Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to another edition of our diocesan podcast, Big City Catholics, with Bishop Robert Brennan, the Diocesan Bishop of Brooklyn, and myself, Father Christopher Henu. Today we're joined by two special guests with us from the New York State Catholic Conference of Bishops, Dennis Poust and Kristen Curran. Bishop Brennan will introduce them a little bit later, but we'll begin with our prayer first. Asking our Blessed Mother's intercession upon us, upon our nation, and upon our state, especially as we enter into this election season, as we pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: The name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Bishop, it's good to be back together with you again. You've had some special editions outside and all around the world, really, but we're back.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: We're back in the regular routine, but we continue to use the great tool of zoom, of video conferencing so that we can expand our reach and bring in conversations with people who can broaden our horizon. And today, as we get closer to this election season, on Tuesday, November 5th, we go to the polls to cast out ballots. And so in these days, we want to be particularly aware of the issues that affect us as citizens of the United States and as citizens here in New York state. Dennis Post is the executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference. And essentially what that means is that the bishops of the state meet somewhat regularly, but we also confer with one another, and we talk about issues that affect us in the church. Church. Some of the things that we need to be able to be aware of, to work through as a church community, but also what does it mean to be a church in the greatest society? And so the conference is a tool that we can be together and speak to one another, but then also how we can interact with government. Dennis helps Cardinal Dolan to convene us together and to share communications with one another, but also to share that with the widest community in New York State. Kristen Curran is. Is part of that team. Kristen is the director of government relations for the conference, and so she interacts with a lot of our elected members and with people in the state just so that, again, we can find the information we need, but also that our teaching as church can be out in the public square. So, Dennis and Kristen, thank you. You're very very welcome here on Big City Catholics.
[00:02:50] Speaker C: Thank you, Bishop. It's a pleasure to be with you today, as always.
[00:02:54] Speaker D: Yeah, so happy to be here.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: You know, we speak about our responsibility. It's both privilege and a responsibility to take part in the electoral process, but it's also part of that responsibility to communicate with our elected leaders along the way. And this is a particularly key time. We're in a presidential election, so it's certainly far more in the news than in the other three years. But also we have some issues regarding New York State. Now, the Tablet publishes this weekend a special voters guide which again, we don't take partisan positions. This is not about endorsing particular leaders or particular parties, but really it's talking about the issues that matter, the dignity of the human person and how that's played out in every issue. In respect for human life, in our care for the poor, the heart of it all is the dignity of the human person. And the Tablet reprinted with a little bit of an update, my own column from earlier in September where I talk about how we need Catholics in the Republican Party, we need Catholics in the Democrat Party, we need the Catholic voices out there amongst all of the faithful in the square. But we have an issue this year that really is important, and that is Proposition one. It's called the Equal Rights Amendment. And Dennis, this is really not something that falls along party lines. It may have party support here and there, but this is not a party issue, is it?
[00:04:30] Speaker C: That's exactly right, Bishop. This is, you know, among your listeners, there are going to be a lot of people who form their conscience and decide that they're going to vote for Donald Trump. There are going to be a lot of your listeners who form the conscience and decide that they're going to vote for Vice President Harris. And regardless of who you're going to vote for at the top of the ticket or down the line, regardless of what your political party is, Republican or Democrat or something else, we think that this issue transcends all of that. You're right, Bishop, that this is associated with the Democratic Party in that it was the Democrats in the legislature who pushed it through. It's supported by the Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul and others, and it's opposed by the Republicans. But that being said, it's also opposed by nonpartisan groups who have taken a very close look at the language. And I'll let you know, Kristen, get into that a little bit. But we find it very troubling and disturbing. The bishops have put out a really excellent statement warning Catholics of The dangers of this amendment, particularly with regard to the issue of abortion as well as parental rights and religious liberty.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: You mentioned that statement and it was aptly titled A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. And so Proposal 1, the Equal Rights Amendment. It has a wonderful name, Equal Rights Amendment. Who doesn't want equal rights? Who doesn't want that right? However, we already have language in our state constitution about equal rights. What this does, though, is defines special classes of people and opens the door to some very, very dangerous legislation that would be somewhat enshrined in the constitution of the state, which would be very, very hard to change in the future. If people come to the realization of how bad this is, it's very hard to turn it around. Kristen, we've spoken about some of the serious issues at stake here.
