The 2024 election and the ongoing Synod on Synodality

Image by Lola Gomez, Catholic News Service

INTRO

40th Anniversary of the Center for Spirituality

Daniel’s book on Christology and superlapsarianism at Liturgical Press

SEGMENT 1 - The Synod on Synodality

Cardinal Fenandez

Generai information on this session of the Synod on Synodailty

Moving certain topics to the working groups

Proto-synodailty

Heidi and Dan in Assisi

Christopher White’s reporting at NCR

Column by Steven P. Millies on the synod

Centesimus Annus

Phyllis Zagano’s work on the female diaconate

Discerning Deacons

Women’s Ordination Congress

SEGMENT 2 - The 2024 Election

The NCR polling

Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship

TRANSCRIPTS

INTRO

DAULT: Hello and welcome to the Francis Effect Podcast. My name is David Dalt. I host a radio show called Things Not Seen about Culture and Faith, and I'm an assistant professor of Christian Spirituality at the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University Chicago. I'm here with my friends Heidi Schlump and Dan Harran.

Heidi is senior correspondent at National Catholic Reporter, a publication that connects Catholics to church faith and the common good with independent news analysis and spiritual reflection. Dan is Professor of philosophy, religious studies and theology, and Director of the Center for the Study of Spirituality at St.

Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana. He's also affiliated professor of Spirituality at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas every couple of weeks, we get together to discuss news and events through a lens of our shared Catholic faith.

Dan and Heidi, welcome to you both. Heidi. How have you been?

SCHLUMPF: I'm doing well, although apologies to the listeners in case I'm a little gravely in the voice are a little sniffly. I have that cold that I think one of one or both of you guys had last time, although I don't think I caught it through the zoom airwaves here. Things are going well. I'm having a little of that pre-election anxiety.

I know we're gonna talk about the election later in the show. Early voting started here in Illinois and in Chicago yesterday, so you can go to your precincts. All precincts have early voting at this point, and I know we're encouraged to vote early. I have not yet voted, not because I don't know what I'm doing in terms of federal and national elections, but we have a very important school board election here in Chicago.

It's the first time, or at least the first time in a long time that we'll have an elected school board for Chicago Public Schools and with two children in Chicago public schools, and a husband who is a teacher in Chicago public schools. And as a supporter of public education I'm needing to educate myself a little bit more on that.

So trying to take a lot of deep breaths as we go into the home stretch of the election. So that's what I've been up to. What about you, Dan? What have you been up to?

HORAN: Well, we're in midterm break right now, which is a very welcome breath of fresh air or breath of fall air, or as we're recording today. Breath of late. Summer returned global climate change air. It's it's not clear what season it is anymore. Who knows? It goes day by day. But it's hard to believe we're halfway through the semester.

And so, I shared in our last episode, there have been a lot of things going on here at the Center for the Study of Spirituality. It's our 40th anniversary year, so we have more things coming, including. The week after exactly to the day, a week after election on November 12th, we have the annual Thomas Merton lecture in spirituality that's gonna be delivered by Father Brian Massengale from Fordham University this year.

So, listeners are, are welcome to come if you're in. Travel distance of Notre Dame, Indiana, south Bend and come to campus for that event at seven o'clock Eastern time. And if you're not able to be here in person we will be live streaming it so you can visit our webpage and get the free registration link there for the live stream.

So, other than that, I'm, I haven't talked about a lot of the research projects I've been working on. I, so I'm gonna pull a little bit of a David. I've been working as there's been a little bit of a break and an easing up in my schedule. A project that I've been working on for a long time a book on Christology about what's called Super Lapse Super Laps AIRism, which is this notion that the incarnation was not primarily about sin not a cause occasioned or caused by sin.

But that was part of God's divine plan from from all time, from creation. And that because. We sinned in the absolute present order. The coming of Christ actually is also redemptive. But even if, as the medievals would say, even if Adam had not sinned God still would've become human. So there's a long tradition that goes back to scripture.

And over the course of the last 2000 years, I. I've been working on this book. I know some of our listeners for them. It's a long awaited book. So progress continues on that. Also shout out to my publisher Liturgical Press. They've been very, my editor has been very patient with me because so many things have been happening and other things coming and going.

And so, yeah, I'm excited to, to talk about that. I feel like I haven't. Mentioned a project like that in a while, even though I've been plugging along in the background. But the person who does talk about his projects like this and who has had some exciting news of late is our own. David Dot.

David, what are you working on? What's going on in your neck of the

DAULT: Well, thank you. And like you, I am just so, so overwhelmed at the idea that it is already the middle of the semester and now we're starting to think about planning for the spring semester. And as I've mentioned a couple of times I'm doing a new class at Institute of Pastoral Studies on nuclear security and Catholic social teaching.

So I've been doing a lot of reading and research about that and really excited about that. But also I just want to give a shout out to you. Dan, because in my research I have been diving into your excellent book on Catholicity and Emerging Personhood, and especially your work on Dun Scotus and the idea of Chedi.

I found it to be a really excellent resource, so. I really just want to commend that book to, our listeners. And it's really been helping me in my thinking about my projects. I've had some health stuff that's been fluctuating for the past couple of weeks, and so I've been navigating that, but also I'm excited that between when listeners hear this episode and hear our next episode.

I'm gonna be traveling to New York. To visit with our friends at Common Wheel for their hundredth anniversary celebration. And I'm excited to be there with my friends on the editorial board there and to to celebrate a century of common wheel Catholicism. When I first came into the Catholic faith I was at our mutual friend.

Pat two Burns House and he had several copies of common Wheels sitting around and let me borrow some of them. And as I read some of the articles, I began to realize this was the kind of Catholic that I wanted to be. And so I just I, I have long had a high esteem for that publication. I've been happy to be associated with them and helping them produce their podcast, and I'm excited to celebrate with them.

And speaking of celebrating and things that are coming up, let's look at what's coming up on our show today. So we're gonna be. Talking in our first segment about the conclusion of this round of the syn ality. So as we are recording this, the final document is being prepared and voted on. By the time that you hear this, it will be just about to be published, and so we're gonna be talking about that in the first round.

In our second segment, we're gonna be looking ahead to the 2024 election, which is happening in just a couple of weeks. Less than a couple of weeks actually. And in our third segment, Heidi is interviewing Michael Canis, who is my colleague at the Institute of Pastoral Studies. He just got back from Rome where he took a group of students and was part of a large effort of basically talking back and talking with the members of the Senate.

