Pints With Aquinas - BONUS: The Sacraments in Quarantine w/ Dr. Janet Smith

Episode Date: April 3, 2020

I talk with Dr. Janet Smith about her open letter to U.S Bishops. Read and add your signature here: https://weareaneasterpeople.com/ We are facing unprecedented restrictions on the faithful to be able to receive Sacraments during this most difficult time. As many of you are aware there are dioceses that have restricted the reception of the Anointing of the Sick and all have canceled public Masses. Dr. Janet Smith has written a petition to ask the US Bishops to do everything they can to make the sacraments available especially the Anointing of the Sick available to the sick and dying during this COVID 19 pandemic. ✉️ Sign The Letter! https://weareaneasterpeople.com/ The Janet Smith and Tom Curran Review: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwa7oWLocI5_06ywGCVBbd A Edward Peters Cannon Lawyer's Twitter: https://twitter.com/canonlaw?s=20 Dr. Smith's Twitter: https://twitter.com/avidkayaker50?s=20 The Show Janet Mentions: https://youtu.be/K1-FoFj8Jbo 👆Subscribe to my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClh4JeqYB1QN6f1h_bzmEng?sub_confirmation=1 🎧Listen to The Matt Fradd Show podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pints-with-aquinas/id1097862282 📖Get my book "Does God Exist?" here: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue/dp/0999667076 🍺Support me on Patreon (Thank you!): https://patreon.com/mattfradd Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: http://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: Working on it. SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints  Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/    Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/ 

Hello and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. Today I'm going to be joined by Dr. Janet Smith. Dr. Janet Smith is an American classicist and philosopher and former professor of moral theology at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. Michigan. She's created this new open letter called We Are an Eastern People, which urges bishops to make the sacraments as accessible as possible during this time of the coronavirus. Yeah, g'day, Dr. Janet Smith. How are you? G'day to you. You look fantastic. Did I say it the right way? G'day? Yeah, that's pretty good. That's pretty good.

Okay. Good day to you. I'm always afraid people think it's a shtick or something. It really isn't. We just speak like that. Oh, yeah. You're just insufferably cute. When I was in Australia many years ago, and I was very, very nervous for my talk, and

the organizer said, oh, just open your mouth and talk. We are so enchanted by the American accent. And I thought, oh, I'm just going to think about that for the rest of my life. People are just enchanted and we are enchanted by your accent. So just keep being spontaneously authentic. It's all about where you're from. People say, I love your accent. I'm like, I love yours, so that's good. Well, tell us maybe a bit about yourself for those of you who aren't familiar with you, and then tell us about this open letter that you've put together. All right.

Well, I've been sort of a Catholic activist for now pushing 40-some years, maybe longer. Most known for my work defending the church's teaching on contraception and it being against God's will for sexuality. Written a lot of other stuff on bioethics and life issues, ethics in general. Done an enormous amount of public speaking at certain phases of my life, almost every other week in two, sometimes two or three parts of the country, even in that same weekend. I'm retired now. I've slowed down in some respects, meaning most of my activity is within these four walls, as most of us are these days, but still very active on Facebook and social media. I have a lot of projects I want to

finish up. Taught at the University of Notre Dame for nine years, University of Dallas for 12, and then at Sacred Heart Seminary for, I think, 18, 19 years. And you run regular live streams right from that desk there, is that right? Well, I have started a little bit of a webcast with a friend of mine, Tom Curran, and we have a YouTube channel called the Janet Smith and Tom Curran Review. We've put about 10 episodes up. We're just learning our way on this, but we'd certainly love to get a few more people who need something to fall to sleep by just

watching our show. You and Tom Curran reviewing things that's right that's it really is just it meant to be a review we started it as a review of so many of the things of the crisis in the church and uh trying to be a kind of a mediator uh between those who some people think have too strident a tone um most of which they they do i agree with. I actually find their tone sometimes hilarious. For me, it works. For a lot of people, it doesn't work. So we're trying to deliver it in somewhat more of a softball way where we discuss it and show how people that have been following matters in the church

for a very long time, how we're trying to process this, and it may help them process what's going on. All right, well, tell us about this open letter. It actually wasn't my idea, and I actually was resistant to it when it was first proposed to me. It was by Carrie Beckman, who runs the Regina Chaley Academy Enterprise, if you will. She's a force to be reckoned with. She is indeed. There's no point in saying no to Carrie. It doesn't register.