[00:06:17] Speaker D: I think your how hard this would be to walk back is so important. And I think as well you mentioned it sounds like a noble and a benign cause here to frame it as equal rights. So people are going to hear about that, see that and say, why would I vote against equal rights? But as you've said, the way that they wrote this amendment, they've injected such vague and broad terms as protected classes that that's going to lead to possibly courts interpreting things that they never imagined when they wrote this. And it definitely is going to be very dangerous, I think down the line, like you said, for parents rights, when we're talking about having age as a protected class, that's going to lead to courts being the ones to decide who has rights over other people. So very dangerous stuff. And of course, the abortion, like you said, and we talk about this a lot, that in New York State, this is a moot point. We have abortion up until the moment of birth. There's no way that's going to change. And now we're going to put this in the state constitution. Like you said, if the minds and hearts of voters in New York ever change, this is now going to be impossible to walk back. And having reproductive rights as a constitutional right in New York is going to make any check on abortion in the future practically impossible.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: And Dennis, we had a conversation with some people about it. What was the term that was used to describe the language?
[00:07:38] Speaker C: It was, we were chatting with an individual who's active in this issue and he, he used the term that the language is specifically vague. By that he meant the lawmakers, when they've crafted this, they intentionally left it very vague and innocuous sounding so that it could maximize the ability for judges in New York to interpret this amendment as broadly as possible. So we know from recent history that the New York State Court of Appeals, which is the highest court, is very hostile toward religious liberty. They've now twice upheld an abortion insurance mandate on religious employers. Right. They've upheld a contraception mandate. And so this individual told us that there are already lawsuits that he's aware of that are teed up and ready to go that will challenge laws, you know, for example, students who are biological males competing with girls on sports teams or using facilities. We don't want to demonize anybody. And we understand the, you know, I'm a parent and so is Kristen. And we understand very well the agony of parents and children who have these kinds of issues. But we also can't change biology and reality. And we also have to stand up for girls and sports and their privacy and protection. So these are the kind of things that we worry about when it comes to the age. You know, the no discrimination based on age. Well, that sounds good, but you can't fire me because I'm old. But it also could mean that they don't define age. Right. It's specifically vague. So that could mean just like we already have no parental consent for abortions, we could very easily see a judge saying a parent can't object or prevent a child from getting so called gender affirmation procedures, drugs and surgeries if they consider themselves to be transgender. It's really a rabbit hole that we could go down very quickly.
[00:09:18] Speaker D: I think people aren't aware of the fact that in New York we're already trending in this direction of really disrupting the parent child relationship. Because currently in public schools it is already in regulation that if a child expresses an interest in changing their gender and they don't wish their parent to know that schools must not tell the parent, they must keep this information from the parent. So that's already in regulation for public schools. So we're already trending in a direction of completely disrupting the parent child relationship. And if we're now going to enshrine in the Constitution that children have the right to do things without their parents knowledge or consent, that's just so dangerous. And again, people need to understand how horrible it could be to constitutionally enshrine a right of children to do possibly dangerous life altering lifelong things without their parents knowledge or consent. And if we're going to take away the parents right to have this ability to parent their child, where is that going to lead us? It's very dangerous.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: It's chilling. And when you think of some of the history of dictatorial countries and said that could never happen. That state would determine your child's well being rather than the parent. The state makes the choices for the children. These are things that I could never imagine. And as you say, they're already being promoted in some ways. But this, again, very dangerous language. This extends that, it enshrines it, it protects that approach and it even becomes an issue for us. So this, even then, now imposes that kind of an ideology on our schools. One of the hallmarks of Catholic education is that it involves a partnership. I always say this, and it's a very multi layered partnership, but it begins with the school, with the child and the parents, the families, the parish community, and all the people who support it. But we work together with parents. And Dennis, a few minutes ago you said we know that there are struggles that parents are experiencing and certainly especially in today's world where young people are bombarded with these messages that only add to the confusion, things like gender identity and all of that. And our approach is to walk together with families. We need to be able to communicate with each other, to work things out, to help a family, to be able to address this. This drives a wedge between the school and the family. This drives a wedge between parishes and parish activities. Schools supports cyo. This will affect everything we do in terms of our interactions with families. So it's a big issue for us in the church, but it's an even bigger issue for every family.