And I'm very interested to hear what Mike Canis has to say. So all that's coming up on the show. This is The Francis Effect. Please stay with us.

SEGMENT 1

DAULT: Welcome back to The Francis Effect. I'm David Dlt, and I'm here with Dan Haran and Heidi Schlump. Every couple of weeks we get together to discuss a variety of topics from a perspective informed by our Catholic faith at the time of this recording. The second session of the Senate on Ality has entered its final week.

Delegates from around the world will review a draft document to provide feedback and vote on the final text this weekend before the Senate closes with a liturgy scheduled for Sunday. The style and contents of the document remain unclear, especially since Pope Francis removed several key topics that surfaced last year in the first C Noal gathering and and established 10 study groups to examine those themes outside the Senate itself.

Last week, these study groups presented their interim reports to the Senate participants, but one group in particular drew outrage from the Senate participants. When its chairperson, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez declined to show up for the meeting. The group which is focused on women in the church and especially women's ministries, has been criticized for what observers have described as its lack of transparency, and even its quote secretiveness unquote. Unlike the other study groups whose members are known to the public, this group has not revealed its members agenda or plans.

Because this group is tasked in part with quote, theological and pastoral research on the access of women to the diaconate unquote, it has understandably drawn more scrutiny and suspicion than some of the other groups. I. In response to the outrage from Senate participants, Cardinal Fernandez addressed the Senate on Monday and promised that he would hold a meeting with Senate participants on Thursday, October 24th.

Today, as this podcast is being released, at which time he would provide a list of the study group's members and information regarding its operating procedures, this past month has been full of so much news that we here at the Francis Effect have hardly had a chance to discuss the Senate apart from Heidi's interview with Masimo Foli.

As this significant church gathering comes to a close this week, we felt it would be a good time to discuss our observations on the second session of the Synod on Ality in general, and some of the news related to it, such as the ongoing concerns around Cardinal Fernandez and the study group responsible for examining women's ministries and the church.

Dan, why don't you get us started. What do you think about this syn gathering and the news coming out of it in recent weeks?

HORAN: Well, I wanna go back to the weeks and actually a few months before the start of this session. Where two things happened. One was this announcement on the part of the Vatican under the direction of Pope Francis, that this gathering would be less focused on topics, it'd be less topical. And he, and it'd be focused more on the kind of procedure of the synod, right?

What does it mean to be a Citadel church? What does practicing ality look like? And that he in a sense, excised these. Pressing themes that showed up both in the final report after the first Sin Syndel session last year. But that also came from the floor as well and moved them to these working groups that you talked about, David.

So that was one thing that drew both I would say probably more criticism and concern than it did defense and praise, though there were some people defending you know, this move saying for instance, that. What Pope Francis wants to do, given that ality is largely seen as his legacy is that he didn't want to get quote unquote distracted by particulars or focus on these times contentious issues and instead look at the kind of structure, the procedure, the means by which the church can be synod.

The other thing then too, was because of that, there was like less attention, less both hand wringing and concern and kind of, scary sort of headlines going into the Sentinal gathering. But there was also. Two, like seemingly less interest. There was less enthusiasm. People weren't even, you know, long time church observers were not really talking about it.

As you said, David, we didn't even really talk about it very much on this podcast. And if you go back and listen last fall, we talked about the Senate a lot. So I think it's just been a different vibe. One of the things I've heard from several of the Cied participants is that. Internally, these were not unknown people to one another anymore.

They had met, they'd spent a month together last year. Some of them had been in contact or had been in working groups or something in the interim. And so there was a kind of familiarity and relational kind of dynamic that was present this time around. That wasn't last time around. And that has largely been seen as a positive, but then there have been these little kind of surprises, including what you mentioned with Cardinal Fernandez and this working group that's focused on women's ministry.

And probably the most important and pressing issue that this working group, this study group is supposed to be taking up is again, women's admission to the diaconate. The fact is the nine other study groups. Have publicly announced who is on the groups, what they're kind of charged with what their kind of plans moving forward.

Not all the groups have been that engaged yet. And so some of them are just talking about. The kind of key themes they're gonna address. But this one group has been very secretive and we don't know who's been on that committee, that commission, that working group. As you mentioned, David Cardinal Fernandez has promised that he's gonna tell us today as this episode drops.

And it'll be very interesting, but. Listeners of this podcast will not be surprised where I stand in my frustration around this question of women's admission to the diaconate, the full restoration of the diaconate. I wrote a column shortly before the Senate in which I said, enough already, it's time to admit women to the diaconate.

And I think, you know, there's just, I'm just very frustrated like so many others, including I will say. From having heard from folks in Rome and folks who were in the room. This isn't just like lay people or just women or women religious who were upset, bishops were furious that the prefect of the DDF didn't show up.

That there's continues to be this kind of secrecy, this veil of un uncertainty around these topics. And I think that is actually really promising. It shows that, you know that the spirit of ality is what is really desired by these participants. And there are serious questions being raised in Rome right now about whether Cardinal Fernandez is exercising the Holy Fathers will, in terms of being more synod, being more relational, being more conversational, and less maybe autocratic or less sort of, you know, doing things the way they've always been done, quote unquote, what do you two think about what's going on?

DAULT: Well, I wanna say first of all that I agree completely with the frustration that you've reported on and voiced here. My sense with regard to Cardinal Fernandez is when he said that he couldn't be there, he basically cited a conflict on his schedule. And I'm sorry. If you're a Cardinal and you're the head of the DDF, you rearrange whatever other conflict is there in order to communicate to the people that are there at the syn this once in a lifetime event, basically that they are the priority and that this question is the priority.

However, he. Did not do that. And this speaks to something larger that I've been thinking about and occasionally talking about with you all, and that is what we're seeing here at the Synanon Ality is not yet ality. It's kind of proto ality in the sense that, you know, there, there still is a notion that we have to run things on a schedule.

There has to be a certain type of decorum, there has to be a certain type of procedure that is followed. We have to vote on things. None of these practices are syn nodal. We've heard oftentimes from our friends on the trad side of the church, that the church is not a democracy. I actually agree with that, but it is a ality, and that should terrify the trads even more because Synod ality is corrosive.

Ality is interruptive, and ality is really totos. Totos. Everyone. We have not seen that yet in Rome.

