Cy Kellett and Joe Heschmeyer engage with a listener from North Carolina who raises a curious question about Pope Leo’s recent blessing of a block of ice for a climate justice event.
Transcript:
Caller: I saw something today about Pope Leo blessing a block of ice for a climate justice event, and people seem upset. I don’t totally understand why they’re upset. You know, from my understanding as a newer Catholic Popes you know, they bless objects.
Cy: What have people said? I’m not really familiar with this.
Caller: I’ve seen people say, you know, this is horrific was a word used, things like that.
Joe: Are these those anti-ICE protests I’ve been hearing so much about?
Cy: Yes, the people are protesting the ice.
Joe: No, no, it was just a true block of ice, like something called blessing the water. I’ve actually, I’ve seen the video, but. And I’ve got the remarks in front of me.
Cy: I understand that people said it’s horrific, but I would. Do you have any idea why they thought it was horrific? Like, what did they… This is like, he’s doing what?
Caller: I think they’re more concerned with the people that are giving the event. I also saw the word communist thrown in there, but that’s not the real communist.
Cy: The communists never blessed anything. They. Not a thing. They never blessed the thing. But. All right, go ahead, go ahead.
Caller: Yeah, the deeper part of the question was like, to what extent, with all that being said, like, people are upset. To what extent can the laity, like, object to the actions of those in authority without being in schism? Like, I’m thinking of people who are upset about the repression of the Latin Mass, but also that as well, just like anything, that they’re upset about some things. I see. And like, is that okay to say?
Joe: Yeah, it’s a good question. I think a good principle in part, is to have what’s called filial obedience, to treat the people God has placed in authority over you the way that you would treat your father or your mother. And that doesn’t mean you think that they’re without fault. Even in terms of papal infallibility. The claim is not that the Pope is without personal fault, but it does hopefully present a context and a respect and everything else where, if we’re constantly complaining, if we’re constantly critiquing, if we’re constantly tearing down, and if we’re doing so in a disrespectful and irreverent kind of manner that actually is wrong, to the honor that we owe, whether it’s your father and mother, whether it’s your bishop, whether it’s the Pope, et cetera, whether, you know, like, that’s where it becomes excessive.
And I think we’ve lost any sense of there being a limit to that, that the call isn’t, everyone just shut up and pretend everything’s okay all the time. That’s not it. But it’s also. You don’t need to blast on Twitter your feelings about everything the Pope does or everything anyone does. So I would even say there’s a broader culture of this that permeates things like politics, where we spend days debating irrelevant things, and then we forget about the next week, and then we start debating some new thing.
And it’s fun, because anger is addictive, and it tears our country apart politically. It tears our church apart into different factions. And it’s easy to say, oh, it’s the other people’s fault. It’s the other factions that are making it like this. It’s like, no, if you’re choosing to get upset about irrelevant things, you are the problem. You’re not the only problem, but you are the problem.
And so that’s my thinking about all of this stuff. Like, if you can actually show some through line where, yeah, this council said you’re not allowed to bless ice, but now this Pope did, then fine, we can have that conversation. But if all it comes down to is, I feel like people from a different tribe would like this, and I don’t like them, that’s not a spiritually mature way to approach this at all.
So, you know, I mean, I think it’s much better to say, okay, maybe that felt goofy to me. Maybe I thought some of that was weird. Maybe. I don’t know, maybe there’s something I can learn from the Pope’s remarks on this. And so, you know, he gave a talk that involves things like environmental care, talked about human ecology as well, or integral ecology, and the need to kind of approach this in a Christian way.
And whenever you think of the particulars of climate change, I think there’s huge swaths of that that everyone should be able to agree with that. Yeah, we are called to be stewards of creation. That is actually a religious principle laid out in literally the first book of the Bible, like, page two. So I wish people would have more of an attitude of, what can I learn? What can I take from this? And not what will I do when I become Pope? Because the reality is, thanks be to God, random Twitter users are not going to become Pope. And God, I think, in his providence has spared us from that.
Cy: So we said no American would ever become Pope, and that’s true. Maybe it’ll be true. Now you’re saying no random Twitter people.
Joe: Yeah, you’re right. You never know. His Twitter handle is his papal name. Who knows?
Cy: Chelsea, what do you think of what Joe has said so far?
Caller: Yep. I love it. You know, me and my husband are ex-Protestants, so we’re done being our own popes.
Joe: God bless you.
Cy: What a beautiful sentence. Yes, that’s exactly right. Although I did see the video of the Pope blessing the block of ice. It’s not really even a block of ice. It’s a very mysterious piece of ice. I could see just having fun with it. I don’t see anything wrong with that. I mean, if you can have fun with things. But I don’t know about it being… What was the word they used? Like a catastrophe or something?
Joe: I mean, people got very upset when the Vatican had, like, Luce or whatever her name was. A little cartoon.
Cy: Yeah, Lucia. Whatever. Yeah. So it, like, it turned out it didn’t change the church dramatically one way or the other. We didn’t have to have a big…
Joe: Right. We all survived.
Cy: We all survived.
Joe: Lucia or Luche or whatever her name was. I can’t believe I don’t remember her name. I feel like I’ve betrayed her.
Cy: Chelsea, you want one of Joe’s books?
Caller: Oh, definitely.
Cy: Did she say no? It sounded like she said no to me. I missed it. I think she said, oh, she’s definitely okay, because that was gonna be awesome. If she said no, I was gonna be like, no, Joe. She said no. She doesn’t want one of your books.
Joe: Yeah, the ice wouldn’t be the only thing having a meltdown.
Cy: All right, we’re gonna give you Joe wrote a history book that very few people know about. It’s called *The Complete Collection of Communist Blessings*, and we’d like to send that to you.
Joe: It’s a very, very short book.
Cy: It’s less than one page. The early church was the Catholic Church. It’s coming to you, Chelsea. Hang on. We address from you. We’ll be right back with more Joe Heschmeyer.