The conclave to elect the next pope begins, the FBI goes after the "764" network of child predators, and the "N word."
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Within a matter of hours, we might have a new pope.
And even if you're not Catholic, what happens today in the Sistine Chapel is going to affect you in a big way.
Because whatever your religious views, the Catholic Church is the single most important institution in the West.
It is the only institution in the West that has survived from antiquity, and it is the last institution...
Holding our decaying civilization together.
We will get into what is going to happen.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
Welcome back to the show.
We got the inside scoop on what's going on around Rome today.
We have a bishop coming on this show.
Bishop Barron.
Have you heard of him?
I think you might have heard of him before.
I don't care if you are a hardcore Calvinist.
I don't care if you're a Jew, a Muslim, an atheist, an agnostic.
What happens today in Rome is going to have very serious effects for all of Western civilization.
I have a lot more to say, but first...
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We'll get into more of what is actually happening in the conclave when Bishop Barron comes on a little bit later.
Just broadly, though, what is happening right now?
Pope Francis died.
We had a period of mourning for Pope Francis.
We had the funeral of Pope Francis.
Today, this morning, there's a mass for the election of the Pope.
Then, the cardinal electors process into the Sistine Chapel.
Then...
They sweep the chapel for bugs, for wiretaps.
They have military-grade signal jammers turned on.
This is a very, very serious thing.
You're not going to get a lot of information out of this, if anything.
And then they vote.
If no one is elected pope on the first ballot, this could go on for some days.
This could really go on for three days.
They could take a break.
It could go on for six days, seven days, maybe longer.
There will be the first vote.
If no one is elected on the first ballot, then tomorrow there will be two votes in the morning, then two votes in the evening.
Eventually they'll narrow it down to two.
Eventually we'll have a pope.
When the cardinals are done voting, they're going to burn all their ballots in a stove that will go up through a flue in the Sistine Chapel.
If the smoke is black, that indicates that we don't have a pope yet.
If the smoke is white, and they have little chemicals and things to change the color of the smoke, if the smoke is white, that indicates that we have a pope.
Why do you care if you are not Catholic?
This matters, even if you're not Catholic, because the Catholic Church is the institution that built our civilization.
The Catholic Church built the cathedrals.
The Catholic Church built the universities.
The Catholic Church built...
The governments, in many ways, of a lot of our nations, even though religious influence has waned over time, the Catholic Church built our art, our paintings, our sculptures, our everything.
It built our whole civilization.
So, even if you're not Catholic, what happens today and what happens to the Catholic Church will affect you.
There is an old expression.
Lex Arandi, Lex Credendi.
The way that we worship, the law that we worship, the law of worship is the law of belief.
So, and by the way, speaking of the Lex Arandi, the liturgy is going to be a really important part, I think, of the conclave.
The traditional mass has become a big draw for a lot of converts, for a lot of reverts, for a lot of young people, for myself included.
And during Pope Francis' pontificate, the Vatican tried to suppress the traditional Latin Mass for all sorts of reasons, which I don't think were very persuasive.
The Latin Mass persisted in substantially its same form from the year 600 until after the Second Vatican Council in the 20th century.
Then there was a big tumult, a big change to the liturgy, and that affected a lot of the ways that we believe.
No longer receive our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, kneeling on the tongue.
If you receive our Lord in some different way, that's probably going to affect the way that you believe.
If the priest is facing the people like he's putting on a vaudeville show for you, instead of facing the altar and leading all of the people in worship of God, that's going to affect the way that you believe.
So, there have been liturgy wars.
I think that's going to be a big part of it.
Obviously, some geopolitical issues are going to touch on it, too.
I don't care if you've never been inside a Catholic church.
I mean, I do care, and I think you should go.
But I'm just telling you, this institution, the sole institution in the West to survive from antiquity, the institution that has had more influence than any other in our civilization, what happens to that institution is going to affect everything.
The other institutions that could have held the West together have fallen.
The universities, the old regimes, the old monarchies, the pomp and the circumstances, it's gone.
The one institution that remains, that endures, somewhat expectedly if you ask me, is the church.
So we gotta hope and pray that the conclave goes well.
Now, speaking of reforming institutions, In our dying civilization.
By the way, when I say dying civilization, I don't just mean we're getting dumber or we're more impolite or something.