SCHLUMPF: That's very interesting, David. I like that take. You know, I will say I have not been covering the Senate this year. Last year I was in Rome. In fact, Dan, it just came up on my Facebook memories that we were in. ASI a year ago. and I've been obviously following it closely from here, my reporting has just taken me much more on the election stuff.

But I was getting that sense as well of like, not just frustration, but like kind of boredom with the Senate this round because you know, the hot button issues had been at least attempted to be moved to the side. Although Chris White's reporting in NCR is that they are still being brought up in the Senate hall.

But I think I, I would like to point to a column by friend of the podcast, Steve Mille's, that ran yesterday on his reaction. He, too, was part of that group of college folks who were in Rome last week that we're gonna be talking to Mike about later in the podcast. And his reaction was like this whole fernanda's not showing up for the meeting kind of lit a fire under people.

Again, like there's a little bit of. Oomph back in people saying, wait a minute, we're not really being listened to here. And like you said, David, true ality isn't happening. The one thing I will point out from Fernandez's comments on Monday. It does seem, and we'll know more I think by Thursday, if there's some openness about what happens in the meeting.

It does seem that he and or Pope Francis or the Vatican or whomever is trying to push this idea, like there must be other ways for women to somehow. Have more leadership, have more influence, et cetera. And like, let's talk about those ways. And he's already floating this like acolyte and you know, these other, you know, ministries that the Pope has tried to expand last year.

And I just think. Yes, and like, sure, let's talk about all kinds of ways that women can be full participants in the church, but that doesn't mean that you can remove the one that many of them on every continent is bringing up in the Synod conversations before this meeting, and that I find very offensive.

This as a woman, this whole kind of, oh, pat you on the head and we'll just kind of move you over here on this like alternative track over here.

DAULT: I, Dan, I very much want to hear what you have to say about this, but I just wanna make two quick comments. An encyclical from Pope John Paul II and called Centesimus. Honest. There's a an interesting moment in Centesimus honest where Pope John Paul II says, yes, the Democratic process is wonderful, so long as it yields the results that we like.

I'm paraphrasing, but there's a kind of notion that a certain type of Catholic reading of virtue has to override whatever the people choose. And so there, there's a little bit here, and I really like what you just said, Heidi, that when, if we're actually. Talking about ality, we're not talking about dictating to women how they participate, but rather, we must listen and ask how are they being called to participate?

And we must follow what the spirit is directing them to do. We must trust the spirit and the the census alium in terms of how we are to. We are to not allow, but understand women's call to participate in the church. And those are my two comments. Dan. I'm very interested in what you have to say.

HORAN: I just wanna build on that. I think you're making some good points and one of the things that's worth, again, reiterating. And I'm by far not the first person to say this. I think of the great work of people like my colleague Phyllis Ano and others who are scholars. And Phyllis in her case, was appointed by the Holy Sea to be on that very first scholarly commission to look into the history and theology of women's admission to the diaconate in the Roman church.

And look, there's no good theological or historical reason for their exclusion. And so to your point, Heidi, where there seems to be this like, you know, well, can't we have some sort of lady ministry over here? Or something like that is, it is deeply insulting. And look, I'm not a woman. It's not just insulting to women, it's insulting to the whole body of Christ and.

Part of that is because we are, one is excluded, where one is diminished, where one is insulted. Everybody is, and I think that's easily forgotten. There seems to me to be this kind of irrational fear of a kind of slippery slope. That if we let women in this kind of position of ministry, public ministry, then they're gonna want more and they're gonna want to be ordained to the presbyterate.

And they want to be bishops and. You know, frankly, one of the things I think fear is obviously very operative here. Fear is at the root of clericalism. Fear is at the root of misogyny. I think another fear here is a fear of being perceived as a kind of fraction is church that we're gonna be, you know, you hear the S word thrown around of schism and this sort of thing.

But I think, you know, the last 50 years looking at. You know, our fellow Christian communities, like the Anglican Communion frightens some of these people in Rome, that we gotta hold everything together at all costs. And if certain parts of the world are not yet, as. Open to maybe some of these ideas than others, which itself is maybe a specious claim because it's worth noting that in the last number of synods, this isn't just a syn on ality thing.

Going back to the Synod on the PanAm Amazon region, where it was largely the global south saying, we want to ordain Mary men, we want women de deacons, like there is a need here, a hunger here. And let's do something about it. It's actually, interestingly enough, a very colonial sort of resistance coming from Europe and from Rome that is kind of maybe in a paternalistic way, saying like, oh, well, you know, the African churches or the South American churches or the Asian churches aren't ready for this, and so we can't rock the boat.

Well, it is just an interesting defense to be raised while at the same time there's no good theological or historical grounding to justify it.

DAULT: I'm. So grateful for you saying that. And I want to echo that and expand on it because oftentimes you hear the rejoinder that the more progressive aspects of what we're talking about here are in some ways a kind of colonial imposition from the American church onto churches around the world. And my response to that continually is.

When we're calling for greater participation and hospitality towards L-G-B-T-Q-I-A, people in the church, they are all over the world. This is not simply an American phenomenon. It's not simply a European phenomenon. Everywhere that you go in the world, God has graced us with extraordinary variety, and I have it on good authority.

There are women. All over the world as well. And so if we take the idea that we should be listening to these people in terms of how they're being called instead of dictating to them how they're being called, if they are available to us everywhere, then we have the possibility for a wonderful tapestry of approaches within different contexts.

I'm continually excited by the idea that all Catholicism is local. That it's not a gym class where we're all wearing the same uniform and jumping in time, doing jumping jacks at the same count.

But instead there's a wonderful flourishing of variety, God's extraordinary variety. And we quell that at our peril. We try and regularize that at our peril, and I think that you've named it, both of you, that there are certain authorities in the church right now who are terrified of the wild flourishing of extraordinary variety.

Heidi I'm talking too much. I'm very interested again, in kind of your perspective and what you think here.

SCHLUMPF: Well, I will just say that as I'm reading on social media and hearing from people that I think it's becoming very discouraging for women to see this the, can kick down the road a bit. Um, There are. Groups in Rome. One of the interesting things Mike Canis mentioned to me in our interview that's coming up is how so much of what happens about the sin at the event happens outside the syn at Hall, like in Rome.

Other events, people who are getting together women's ordination, conference, discerning deacons, and all kinds of other groups and individuals are having conversations, you know, doing. Prayer. They're doing prayers in St. Peters Square every night. So there's a lot of energy still, I think, around the issue.

