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Coming up on To the Contrary.

Pope Francis calls for progressive changes for women and LGBTQ+ Catholics.

How will conservative American Catholics react?

(MUSIC) Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbe.

Welcome to To the Contrary, a weekly discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives.

Up first, the role of women and diverse communities in the church.

Pope Francis is pushing the Catholic Church toward change, advocating for inclusivity.

As an historic Synod of bishops is held at the Vatican.

This pivotal gathering has sparked heated debates among progressive and traditional leaders Under consideration at this important synod, blessings for same sex couples, female deacons, whether to continue with priests, celibacy, LGBT acceptance and other issues.

For the first time, women and laypeople will be able to vote alongside bishops.

Pope Francis recently made headlines for changing some church policies.

He has said that priests may bless same sex unions, a reversal from church doctrine issued in 2021, which said, quote, God cannot bless sin.

End quote.

Conservative critics have accused Pope Francis of poisoning the church with this synod.

Joining us today are former judge and federal prosecutor Debra Carnahan Republican strategist Ann Stone, political columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, Keli Goff and Carrie Sheffield, senior policy analyst at the Independent Women's Forum.

All right, first question to you, Debra Carnahan.

Are these changes that have to be made to keep the churches full in educated countries like in Europe, like in the United States?

I think that's probably why they're talking about it, Bonnie, because there is evidence that they need to do that.

The church is growing more in the southern hemisphere.

It's declining more in the northern countries.

And the more educated countries.

And it just really marginalizes a huge group, which is women.

And they're not marginalized that way In other organizations, you know, in these more progressive countries.

So, yeah, I think they do.

And that's why they're having a synod about it.

Carrie Sheffield, your thoughts about how conservative Catholics might respond to if these changes are made?

And we should note that they're at least a year away from even voting on them and implementation would be years down the road after that.

So as one of my best friends who's Catholic told me, you know, they didn't forgive Galileo for saying the Earth was round for 500 years, he was excommunicated.

So they tend to take their time on making changes.

Well, I was born on Galileo's birthday, so I feel a special affinity for him.

But no, you know, I. I don't have a dog in this fight because I am Protestant.

In 1517, there was a guy named Martin Luther who I large partly agreed with.

But when you look at the state of the church in America, in the West, overall, since Pope Francis he's been in is Popeship for ten years.

It hasn't really helped the Catholic Church because he has been very outspoken and he's done a number of things that have already angered conservative Catholics.

So I don't think and it has not helped the pews.

So I think this could actually have a backlash.

And I think a good analogy here is the Episcopal Church, to which I am a member, which has become very liberal in recent years, but that has not helped the decline of the Episcopal Church.

And in fact, we've had more schisms within the Episcopal Church.

And as someone who is conservative, there are certain Episcopal churches that I just don't feel comfortable in and I will not attend.

So I was Methodism has pretty much split over this issue or these types of issues, particularly gay gay rights in the church, whereas the American congregations tend to be welcoming, as they call themselves.

The African congregations are definitely not.

And so the churches splitting apart is could that happen to Catholicism?

I think it's very well could, and that's why I think they should tread very lightly here.

I think it could blow up in his face.

I don't think that Pope Francis should make these sudden changes.

You have a lot of Catholics who are still upset about Vatican two, which happened in our lifetimes of some people, you know, still here in America.

So I you know, again, there are changes that I do agree with as a Protestant, but there are some changes that I don't agree with.

And I overall, I think he has to tread very lightly.

Well, I'm a member of Martin Luther's flock.

I'm a Lutheran.

And I have to say that he one of the things he split with the church over was about the involvement of women, the right to marry, but also women as congregants and visions.

And I think the church has to go back there.

The Catholic Church is much more welcoming of women early on.

And a lot of the things that this pope's talking about are things that actually the church in its in its beginnings did practice.

Gay rights, It's going to take a while for the church to catch up.