I literally mean dying.
When I say the universities are dying, when I say the regimes are dying, I mean the nations are literally dying.
We don't have enough people to replace ourselves.
So, reform is important.
And at the political level, that's what Trump is trying to do right now.
Well, Doge is announcing, Elon Musk is announcing.
That they've saved over $1,000 per taxpayer.
Doge says the total savings has now reached $165 billion.
That's through a combination of asset sales, contract-slash-lease cancellations, renegotiations, fraud, improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions.
Which means...
If you divvy that up among the taxpayers, you get down to $1,024.84 per taxpayer because there are 161 million individual federal taxpayers in the U.S. That's pretty good.
If you pay taxes, Elon Musk has saved you, on average, $1,000 so far.
It's only early May.
This guy is keeping his promise.
Trump is keeping his promise.
The libs are blowing a gasket against Doge, but whatever they say about the importance of transgender ballet recitals in Tunisia, just ask yourself, would you rather have that?
Would you rather have some bloated bureaucracy?
Where people aren't doing all that much?
Or would you rather have an extra thousand bucks in your pocket?
By the way, on the topic of the government saving money and a thousand bucks, I have to correct an egregious error that I made yesterday.
I pointed out that Trump has this new policy where he says he's going to pay illegals a thousand bucks to deport themselves.
And I don't know, I guess I did the math too quickly or I was too tired or something.
But I said, or maybe I just misspoke, whatever.
I said that it was going to cost 11...
$11 trillion instead of $11 billion, which is a rather different figure.
In the way that we conceive of numbers, it's difficult for us to understand orders of magnitude, but that's a rather different number.
So anyway, my point still stands on it, which is...
In fact, now the point is all the clearer and all the more compelling, which is $11 billion to deport all the illegals?
Great.
Where do I sign?
Let me donate more.
I'd like to donate...
I'd like to pay more in taxes, actually, if that's the result that I'll get.
Where I don't want my tax dollars going is to stupid programs that promote leftism overseas that are super corrupt and to bureaucrats who are not doing their jobs.
Elon Musk came out with a shocking fact yesterday about the federal employees that you're all paying taking even more of your money.
We've actually found there's a lot of people who are federal government employees.
They're active employees who nonetheless applied for and have received unemployment insurance.
While they're federal employees?
Yes.
Wow.
And this appears to be at least 100,000 people.
Wow.
you 100,000 people that you're paying with your taxpayer money.
Taking even more of your taxpayer money because they're claiming unemployment.
This, after we've heard so much from Doge and from various agency heads.
I mean, you heard from EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin that the vast majority of the workforce was not coming into work five days a week, or even close to it, when he took office.
These are really crazy numbers, and the Libs are going to try to fear-monger.
Among the electorate with tariffs, or with the bond market going up and down, or with the NASDAQ going up and down.
They're going to say, see, Trump is a disaster for our economy.
But just, let's get down to brass tacks here.
Trump is plowing through the waste, fraud, and abuse in the government that the Democrats have used as a patronage system to ensconce themselves in power for decades.
That's why they're freaking out.
And Trump can bring the receipts and say, hey, my agenda, my administration is cleaning up their corruption, and it's thus far giving each of you a thousand bucks back in your pocket.
And guess what?
You'll get even more.
Those conversations are going to be very important as Trump moves toward his signature legislative achievement, one hopes, of the first year, which is the...
We'll get to all of that, though, in a little bit.
First, I want to get to this ridiculous debate about the N-word that has gotten even funnier because of a magnificent television appearance on Piers Morgan's show last night that has everybody talking and that I have many thoughts on.
I have a lot more, a lot more to say, okay?
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Now, the very fact that I'm saying the N-word shows you that this is the unspeakable word, as I wrote in my book, Speechless, Controlling Words, Controlling Minds.
Thank you.
It is the word that is treated with the awe and reverence with which the ancient Israelites treated the unspeakable name of God.
But it's a fact.
As I also point out in my book, Speechless Controlling Words, Controlling Minds, taboos are real, thank you.
And they just do exist.
Taboos are not necessarily a bad thing.
Every culture has taboos.
That's a taboo in our culture right now.
So that's one reason why people don't say it.
Then Shiloh Hendricks, while some Somali kid was robbing her toddler on the playground in Minnesota, Shiloh Hendricks allegedly said the word.
