just going to read part of this.

It's Citizens by John Guerra. You're building a city where we arrive as immigrants. You call us citizens and you welcome us as children home we arrive as immigrants.

Is there a way to love always Living in enemy hallways? Don't my foes, don't know my foes from my friends and don't know my friends anymore.

Power has several prizes Handcuffs come in all sizes Love has a million disguises but winning is simply not one. I like the message of the song and to me, that's one of the stuff that I like. I feel like that's probably a lot of what he was all about.

There's plenty of other stuff to criticize or to, you know, we like or don't like.

We could probably debate, but I feel like that feels like a lot of, like, his heart, which probably comes from the fact that he was from the Francis Franciscus.

Chris Moreland: 00:10:10

Yeah, he wasn't from the first, but, you know, he was very inspired by the life of St. Francis.

And I think it has a lot to do with the fact that he came from a country that, you know, it's not like, it's not Argentina's, not Third World, but it has problems with development and that there is both great wealth and great poverty in Argentina.

Joshua Noel: 00:10:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:10:34

And so we all heard it past couple of years, oh, the woke pope. The Pope's too woke. I just think that's a super funny sentence. The woke pope. Yeah, I know, but now people are talking about, right.

Leo, 14, is socially liberal and doctrinally conservative. And how true do you think that assessment is? And what do you think about it?

Chris Moreland: 00:10:57

Well, it's so hard. I mean, we use these. One of my past mentors and advisors, Father Dr.

Kenichi, once said that these are what we call heroistic categories of convenience, words like conservative, liberal, progressive, traditionalist, and that these terms by themselves can be very limiting. I think that in the post Trump era, conservatism means something entirely different than it did during, like, the Bush McCain era. So we have to.

First off, when I say this, I want to acknowledge those limitations very clearly.

I would say that the new pope, I think, will continue Francis's legacy towards the marginalized and those that society does not have time for, the migrants, the poor, people from the Third World, people who have been ostracized. However, I think that Leo is going to be much more doctrinally concise, succinct.

I think that he is going to focus a lot more on the precision of his words.

I think that he understands that every single thing that he says and does is going to be scrutinized, and that because of 24,7 media and social media, you really have to be very careful about what you say to make sure that you don't scandalize the faithful. I think that we will definitely see more of a reinforcement of traditional Catholic teaching.

You know, but these are things, you know, we call it traditional, but these are really things that the overwhelming majority of Catholics agree on.

You know, we're talking about the unique salvific nature of Jesus Christ, for example, the nature of the Holy Trinity, you know, the core stuff, some of which was inadvertently brought into question during the reign of the.

Joshua Noel: 00:12:55

Yeah, yeah.

So one of the interesting things for me, so I was going back, getting my masters, having to write some systematic theology papers, you know, all that kind of stuff.

And now I'm in the Lutheran Church, the Augsburg Confession, something I've been really interested in, part of the Roman Catholic response to the Augsburg Confession, which was like Lutheran's basically trying to say, here's what we believe, and trying to find some kind of common ground with the Catholic tradition. One of their responses against it sort of had to do with the necessity of the papacy.

Having a pope as a symbol of unity within the church, as a central figure, that was really stressed as one of the big disagreement points. I don't know. I'm struggling there. But how do you think the papacy might add to unity amongst Catholic believers?

And is there a significance, keeping that in mind, that the new Pope isn't American? Does that help or hurt the unity right now? In our times, when people don't like.

Chris Moreland: 00:13:58

America too much, it's really going to help with unity.

The other thing is that the previous pontiffs had a very clear dislike of the United States and a very clear dislike of what I would call sort of the Greater West. So that would be like Great Britain, France, Germany. That's not really that part of the world did not seem to particularly inspire him.

I think that there are some legitim. I think there's some very legitimate critiques he had. Some of it, however, was left over from his Peronist Argentinian background.

Very: 1970

There's been a lot of tension between the Americans and the previous pontiff. I think this is going to be an incredibly unifying factor.

I think that if he continues in his present vein, I mean, he's only been Pope for like, what, less than two weeks?

If he continues in the current vein that he is going right now, he is going to be able to unify by both people who feel a little more progressive and people who lean a little more traditionalist. I think that he will maintain Francis outreach to the Third World while strengthening relationships with the west and the United States.

It's very clear that he is extremely well loved in the United States already.