She doesn't know what those words mean. And so you get steamrolled and you just allow yourself to get steamrolled. I find just saying yes, ma'am, is the best policy. That's the best policy. So anyway, I'm really glad that she twisted my arm into doing this, because she's much more optimistic than I am about it having a salutary influence on the bishops themselves. a salutary influence on the bishops themselves. I do suspect there's some bishops who are trying to make the sacraments more accessible to us. I just think they don't realize, and most of them have very highly paid communications people, they don't seem to

realize that they need to talk to us and tell us why they've made the decisions they've made and get feedback from us about how these decisions are impacting our spiritual life. And we need to hear from them about how we can keep our spiritual life active in this time of deprivation from the sacraments. And so I would, so what I'm hoping is that this will help people think it through, the discussion of all of this, the reading the petition, the reading. I think we wrote a very good message as well. Not a long, it's only like three pages. We can read three pages of an explanation about why we think this is so important.

We just thought of it not even a week ago, and we have been working non-stop since. There's other places that are doing similar things, and it's not just the Eastern liturgy that we want, of course. We want the anointing of the sick, I would say, primarily, is the most important thing, is to find ways that we can deliver the anointing of the sick to those who are sick and dying. I understand you had a remarkable experience. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, I still haven't got the results back as to whether or not I have coronavirus. It's been, I kind of hope I do, because if I don't, I'm really scared because my wife and I have been going up, you know, we've been up and down with this sickness stuff. And I was rushed to the

emergency room by ambulance from a doctor's office. That's kind of the option they gave me. And I was very nervous, obviously, and praying, begging our Lord for mercy, not sure what was about to happen. And Carrie Beckman arranged for a priest to come and see me. And it was a beautiful experience being able to go to confession. I'm not sure if you know what I mean. Perhaps you do, where it was a complete unguarded confession. I'm not sure if you know what I mean. Perhaps you do. It was a complete unguarded confession. I just made war with my ego and just repented from the depths of my being. That poor person must still be recovering.

Yeah. I mean, he thought the coronavirus might be bad, but this really took him out. I've never heard a lot of what you've said. What is that? How is that even possible? It was amazing. But anyway, it brought me tremendous comfort. And I can't imagine what it would be like if I was told, it looks like, you know, you are dying. Thankfully, I don't think anything like that's happening, right? But if I was told that and then told, and by the way, you know, a priest can't see you because maybe the bishop has put the kibosh on that. But that actually leads me to this question. Have the bishops actually done that?

What are bishops doing in different dioceses that has kind of led you to respond to this? Because I presume that you would think it's at least a prudent thing that Holy Mass isn't being celebrated publicly right now, or no? Well, that's something I just can't seem to get into people's heads. When we say publicly, we don't mean a thousand people, 500 people packed into a church. We're really talking about cars, sealed cars, people inside their cars in a parking lot where the priest is actually either in the church or at an altar in the parking lot. And it's streamed to us through the the radio uh or broadcast in some way we open our

windows just a little bit and we're able to uh to be present and a lot of people say well what's the point of that a car in a parking lot and i i start singing i won't do this now but i start singing to them the song from my fair lady i want to be on the street where you live. I mean, it's natural for people who love someone to want to be as close as possible to them. And we love Jesus in the sacrament. And we believe that he is there in a way that being that much closer to him is different from a screen. And with our fellow parishioners, with our fellow worshipers, and that always strengthens our faith to think of all these people who have also, we've been given a dispensation. We're not asking, of course, the dispensation be lifted, but we've been given a dispensation. We don't have to go to Mass.

The point is we want to go to Mass, and we want to be there. When that blessed, be there as close as we can, the blessed sacrament is being offered. And so I think that so first of all, when we ask for public masses, we're not asking for the churches to be mobbed by believers. But first and foremost, we're asking the bishops to do everything they can. For instance, this anointing of the sick. Yes, it virus is contagious, and we don't want our priests to die. Something like now I think the number is up to 81 priests in Italy have died because of the virus. I don't know if they got it. I have no idea how they got it.

We're not told that. But one of my former students put up a picture of him in one of those whole personal protective equipment. He's a chaplain in a hospital. He's learned how to wear that. He's learned how to take it off. He's learned how to use it. And I want to say every bishop should be making sure that those are provided for any priest

that's going to the hospitals, trained how to do it. But a lot of hospitals are forbidding priests to come in, right? They don't want them in. Maybe they're just showing up without any kind of gear and insisting. But, you know, I think we have to make certain that if a hospital does refuse to allow a priest in who is capable of using this personal protective equipment, the bishop should be calling the head of the hospital and the board members and saying, we need this. This is not optional for us. This is not just like a flowery delivery. This is not a balloon delivery to the hospital. This is not a teddy bear that we're delivering. These are the last rites where we think that we are opening the door of heaven to people and

giving them the strength that they need. Sometimes actually healings happen, as we know. And so physical healings, maybe they're more impressed by that. But for us, it's really the spiritual healing that's the most important thing. And so one thing is for the bishops to, a couple things, we want them to fight for us, to tell state governments that, again, we need the right to assemble, observing all due precautions, observing all precautions that you want us to take. We will take them. But people go to grocery stores. People go to abortion clinics.