And then some alleged Somali child rapist started filming her and said, did you say that word?
And then she said the word multiple times.
And then the Internet gave her over half a million bucks.
I think now it's up to $700,000.
So now we're all talking about the N-word, a word that we're not even saying.
Piers Morgan, a true master of television who just knows how to create TV that we all have to watch.
Piers Morgan invites a woman on.
To debate the use of the word.
And it goes about as you would expect.
Do you use the N-word out of interest?
Yes.
You would?
I do, quite frankly.
You use the N-word quite frequently.
Why?
Other than the fact you're a despicable racist.
Are you?
Some would say I am.
I guess according to the ADL, I'm a white supremacist.
I'm a neo-Nazi.
Yeah, well, if you use the N-word repeatedly, you are a racist, are you?
Sure, I'll embrace that.
If that means forwarding, you know, helping white people achieve freedom of speech, real freedom of speech, which, by the way, I mean, Shiloh Hendricks is being attacked on all fronts.
They're trying to bring legal charges against her.
They're trying to get her children taken away.
So you were saying, Carmelo Anthony, it doesn't matter.
That's a different kind of thing.
Sorry, but just to be clear, you just said to me you use the N-word regularly.
In what context?
Do you use it with black people?
Yes, if it's appropriate.
When would it be appropriate?
Anytime I feel like it.
So you're an unashamed racist?
Correct.
Cinema.
This is the Martin Scorsese meme.
TV.
This is good.
Man, is this good TV.
You've got to give it to Pierce and to this gal, Lily.
I don't have her exact name.
Lily something or other who went viral, by the way.
This just shows you what great TV this is.
Pierce has her own face.
Would you?
We're all debating the N-word.
Would you?
Would you ever say the N-word?
This girl only went viral for saying the N-word in this video.
You're getting the opinion of some dumb whores and immigrants fresh off the boat looking for a green card.
Yes, they are probably gold diggers.
But that's the exception.
I'm the rule.
Everybody I know who's married right now, they're married to broke...
Okay, broke ninjas.
Broke fellas.
That's what she said.
By the way, the producers tell me her name is Lily Gaddis.
So she went viral, as do many young women on TikTok.
For, you know, being kind of outrageous and demanding attention.
And she got the attention she demanded, so that's fine.
But notice here, she's using the word in a way that has nothing to do with race.
Right?
She's using the word truly as it is used in rap songs and as it is used in pop culture.
To mean fellas.
To mean guys.
To mean buddies.
I'm dating those broke fellas.
The way she's using it in that video has nothing to do with race.
But she got a lot of blowback for it, and then she doubled down, and now that's her thing.
Now that's what Piers Morgan calls her to talk about, and then pretends like he doesn't know that she supports using that word.
She's kind of backed herself into a corner into defending the word on racial grounds, when in fact the reason she went viral in the first place is to use the word colloquially and say, hey, look, if you're using this word in an innocent way, you shouldn't have your life ruined.
It's not that big a deal.
The taboo is too intense for this word.
By any reasonable standard.
Which is a fair point that she's making, that she is implicitly making in the first video.
In the second video, it's a less reasonable point when she says, yeah, I call black people this word all the time.
Whenever it's appropriate.
When's it appropriate?
Whenever I feel like it, that's when it's appropriate.
This is a kind of tyranny of the will, voluntarist vision of using words.
And she's backed herself into a corner.
And this is a political issue because I find that conservatives have backed themselves into a corner.
On the N-word and on all of these discussions.
And actually, you know, I hate to say I told you so, and I've mentioned my book twice now today on the show.
I wrote my book largely to prevent conservatives from backing themselves into a corner here.
Because now this debate, once again, is about free speech.
But as I mentioned, the first time around, when we were talking about Shiloh Hendricks, when I was defending people who donated to her, when I was pointing out, The cultural context and grievances that led to this interaction on a playground.
I pointed out, no one, not one person is seriously defending calling a five-year-old kid a racial slur.
That has nothing to do with the Shiloh Hendricks story.
That has nothing to do with the GoFundMe.
That has nothing to do with any of it.
What this is really about is Austin Metcalf and racial double standards and mass migration.
That's what it's about.
And the huge influx of Somalis into Minnesota, which creates racial and cultural tension, just as would occur if you had a mass influx of Minnesotans into Somalia.