But since most of the rest of the the Christian world has already gone that route, I think it's necessary.

And the church is supposed to be about love and about forgiveness and about, you know, really anyone who accepts Jesus Christ in the end believes in God should be welcomed.

So I think it's going to be a positive step.

My Catholic friends, by and large, hate it and really don't like this pope.

so it's going to be interesting.

When you say it was it accepted women, Are you talking about the paintings down in the catacombs?

Now I'm talking about well, early on, Mary Magdalene and others were a lot more revered in the early part of the church than they are now.

So women were sidelined and ostracized in the interest of power.

Married priests were stopped because they had to split their property between their family and the church.

Church didn't like that.

So they did away with marriage for for priests.

So a lot of it's been practical and cultural through the years.

Now they need to evolve back to be practical and cultural.

But couple of facts I just wanted to rattle off that apply to this, Bonnie, is that back in 1972, 90% of Americans identified as Christians.

Today, that number is about 64%, the fastest growing of number of demographic of religiously unaffiliated are former Catholics and African-Americans.

So just think about those stats for a moment.

And it's an issue I've been fascinated by because I was raised in the church and I did what a lot of people do, which is I went through a bit of a drift of not going as often in my twenties, and now I'm back and fully engaged in a church.

And when looking at why became less active and researching for this segment in particular, one of the things I found that came up was a lack of acceptance of LGBTQ people.

Baptist News published a study on this.

I am not someone who is LGBTQ myself, but I reflected and realized that there was a gulf there because I was raised in a way that I think would be defined as homophobic today.

I've written about probably describing myself as a recovering homophobe, and I wanted to go to churches where my gay friends felt feel welcome right?

So while the number of people going to church is actually declining, what I've seen at some of the churches that I regularly visit, such as Marble and Little Collegiate here in New York and Hollywood, United Methodist in Los Angeles, they're actually growing.

And one of the reasons they're growing is because they are legitimately diverse in terms of race, which is important to someone like me.

Churches remain one of the most segregated places in America today, and they are diverse in terms of the families that they welcome.

The pastor at Middle Collegiate, he said he was asked by other pastors around the country, Why is your church so racially diverse?

And he said, Because we don't pay lip service to it.

We actually engage in the behavior that makes different kinds of people, not just liberals, not just conservatives, not just blacks, not just white.

Feel legitimately welcome.

You have other evangelical leaders.

Meanwhile, who would never, ever support a candidate who was gay, who talked about grabbing private parts, who supported a candidate, Donald Trump, who talked about grabbing women's private parts.

It's really hard for someone like me to make the case, right, that the church is a place of love and welcoming.

When you have that kind of hypocrisy in the dichotomy.

I actually had someone say to me, Bonnie, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were a churchgoer.

You seem like a nice person.

If that doesn't say that religious people in America need a rebranding, Catholics and Protestants alike, I don't know what else does.

What would you say to to Carries point, though, that a lot of people are going to that?

Well, she believes the church numbers are dropping.

I've seen that it's a trend that's been going on for quite some time now, especially in Europe.

Well, we didn't talk about the elephant in the room, Bonnie We didn't talk about the elephant in the room, which is the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal.

Right.

So I actually think the first step in the process is for churches to acknowledge where they've gotten things wrong and then listen and see where they can rebuild trust.

Because I know of more than one person.

Bonnie, who said the reason that they didn't they left the Catholic Church is a friend of theirs, was molested as a child and nothing was done about it.

If we can't have these kind of honest conversations, then I think churches don't deserve to get people to come back.

But does anybody think that people were after the church pedophilia scandal?

Does anybody think no matter how much reform is put in place and not even under this pope who by far the most liberal, at least in the last 50 years?

Do we believe that people would come back and trust the church again or just say the heck with it?

I'm I've gone you know, I'm a nonbeliever now and I'm done with the church.

Carrie, your thoughts?

Yeah, well, I'm really glad we're talking about this because I actually have a memoir coming out.