But I do think for people who have been following this, there is a discouragement that like, here we go again. You know, and we're gonna get. Set aside. And I think L-G-B-T-Q people are feeling the same way, so it's not over yet, and we'll see what comes out. And I know it's a process and we're trusting the Holy Spirit, et cetera, et cetera.

But but so far the news has been pretty. Discouraging the whole setting aside of things and especially Fernandez has been a real disappointment with the constant trying to, I think he keeps getting up there trying to say things that he thinks is gonna make it go away, and then it just gets worse and worse.

So, so we shall see. So, you know, we'll have already have this all edited and out on the airwaves by the time they meet on Thursday, but I'm sure we'll be talking about this again. So stay tuned and we'll be back. This is the Francis Effect.

SEGMENT 2:

HORAN: Welcome back to The Francis Effect. I'm Dan Haran, and I'm here with Heidi Schlump and David Dahl. Every couple of weeks we get together to discuss news and events through the lens of our shared Catholic faith. We are now less than two weeks away from the 2024 election. Both former President Donald Trump and current Vice President Kamala Harris are offering their so-called closing arguments to the nation about why they would be the better candidate to be elected to the most powerful office in the world.

Harris has suggested that if elected. She would invite advisors from across the political spectrum and seek bipartisan solutions to issues facing the country. Meanwhile, NPR recently reported that Trump has made more than 100 threats, that if elected, he would seek to prosecute and punish his political opponents in recent weeks.

The message of Kamala Harris has increasingly focused on choosing patriotism and the good of the nation over one political party and during the same period, Donald Trump has increasingly turned to talk of faith and destiny at a recent event in Concord, New Hampshire. Trump remarked that quote. As I look back at my life's journey and events, I now recognize that it's been the hand of God leading me to where I am today.

Unquote, Trump's religious rhetoric does not have a universal appeal, but it does seem to resonate with some white Catholic voters. As Heidi reported last week, a recent National Catholic reporter poll shows that quote. Catholic Voters in Seven Battleground states favor Donald Trump over Kamala Harris by five percentage points, but the Vice President leads the Republican nominee overwhelmingly among Hispanic and Black Catholics in those swing states, unquote.

Here at the Francis Effect, we have often tried to look at electoral politics through the lens of Catholic teaching that states that governments exist to promote the common good.

With that in mind, David, what should we be thinking about in these final weeks as we head toward November 5th?

DAULT: Well, I think the first thing that we should be. Asking ourselves is how is it possible that the race is still so tightly wound as it is? I look at the news reporting and I see I see Kamala Harris actually answering questions that she is asked and actually putting forward ideas and policies, and she's not perfect on everything.

But then I also watch events with Donald Trump. I see as he's asked even in non hostile circumstances, the friendliest possible interrogations of his ideas and his thoughts. He has asked direct questions and he is unable to offer any kind of substantive response and yet. We find ourselves again and again in a position where these two candidates are neck and neck.

And so, you know, as we dig into the NCR poll and other polling, and as we look at the appeal, particularly to white Catholics, what keeps coming up for me is. Is there something here besides the policy goals that is at work? And because I work in a Jesuit context. I do want to give even those with whom I disagree, the benefit of the doubt that is a spiritual practice that I try and do, but I've found it increasingly difficult over these past weeks to extend the benefit of the doubt for anything other than a kind of trenchant, integrist racism that is operating here.

And you know, I may be the most extreme of the three of us in terms of naming that, and I'm fine to be the person as the outlier here, but that's the flag I'm gonna plant in the ground right here. I'd be very interested if either of you are willing to try and talk me back from that ledge. I.

SCHLUMPF: Oh, I'm not gonna talk you back from that ledge, but I can give you a little more information about the poll. So. You know, NCR used to do polling many years ago, and so this is the first time in many years that we had done a poll and our new executive editor, James Grimaldi, decided that we should look at Catholic voters, specifically in those seven swing states.

Now, the margin of error in our poll is such that any individual state, it's really hard to, you know, draw conclusions there. But as a whole, it did show Trump up. And by. You know, something beyond the margin of error. So the margin of error was like two and a half, 3%, and he's up by 5% overall in the seven states among Catholic voters.

The racial breakdown is interesting because it is definitely white voters who are leading for Trump and. The margins among Latino and African American Catholics are very large for Harris, although and it's hard to compare because we don't have a similar poll to compare with. But there has been showing some slippage among Latinos and African Americans for the Democratic presidential nominee.

Even among. For Biden before it was Harris, but it's still slippage within this huge margin of African American and Latinos going for her. What was interesting to me and what I included high up in my story, and we can include the link there I. Is that when we asked people we told them about Pope Francis' comments about how both of them were against life.

And so Harris, because of her stand on abortion and Trump, because of his stand on immigration. And so we asked people if people who were voting for Harris, are you voting for her in spite of her position on abortion or because of. Or did it not matter at all? And the majority said they were voting because of her position on abortion.

And then the same with Trump and even by a wider margin, the same with Trump on immigration. Are you voting for him in spite of his policies on immigration, you know, mass deportation, things that Pope Francis has spoken against? More of them said, no, I'm voting for Trump because of his positions on immigration.

So what does this say? Number one, we also found that for the most part, even though people say their faith is impor important to them as voters, they're not listening to Popes and cyclicals, you know, US Bishops Conference and their, you know, faithful citizenship document. You know, priests about, about whom to vote for or what issues to care about.

And the reason the Catholic vote resembles the vote more generally in the country is because. Because their Catholicism, it was, they work their Catholicism into their predetermined political choice, you know? So, so I'm doing some more analysis pieces to come about this and we'll try to dig deeper into some of these things, but those findings I thought were pretty interesting.

And we have a couple stories up at NCR online for people who really wanna dig into the data.

HORAN: wanna pick up on there too, 'cause you mentioned something in passing, Heidi, that I've been thinking about around these results and that is, you know, the full title of the Sac B's kind of on longstanding document for a political engagement in the US is called. Forming consciences for faithful citizenship.

And you're right we often call it faithful citizenship as a shorthand, but I just wanna push back a little bit. You know, you're saying that like these voters who are voting for Harris because of abortion or voting for Trump, because of immigration, you know, both things that are very clear in church teaching that go against the church's teaching.