That's what it's really about.
This debate that we're having right now, that Piers Morgan has exemplified so beautifully, is not about free speech.
You could say, hey, what if I use this word, this really naughty word that you're not supposed to say?
What would happen then?
You say, well, it would probably be shocking.
Because that's the unutterable word, so it would shock people, and it would even probably be pretty funny in a lot of contexts, but it would be vulgar, it would be impolite, it would be ill-advised.
It wouldn't be very ladylike, so I'd avoid saying it.
Then the person would say, well what, you don't support free speech, absolutely?
I'd say, no, I don't.
Because that's a lib thing, and I'm a conservative.
So, no, I like standards and norms.
And there's no such thing as absolute free speech, because every culture has taboos, because we're human beings.
Oh!
So then, what should we do?
What should the conservative response to this be?
Should we play along with the ridiculous racial double standards and taboos that the left has installed over the last 30-40 years?
No.
Even on the matter of the N-word, you know...
The phrase, the N-word, pops up in the 1990s.
It's around the O.J. Simpson trial.
And who was the guy who got beaten?
Rodney King.
It was about Rodney King and O.J. Simpson.
And specifically O.J. Simpson.
Before that, the New York Times was just writing the word out.
N-I-G-G-E-R was just right down there in The Gray Lady.
The N-word comes up like 30 years ago.
But it does actually become a new taboo.
Does this mean that that should be the one unutterable word and we should go along with the left's standards?
No.
But likewise, it doesn't mean that we should eradicate all standards entirely.
I don't want women speaking like sailors.
I don't even think men should speak like sailors.
Not in public, at least.
There are plenty of words I wouldn't say on this show.
Many, many words, because I try to make this a wholesome family show, okay?
So there are a lot of words.
I'll use euphemisms.
I'll speak around them.
All people use euphemisms.
And we use euphemisms to soften harsh realities, and the left uses euphemisms to deny and invert realities that they don't like.
But it's okay.
To call an old woman a woman of a certain age is perfectly reasonable.
That's a polite thing to do.
To call a man a woman is the wrong thing to do because it's lying.
So the conservative response to this should not be to go along with the left's standards, Blow up standards entirely.
It should be to defend appropriate standards.
There should be words that are taboo.
There should be things that we discourage and punish in society, at least at a cultural level.
Those should be things like sacrilege.
Those should be blasphemy.
Those should be things like vulgarity, profanity.
Those should be things like threats and obscenity and fraud and libel and slander and all the things that we traditionally have suppressed and discouraged.
And the true taboos, taboo is a religious term.
The real taboos should pertain to religious things.
But these days, we're allowed to and encouraged to profane religious things.
The only thing we're not allowed to...
Talk about or the left's hobby horses.
Those are what have become taboos.
But we should have taboos.
We should encourage, especially ladies, to talk like ladies.
Men too.
Men should talk like gentlemen.
And we should just say, no, no, no.
There are good things.
There are bad things.
We should discourage the bad things.
We should promote the good things.
But they've got to be really good and really bad, not just some social engineering scheme cooked up by the left to push whatever racial or sexual agenda and fantasy they're trying to push that week.
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Speaking of taboos and standards, President Trump, I say President Trump gets it right about 97.8% of the time.
Maybe more.
Maybe it's 99.6% of the time.
I don't know.
But listen, the man, he's not a deity, okay?
He's not totally perfect.
So sometimes there's some missteps.
I think we're getting to one of those missteps right now.
President Trump is defending the abortion pill against a lawsuit brought by Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri.
So...
It's really the Trump administration.
Who knows if President Trump is even aware of this?
He's got a lot going on, and this is a relatively less highly prioritized matter, though it's a very, very important matter.
Politico reported on this yesterday.
Actually, pretty decent reporting in this case.
The Trump administration is defending federal regs, allowing abortion pills to be available online and by mail, according to the DOJ.
Not defending the abortion pill and the FDA's rules on the abortion pill on the merits, the DOJ is simply arguing that these three red states that are suing the agency lack standing.
And so they're arguing to a judge in the Northern District of Texas that the case should be thrown out.
So, first, I think I understand a little bit what the Trump administration is doing here, which is...