And it's been really heartening to see that everyone seems to like him, whether you're Catholic, whether you're Protestant, whether you're Jewish, even my friends that are atheists and agnostics, like, hey, you got a cool Pope. We love your new Pope. You know, he's awesome.

Like, and they're excited also about, like, there's, like, won't it be so cool when he comes back to Chicago? So these are people that don't believe in God. These are people that think religion is silly and superstitious, but they vary.

There's something about him that they find captivating and, like, they Are, like, excited about.

TJ Blackwell: 00:16:07

Yeah, I think what it is for two things.

The Conclave, I think, very willfully and knowingly decided to appoint, you know, the first American Pope in these times to aid in that unifying presence that the Pope can have. But also, if there's one thing that America loves, it's rooting for the home team. The Pope's American. All right, now we can get some work done.

That's our boy.

I think no matter what, if the Pope was just any American, he would have been just as popular with us, because in our country, you know, we can say whatever we want about our country, but, you know, another country trying to talk bad about us or our Pope, that's not gonna happen. So I think that does contribute to his fame, popularity so far.

Chris Moreland: 00:16:59

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:17:00

There's been a lot of themes about Pope Leo being from Chicago, like Chiroc.

That would have been a lot of fun to look at, but it's definitely helping in the younger audience who's not as tuned into the, you know, Catholic world.

Joshua Noel: 00:17:15

Yeah, I just like all the jokes about the. The official holy pizza and how it's now a sin to put ketchup on a hot dog, all that stuff. I love that. And I like ketchup on my hot dog.

I just still think it's funny. But I. One of the things, too, though, I think, like, worldwide.

I think part of it, too, is, like, everything now seems to be about Donald Trump and the politics of our country.

So I think for a lot of people, it's literally just here is something that seems untouched by, that we all just desperately want something that seems like it doesn't have anything to do with this at all. You know, like, it's not for where it gets. It's just its own thing, and we could just be happy about it and not attach it to this, you know? Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:18:03

Yeah. So, Chris, what do we need to know about the new Pope's history?

Chris Moreland: 00:18:10

What we need to know is that, you know, he's extremely well educated, that he has a fantastic grasp on canon law. He is actually sort of a newcomer to the game of what I like to call, like, Catholic politics. Like, he has not had, like, decades as a kingmaker.

That's really not what he's been doing.

But when he stepped into that role, he stepped into it with alacrity and has done a very good job, from what my sources say, in a very short period of time. So he learned the game very quickly, but it seems like he's learned the game without being compromised by it. It's not like that.

Once he got to Rome and got put into this position of authority, that he suddenly lost his, you know, he lost his. His nature. I think that he has brought his personality into everything that he has done.

I'd also say that it's really important to note that the Pope.

There's been some concerns raised about the fact that he went to Chicago Theological Union, which has a rep, being extremely progressive and sometimes off kilter.

However, I think that it's important to note, like, even in my own small example, I went to Berkeley, and I don't describe myself necessarily as a progressive. So I would say that just where you go to school doesn't necessarily indicate anything.

One of the reasons I went to Berkeley is because I wanted to challenge myself and I actually wanted to question, are my ideas incorrect? I wanted to be exposed to the other. So who knows, maybe he did that as well.

And the fact is, is that if you open yourself up from both an academic standpoint and spiritually from the Holy Spirit, through that culture of encounter and through that culture of talking in truth and charity with other people, you will have this sort of dynamic thing going on where it's like you will be changed, but you will not. It's like you will still believe things you believed before.

There are other things that you will modify and then some things that you will radically change your mind on. But I don't think it's like a complete 180. If you go to a different school or in a different environment, it's much more multifaceted.

And I would think that that's probably the experience he had as well.

TJ Blackwell: 00:20:40

Right.

Joshua Noel: 00:20:40

I mean, that's part of why I went to North Korea.

Chris Moreland: 00:20:42

Exactly.

Joshua Noel: 00:20:43

I disagree with almost everything they're teaching me.

TJ Blackwell: 00:20:46

to dance in that school until: 2018

So, you know, that just goes to show you college kids, if you're listening and you're afraid you're not going to use your degree, you might not. You might be the Pope instead. But that was pre seminary. So what?

Aside from that, because you've already covered his seminary career, what significance arises from him being a part of the Augustinian order? And we don't really know about the Augustinian order, and we're not here to do a whole episode on it, so we don't need, like, the full rundown, but.