It's being published by Hachette on March 12th, and it is in part a spiritual memoir.

So my publisher, it's the third largest publisher in the world.

They're calling it a cross between Hillbilly Elegy, Hillbilly Elegy, and educated by Tara Westover, Terry Westover sold 8 million copies of her book.

It came out in 2018, and she was raised in a very abusive Mormon cult environment and put herself through Brigham Young University and got a full scholarship to Cambridge.

I was raised in a very abusive Mormon cult environment, put myself through BYU and got a full scholarship, Harvard.

And I was disowned by my father.

My but my father said if I left the cult that Jesus wanted me be raped and murdered.

He said that I my blood changed when I did leave home.

He said that I tried to seduce one of my schizophrenic brothers to rape me and one of my schizophrenic brothers.

My other one actually did try to rape me and sexually assaulted me.

And my dad didn't do anything about it.

And so I had to leave.

I had to make that choice.

I suffered from a lot of PTSD, suicidal ideation, depression.

Let me just say, you you are a heroine.

Serious, ordinary Carrie.

You really are really my hero in the book.

And I say it over and over, actually, to me, my hero was God.

And I walked away from God for about 12 years.

I was agnostic because as you can imagine, like somebody using the name of Jesus to abuse me, I'm not such a fan of Jesus.

And so but a theme I eventually was baptized, as I mentioned, Episcopalian as an adult in 2017, after 12 years as an agnostic.

A big part of why I chose to do that was because I understood and a big theme in the book is the difference between God and religion.

And from my perspective, it's the difference between heaven and hell.

I mean, that that's why, you know, Frederick Douglass said between the Christianity of Jesus and the Christianity of America, I recognized the widest possible difference.

So I think that is a big part of why the church is suffering in America is because there is this confusion of what is religion and what is God.

God is love.

God is the pure essence of love and life giving abundance.

Religion is a man made, human, creaky institution.

I would compare it similar to a political party versus an ideology.

There are different things and and in the case of my father, it became an addiction for him.

When you look at the brain patterns of someone who's involved in a cult, it's the same brain patterns as a drug addict, as an alcoholic.

So these are things that people use to fill the void of purpose.

It's a human run thing when it's taken to an extreme.

I want to get both.

Ann, Ann first and then Debra on on going through these changes.

How long will it take?

Which will be the toughest one?

Well, I was going to say, Carrie after hearing your story, and I have nothing to complain about in my life ever, and Godspeed, God's peace be with you.

But you hit the main point, and that is the changes are going to take a while.

But I think we have a generation that's lost.

They're looking for something and hopefully God leads them back.

And I think that is the case.

The church has to return to God, has to stop playing the politics that it does and and the divisiveness and look at people as individuals and treat them with love and reach out with love.

And I think the church will survive quite nicely if they do.

Well, wait a second.

You're assuming that lack of love or nastiness or child rape in the case of Catholic, some of the Catholic prelates are are why people left.

What about education?

That's the biggest reason, certainly why women, women, Catholic women in Italy have the lowest birth rate in the world.

Why?

They also have the highest number of Ph.D. women in the world.

- And 30% of young people.

Bonnie, there's a book out that shows that 30% of young people leaving the church and identifying as nonreligious are people who believe the church is anti-science.

So you're hitting the nail on the head that that is a big part of it.

Well, accepted education doesn't mean you don't believe in God.

So exactly.

So let me just say to education, you know, doesn't mean that you don't believe in God.

Of course not.

But the fact is, you are educated.

You are much less likely to believe in God.

Well, hopefully then their education leads them to greater enlightenment in the circle back, I was educated in the church, the Missouri Lutheran Church, right in Alexandria, Virginia.

My mom went to that school.

I went to that school.

I taught high school.

I was like the best student in religion.

I eventually left that church and left Missouri Senate Lutheran.

I couldn't vote.