Putting the abortion issue aside entirely, the Trump administration is defending federal power against the states taking that power back, which is a little bit of a shift in that Republicans tend to support states' rights, at least in the last 50, 60 years.
Republicans are on the side of states' rights, and the Democrats are on the side of the federal government.
Trump has changed that a little bit, I think for good reasons, but this would be an example of the federal government saying, no, this is our right.
We have the right to set these regulations.
You, even if you're red states, Even Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri, you don't have the right to take that away from us.
Okay, I at least understand that.
I'm not saying I defend that, but I understand that.
Politically speaking, maybe they're trying to sideline the abortion issue for the midterms.
Maybe Trump is a little worried.
Obviously, when you have a party elected to power, then in the first midterm election, usually the party in the White House loses power in the Congress.
So they're concerned that the Republicans are going to lose power there.
It's going to imperil the rest of the Trump agenda.
I get it.
I've heard it in every...
Just about every midterm election for my entire life.
However, on an issue like this, this is not just one minor issue among many.
We're talking about the right to life.
Okay, this is the fundamental right from which all the other rights flow.
And morally speaking, it is wrong to defend the abortion pill.
It's just wrong.
It's a poison.
That murders the most vulnerable people among us.
It is very dangerous to women, according to a study that we just talked about the other day from the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
The promoters of the abortion pill and the government does not really acknowledge that 11% of women who take the abortion pill will suffer serious adverse health effects as a result of that.
That's according to a study based on a rather large data set that came out just recently.
But also it murders the most vulnerable among us.
It also accounts for the majority of abortions these days because of the development of this technology.
So morally, it's really bad.
Politically, it is bad because the states ought to, according to the Supreme Court in Dobbs, the states ought to have the right to pass their own laws about abortion.
This undermines the Dobbs decision.
Okay, now some would argue that the Supreme Court should actually just ban abortion entirely on 14th Amendment grounds, on equal protection grounds.
But according to the court's arguments right now, the abortion issue belongs to the states.
So if states want to ban the abortion pill, which accounts for most abortions, they ought to have the right to do that, according to the logic of Dobbs, the most recent Supreme Court decision on the matter.
So politically, I think it's wrong, too.
And then you get to the electoral benefit question.
Well, what if it's just some political operatives in the White House who are saying, look, this is going to help us in the midterms.
I don't think it's going to help you in the midterms all that much.
You had the Washington Post just, what, two days ago?
I read it on the show, describing how three years after the Dobbs leak, this issue is just not a big issue anymore.
The Democrats put all their chips on the abortion issue, and it didn't pan out.
So now the Democrats are moving to other issues.
Because they realize that most voters are not motivated primarily by their bloodlust for infants, okay?
So, at this moment, when you've got even Democrats admitting, okay, the abortion thing, it's not working for us, we're going to try something else.
Now is not the time.
Even just as a cold electoral calculation, now is not the time for the conservatives to pull back on the life issue.
Now is the time to double down.
We got them.
We won.
We won.
Do not do as Republicans so frequently do.
And clutch defeat from the jaws of victory.
We're here.
We got it.
Let's go all the way, baby.
Especially when the law and even just the political order and the morality of it are all on the side of not defending this murderous pill.
I don't even know who at the White House is behind this.
Trump is right.
What do we say, 99.3% of the time?
Something like that.
So on those rare instances when the Trump admin is getting something a little bit wrong, it's good to have a fraternal correction.
Let's keep the train on the rails, folks.
It's doing very well.
We're going in the right direction.
Let's make sure we keep the train on the rails, all right?
Now, speaking of kids, really, really horrifying story.
This is from Kash Patel over at the FBI.
There is a network of child predators called 764.
Kash Patel writes, The criminals in these networks use online platforms to target vulnerable kids, coerce victims, and recruit others, often resulting in horrible cases of abuse.
It is absolutely tragic, and I want people to know we're cracking down hard.
Remember last week we announced our agents and partners arrested two alleged leaders within 764?
We've opened hundreds of cases around the country.
And our field offices are fully engaged.
This is a priority for me, Dan Bongino, and our leadership team.
Okay.
What is this group?
How are they extorting people?
According to ABC News, this is a loose network of violent predators who befriend teens online through popular platforms, then coerce them into sexual behavior and violent behavior, and then extort them, blackmail them over this behavior which they've recorded.
Obviously.