I think what we have is not. These white Catholics in these swing states not listening to Papal teaching, not listening to the US Bishops. I think actually they are listening to some people. You mentioned priests and others. There, there are priests, you know, maybe not as high profile as the former Bishop Strickland from Texas, or I forget the guy's name from Wisconsin.

Who did that YouTube video. But there are instances like this on a smaller scale and certainly, you know, talking social media accounts, talking heads on YouTube who are presenting themselves as representative of the Catholic perspective and how one ought to, you know, vote according to that, which is distorting the authentic teaching of the church.

Right. And so what I would say is like. What is the issue is less the listening and more the failure that we have witnessed and that we are a part of as a faith community to form consciences God. Meez makes clear that the highest kind of moral standard and authority is the formed conscience of an individual Christian.

That's present in church teaching. Through and through it is at the core of, you know what it is we believe, but it is not something that is articulated very well or discussed. And then not only is that a principle that's really important, how does one form those consciences? And I think there's a circumvention that's going on that actually has to do with who these people are listening to and what, like you rightly said, Heidi, what they choose to consider the parameters of Catholic identity and therefore Catholic action.

And so they're listening to the people they wanna listen to and they're being affirmed in their maybe previously held beliefs or being convinced of something. And it's not connected to church teaching. David, you know, I mentioned at the outset of the segment that, that the common good, the promotion and protection of the common good is the purpose of government, period.

And so it's striking to look at the ways in which these two campaigns are being contrasted in their messaging where, you know. Neither candidate, as Pope Francis has said, neither candidate is a justifiably quote Catholic candidate, right? Or in line with Catholic teaching. So therefore, we have to look at other factors.

And I would say that one of the things we need to do is not become one issue. People. You know, it used to be the slogan I. In US Catholicism that we are not one issue voters. And over the last eight years or so, that has not been true, right? Certainly by some church leaders. They have made one issue, the issue for Catholics and have kind of hammered that point.

So I would say like looking at the bigger picture, which administration would be for the common good.

SCHLUMPF: So just another little quick tidbit from the poll. Abortion was not that high up on the list of issues that people cared about or said that were the most important issues to them in this election. The number one issue was. Economy, which is what the electorate as a whole says, the economy, immigration I'm trying to remember.

Affordable housing was actually up there higher than we expected, although I think that might be partially lumped in with people's idea of just like overall. Financial affordability issues. Now we did ask people of the issues that they checked that were important, was there one that was a deal breaker?

And many people did mention abortion then, because they see it as a very significant issue. I think the idea of the one issue I. Politics has been over the past decades that then laid the groundwork for a lot of people of faith to become Republicans. And now that they're in the Republican, you know, identity, that identity sticks, you know, and it takes a lot for that identity to go away just like it does for people on the left and the Democratic party.

So, so that was another interesting tidbit from the poll that abortion was not that high up on list of issues of importance.

DAULT: I want to expand on that piece of data that you've just brought into the conversation, Heidi, and I wanna bring it back to what you were saying, Dan, about the common good. And I think that we owe it to ourselves, both us and our listeners to really reflect on that phrasing. The common good is not the natural good.

The common good is not the a historical good. The common good is something that arises locally. Out of a really contentious process, and it's not something that can be imposed. Centesimus honors aside. It can't be imposed by a small elite saying We know best for everyone, but rather it is a citizenship is for better or worse, a process of public common discernment where we're all.

Bringing our best into the public arena and we're trying to work it out together. That has been a very uncomfortable process for the Catholic Church through the last four centuries. And we are really with, and I mentioned earlier that ality is kind of an end run around democracy. That doesn't mean that democratic processes don't have a place, and that doesn't mean that when we are, we're speaking in an arena where there are more.

Faiths and non-faith than Catholicism that we do not use democratic processes to try and bring as many voices as possible into this common discernment, but we can't impose the common good. Like this. This goes back to Pope Francis in 2015 speaking to, to the United Nations. If everyone is going to be the dignified agent of their own destiny, the very next sentence says, and this dignity cannot be imposed.

And so we must examine the common good again, not as a matter of some kind of checklist that we are impressing upon. People, but rather through a process of actually listening to the lived experiences of persons who are involved in living their lives in intimate detail. The best subsidiarity that we could possibly engage in is one where those that are closest to the effects of the decisions are the ones making the decisions.

And this is the kind of process that we're always sort of working towards in democracy as an ideal. We're a long way away from it right now. But we can't lose sight of that, and that's part of our duty as Catholic citizens dedicated to the common good, to not be people imposing some kind of dictatorial will, but rather responding to literally the will of the people in the republic, the Republica, the people's thing.

And so that's. This is what we keep trying to short circuit, both the bishops and I think citizens, oftentimes we try and get a much simpler process than the messiness here. And I'm just I'm here waving a flag for the messiness.

SCHLUMPF: Well, it kind of brings me back to ality and the messiness of that as well. So these two two things that are going on at the same time in the news, both in our church and in our country, I think both involve very messy processes that that are requiring a lot of prayer and patience on my part.

I don't know about you guys.

HORAN: Yeah, lots of prayer. Struggle with the patience. Sometimes given, you know, what's really at stake here, you know? And there are so many really pressing issues, including not only issues when it comes to his Pope Francis and Leonardo Boff would say the cry of the poor, but also, let's not forget the cry of the earth.

And there's a lot at stake here. So, yeah I've become a bit impatient that bleeds into prayer sometimes too. And again, if I had any hair to pull out of my head, I would be pulling it out, wondering how is this so close at a time like this? Um, I.

DAULT: Well, listeners, by the time that we get to our next episode, many of these questions will not be necessarily decided, but will be much more actively in play than they are right now. In between now and then. We implore you. If you are registered to vote, please vote. If you can get other people registered to vote, please do what you can.

My wife has been going traveling to Wisconsin these past few weeks getting involved in voter registration efforts precisely because she believes so firmly in this process, and I have been inspired by that. And I'm gonna carry this message to you, but also please keep it in prayer. Disagreement is good and it is good when Catholics and citizens disagree.

Both the mechanics of the church and the founding fathers and mothers of the United States thought that disagreement was an important part of the process. So let's not treat disagreement as some kind of pariah or is some kind of thing to be avoided, but rather something to be leaned into. But as we disagree.

Always remember that the person that is across the aisle from you, the person that you have declared as your opponent, if you go to the point of declaring them to be your enemy. Well now Jesus has placed an obligation on you that your job is not to abandon your enemy, but rather to pray for your enemy and to do good for your enemy, and they are part of the common good as well.