Chris Moreland: 00:21:29

Right. I would say that of course you're going to see a massive. And we've already seen it, we're going to see more of it, a massive patristic influence.

So St. Augustine, one of the great early church fathers he knew Jerome was very, you know, ensconced in the world of late antiquity.

So one of the things you're going to definitely see is Leo's sermons and ideas are going to be very. Are going to be very involved with Augustinian thought.

So the theology of Augustine, but also the greater encompassing theology and world of late antiquity, which is really where Christianity sort of begins to articulate itself in ways that, you know, in particularly through the use of Greco Roman philosophy, that it begins to really articulate itself as not just a religion, but also sort of like what we call paideia, this entire system of being that your religion, your faith is supposed to influence the way you deal with your family, the way that you go to school, the way you deal with politics. And that's something that I think we've lost. So I'd love to see if he brings that back.

I have a couple of friends in the Augustinian order in Germany. They speak very highly of him.

They are not necessarily known for being a order that causes a lot of problems and they don't like, they don't attract a lot of attention to themselves, either positive or negative.

Joshua Noel: 00:23:07

That's a good thing. Yeah, that's good. That's a good thing. Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, we were talking some before we got on here and as you pointed out, we're pretty early on into this thing, so we don't know a ton about what he's going to be like as pope, you know, Pope Leo xiv, I do want to go ahead and plug. We are in works with priests at an independent Catholic church.

So that's a Catholic church that's not under the authority of Rome, that's not in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, but is in like partial communion sort of.

So that priest is going to come on at the 100 days, 100 days of Pope Leo XIV and we're going to try and kind of look at it kind of as outsiders who hopefully maybe he'll have a little bit better perspective than we do, but still kind of looking at as outsiders what we think of it then. But for now, early on, are there any of the appointments he's made so far that might give us a glimpse into what the papacy might be like?

If we had a kind of guess, you know.

Chris Moreland: 00:24:05

So certainly the rehabilitation of Cardinal Serra is extremely Important. He has been already put into a role as a special papal envoy. Archbishop Paglia, who was extremely controversial as the head of.

It's like the Academy of Human Life or something like that. I'd have to look up the proper name of it, but it's very important. It's a think tank. And his appointment was extremely controversial.

He's been sent packing. We've also seen that some figures, they've not yet gotten their formal appointments because everyone is in until they're out. You carry.

It's like you carry on with the prior Pope's appointments until you go ahead and change them. And he asked everyone to stay in place until further notice.

What you really are going to want to see as an indication of this future papacy is do they get rid of Tucho Fernandez, Cardinal Fernandez? That's going to be huge because he was one. He's extremely controversial and one of Francis's. He was a close collaborator of Francis. The other thing.

Is Cardinal Roche going to be sacked? Cardinal Roche was one of the leading. Was one of the leading voices to limit the Latin Mass.

He's not necessarily known for his charity, even by people who may not like the Latin Mass. A lot of people were like, yeah, okay, the policy is okay, but the way you instituted it is not particularly.

Not particularly wise, the tone and the way that you went about it. So he is definitely. And he's a lightning rod of dissatisfaction for the traditionalists.

So they are going to want to see him sacked in terms of other appointments. Too early to tell. It's too early to tell. Interestingly enough, I think Cardinal Taggle is going to be around a bit more.

You know, traditionalists do not tend to like him, but he is not necessarily a figure of loathing. He is sort of more seen as someone who is questionable, but not like a figure, not like a lightning rod of dissatisfaction.

I think that we'll be seeing more of him, but I think he is also smart enough to know how to play the game. And I think that he will tone himself down. I think that he will tone himself down. I don't. So we'll just have to see. But it's very early.

It's very early, and there's going to be a lot of ink spilt over what could happen, but a lot remains to be seen. But as of this moment, it's very heartening.

Joshua Noel: 00:26:53

Yeah, I. I don't have this on the outline, but real quick, because I do know a lot of people are either happy or concerned about this.

Some of his teachings before he Became the Pope was very. Not in favor of women preaching kind of deal or they. They he think he's less pro LGBTQ kind of movement which the.

The previous Pope necessarily support either. I guess he just said stuff that made some people happy. Do we think the Catholic Church is going to suddenly just start really hating on these groups?