Glad Kash Patel and Dan Bongino are looking into this.
Obviously that these predators should be prosecuted and thrown to hungry sharks, you know, if they're convicted.
Just the absolute worst punishments you can imagine.
This is another reminder for me that, look, FBI targets criminals.
I guess that is a surprising story these days because under the Biden administration, the FBI targeted grannies and Catholics.
But FBI targets criminals should not be a big news story.
To me, the political import of this is a reminder that giving your children smartphones is tantamount to child abuse.
And if you've done it, probably most of you out there have done it, if you have kids.
I get it.
I know why.
I understand the pressure.
I know their friends at school have it, and this, and what are we going to do, and how am I going to reach them for baseball practice?
If you give your kid a smartphone, you are handing that child A radioactive portal to hell.
And you're telling a child who lacks knowledge and self-control by definition to just be responsible with it.
It's like you're handing them child predators.
You're just saying, hey, would you like...
I'm not even saying they're going to meet some guy from this insane criminal network.
I'm saying they're going to...
See everything that's just out there on the internet.
I'm talking about the corporate predators.
I'm talking about the pornographers.
I'm talking about all manner of vice.
It's just pouring into that thing.
It's like a fire hose, okay?
Don't do it.
Let's hope the FBI takes care of this very quickly.
This is one reason why New Zealand is moving to ban kids under 16 from social media altogether.
Great idea.
Great idea.
You know, New Zealand's gone a little awry in recent years.
This is a terrific idea.
Strongly encourage it.
We should do the same thing.
We probably have to do it more at the state level in the United States, maybe, but we should do that without question.
Now, speaking of things the kids shouldn't be watching, have you heard of the show The Last of Us?
I think I'd heard of it.
I've never seen it.
I don't know what it's about.
My producers called my attention to this clip yesterday.
This is a woman.
Talking to another woman about how to have a child.
So we're having a baby.
I mean we and also I guess Jesse here.
It was Jesse, right?
So we're all having a baby.
Holy I'm gonna be a dad.
Yeah.
So, initially I was thinking about calling in Mr. Davies or Professor Jacob to explain this to me, but I'm going to try to work this out for myself.
Two women, I guess lesbians, are discussing how one of them is pregnant.
Now...
There's no mystical explanation like in that Star Wars show for this.
It's not IVF, happily.
It's that one of the women, who is a lesbian, slept with a man and became pregnant.
And the woman does not plan to kill the baby through abortion, so that's good, I guess.
I'm finding a lot of glass half full here.
But they're maybe going to exclude the man from...
Being a father, or maybe the man will still be involved, but then the other woman, the lesbian woman, says, I'm going to be a dad.
I don't know what the show is about.
I don't want to...
You know what?
I don't even...
I take it back when I told Professor Jacob and Mr. Davis, I might call you into the show.
I take it back.
I don't want to know anything about this.
I don't want to know anything about this show.
I'm beginning to see the glass half full because...
I guess what the show is saying here is lesbians aren't real.
Even if you say you're a lesbian, you're not really.
And this lesbian woman slept with a man.
So, okay, they're saying lesbians aren't real.
And they're saying that gender norms necessarily exist, even so much to the point that one of the women in this same-sex relationship is going to call herself the dad.
It's a kind of acknowledgement that a child is best raised by his mother and his father.
I mean, this is true, slop, degenerate TV, and you shouldn't let your kids watch it, and you shouldn't watch it yourself, probably.
But I am seeing at least a kind of hint at or inclination towards something that is true.
I don't want to know anything more about it.
If you know anything more about this show, and you feel impelled to tell me about it in the comments, don't.
Because I just don't want to hear about it.
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My favorite comment yesterday is from Rat Boyd, who says, cartels aren't terrorists is about as pedantic as tomatoes aren't vegetables.
Yes, about as pedantic and also technically true.
I think it is plausible.
And defensible for Trump to define the cartels as terrorists, to free up resources that will allow them to take care of this imminent, serious national security problem.
Also, terrorism has a definition.
Terrorism is when you target civilians to achieve political ends.
So I'm...
I just don't want to get too blurry about our distinctions here.
You could have a terrorist who doesn't murder anybody.
You could have a mass murderer who's not a terrorist.
You can have violent conflict that has no terrorism in it whatsoever.
So we've got to be precise about our definitions.