People go to liquor stores. Why can't we sit in a car in a parking lot to pray together and worship our Lord? It just doesn't make sense. And the bishops have to have their face out there. They need to not just issue some statement that's on some website that you might get if you subscribe to it. I want to see the bishop's faces. And I want them as fathers to say, I know this is hard for you. I know that you are craving the sacraments.

I, too, it breaks my – one priest yesterday did, you know, a blessing of his whole campus of the church and basically beyond. And he said he wept because it was so hard for him not to have his people there and not to be serving them. And I want to say, yes, we want weeping bishops, bishops who are so upset that we're upset, rightly, we're all upset together, that we're talking together and, again, that he will help us. I mean, I'm very impressed that my own diocese, the Dio talking together, and again, that he will help us. I mean, I'm very impressed that my own diocese, the Diocese of Lansing, tomorrow is having a whole day of fasting and prayer, morning prayer, chaplain's mercy, meditation on the scriptures, virtually everything

I would want to have done is being done in one day for the whole diocese. And of course, anybody else worldwide that wants to chime in. And I think now that's people who are addressing our spiritual needs. I want we're all afraid that there's going to be a lot of people who just drift away from the faith at this time or even get angry. Where was my church for me when I needed him? It's no good. It's no good. If it thinks that it tells me I have to go to mass on Sunday at the pain of mortal sin. And then the next day I'm not allowed to go.

And sometimes that has to happen, of course. Absolutely sometimes that has to happen. But we want to be told exactly why this is and what we should be doing to maintain our spiritual life in the meantime. I think this day tomorrow by the Diocese of Lansing is just an awesome thing for fortifying the faith of the faithful. Yeah, I'd like to ask you, and I'm not going to get you to call any bishops or dioceses out by name unless you want to, I want to ask what dioceses are doing it wrong, in your opinion, and what dioceses or bishops are doing it right. I heard recently about the creative measures priests have been taking in hearing confessions, like a drive-through confessional. I heard that one bishop kind of put the kibosh on that,

and it would seem to me that if any sacrament was necessary, you know, in this time, it's confession and anointing of the sick. So what's your opinion on certain dioceses? What's the kind of worst case scenario you've been hearing? Yeah, well, first, let me just quickly answer that. I mean, confession, you can, even if you're a mortal sin, with an act of perfect contrition, which is not that easy, but one where you're really profoundly contrite for what you have done, you can receive the graces of confession without going through an act of confession to a priest, or it can be done. We can do emergency baptisms, all right? We can actually, we can live without the Eucharist. We're not saying we can't live

without it. We just don't see why we can't have it if we're observing the right precautions. if we're observing the right precautions. So, and even marriage, if you're denied marriage, canon law allows you, marriage really is the consent between the spouses. So people can get married at this time. So the anointing of the sick, no one else can do but a priest. No one else can do for a priest. And that's, you know, and you can't do it tomorrow. If you a priest. And you can't do it tomorrow. If you're dying today, you can't do it tomorrow. You got to have it today. All right. So yes, some dioceses are

doing it very wrong. I will name some names. Archbishop Tobin in New Jersey has forbidden the last rites to be given. Bishop, okay, since I can't remember his name, I can't mention, but it's Springfield, Massachusetts. He's not allowing baptisms, all right? And you're saying, like, what does that mean? I just don't, again, I know priests whose hearts are broken, right, that they can't be doing this for people. And they believe that all these things can be done safely. And if doctors and nurses and grocery store clerks, grocery store clerks, grocery store clerks can be in, if parents come with a newborn to a church door,

and I heard of one couple who went to six different priests, all of them said, I can't do it. Now, you're like, what? What do you mean you can't do it? But of course, I hope those parents did it themselves. Ed Peters, preeminent canon lawyer, says, at this time, virtually every baptism is an emergency baptism or an emergency state. So anybody who wants to be baptized, have their children baptized, it can be done by a lay person. Though I would recommend contacting your priest first, because he just might be willing to do it. So let me ask you this question.