[00:12:14] Speaker C: You're absolutely right, Bishop. And to get back to what Kristin was saying earlier about how difficult it is to walk back, the other thing is when something is enshrined in the Constitution, it becomes a fundamental right. And that raises the level of scrutiny that judges have to use when they're deciding if something can infringe on that so called right. So they have to use a strict scrutiny standard, which means judges to some extent have their hands tied a little bit in how they interpret some of these difficult issues that come up. Because if something is a fundamental right, you really have to. It's really burdensome to try and do anything that would limit that so called right. And here we're talking about a so called right of people of any age to, you know, access permanent, destructive treatments that could impact their lives when they're not at an age to make that decision. You know, we're all old enough to know that, you know, there's always been, as long as there has been humanity, right? There have been people who suffer from gender dysphoria and who are confused about their gender. And there has been this kind of thing forever. But I think it would be kind of foolish to not say, well, there's some sort of social contagion as well going on here, the way it's sort of magnified in recent years in schools. And it's something that we as a society really need to take a look at. And in other countries, they're sort of pulling back on some of these procedures for minors in Europe, in Great Britain, for example, here in America, it's like full speed ahead, even though the evidence from a scientific standpoint is all over the place.
[00:13:36] Speaker D: Yeah, Every other country is walking this back. And it's very scary to see how in New York in particular, we're, like Dennis said, charging full steam ahead. There is pending legislation in New York that would inject the issue of gender and having so called transitioning going on into custody issues. And, you know, we're passing legislation that says, come to New York if you want your child to transition, we'll support you. I mean, this is incredible the way that we're pushing so fast and hard ahead on this issue when other countries are recognizing the fact that this is dangerous. It's not grounded in science, and this is setting children up for a lifetime of problems and pain and suffering. So again, like Jenna said, to put this into the constitution of the state is terrifying.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: We're already saying if a parent wants this for their child, it's available. That in itself is troubling because this is a very dangerous path to go down. But now we're taking it a step further and saying, well, you know, the parent doesn't even have to know.
[00:14:35] Speaker D: I think your point, Bishop, about driving a wedge is so great. I'm so glad you framed it that way. And, you know, I have little ones in our parish school, and it's so important to my husband and I that our children are there in that environment and being, you know, taught in that way, the way that our Catholic schools teach our children. And that point about driving a wedge is. It's really resonating with me. And I think it's important that people hear that and understand that.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: You spoke in the beginning of the podcast about sort of the two aspects of proposal one that are the most challenging. Been talking about the parents rights putting into irreversible stone abortion concerns. And while we may hear on a Catholic podcast, all of us working within the Catholic institution, yet these are not really all just Catholic concerns. I mean, these are concerns for everyone. And Dennis and Kristen, perhaps could you Speak to collaboration with other faiths in trying to get the word about just how bad this proposal is. Are we working with other groups as well just to get this word out?
[00:15:33] Speaker D: We're working with a lot of different people and of course, we've done a lot of work with the Coalition to Protect Kids New York, which is an official, you know, registered ballot committee formed to oppose this amendment. And really, I think looking to the coalition, you can see your point about, you know, just everybody. This is for everybody. All different groups, you know, secular people, other faith groups, feminists, choosing life, I mean, you know, pro life groups, parents rights groups. It's really people from all walks of life all over the state who are joining together to oppose us, of course, on a lot of our issues. We always work with other faith groups. Of course, our Jewish brothers and sisters, we work with them on a lot of stuff. They're with us and opposing this, other faiths as well. But this really is. Is getting, you know, people like you said, from all walks of life, all faiths, even not faithful people, together for everybody. Everybody needs to understand how dangerous this can be.