But you're right, I agree it's a little bit pedantic.
That's true.
This show's a little bit pedantic.
What do you want me to tell you?
That's just how it goes.
Okay, there are a bunch of stories that I want to get to.
Big story out of the Supreme Court.
President Trump is now allowed to have his military ban of trans-identifying people go into effect.
There's a big announcement about the 2027 NFL draft.
But in reality, I'm sick of talking about the transgender ideology, and I'm not sure I've ever watched a complete professional football game in my life.
So I'm much more interested in talking about the big civilizational news today, which is the papal conclave.
And we are blessed, really, really, I'm not being in any way facetious.
We are blessed to have a bishop and one of the great men of the church today, Bishop Robert Barron, in Rome to tell us exactly what is going on.
Michael, how are you?
Always good to be with you.
I love you.
You're becoming more Italian by the moment, I see, with your hat sitting there in St. Peter's.
What is the mood?
I got a bad sunburn.
I really need this hat because I got the Roman sun on me now, and the wind is blowing, so if it blows off during the interview, you'll know what happened.
Right, of course.
I'm just waiting for you to have one of those Toscano cigars or something, maybe some Marcello Mastroianni sunglasses.
So, I mentioned at the top of the show today, there are a lot of non-Catholics who watch the show, and they might say, well, what do I care about who the next Pope is, how the next Pope is elected, what does it matter?
I told them, I said, you know, this is...
The institution, this is the central institution in our civilization, the only one that survived since antiquity, Lex Irondi, Lex Credendi, you know, it really, Mother Church really still has a lot of influence.
So what are the stakes in the conclave today?
I would hate to ask you to engage in the scuttlebutt going around Rome, but if you have any insight as to who the leading candidates might be, and just where it goes from here.
Well, of course, the stakes are very high.
As you say quite correctly, the Catholic Church, 1.4 billion strong, worldwide institution, nothing really like it anywhere in the world.
The Pope, whether you like it or not, is the most significant religious figure on planet Earth.
And so it's natural that everyone's eyes are turned to this very place.
In fact, right behind me in a few minutes, the Cardinals will be marching from the Pauline Chapel into the Sistine Chapel to start the conclave.
So that makes sense to me.
The stakes are high and important for the whole world.
You know, we'll see at the first ballot, or at least they'll see, we won't see it directly, which candidates truly emerge.
So there are people on the left, you know, like a Cardinal Tagli from the Philippines, Cardinal Zuppi here from Italy.
Going a little further to the center, a Cardinal Peraline is still mentioned a lot here as the frontrunner.
Still could be true.
Going further to the right, people like Cardinal Pete Zabala.
The Jerusalem patriarch.
Someone I like very much, Anders Arborelius, who's the Cardinal of Sweden.
And then going further right, you have someone like Cardinal Erdu of Budapest.
What's going to happen in a few minutes, literally, when they have the first ballot, is they'll see which names in fact emerge.
Sometimes we're talking about names that have no relevance whatsoever.
You know, they've been dreamed up by the media, and they actually don't have any traction.
They'll see tonight.
I'm going to guess you'll get 30 or so, let's say, for a Tagli, 30 or so for an Erdo, and then we'll see which one gains ground the next morning.
So actually, ballots one and two are very important, I think.
Once they get that, they'll start sensing momentum.
If a block happens, that could well happen.
Then they start looking at compromise candidates in the middle.
So that's the way it often goes with conclaves.
We'll see.
I think it'll be a little longer than most.
I think we'll go into at least Friday for this one.
But again, we'll see.
Because in principle, we could have a pope tonight.
We could.
If the cardinal electors reach an impasse, then obviously this could go on much longer.
Yeah, and the first ballot is when they're kind of testing things out.
And you might vote for someone that you really like, but you kind of know, look, he's never going to elect him, but I'm going to vote for him anyway tonight.
But they want to get a feel for the...
You know, the real candidates, not just the media speculation candidates.
So, very unlikely to happen tonight, but it'll be an important ballot, nevertheless.
So, you mentioned that sometimes on the first ballot, you vote for people out of respect, or because you really like them, or just, but, you know, you don't think they're really going to get it.
Probably the two favorite candidates among American conservatives are Cardinal Sarah and Cardinal Burke, two traditional conservative cardinals.