Suppose somebody is in a diocese where the bishop has forbidden confession, and you're in a state of mortal sin. I understand what you're saying about an act of perfect contrition, but I mean, I personally would just contact my priest, who I think would hear my confession anyway. Would you advise against that? Do you think that wouldn't be right of the priest to do, or would you think that would be a rather good thing of the priest to do, providing he took the right precautions, though he's disobeying his bishop? Again, I defer to Ed Peters. He's got the Canon Law blog, and he's written two excellent pieces recently on what are the parameters of what can be done. And he seems definitely to be saying that the bishops don't have the right to refuse priests the right to perform the sacraments unless they're being disciplined for personal bad behavior on their own part. They can't forbid them something that was given to them by God to be able to

perform these sacraments. And, and he, he, it's an amazing piece that he at one point he said that it's a defect in canon law that we don't have very urgent procedures for urgent cases, that if bishops have made very bad decisions and have put their priests under some obedience not to provide the sacraments, that needs to be challenged and challenged quickly because priests really are spectacularly obedient human beings i mean they really want to obey their bishop these are these are not men i mean they all might be rebels like the rest of us in certain respects but this has been somewhere where they have disciplined their wills they took a vow obedience now that's that's more narrowly

tailored than i think most priests and certainly most bishops understand what what you're you're you know if he tells you to wear or not wear a maga hat i don't know that you have a to wear it or not to wear it i don't know that he has the right to um put you under that obedience i think it would be wise to obey him for uh if he told you various things like that uh and cooperation and non-essentials, that sort of thing. But we're talking essentials here. And yes, I think there are different things that the priest can do without any fear that they are breaking their vow of obedience, that this is something that the bishops have no right to ask. It's not like making a promise, you know, not to give certain information out. And then that information turns out to be essential for a life-saving matter.

Maybe even the person who gave you, made you promise to keep something secret. If someone asks you to keep something secret, to make a promise, something secret, if someone asks you to keep something secret, to make a promise, and then later it's clearly that it shouldn't apply to this particular circumstance that we're under now, you can break that promise without sinning. And it seems to me that priests need to prayerfully discern with God. Should they, if someone asks for a baptism, if I'm in a diocese where I'm told I can't do baptism, what does God want me to do if I'm in a diocese where I'm told I can't do baptism, what does God want me to do? I'm not going to do a knee jerk, um, in a certain sense, obedient to my bishop, which I've trained myself to do for decades now, he might say.

But in this instance, I'm going to God and asking God whether he thinks I should do this. And that's what you do. Do you think in some cases, or in many cases, this is just a matter of cowardice on the part of the bishops who perhaps just want to kind of go along with what the state's saying and not make waves? We've obviously heard in recent headlines about Protestant pastors being arrested and put in prison for holding services and things like this. Well, again, I don't know that the ministers should be arrested and put in prison, but they shouldn't be holding big assemblies where there's a lot of people together. It seems to me that's right.

But it's beautiful. I mean, they don't even have the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist, which we do have. I mean, I always want, I want to talk, when I talk about adoration of the Eucharist, I want us to know an adoration of Jesus in the Eucharist, all right, and that we want to receive Jesus in the Eucharist, because people don't understand that when we say I want to receive the Eucharist, this is Jesus. They don't have that, all right? So what they have is a communal assembly. Honestly, I don't mean to offend or denigrate another way of worship, but it's not so important that they get together as that we be able to be in the presence, just to be in the presence, let alone receive the clearer and clearer, that they have inherited a really weak ecclesial culture, a culture that has made bishops think that it's more important to do what's right in the eyes of the world than to build the kingdom and use the principles that we have in our faith for building the kingdom. Many of the bishops shut the churches, even in Rome, they shut the churches. Before, they were mandated to shut the churches.

As a matter of fact, they weren't mandated to shut the churches. And the next day, the Holy Father put out a statement saying, open the churches. That was a mistake. People should have churches open so they can go in and pray. And why can't they trust us to keep the same six feet distancing when we go in the church to pray as we do at the grocery store? And that's a constant thing that we have to keep coming back to, that this is our spiritual food that is even more essential to us than the food that we have. Yeah, I don't mind a spot of bourbon at night and can easily go down to the liquor store and grab a bottle or two if I want, but I can't receive our blessed

Lord. But I love what you're saying in this open letter at We Are an Easter People, Easter, sorry I'll put links in below, WeAreAnEasterPeople.com. It's very modest what you're asking. Bishops, we, your faithful flock, implore you to do everything you can to make the sacraments more available to us during this crisis. What are some examples that you've seen in particular dioceses where bishops have taken a courageous stance? Well, I think... Courageous might be the wrong word, because this might not even be a matter of doing something courageous, it's doing something right. It is not courageous. I mean, Bishop Strickland is sort of our go-to bishop

for exemplary behavior by a bishop, and I'm sure his other bishops are kind of resenting him. Tell us about what happened there, for those who aren't aware. Well, one of the things he has done is he took the monstrance and went and stood at the busiest intersection of Tyler, Texas. And he stood there for an hour. So to basically symbol, literally blessing everybody in the city. At the same time, just like the Holy Father.