There were not answers for me as a 13 and 14 year old girl as to why the boys were allowed to do certain things and the girls couldn't.

And I think it became even more clear to me.

I left the church when I was in college.

It just didn't fit with how I wanted to look at myself, self-respect and why would I be in an organization that looks at me like I'm dirty?

It just doesn't fit with education and today's modern woman.

I actually went to that church.

Debra in Alexandria, went to like two services and left, went around the corner and joined an ELCA Lutheran church for exactly the reason that it's very conservative.

Let me just jump in with a story here that goes along with that.

A good friend who used to be a regular on this show went to a The Old Stone brick church, I think it is in Alexandria.

And there was a new priest this was many years ago.

And he looked around it at a room full of, you know, the whole church, full of congregants, all the ones of childbearing age and even, you know, beyond childbearing age had two children.

And he said, which of you is a sinner and uses birth control?

Raise your hand.

I know who you are.

That was the last time she and her husband went to that church.

Understandably You know, that is that is something that I suppose that really hurts the church because 98% of Catholic women have used birth control and a very high percentage of had abortions.

Melinda Gates has is a very devout Catholic and this has been an issue she's really been advocating and working on.

And she has pretty good backup on it.

The nuns from the high school where she attended, who back her on this issue.

So there are a lot of opinions.

And I think that everyone here is right that religion moves at a snail's place pace in terms of evolution.

But God's love is something that caused it.

You're absolutely right about Melinda Gates.

Our producer, Cari Stein, interviewed her at a convocation of people who supported not necessarily birth control, but certainly services for pregnant women in in developing nations.

And this was one in Indonesia about 15 years ago.

Melinda Gates has gone out of her way to support things like health services for women in in poor countries, but not abortion And the church still, at least last time I heard this may be out of date by now, but for the longest time, at least for 15-20 years, still would ban her because she was supporting health services for women minus abortion.

Why do people.

Is that the kind of thinking that has to change?

As a Protestant I don't believe the Bible supports the notion that birth control is sinful.

I don't believe that I do.

I am personally pro-life, So I do believe there's biblical evidence to to say that abortion is wrong, that it's the taking of innocent life.

So I think there is a big distinction.

But therein lies the difference for me as a Protestant versus the Catholic.

I don't believe in the piling on of dogma that adds on a bunch more rules that aren't in the Bible.

So that's where I would agree with Melinda Gates if she's helping with birth control versus abortion.

I would say just going back to the bigger conversation on the correlation between education and agnostic or atheist or nonbeliever as a recovered agnostic who went to Harvard.

While I was at Harvard, I was agnostic.

I tried to avoid Christians.

I thought they were like Keli reference.

I thought Christians were either bigoted or just deluded and I didn't want them in my life.

And now here I am.

But.

But the thing is, I was I was confusing wisdom with knowledge.

And I think that's what's happened in our education system.

Because if you look back at the Cambridge University, Oxford University, Harvard University, they were founded by Christian leaders to be sources of knowledge within the Christian tradition.

Harvard was founded.

The original motto in Latin was Truth for Christ in the Church.

It was actually created to train theologians.

Wait a minute.

But wait a minute.

Ali, back then, churches were the only places real.

We didn't have a public school system.

There wasn't anything paid for by states or the fed.

So churches were the only places to start to start schools.

And including, you know, places, universities, etc..

In the early days, that was true.

It was certainly true in Europe for Oxford and and Cambridge and it was true in this country for the Ivy League schools, including mine, Columbia.

So and including in Washington, D.C., Georgetown started by Jesuits.

That was all part of the process.

I mean, this is like here's a there's a rich heritage of intellectual inquiry.

The scientific process was created by a devout Christian.

So the notion that any Christian who's afraid of science or that somehow you should be terrified of the scientific process, learn history, learned that the scientific process was created by Christians to understand the eloquence of God.

There's a wonderful ministry called Science plus God.