So it's a messy process, as Heidi has said. It is a prayerful, informative, and conscience laden process, as Dan has said, and it is the only process we've got. That's the one that I say, so let's use it. As much as possible to try and get as much common good as we possibly can. Alright, so we are gonna take a break here and when we come back we've got Heidi's interview with Michael Canis from the Institute of Pastoral Studies talking about the Senate in Rome.

This is the Francis Effect. We'll be back in just a moment.

SEGMENT 3:

SCHLUMPF: Welcome back to The Francis Effect. I'm Heidi Schlump with today's guest, Dr. Michael Can who's an associate professor at the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University Chicago. He specializes in ecclesiology or the study of the church, as well as Ignatian spirituality and immigration studies.

Dr. Canis has graduate degrees from Boston College, the Pontifical University of St. Thomas in Rome, often called the Angelica and Fordham University. Dr. Ris has just returned from Rome where he was traveling with a group of 150 students from 15 colleges and universities in the United States. The trip included a private meeting with leaders of the Senate on ality. Which is of course, the Worldwide Vatican Summit on the future of the Catholic Church.

The month long meeting in Rome concludes this week with the release of a final document from the delegates. So last Friday, this group of college students and their advisors met with four Senate leaders, including Cardinal Mario Gre, who's the secretary General of the Senate, Cardinal Holick, who's the relator General of the Senate, sister Leticia Salazar.

A Chancellor from the Diocese of San Bernardino in California, and Bishop Daniel Florence of Brownsville, Texas. We're grateful that Dr. Canis is joining us on the Francis Effect to talk about that meeting and the trip. So welcome to the Francis Effect, Mike.

CANARIS: great. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. I'm a long listener.

SCHLUMPF: Well, great. And I take it you're not jet lagging 'cause did you just fly home yesterday?

CANARIS: I did. I just got back yesterday.

SCHLUMPF: Okay, well welcome back and

CANARIS: Thank.

SCHLUMPF: Could start by just giving us some background about the trip. So who organized it and what was the purpose? This was no, no vacation trip. Right.

CANARIS: Yeah the driving force and visionary behind this project is really professor more O'Connell at LaSalle University, and she and I have known each other for a very long time. We were. In graduate school, she was one step ahead of me. She was doing her PhD when I was doing my master's at Boston College.

Then while I was doing my PhD at Fordham, it was her first teaching job. So we've known each other for almost 25 years. And so she was starting to put together this team to say, what would it be possible to do to build out an experience of the event of the Senate? A lot of times in interpretations of the second Vatican Council, we talk about the event of the, which far supersedes the sort of.

The meetings the documents themselves and so the second Vatican Council, when we talk about the event of the second Vatican Council, we talk about the things that, that far exceed the minutes or the documents of the meeting and what was going on in the city at the time.

There's lots of examples of ecumenical leaders gathering or the catacombs packed, if you know anything about that. The Moonlight discourse by John the 23rd. These are not official acts of the second Vatican Council. They're part of the event. And so the goal from the beginning was to have students and young adults engage with the event of the Synod in meaningful ways.

And the way we structured it was we had a number of plenary gatherings and assign and meetings where all 150 of us were together in various spaces. The LaSalle in general, it the Jesuit curia. We had a meeting with Santa, we went to the papal audience. It culminated at the end with this event at the Synod.

But then we also set up about 40 individual and small group meetings. So everything from dinners with the se with the delegates to we had a night at the lay center with Dr. O'Neal Kuda from the Pontifical Commission for Latin America meetings with the cast three for interreligious dialogue, a session with Catholic media.

And so students from the universities were sort of signing up or being. Asked to represent their schools at these various small encounters as well. And so they were sort of toggling back and forth between direct conversations with the Synod Cina delegates or people who are influential in Rome.

And then these large scale projects where we were discerning together what we as an entire body could ask or request or insist upon or listen to when we met with, the Senate.

SCHLUMPF: Wow. Well that. A trip for them. And how many days were you there?

CANARIS: So we were there about nine days. Many of the students were there for seven. There's all different kinds of funding pathways to this, right? Some schools were able to fund large contingents. Some had to really scrap to even send a few students. There was you know, very, large institutions, Georgetown, Boston College, university of Chicago, and then smaller institutions like Rosemont and Philly.

and everything sort of in between. And so we were trying our best to be able to bring as many students as possible from each of these different institutions.

SCHLUMPF: Well, what a once in a lifetime event for them. Let's maybe start with that meeting with the syn leaders that I mentioned in the introduction, which was held last week, so I know it was live streamed and so I was able to watch it. It and it appeared to me that several students were able to ask what it looked like were prepared questions.

Of the four leaders who then responded with some input about, usually about ality. I noticed one of the questions was about how to ban balance ality with truth. And another person asked, how can we move from. Process to action. So as I assume you were in the room with the students, so what was the ex, you know, kind of the vibe in the room and what did the students report after that meeting in terms of what their experience was of being in the Senate hall with these sport leaders?

CANARIS: Yeah, I think I'm able to say clearly without any kind of breaking of confidentiality that there was two. Elements to this meeting. The first was what was live streamed around the world, and then the organizers wanted to spend an extra 45 minutes to an hour off the record discussing anything that the students wanted to ask.

And so there were sort of two parts to it. And so even when you saw, if you did. The live stream said we'll be back in two minutes and then a lot of people like were texting me that it fell off. It was just an inarticulate way of closing the live stream portion of it because we did continue for almost another hour in an off the record session as well.

So I was able to meet, of course, with students. Afterwards and even into today and moving forward to talk about both of those experiences together. And so, they were of course very excited. They were honored to be there. The space itself is very breathtaking. I mean, just architecturally.

And then the excitement of being able to sit at those tables where the delegates are meeting the warmth that the organizers showed us in terms of personal engagement, a willingness to come up and introduce themselves to us before and after that. That meant a lot to the students.

And then on the kind of content end of things, the idea of ality for many of the students involved, not all of them, for many of the students involved, was a very exciting idea of how do we develop a discernment of. Protagonism, the idea of being able to share our voices and contribute, but then also to listen with intention and attention to one another and to the Holy Spirit, right?

That the Holy Spirit is sort of the chief protagonist of. Ality, but yet that, that we all have these dynamic agency roles to play in our conversations. And so, that was an enormous really boon for the students. A moment of great excitement. And then we talked seriously over the course of the week as we were discerning those pre-prepared questions.