I got in a little dust-up with one of the, he's a fine fellow, a priest. he's a fine fellow, a priest, and he won't mind his name because he publicly published a critique of my claim that the bishops were kind of missing in action right now. And he said, well, they're going to so many meetings, they don't have time to do these things. And I said, well, you know, last Friday, I and many of my friends participated in, in Catholics all over the world and people all over the world viewed our aged, very aged 83 year old Pope with one lung, um, who was having trouble moving and having trouble walking long distance and loses his breath when it gets short of breath when he does. And in the pouring rain on a cold night in Rome, he performed the most beautiful Orbi at Orbi ceremony that you can imagine. I mean,

it stayed with me, honestly, for days. And that's a place, honestly, in my heart, I can go back to very quickly when I want to have great consolation. I can remember some of those visuals and the prayer that was part of that. I said, are our bishops more busy than the Pope? Are they having more meetings than the Pope is having about this? I don't think so. And so we don't understand how much, again, they're fathers, and we need to see their faces telling us what's happening, telling us what they're doing. Again, Strickland has all sorts of things in his diocese where he's a very regular presence. And he asked all of his priests to do this blessing of their parishes. I've seen people post pictures. The priests have

been great. Not all the priests, of course, but there's an army of priests out there who are doing everything they can. And that's what I wanted to say to the bishops. Do everything you can. They're taking the monstrance up and down the streets of their parish. And, you know, people in the window pray, people get down on their knees. I think a bishop could easily hold an adoration ceremony on the steps of his church, bring out the monstrance, bring out a pray-do, tell people they can fill the parking lot or they can all slowly drive by and pray with him as he's worshiping the blessed Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. And I think that this kind of thing is so powerful for us and for the rest of the world,

because the rest of the world is saying, what the heck are you Catholics doing here? What is this? This beautiful gold thing with just a little white thing in the middle of it. What is that and why are you so desperate to be close to it? It's a fantastic evangelization moment if we use it. What's been some negative criticism you've received from this open letter, if any? Well, a lot of it, again, is from misunderstanding. People seem to think we're going to try to pack the churches in the time of a virus and that we are being disregardful of the safety measures that the experts tell us that we should observe.

I'm observing all of them. I've been self-quarantined for some time now. I go out for a walk. That's all I do. And I think that that's – and I'm old and I'm in the vulnerable group and I don't. So I've been doing it for longer than there's even been the lockdown because I think, OK, well, I don't want I don't want to die, but I also don't want to use a respirator that someone else needs to use. So why would I want to put myself at risk because I'm, again, putting other people at risk? But so that's one of them. One of them is, you you know, it's the kind of selfishness on our part to want this. We're putting other people at risk. I said, but we're not putting other

people at risk. And you have no idea. People don't seem to have idea what we're why we want it. If they understood why we wanted it and felt I mean, if they really felt it as we feel it in our hearts, they would know why it's important to be on the street where you live. There's a beautiful picture posted on the Internet of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which houses the nativity, basically, where Jesus was born and prayed, etc. It's all there. And it's locked. And there's a man sitting on the steps, a big, big door. And he's sitting on the steps, leaning his head against the door.

And it's so touching. I mean, it's just like, yeah, that's where I want to be. I want to be sitting on the steps. If I can't get in, I want to be on the steps with my head against the door. And a lot of people are saying, what is that all about? Well, again, I want to be on the street where you live. This is a person I love more than I love anybody. Yeah, yeah.

It's interesting, isn't it, how love or affection, you know, we see people being affectionate to one another, and it doesn't make sense to us if we're not in love. You know, when I started dating my wife, I would talk to her at 2 in the morning. You know, when she was living in America, I was in Australia. I'm sure that seemed absurd, but love does these sorts of things. Yeah, no, exactly. And that's what people need to see. And again, I hope, I mean, we've tried to write it in a way that's not... It's very respectful. Very respectful. I got a question for you, because you give ideas as to how the sacraments can be administered in a safe way. I go to a Byzantine Catholic church in which the Holy Eucharist is administered by spoon.