I think American conservatives think it would be funny for the first black pope to be one of the most traditionalist figures in the church in recent memory.
I think that would probably mess with people's heads a little bit and could be good.
Is there any chance that we get a Pope Burke or Sarah?
I don't think so.
Maybe 10 years ago, you know, Sarah was 10 years younger, possibly, but he's 79. I think the age is really going to be a factor there.
Cardinal Burke is probably seen as, by most people, as too far to the right.
I think someone like Cardinal Erdo is a more likely candidate for the Conservatives.
And he's the one that most people say is most like John Paul II.
It has that combination of doctrinal clarity, cultural outreach, deep intelligence, wide connection across Europe.
So he might be the most reasonable choice for the conservatives.
I'd be very happy with Cardinal Erdo, but again, we'll see.
So if it goes on for, you know, one day, two days, three days, what happens if they can't pick a pope?
When does the rubber meet the road and the process says, all right, we need to have a pop-up?
Right.
Well, I think it's after, is it 12 or 15 ballots?
If it's still undecided, they have to pause for a day of prayer, and then they pick it up again.
When it reaches a certain point, I think it's like maybe 30 ballots or so, they can move to the top two candidates.
Now, the winner still has to get the two-thirds plus one, but the Cardinals, after a certain number of ballots, can decide, all right, let's bring it down to two, and then we'll have them, you know.
Fight it out.
So it won't go on forever.
It won't be like one of these medieval conclaves that goes on for three years, you know.
And I would say likely it'll go on until about Friday.
I think over the last hundred years, the average is about seven ballots to elect the Pope.
So that's my guess.
Now, in terms of what the Cardinals are thinking about, you know, I've gotten calls from the media, you know, Michael, you're a lay Catholic.
What are the big issues?
You know, is it immigration?
Is it abortion?
Is it this?
And I had to tell a reporter, I said...
You think abortion is controversial in the Catholic Church because it's controversial in America.
The most liberal prelate in the Catholic Church is more pro-life than the most pro-life politician in America.
So your perception is a little bit off.
There are other issues that matter.
The liturgy.
The way to pull in wayward bishops.
What do you think the top issues are for the cardinal electors who are making this decision?
It depends on what part of the world you're looking at.
So the Catholic Church, as we said, is this worldwide institution.
I really got this since when I was at the Synod, the last two Octobers, meeting with 400 church leaders from all over the world.
In America and the West, number one for sure is secularization and disaffiliation, especially of the young, and therefore of strategies for evangelization.
I think that's number one concern in the West.
You go into Latin America, it would be not so much the move toward secularism, but the loss of Catholics to the Protestant denominations.
Go to Africa, totally different scene.
The church is burgeoning in Africa, but they're dealing with deadly persecution.
They're dealing with really the clash of religions with Islam.
How do you handle that?
You go to Asia, I'd say it's the interreligious dialogue.
You're dealing with Buddhism and Hinduism, Islam and Christianity and so on.
So it depends on what part of the world you're looking at.
If I were to say the number one issue that preoccupies the Cardinals, it would be evangelization.
The great call of Vatican II, the new evangelization espoused by Paul VI and John Paul II and Francis and all of them.
I think how to keep that movement alive is maybe the dominant concern.
Well, just my own hobby horse issue a little bit here.
Will the liturgy wars play any role in the conclave, the traditional Latin mass and all that?
I think so.
I do, in fact, sense that in my conversations here, that a lot of people felt that Francis' limitation of that was a mistake.
I'll include myself here.
A lot of us felt that the way Pope Benedict handled that problem was better, and that Francis put more restrictions on it.
So we as bishops, obviously, went along with that instruction.
But I think many feel that, you know, in the great papacy of inclusivity, a lot of the very conservative Catholics did not feel included at all.
And those that advocated for the Latin Mass did not feel included.
So I do think that will be in play to some degree.
I wouldn't be totally surprised if the next pope went back to what Pope Benedict decided.
What a hopeful note to end on.
Your Excellency, I know there's a lot more for you to do today and much more hustle and bustle, so we will hope and pray for a good outcome here, and thank you so much for taking the time.
God bless you.
Ask the Holy Spirit to inspire these cardinals.
Certainly will.
Thank you, Your Excellency.
Thank you to all of you.
I'm going to see you over in the member room segmentum, so do not go anywhere.
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