I feel like, I know that's an exaggeration, but what kind of shift should we expect to see in the attitude towards those specific two issues?

Chris Moreland: 00:27:34

I don't think you're going to see any change in the kindness and the courtesy the outreach done to those groups at all. I think that the door is always going to remain open for dialogue.

The door is always going to remain open for, you know, collaboration and contact and for continuing the discussion.

But for goodness sakes, you know, I think that the door is pretty much, I would say for the rest of my lifetime permanently closed on female deacons, female ordination. If it didn't happen under Francis, you think it's going to happen under Leo. He's made it very clear that that is a non starter.

It will be interesting to see see what he does with the same sex blessings because as you may recall, Francis put that in and had to backtrack it because the bishops and cardinals conferences of Africa patently refused it, which is pretty unheard of in the Catholic Church to be like that. Like, no, we're not going to do that. So he had to backtrack that to save face.

That is going to be extremely controversial to see how he handles that quagmire.

Joshua Noel: 00:28:45

Yeah.

Chris Moreland: 00:28:46

How he handles that knot. It's going to be very interesting because that raised a lot of ambiguity.

And one thing that Catholics do not particularly like is you cannot have a church in Germany that does one thing and a church in Nigeria that does something diametrically opposite. They're always cultural adaptations. There are always sort of idiosyncrasies of each national Catholic Church.

But the faith is universal, the church is the whole church. And we can.

What Catholics are particularly frightened of is going the way of the Anglican Communion where you have this high church, a low church, a broad church, and that the Archbishop of Canterbury is nothing more than a nominal figurehead that no one pays any attention to. Like that is. Like that would be a nightmare for Catholics.

Joshua Noel: 00:29:38

Yeah, yeah. The priest that we plan on having on who again, this is not part of the Roman Catholic Church. This is independent Catholic church.

Very important to make that distinction. Father Castello Casteau in North Carolina, he considers himself a gay priest.

I don't Think he's able to be married from his own tradition, but I'm unsure on some of that. I just wanted to make sure we, we did say that.

So whenever we have that 100 days look back, so you guys kind of know what perspective we're going to be looking at.

Professor Moreland, if you want to join us for that, obviously you're welcome as well, because having the roman Catholic view 100 days in would be cool too. But I know you're busy.

Chris Moreland: 00:30:15

Right.

Joshua Noel: 00:30:15

And I don't like inviting people multiple times when I know they're busy.

Chris Moreland: 00:30:17

No, if I'm around, I'd be more than happy.

Joshua Noel: 00:30:21

Yeah, I'll make sure. I'll send you that link and stuff too, then. Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:30:25

So what. How might the appointments of a new Pope matter for those outside of the Catholic faith?

It's a much broader question, but how is this going to affect us?

Chris Moreland: 00:30:38

So in terms of, in terms of like day to day, it's not really going to have much of an impact on, on people. It is going to be more about what we're talking about happens in like five years. Like the appointments build up the narrative.

Like they're little tiny pieces that start to create a narrative whole.

And so Catholics, really, a lot of us like really enjoy watching sort of, you know, being a Vaticanologist, we like sort of seeing the chess pieces move, we like seeing who's in, who's out, because we know it means something extremely important. But on a day to day basis, is it really going to affect your, as of now, the average life of a Catholic in the pew, or an Episcopalian or a Lutheran?

Not yet. Not yet. But if you want to know how it's going to affect you in a couple of years, these are some leading indicators.

TJ Blackwell: 00:31:42

So is there anything that you think we might have missed that you think people want to know about the Pope or how the Catholic Church is going to be moving forward with a papal transition? For someone who's like, this is their first one where they're really paying attention.

Chris Moreland: 00:31:56

For my.

I would say that the absolute worst methodology someone could use to try to understand Leo and to try to understand the papacy specifically, or the Roman Catholic Church in general, is to subject it to American political dichotomies.

If you view all of this through the lens of Fox News or msnbc, if you view it from like the agenda of the RNC or the dnc, whether you consider yourself to be woke or whether you consider yourself to be maga, if that is your lens, you're already looking at the world in an incredibly myopic way. And it's just going to deform and remove from reality what's actually happening with the current pope.

We've already seen that with things that, like Laura Loomer has said. He's like, oh, my. She's like, oh, my God. God. He's a woke Marxist pope. I'm like, really?