How would you recommend, I suppose, I presume you think Holy Mass could be celebrated in a safe way or in a prudent way. How should the Eucharist be administered? You know, obviously in the Byzantine church, having a golden spoon placed in your mouth, you try not to touch it with your tongue, but obviously it's going to be. I've heard some suggestions about maybe some kind of disposable wooden spoons for each person. Have people asked you that kind of question? Would it be better that people receive on the tongue or receive in the hand in this kind of climate? What's your thoughts on this? Priests are very funny about this it's fun to

watch them go back and forth on on facebook etc many priests say that it's so much easier to give communion when people are on their knees and on the tongue because they open their mouth and you kind of just drop it in and there's no touching if and if you fear that there's been touching and you immediately get a hand sanitizer or an alcoholic wipe or alcohol. I don't know if wipes aren't alcoholic, are they? Anyway, so you use... I haven't become that desperate yet since the alcohol stores are open. Well, anyway, I think... Someone said you really shouldn't use disposable spoons

because nothing that touches the sacred should be disposable. Ooh, amen. I mean, that's the sort of thing... See, these are conversations we need to have. What is liturgically proper? What is canonically proper? And what is safe, all right? Reasonably safe.

And I have a picture, we have one picture on there that is from the 18th century of a pestilence or plague in 18th century France with a priest who has about a six foot long, six foot long spoon that he puts the Eucharist at the end of it. And there's a woman in the window who's receiving it. But above it, there's like five different possibilities that use and one of them is tongs, right? And they still exist. When I was a child, there was a time when it was really fashionable to have sugar cubes on your table. And so you would have these beautiful silver tongs so that you could pick up one of those sugar cubes. Well, it seems to me you can use a set

of those beautiful tongs and pick up the Eucharist. And again, if you want the six feet distance, you could have a person six feet, three feet away from you and your arms about three feet, and you could reach it out and put the Blessed Sacrament gently on their hand. Try to make certain that you don't touch their hand with the tongs. Even perhaps they have to bring some sort of patent that they can put under their hands so that it's not, I would love a patent now under our hands. But again, maybe when you stretch your hand, it's easier to drop or miss. So you make certain that you've done everything you can, that that doesn't happen. And then if need be, you sanitize the tongs in between deliverance or distribution of

the Eucharist. I think that's a good one. Again, if they were kneeling, the priest goes up and down. We're six feet apart. The priest is obviously going to be closer than six feet to each person. But again, if we are very careful, no coughing, no touching, no this, I would like to know, how much of a risk really is that, all right? If he wears a mask, what is necessary? If he wears gloves, and again, he's not touching, it's only that he won't get it on his hands and then get it on his face. I would love to have some people work this through, you know, and the bishop should be calling up. And the problem is, we don't have much time to work this through, I guess, as well, right?

I mean, the church tends to move in glacial speed, but we need kind of to be discussing this and coming up with solutions now. I don't think it's that hard. I mean, honestly, it seems to me that everybody's doing nothing these days. So we're at the bishop's disposal to brainstorm as much as possible. I'm sure doctors will put their hygienic techniques to the service of the church and to help us figure out how to do this safely. And if you can't do it, if they decide there's absolutely no way that there's a safe way to distribute communion, then you don't, right? We're not necessarily demanding communion. We're demanding, requesting, demanding communion if it's reasonably safe, or there are reasonably

safe methods to distribute it. If there aren't, don't. But that's no reason to close the churches. That's no reason not to have masses in a parking lot. And what are you suggesting, though, if certain counties have been totally locked down except for essential travel, by which I think the state means grocery stores and hospital, things like this? Are you asking the bishops to go against the law here? Not yet. But I think that they need... I heard of a diocese where the bishop had a teleconference with his priest. And one priest said, well, I would like to do a mass in the parking lot. He said, no.

And I asked, what was the reason given? He said, well, our state has said there can be no large public gatherings. And I said, did he call the governor's office? Did he call the attorney general's office and explain what we were doing? We're all coming in our cars and staying in our cars. We're getting it from our house to our car, go to a parking lot, don't get out of the car, drive back to the house, go into the house. How is that dangerous? All right. It's more dangerous if I go for a walk and I walk by some small children, if I have it, or an old person like myself, and I cough and they get.

That's more dangerous. There's nothing dangerous about my getting in a car and going to a parking lot and coming back. Could the bishops call them up? And if they got a no answer, they should make this public. I tried and I got a no answer. I'm not happy with that. I would like all of you to write letters to the governor telling the governor that this is something we consider to be essential. The state of Texas has made,

the legislator voted that religious assemblies are essential, right? They're essential. Good, Texas. You know, liquor stores are essential. Why isn't being in the presence of the Eucharist, it really is a matter of religious freedom. It's a matter of we are not being allowed to practice our faith within the due, safe guidelines that the experts have designed. If we can do that, we're going to deny our practice of our faith.

Okay. What do you hope, I guess there's two questions, you know, best case scenario, what do you hope an open letter like this will accomplish? And then perhaps just realistically, what do you think it will accomplish? It's a loaded question.