We did that as in large group settings over the days leading up To that culminating event that we were well aware that there was a lot of hesitancy around in some quarters as well. Now, oftentimes that's sort of outside the. Settings, but there were certain, there were certainly even students involved in the project that were hesitant or skeptical or at least curious about what the outcomes might be of ality.

And so, we continued to have conversations about how we move beyond a propositional view of the faith where we're simply handing on and living the faith of the past as it were today. Once more in a new context. One, the examples somewhere is. We live today in a world of 8 billion people.

As recently as 1927, that number was 2 billion. And in the time of Jesus, I read somewhere that it was about one 10th of 1 billion. And so we live in a totally radically different context and situation than any other period of the faith that's ever existed. And so of course we want to live out that, that same gospel with the.

Christ's Clarion call to missionary discipleship, but we have to live that out in a multitude of settings. And our setting today may be very different than it was in the interwar period between World Wars I Andi, or during the resurge mento, or during the Council of Nsea. And so how are we able to sort of, live that gospel radically, but also in radically different settings?

And obviously the pathway towards doing that is not to offer the world or one another prepackaged goods, but rather to really fine tune our ears and our spiritual antennae to be able to listen and discern the, the living active spirit in the world today. And I think that the students really appreciated some of that.

Now, whether the delegates answers. At certain points tended to fall into sort of Vatican e and talk around the issues as another element to itself. But a few of the participants in particular really came across strongly. I think that both sister Leticia.

and Bishop Flores, particularly off the record session where there was quite a lot of talk about migration, that really stuck with the students, that students over the dinners that followed and into the time since we've come home, have really taken this this issue. To light, particularly in the US context because there was a lot of talk about the election that arose in that second part of the session as well.

And so I think it was very enlivening for the students, challenging in some ways and also hope bringing One of the students wrote me afterwards and said that this event. Served as a sort of demarcation line of a before and after experience in terms of her life in the church and beyond.

That's a very powerful thing for an educator to hear that from a student that, you know, we worked very hard. The logistics of this. I run summer sessions in Rome a lot actually every year you know, the 25 students in Rome. But the idea of what we were engaged in here was so much more complex.

The. And just logistics of it were so much more difficult that it was very time consuming. And so those of us who were involved really spilled our bucket to try to give the students the best experience. And so having that kind of feedback is very gratifying and humbling and rewarding. At the end, actually, all of the leaders from the 15 schools met for a little cocktail on the last night.

It was pouring rain, but we sat outside under one of the little canopies and sort of celebrated what we were able to. To build for the students. The image we had used very often was to take our hands and put them on the backs of the students, as if we were pushing them into the front, into the microphones, into the recognition of their own ability to contribute to this conversation.

And so, we sort of toasted one another that we think we had done that at least relatively well over the course of these seven or nine days together.

SCHLUMPF: Well, yes, and I will just acknowledge that if I were a better journalist, I would be interviewing a plethora of those students instead of the organizer. But it's easier to speak to one person in this. In this podcast setting, although I would be interested in hearing from the students from their voices as well at some point too.

I'm very happy to hear about the second off the record portion because I did not understand that, and it did strike me in watching the live stream that there was a lot of speaking on the part of the Senate organizers and not listening now, but you also had meetings with Senate delegates throughout the week as well, right?

Where they listened to the concerns of the students.

CANARIS: Yeah, we did we had meetings with the delegates with various we continued to. Set up all kinds of one-on-one engagements. The, one of the highlights really was the opening mass at Carita, which was like bursting at the seams. That's the Jesuit English speaking parish in Rome. It's quite close to Santa Nazi, and so it was just it, for me personally, it was very emotional because I had.

Former professors there that I didn't know would be there. Former students that have gone on to do great things that I didn't know would be there. Some of the Vatican journalists I knew from when I lived in Rome. And then all of that integrated with this enormous centers project that we were doing. It was really a highlight.

It was celebrated by David McCullum at at the Gregory University and james Martin was also there. He read the gospel. It was really a wonderful event. And so, we had those sorts of in encounters and engagements that were taking place. Not only in these kind of highly structured meetings, but also in liturgical settings, meals and drinks, and in.

Walks. I gave a tour of the three basilicas of the three of the major basilicas in Rome. That was like a five hour tour that I did multiple days for different groups. And so that kind of pilgrim experience of walking together over all those hours together to, to explore some of the ecclesiological footprint of these places.

For instance, in Sao Paulo where John the 23rd called the Second Vatican Council. We integrated that into the tour. It wasn't simply sort of pointing out the artwork and the columns, but talking about the theological and pastoral. Of these conversations. So all of that was I think part of the.

SCHLUMPF: Meaningful experiences that happened. I, because I followed a number of people on social media that I think were on the trip. I noticed, you know, lots of gelato eating, but I did were Did you also have the meeting with the Discerning Deacons Group where you were looking at the Women's Saints?

Was that part of your group?

CANARIS: Yeah, that one, that was one of the ones that was the, what we called the sort of menu of options to sign up for when you were in Rome. So I actually didn't part in, although many of. The people that were involved because I was off giving the tours of the basilicas at the same time. Right. There was a lot of kind of synchronous work being done where people were self-selecting or being asked to represent their institution in various of these meetings.

But I know that the certain deacons work intersected in many ways with the conversations about women in the church. Another topic that arose a lot. Both in the the meetings with the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and also in the interreligious dialogue is. Document, like a conversation around a document that is being forged right now having to do with the existential threat that plastics are causing to the human race.

And so, the UN is meeting in late November in South Korea to discuss this. And already the Dalai Lama and patriarch Barolo have expressed interest in endorsing the sort of moral component to this. And so, that arose in some of the conversations with students about practical and tangible and concrete outcomes that we could hopefully together at least raise it to light or push the Vatican or the Holy Father to express an interest in these sorts of issues of climate.

Change. There were what we called circles of co-responsibility. So the climate justice ones were working on issues like this. And then there were ones on L-G-B-T-Q affairs, there were ones on racism. There were ones on lay ministry in the church, which I found very interesting that was one of the, when the students self-selected and chose which of these circles of co-responsibility they wanted to work on.

One of the, if not the largest, was this one on lay ministry. I would not have expected that to.

I would've thought like things like racism and climate justice would've spoken more to them. But that room was very full in terms of people who were interested in how laypeople can serve the church.