[00:16:24] Speaker C: And we're consciously optimistic. We know that we're in an uphill battle here because of just the nature of New York State and as Bishop Brennan noted, the innocuous, even like positive sounding Equal Rights Amendment language that they've used here. But we also think that there's a sort of a silent majority, even among people who tend to be more liberal, progressive, when you start talking about their kids, when you start talking about taking parents rights away, we think that they may not be willing to tell a pollster that they're uncomfortable with that, but they are. So we think we have a fighting chance here. We certainly, the Catholic Conference as well as the Coalition Protect Kids and other groups have been, I think, really successful in framing the narrative here, which is amazing, because in a state like New York where one party pledged $20 million that never materialized to promote this amendment, we have gotten our message out first and it has taken hold, I think. And so I think most people who are aware of the amendment are aware of the parents rights issues, you know, in particular, because there are a lot of people who are going to support abortion rights. We know every state so far since the Dobbs decision that has put abortion on the ballot. Our side is lost. Right. And no reason to think that would be any different in New York, certainly. But they made a mistake here by broadening it beyond abortion. They could have easily passed an abortion amendment given the makeup of this state. But I think they've made a fundamental error in sort of trying to take too big a bite of the progressive apple here.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: You know, Dennis, you mentioned the abortion issue, and that in a sense, the heart of this amendment. But, you know, New York state already has the most liberal of abortion laws, and we're looking to enshrine it. So we're concerned because the effect of this legislation, this proposal that's out there to take abortion on demand as the right that affects Catholic healthcare systems, but also Catholic healthcare workers, individual workers, it affects, again, the insurance and all of that, even though there were all these mandates in there, but now it doubles down on all of that. It's funny, it's called an equal rights amendment, but it's actually probably one of the most restrictive pieces of legislation that you can have because it really is oppressive. People who dissent from the mind of the state.
[00:18:33] Speaker C: Yeah, it's going to make any kind of conscience protections or religious liberty protections much more difficult to defend because again, being in the Constitution, you know, reproductive. What is it, Kristen?
[00:18:44] Speaker D: Reproductive outcomes or reproductive health care, healthcare and autonomy? Yeah, any outcomes, I believe. But again, specifically, broad, as we talked about. And you know, Bishop, it's such a good point about our Catholic healthcare. And you know, New York is already this is same issue as with the gender issue. This is a state that's already been long trending toward major hostility against Catholic healthcare systems. Anything, you know, anything Catholic. We've there's pending legislation that would punish Catholic hospitals for not providing abortions, again, even though that has long been our right to refuse to do for our religious liberty. But now to have this ridiculous broad language as a constitutional right, the right to an abortion is going to be now absolute. It's going to supersede any conscious protection or any right of a Catholic hospital or healthcare system to operate within their religious bounds. So, but I think, again, how confused and broad the language is is going to lead again, as we've talked about this entire time, judges being the ones to decide what's what. And nobody elected the judges that are going to be deciding these extremely important issues. Nobody elected them. So that's where this is leading us.
[00:19:59] Speaker B: Let me thank you first of all, for helping us to put some light on the issues at stake here. But one of the things I mentioned in my own column is that our responsibility doesn't end on election day. It doesn't begin nor does it end on election day, but it really is in a republic, our relationship to engage our elected officials in dialogue, to make known to them our needs and our concerns and our principles and how those principles can inform a good society. The New York State Catholic Conference is not only a resource for the bishops to be able to work together, but it's a resource for all Catholics living in the state.
