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3 Whisky Happy Hour

Neoconclave Edition!

Episode length: 1h 6m

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We're up a day early with this special emergency edition of the 3WHH because it isn't every millennium when you get an American Pope. With John Yoo hosting this week we hold ecumenical court on what to think about an American Pope who displays some progressive political sympathies, but is a math major and an Augustinian, which are more promising indications. We offer a few things to watch for as this papacy unfolds.

Next up: what to make of Trump's foreign policy, especially in light of the firing of NSA Mike Waltz. John is confused (so what else is new?), and once again Steve and Lucretia have to sort him out about how foreign policy analysis ought to begin, with the first step being, throw out all your academic IR theories! Meanwhile, the title for today's episode arises from a joke in the middle of this topic. (You'll just have to listen to find out what it is, and if you don't like it, blame Richard Samuelson!)

Finally, we use the latest disgrace at Columbia to judge whether colleges are starting to shape up or not, and why we want the Trump Administration to keep up the pressure.

Hosted by John Yoo, 'Lucretia', and Steve Hayward

Discussion (6)

  • Al Sparks@AlSparks

    On the new pope: I think that Lucretia is right that identifies more as Peruvian than American. Most of his clerical career has been in Peru. His nuts and bolts pastoral work has been in Peru. He's held leadership positions in his Augustinian order, which essentially means, when going beyond the administrative functions, that he's ministering more to fellow priests than the laity. So he's served as a provincial general based in Chicago, and then the Prior General of the order based in Rome.

    But when not in those leadership positions, the Augustine Order has sent him to Peru to serve in Catholic parishes, until he was made a bishop.

    On politics and the differences between John Paul II and Francis: Lucretia is correct that the difference between John Paul and Francis and how they did politics was that John Paul went after Catholic clerics that involved themselves too directly in politics, and especially those who were Marxists. Francis had a mouth on him and he made outrageous statements that got a lot of favorable press.

    The problem is, it obscured how weak a pope he was. He'd call for blessings of same sex unions. But he didn't allow same sex marriages within the Church. He tried to suppress the Latin Mass, but he didn't ban them. And a big difference between him and John Paul was how he dealt with Marxists (he was a Peronist in Argentina; which comes just short of Marxism), especially the Communists in China, allowing them to appoint Catholic bishops there. And lastly, when he was elected, it was expected he would take care of the financial corruption in the Vatican. As far as I can tell, he has made no inroads there.

    I expect Pope "Bob" Leo will be an improvement, just because Francis set a low bar. Just how much, I don't know.

  • Dr.Guido@DrGuido
    I readily admit that I am now and have been a political junkie since I was about 12 when some teachers at the Jesuit prep school I attended took a group of us to a Barry Goldwater rally...a no-nonsense Conservative... and we were met by a Left wing group led by OTHER teachers and fellow students! Very exciting stuff! Be that as it may, I'm loathe to make everything political as was done immediately when Leo XIV was announced. The (overwhelmingly) secular media instantly analyzed it into a Left-Right political split, ignoring the fact that first and foremost what was happening was a religious event. That the Pope is the Bishop of Rome and has a special and specific role to 1.4 billion Roman Catholics was commented on as if it were Tory v Labour or Republican v Democrat and what would his policy prerogative be?? For Catholics, while we acknowledge that the Pope is also a temporal head-of-state, the only 'policies' we/he (should?) care about are doctrinal and the Pope's personal predilection and preferences are interesting and deserve our attention but they're ultimately unimportant. The problem that Francis posed was his nearly scandalous sloppiness and carelessness on issues that were often close to RC doctrine. He also seemed to want Catholics to accept his passing comments and observations in a much stricter way than he deserved. His position on Climate Chaos simply did not carry the 'gravitas' for rank and file Catholics that he thought it should...we Catholics were much more concerned about his position on LGBTQ+ stuff or a married clergy, for example. Our media, however, was and still is massively confused and seemed to think that if Francis, and now Leo, opine on climate or the Texas-Mexico border then every Catholic was somehow bound by some Papal infallibility! (No!) What was also immediately misinterpreted and/or misreported was the choice of 'Leo XIV'...They seemed entirely ignorant of the significance of Leo XIII...all that we got was that 13 dealt with 'workers' and 'social justice' and were unaware that when he spoke of 'Catholic social justice' it was part of a call to condemn socialism and enshrine private property! He found nothing decent nor compassionate in 'The State' confiscating personal private property under the guise of operating for the 'common good'. But such is the success of the Left/media that 'social justice' became a call to arms BY AND FOR Socialism when in fact it was the exact opposite. So, what we (a royal 'we') want for/ from this Leo is clarity and consistency... If and when that happens I think it's a big plus for Catholics and non- Catholic Christians as well as purely secular folks. It gives all of us a point of contrast and I think that's a very good thing. But...it's 2025 and we have a Pope who has a history of Tweets and will be scrutinized like no other. Interesting times...
  • LibertyDefender@LibertyDefender

    John Yoo accuses Steve Hayward of having the hots for Jeanne Kirkpatrick as if that’s somehow bad, or worse yet, weird. Every red-blooded American male had the hots for Jeanne Kirkpatrick, as Berke Breathed astutely portrayed in his sorely-missed comic strip Bloom County.

    Twice-nominated Meadow Party candidate for President Bill the Cat had a torrid affair with Jeanne Kirkpatrick,

    a poster of a cartoon cat sitting on a toilet

    and we were all envious.

  • WilliamWarford@WilliamWarford

    In discussing papal infallibility, the term Lucretia was looking for is "ex cathedra," meaning "from the chair," i.e. official pronouncements in his role as leader of the universal church as opposed to, say, predicting who will win the World Series.

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