And again, this was largely a majority of undergraduate students, although many, like my program is a, is a graduate program. And so there was about, I, I believe it was something like 80% undergrads and 20% graduate students. And so, many of these young people. Who are undergraduates are exploring potential graduate work in things like lay ministry ministries of accompaniment, chaplaincy, spiritual direction pastoral counseling.

There was a lot of energy around those sorts of themes, which I think is really exciting. And to be perfectly candid, a little bit unexpected to me compared to some of the other topics that were on the table.

SCHLUMPF: Yeah, that is exciting, you know, from traveling with these students on the trip, but also. From your exposure to other young people through your program or just OLA University more generally? You said you lead these summer programs as well. What's your take on how young people are. Thinking about this Senate, it, so you mentioned earlier that even some on the trip had some questions about it.

Are they following it? Do they see it as a positive development in the church? Did you hear much reaction about the issue of women because. Because there's been quite a bit of news coming out about whether that's tabled and the secretiveness around the way in which it's been tabled, which we, I believe we'll be discussing on the podcast among Dan, David and I.

But what did you hear from the young people about that?

CANARIS: I mean, one of the things that struck me in these conversations was we returned again and again to the notion of course, there was quite a number of people who were bilingual. You know, there was people from other countries that were there. It wasn't all people who were born in the United States, obviously, because we had international students who were studying on our campuses with us.

And even whether they're international or domestic, of course the idea of Spanish fluency is growing. And so there, you know, there was quite a lot of talk about the notion of the I Glacia in sida. Even how to translate that well, because sometimes you see it as the outgoing church, but of course it doesn't really need extroverted.

And so one of the comments that came to mind when you bring up the issue of women in the church, it arose in this context because we had a conversation with a number of us, one of the smaller group settings, but it was a large, small group setting with about 50 people with, ida from the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, one of the highest ranking lay women to ever work in the history of the Vatican. And we had a long discussion about this phrase and how to, how best to envision it or translate it. And one of the images that came up was the prodigal sun parable and in the prodigal sun parable, you know, it's the.

That's an unfortunately named parable because it's not about the son at all. It's about the father. And Jesus is using the Father as the image of God and that father that rushes out to embrace the son, right? He rushes out the scriptures are very clear when he sees him on the horizon. The son has not yet confessed his sins, for instance, to the father, and the father rushes out to embrace him, even if he's sort of.

Still stinking of the swine pods and of the world. And so that image, I think was very powerful for students. The idea of a church that rushes out of the structures, you know, when you go to Rome, you see a lot of marble in stone. And so the idea of the pilgrim church or the church that is on the move, the church that is again rushing or moving out to to find what is.

Worthy in the world and embrace it there that I think students are very inspired by that. And that takes all kinds of different tones and textures to it. Whether that means in terms of migration, whether it means in terms of more inclusivity, whether it means in terms of a movement away from clericalism I think that those sorts of elements were really resonating and echoing in our students' hearts and minds.

SCHLUMPF: So would they see ality itself or this new way of being church, part of that more rushing out type of church? And is

CANARIS: I do, I think so. I do. I think so, yes. I think that they're very curious. Again, I think that, that young people tend to be, even though they're very often, you know, dreamers and idealistic particularly this upcoming generation, they want to see practical and tangible outcomes. And so I think they are a bit concerned what comes at the end of this process.

Students connected with a course that I called Pope Francis and the Church of Tomorrow. And the idea we connected it also with the Second Vatican Council. This is this talk about the event and the experience of the council, the history of the council and how that's being lived out in terms of syn modality.

But one of the books I used was called, it was by Paul Lakeland called a council that will Never End. And so, you know, we had discussions about is this the Senate that will never end? Raphael Luciani talks about the, a new way of proceeding in the church. So is this gonna become sort of the new normal? It doesn't mean that it's necessarily democratic, right?

You're holding the ODL listening. Engagement and attention to various contexts and narratives. You're holding that in the center, but you're also holding it in dialogue with things like papal primacy at all times. And so it's not a strict, you know, 51% of the church says this, and so this is where we're gonna move ahead, you know, a parliamentary system or something.

And so the students are interested, I believe, to see how that manifests itself. What are the outcomes, whether it's in terms of. Documents, whether it's terms of lived realities in their campuses or in their parishes or in their own work, their own discernment of the vocation and the place where they fit.

In, in this grand meta narrative of church history, I think that students are excited to see a new. Building block or a new tool or a new voice, a new manner of proceeding that is part of those conversations. And I think that they are enlivened by it for sure.

SCHLUMPF: Well, it might be a good time to check back with them once the document comes out and so. Of this, at least this October meeting part is over. That'd be a, are you planning anything future oriented in terms of what, like reunion of students, that sort of thing?

CANARIS: That's an enormous question because, you know, we had these conversations about this was we had put so much energy into building this and making it being the absolute best experience that we possibly could for so many people that we had these conversations about, well, what happens now? What happens this week?

Right. What happens on October 22nd when it's over? And so we have already started writing some grant applications. We've already started. Trying to collaborate and have ideas about forming an ongoing coalition of Catholic University campuses or higher education more generally, that will, we were, we're kind of playing with the acronym in a way.

The acronym originally was the Catholic Education Network to engage Rome and Synod. And so if we wanna keep the title and have a thread of continuity, something like the Catholic Education Network to enact real synod. So what does it mean to move forward? And so we, one of the ideas, of course, is to have exactly like you're saying, a, a sort of reunion, or at least a working conference where we can discern the future of such a network, who the partners may be that we haven't been in touch with yet.

How we can imagine bringing all of this work back to our campuses because now the real work begins. I mean, it was an exhausting week. I was sleeping like three or four hours a night really trying to coordinate everything from sort of soup to nuts and it was very hard work. I. Now the real work takes place of how do we bring this back and share it with our classes, our campuses, and those in our communities, and then enact ality in our own dealings with the Lord and with one another.

I think that's what we're hoping to continue to grow, to reimagine. Again, my, the collaboration from so many faculty members and the vision and work that they put into to this student centered pedagogy that really lie lies at the heart of this work is incredibly, for me personally inspiring.

SCHLUMPF: Well, kudos to all of you who organized it and had it all come off. So well and good luck on the next level and again, thank you Dr. Michael Canners for being with us on the Francis Effect and for sharing about the Center's trip to Rome with all those college students. We'll stay in touch and see how those students are reacting as Ality continues in our charge. Thank you.

CANARIS: Thanks.