[00:20:36] Speaker D: We love to be that resource and to highlight issues that we know are going to be important to people of faith and people who are wondering, you know, what should I care about? How do I find information that's kind of tailored to the way that I might be thinking? So we like to highlight issues that we know are going to be important to people of faith. And I think people of faith have such a heavy burden to bear now in educating themselves. We have. Our society has become so secularized, and that has driven our political candidates and our choices, you know, for elected office to. I think Cardinal Dullen has talked a lot about it. You know, we're. We're politically homeless as Catholics a lot of the time because our. Our choices have become so difficult because, again, we. Everything is so secularized and we're coming so far away from the tenets that, you know, we hold to. So I think it is so important to do this now. A lot of research to inform yourself and then decide, okay, what's. And sometimes it's the lesser of two evils or whatever. It is hard decisions here. But we at the Catholic Conferen like to be that resource where people can come to our website or, you know, call us and easily find our highlighted issues that they can look through and, you know, use to inform their decisions. And we, of course, have our Catholic Action Network. It's very easily accessible from our website. And if you sign up for that, you can get alerts from us that are going to tell you about important, you know, pending legislation. Of course, our bishop statement on Prop 1 went out through that, and people found out about it that way. Our website is new and it's very navigable and everything is on there to help you help our faithful to decide what the best choice is.
[00:22:16] Speaker C: And we're on social media, Facebook, Instagram, X, formerly Twitter. We have a podcast called Capital Compass, which you can get. And we have in the episode, the current one is about this particular ballot issue. You can get wherever you get your podcasts, same places we can. We listen to this podcast. So it's Capital Compass. So, you know, many years ago, Bishop Cardinal Egan realized that the voice of the bishops wasn't getting it done in terms of politics anymore. And that really, you need to show you got your people behind you. And he helped us to form the with a generous gift from a donor, the Catholic Action Network that Kristen mentioned. This is the way you get emails right to your inbox or by text with links to pre written messages that you can edit and send to your elected officials about all of these. There's not going to be a Republican or a Democrat who's going to be fully comfortable with everything we put out because we're Catholic, we're not a political party. And which is why it's so important to really dig into what our faith teachers because it's not analogous to either.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: Either party and it's the both issues if we need to know what our faith teaches, but also what is the legislation that's being contemplated, what are the things that are out there under consideration? So it's NYS catholic.org in the sense that's sort of the diving board nyscatholic.org and when you go onto the website, then you can find the Twitter and the Facebook and the podcast and again, it's the listing of what's going on in the state. What do we need to know? And you have a great resource too in connecting. You could say where I live and you know, who your legislators are, which is a great, great tool, makes it easy to be able to engage them, to engage them as you want to engage them. We're not telling you what to say. We're saying this is where the church is and you need to take this into account. But you communicate the way you want, language that can help you express it. But you tell your legislator what you want. For us as Catholics, what we have to really drive home is it's important for us to have those conversations certainly at election time, but really all the way through. Exactly.
[00:24:09] Speaker D: Definitely.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: Thank you for the work that you do on behalf of the Catholics in the state of New York. Thank you for your great assistance to the bishops in so many ways. And thank you for joining me today on this week's edition of Big City Catholic.
[00:24:24] Speaker C: It was fun. Bishop, thanks for having us.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: Bishop, great to be together, everyone. And Bishop, you know we recognize the power of prayer in all of this, especially as we prepare for the election season. But we wait election day, we certainly will wait in prayer and keep the Holy Spirit in the center of this as well, for courage and for fidelity to our faith and to what we believe and just to give us that courage to continue to preach that message. So thank you both. And Bishop, perhaps speaking of prayer, you could end with a prayer.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: Indeed. And you mentioned earlier the novena that appears in the Voter's guide in the tablet this week, I'll use the prayer that's provided for the last day, the ninth day of the novena. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Invoking the guidance of the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts and kindle within us the fire of love, we pray, Lord Jesus, you give us your love and your grace to do great things. Give us the faith to shine our light by walking humbly into acting justly before our God, we make our prayers. Listen to all prayers to Christ our Lord. Amen.
[00:25:33] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: The Lord be with you and with your spirit. May Almighty God bless you, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: Thank you all and thanks for those who listen. Please be sure to share this podcast with all those on your own social media platforms and we'll see you again next week for another edition of Big City Catholics. God Bless.
[00:25:53] Speaker C: Sa.