You don't know what a loaded question that is. Maybe you do. At least some of the organizers think there's a realist. You could have a realistic expectation that some of the bishops or the bishops people will read this and sort of say, oh, we we really we haven't communicated well. We really need to do this. We really need to get the bishop out there explaining to people the decisions that being made. And yes, we need to be more aggressive. We thought this was going to be a short-term thing it's not we need to be more aggressive in talking to the government's etc to get permission if we

don't have permission if we it's not free for us if we're not free to do this to do it if we're are free to do it I'm going to do it and I'm going to encourage all my priests to do it let me just take a little tangent here but the second answer to this question the priest who asked his bishop in their teleconference, could he hold a mass in a parking lot? The first reason he was given is, no, it's a public gathering. We're not allowed to gather in this state. And I say, we don't even know if that falls under the strictures.

And then he said, and some priests wouldn't do it. And we want to have a uniform response. And I want to say, do we need to have a uniform response? Is that true? Priests do so many things differently all over the place, the way that they perform all sorts of sacraments. Where did this uniformity come from as a new ideal in liturgical offerings? Some people have mass early in the morning. Some people have it in the evening. What the heck? And I would say, but if you're going for uniformity, why not go for the uniformity that everybody provides the Eucharist

in the parking lot? Why not be that your default uniform practice rather than not providing it? So I was in the middle of a question. Do you remember what it was? Oh, the question was not only, like, what do you hope this will bring about, but realistically what do you think it will bring about? Well, the hoping is that the bishops will say, you know, we've been waiting. I mean, this is a fantasy, of course, but let's say, oh, we're so grateful to Professor Smith and Matt Fradd and all these people who are trying to get this message out

there. And we're really so touched that they've put so much time into this and that so many people have signed this petition. We're really grateful because we can get lost in administrative details. And we really are delighted that you have weighed in, that you have, we know that we have all this bureaucratic tape around us. It's hard to get to us because, and that has to be because I've got important things, but you guys, you're like the woman that keeps pulling at the, knocking at the door,

just keep knocking at the door. We're knocking at the door. He said, I'm busy. And he said, but wait, wait, you need to listen to this. And you're, he's saying, okay, I woke up. I'm listening now. Thank you. Thank you for putting this out. I'm going to get my staff together. And, you know, tomorrow at such and such a time, I'm going to sit there with a set of questions that, that are raised about what we're doing and why we're doing this and why we're not doing that. And I want to hear more from you on what we can be doing to administer your spiritual needs during this time. That would be, wow. Okay. Who knows?

You know, Christians aren't that realistic. We expect miracles at every turn. That would be a miracle. I don't know that I expect one. I pray for one, I hope for one. At least I think that the effort is helping us. It's consoling. It's consoling that people like you and people like me and all the other people who are involved in this care enough to take time out of watching Netflix, which I'm not, actually. I've been dying to watch a few things. I think I've got time. I don't. I don't. I don't know if you're watching at all this series, The Chosen. No. Any good? Oh, my gosh. It's an eight-part TV series that's only on one website, but now it's free.

If you download the app, The Chosen, it's by some evangelical filmmakers in Texas with a guy whose name is Dallas, of all things. Anyway, he is a very talented filmmaker. And what he's doing is trying to do more of the backstories of each of the key people in Scripture. And it's going to be several seasons. I don't know how many seasons. Very neat. I bet it's run by an LDS guy, is it? I don't think so. I just have this theory that if something is terribly well produced, it's run by an LDS guy, is it? I don't think so. I just have this theory that if something is terribly well produced, it's probably a Mormon.

Well, maybe, but I want to tell you, they are fantastic. I rarely watch anything twice, but I could watch these things over and over again to just, because they do such a, I mean, Peter's a hothead. And Peter is, you know, he fights with his brother, Peter's a hothead. And Peter is... You know, he fights with his brother, physically fights with his brother. They have that sort of thing. Check, check. Look what I just Googled.

The Chosen gave a filmmaker presentation Friday at the 2019 LDS Film Festival. Yeah, that doesn't mean that they're the ones that did it, but you might be right. That's true, but they just... I often watch the Mormons. I think, gosh, we could learn a lot from them.

Okay, look, this has been terribly helpful. So other than what I want everyone to go and check out, weareaneasterpeople.com. There will be links below. I want everyone to click that and to sign the open letter if they feel so inclined. What else can they do? Oh, spread it. Put it on their Facebook page. Put it on Twitter.