And, you know, on the super far left, you know, they're going after him, you know, because he. He has some reservations about gender that they're not going to find. But overall, so far, he's been all.

He's been a lot less divisive and a lot less controversial. And I think that in a time where.

Where people are so divided that unless he rocks something way too far in one direction or another, I think people are looking for a unifying figure, whether they're Catholic or not. They're looking, again, for someone beyond this world we live in, where it's all about Trump 24 7.

They're looking for something to distract them and maybe for a sign of hope.

TJ Blackwell: 00:33:42

All right. Yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:33:43

Cool, Cool, cool, cool.

So with that, you know, near the end of our show, we always like to ask for a practical action, just something tangible our listeners could go do right now that would help better engender Christian unity. Before you go, I'm going to cheat. I'm going to offer up an idea myself, tying it back into this idea that the papacy can be a figure of unity.

We mentioned that earlier, which is funny, because I think fully affirmed the Augsbury Confession. And I know that that was part of the Catholic push against it.

But what I do like about this, even though I don't put myself under the authority of Rome or anything like that. For example, I read a book that was the Four Views on Inerrancy.

And one of the most interesting parts of this book was there was an author that wasn't from America who was just like, we don't even talk about this. What do you even mean? It was like this whole part was just like, what are you guys even talking about over there? And one of the things.

Things about Pope.

And this is where my recommendation is, you read something written by one of the popes, because their whole job is to be able to speak to anyone across the world, which means the stuff that we think is so important in America that other Christians, maybe they never even heard anybody talk about it before, when he talks, it's something that's relevant to all Christians, I think. And that's where, even if I don't Put myself under the authority. I think it is good to read what the Popes are writing because it's beneficial.

But, Chris, what about you? Do you have anything that you're like, this would be a really good thing for people to do practically to help better engender unity in the Church.

Chris Moreland: 00:35:08

So I think that at this point, at least in terms of Catholics, something that we need to think about is that we've been through a couple of papacies. Most of people my age have been through a couple of papacies. We know what it's like to be in favor. We know what it's like to not be in favor.

And so now that things are changing, we have to make sure that people that were really attracted to Francis and that people that were inspired by him still don't feel slighted, because we know what it's like to feel slighted, and it's very spiritually damaging. So we want to make sure that we don't have this thing where it's like, I'm in, you're out. I'm in, you're out. It's like we have to find a way to.

We have to find a way to both be at the table.

And perhaps that shared experience of suffering and empathy will get us to overcome some of our resentments and some of our, you know, there's this natural human desire for revenge. We've got to get rid of it. We've got to get rid of it and be good Christians.

Joshua Noel: 00:36:10

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:11

All right. And what changes in the world around us if we do that?

Chris Moreland: 00:36:16

I think you would see a lot less.

I think you would see Catholics not segregating themselves from each other, having open, honest conversations and being able to agree, to disagree, to find. To go back to what is the core. To go back to what is the core and maybe put some of these other issues on the back burner.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:38

All right, we would love to see that. And so everybody listen to Professor Christopher Morley. Heartland, please. You know, before we wrap up, you've been here before.

We like to ask everyone to share a moment they saw God in recently, whether it be a blessing, mode of worship, a curse, what have you. We call this our God moment. And I always make Josh go first. So, Joshua, do you have a God moment for us today?

Joshua Noel: 00:37:02

Yeah, Yeah, a few. I finished up my first semester. What is it? Cheater. Oh, I'm not going to give a few. I just have it.

Chris Moreland: 00:37:10

Oh, cool.

Joshua Noel: 00:37:10

They only could hear one of them unless they go to our Patreon. No, I'm just kidding. I'm not going to do it over there either. I'm lazy. But no, I got to go to the beach this last weekend.

I just finished up my first semester of school. Desperate need for relaxation. Sunday before I come back, my.

My boss at work text me, like, hey, did insert this small list of people call out to you during this weekend? I was like, nope. All right. So they just didn't show up. And then I thought about it and was like, huh?

That means they were just short and struggling and could have asked me if they called out earlier, but waited till they were pretty sure my vacation was over just to not bother me with a text. And I'm like, man, someone cares about me that much. I don't know if I care about them that much because, like, that's rough.

Multiple people just not showing up. That's rough.

TJ Blackwell: 00:38:00

Yeah. I woke up to one of those texts this morning.