It was created by a former Harvard physics professor named Michael Gillan and his three Ph.Ds from Cornell in physics, mathematics and astronomy.

It shows how God is revealed in science.

Same thing with the work of Einstein, who was a Jew, Jewish, and he said that that science reveals the mind of God.

So I think that it's perfectly compatible.

As a woman not being able to vote, having to be silent in the church or actually being allowed to do things, but we won't acknowledge that you're doing them.

That's a problem for women today, especially in highly educated countries.

I'm not saying that.

On that point.

On that point, Keli, do you believe that it's going to be harder for Catholics to give church power within the church to women than it is going to be to accept LGBTQ people as congregants with full rights, as congregants?

Probably, because I don't I hope I'm not speaking out of turn.

But I know one of the things that has been, you know, revealed is more and more as there becomes more transparency is that some of the male leadership within the Catholic Church, I'm not talking about popes have had sex, same sex relationships.

That's something that has been has now become more public.

I hope I'm not causing trouble.

I'm not trying to gossip.

But it's something that's been discussed.

And I think one of the things we can kind of all agree on is that is that an institution is really only as good as its leadership.

There's a reason why corporations that have more women in positions of power actually tend to thrive more than those that don't.

And so I think this might be a really slow turn since there are not women in positions of power within the church.

Right.

That's going to hinder its ability to evolve.

But at some point, it's going to have to because if not, it will die.

The last thing I'll say to that I think is probably the biggest difference between Protestants and Catholics.

I've only visited Catholic Church a couple of times.

If I joke that one of the great joys of Protestantism is, you know, if you don't like a pastor, you don't like a message, you don't like another member, you go across the street.

Someone else has founded a new church.

And that's a it's a joke, but it is kind of the reality.

Catholicism is kind of the biggest corporation in religion.

And so as we've all seen with institutions, the larger an institution, the harder it is to change.

I would like to say something that I've noticed.

The only the or the church that's growing most quickly in Central and South America and in the United States are the evangelical Christians.

We haven't even talked about them.

The people who really stay active in communities of faith.

One of the things that they have shown across the board years and years is that one of the reasons that believers tend to have longer or healthier lives is because of a sense of community.

I had hip surgery a few years ago in Los Angeles, and I had a family member who came to help take care of me, But my church was very clear out there.

You need us.

We will send someone who will stay with you at your home to take care of you.

That's that.

Mormons do that as well.

Mormons are very good about that.

I was dating someone who at the time who was not a believer, and he had been in a church since he was a child.

The church he went to was still doing the chanting in Latin.

So that's the kind of church it was.

And so he he said, Well, can I tag along?

I said, Yeah, I'm going to church Sunday.

And he walked in.

There were dogs there because they say, if you don't have to, if you need to bring a dog, you can bring the dog.

There were gay couples there.

There were the choir was every race under the sun.

It was not his image of what a church looks like.

And most of the conversation was about volunteer opportunities within the community.

So it just reinforcing.

It's not just about the music.

It's not just about that.

You know, it's at its best.

It should be a community about love, faith and support.

That's how I that's how I envision it, which I think is God's.

The way I interpret his message.

And Keli is making an extremely important point.

We have such a generation of lost people.

I mean, really, And I really do think there will be a pendulum swinging back.

I think a lot of the churches are adapting and are providing safe spaces for people, spaces where people of different backgrounds can come and talk and come together.

I've seen it in my own church, which is very welcoming, too, to gay community and also black community and all minorities.

And it's really evolving.

And I really think that that is the future.

I think we've hit sort of the low point, and I'm hoping if this country is going to find its way, it's going to need to find its way back to God.

All right.

Thank you all for a fascinating discussion.

And I have always said that if atheism could develop community the way churches could atheism would be a heck of a lot more popular.

But it's not.

That's it for this edition.

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(MUSIC) Funding for To the Contrary provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation.

The Park Foundation.

And the Charles A. Frueauff foundation.