Send it by email to their friends and ask them to do it. And explain misconception. I'm going to have to, you know, maybe right after I get off of this, is to just put a little thing up there to say, realize really what we're asking for. We're not, again, asking the people to mob the churches. And what we really want to do is we really want to hear from our bishops that they're doing everything.

And they should pray. We put up there that beautiful, what is called the Litany of Supplication that Pope Francis prayed last week at Orby Ceremony. Really powerful. And again, that unity of praying with the Holy Father, a prayer that was composed for this particular time. And if we were to be praying this all over the world once a day, pray this litany of supplication for an end to the coronavirus, for protection of people that are exposed, for the health care workers, et cetera, and for our church. thing that's been very moving about this is that um so many of the um so many people were afraid are going to stop going to mass because it's become dispensable and um they're not hearing

from their bishops about how just because you don't have the eucharist doesn't mean you don't have to really do a deep dive into your spiritual life at this time. And so on my Facebook page, some people have asked the question, what are you going to do when this quarantine's over? What's one of the first thing you do? And I've been so touched by how many Catholics say, oh, I'm getting a Mass as fast as I can, and I'm going to start going to daily mass at least a couple of days a week because I've realized that it was so routine for me to be able to receive the Eucharist that I have to be more grateful for what it is. And one of the ways, I mean, in this time of deprivation, my friend Tom Curran, which you're up with whom I'm doing that webcast, he said for many months before the quarantine, he'd been offering his Eucharist in reparation for unworthy reception of the Eucharist and I think I think the rest I mean I think what I need to be doing now when I'm feeling particularly oh darn I can't get to mass and I'm a daily mass

goer you know it's part of every day I'm thinking there's lots of masses available and I'm I'm not a highly disciplined person so I don't know why the heck God chose me to do a lot of things. But anyway, discipline would help a lot. But anyway, I do manage the six or seven masses that are available every day within 10 minutes of my house, 15 minutes that I could get to. I get to one. Now I can't do that. You know, somewhere around, you know, nine in the morning saying, which mass am I going today? If I because before I might be able to get one at eight, but now I haven't gone. Where am I going to go? And I say, I'm offering this up for reparation for all my unworthy receptions of the sacraments over the years, not necessarily in the state of a serious sin, which is a serious, unworthy reception, but a daydreaming, a perfunctoriness, a sort of like, let's get this over with and go home and do what I ever want to do on a Sunday or whatever. So to refocus my sense of the preciousness, the infinite value of the gift of Jesus Christ

in the Eucharist, and then to make reparations, say, God, am I being deprived of it? I hope the graces that I get from not whining and complaining about this or writing open letters to the bishops will help other people return to receiving our Lord and Savior in the Eucharist. Beautiful. Well, thank you, Dr. Janet Smith, for all that you're doing. Look forward to getting this out and getting people on that website and signing the open letter. We hope to put you, Dr. Janet Smith, for all that you're doing. Look forward to getting this out and getting people on that website and signing the open letter.

We hope to put you up there. Oh, one thing we'd like to say. I hope they'll put this up there. Excuse me. We are just a bunch of lay people who are doing this, and it's quite costly to put up that website, to pay people do some of the the work that needs to be done they deserve their wages it looks good too it's a beautiful website you've done a great job it's not amazing the guy who did it's just beautiful but uh we do have a donate button so don't uh if you got you know ten dollars uh to throw our way or twenty five dollars it'll add up

and it will help so just to we So this isn't a fundraising scheme. We're not in fundraising schemes for where the organizations are good things, but we're not trying to raise a lot of money. We're just trying to pay our expenses is what we want to do. But God will provide. But maybe this is a way of helping God provide is to give this little. And I don't want to end on a money. No, it's bloody important.

I'm going to make a donation right now, and I would encourage people to donate whatever they can. I think water's free, whiskey costs money. This is the reason you don't see a lot of great quality stuff coming out of the church, whereas you might in the Mormon church to get back to what we were speaking about earlier. Not Mormon church,

Mormon ecclesial communion, maybe? I don't know. But it's because we don't put money behind things like this that we should be. So I'll be making a donation, and I would hope other people will as well. So anything else you want to say before we wrap up? Well, thank you. Thank you for doing this program for us. And I would ask everybody just to take a deep breath, trust in the Lord. Jesus knew this was going to happen. The church will surely come out stronger.

I don't know whether it's going to come out smaller or bigger, but it's going to come out stronger. All right. Again, the good priests, we know who they are now. And they are, we love them. We want to give that message to our good priests and good bishops that we love you and we pray for you, and we want you to know you bad priests and you bad bishops, we love you too, and we pray for you too.

And so let's all just trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord. That's a good note to end on. Dr. Janet Smith, thank you so much. Thank you. God bless you.