Joshua Noel: 00:38:03

Great, great times.

TJ Blackwell: 00:38:04

Hey, did so and so and so and so text out today.

Joshua Noel: 00:38:06

I was like, not to me. Also, just don't text out. Like, call. Just call people. Sleep through your text.

TJ Blackwell: 00:38:13

Like, that's not fair anyway, you know? But for me, my God moment.

I'm not sure when this episode comes out, but probably pretty close to Father's Day, because it's already pretty close to Father's Day. But that's related.

I recently been having some issues with my car, and I think I'm a better driver than I am a mechanic and definitely lazier than I am scared of driving. So I was having braking issues for a couple of months, and I just didn't really worry about it. But I, you know, I was talking to my dad about it.

He's like, yeah, just bring the car over here. We'll fix it, and we'll replace your rotors.

So I got to spend that afternoon with my dad, which just happens less and less these days as we both kind of get busier. And it's just nice to slow things down. And, like, it's the old days. Go get your hands dirty.

Working with my dad, I loved that, and that was super fulfilling for me. And also now my car breaks really well.

Joshua Noel: 00:39:18

Yeah, that does sound nice.

TJ Blackwell: 00:39:19

It is.

Joshua Noel: 00:39:19

All of that, Even the car breaking. Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:39:23

Yeah.

Chris Moreland: 00:39:24

For me, I would say that a God moment that I've had recently is that one of my favorite people in the world, Dr. Denise Hanson, she's a psychologist. She has in the past 30 years, she has revolutionized mental health in Wilmington, North Carolina.

She's saved people from suicide. She has diagnosed people. So she's been a healer and a mentor and a guide. And, like, what she does is, like, multiplied times and times again.

She had a tragic accident where she broke her neck, and we were really worried. Everyone was really worried about her.

That happened about three months ago and she is now back to seeing patients and her recovery is on trend and her mind is sharp as ever. So she is going to continue. And she is a believer, by the way. She's a. She's very staunch Christian.

She is going to be able, with the grace of God, to. To continue her work of healing and her work of mental health treatment, which, as we all know, is so desperately needed in this time.

So I talked to her recently and I pretty much was like, hey, God is not done with you yet. You're not getting off the hook anytime soon.

TJ Blackwell: 00:40:40

Yeah, that's incredible. And especially in the Carolinas, mental health professionals are few and far between.

Chris Moreland: 00:40:47

Yeah, there is. It's not like being in big city.

TJ Blackwell: 00:40:50

But if you like this episode, please consider sharing with a friend. Share with your enemy, your cousins, especially your cousins. Especially your cousins. I think it's better to share with your enemies.

But rate, review the show on podchaser, Apple Podcast, Spotify, give us thumbs up, thumbs down, comment on the episode, interact, you know.

Joshua Noel: 00:41:08

Yeah, just share it with an enemy.

When you share it with the enemy, just like, hey, here's a podcast where some people said it was gonna be a short episode and then they still went on on for a normal episode. Oh, man.

Hey, guys, while you're at it, if you want to see me do that more times, I'm on other shows on podcast network, like Some Joyful Noises, Systematic Ecology, Be Living Water.

And coming soon, we have a maybe a limited time podcast, maybe a seasonal podcast, Undecided, if it is a seasonal season one will be called Turning the Page on Divine. Give me a second Genocide. All right, Turn it Based on Divine Genocide. Yeah. I was like, what was it again?

And if it's not seasonal, that's just going to be the name of the show.

TJ Blackwell: 00:41:48

All right, well, we hope you enjoyed it. Next week, we're going to be talking with Brendan Robinson to discuss his work as a progressive Christian author, pastor and Bible scholar.

After that, we will have on Dr. Bruce E. To discuss charismatic movements and the need for churches that both believe in the power of the spirit and the accepting love of God.

Then we're going to have on Brian Wrecker to discuss his Instagram reels on church dogma and his new book, Hell Bent. And finally, at the end of season one, Francis Chan will be on the show.

Joshua Noel: 00:42:16

Probably. Probably if someone tells him about it. Because, you know, he. He doesn't know still. Yeah, but some. Someone will tell him. Probably.

TJ Blackwell: 00:42:22

Yeah. Not me, I imagine.

Joshua Noel: 00:42:24

Yeah, not us.