April 5, 2005

1 Peter 3:15 and the Program’s Opening Theme

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll-free across the United States.

It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

And a good day to you. Welcome to The Dividing Line on this Tuesday, April... It should be April 5th, according to... I need to remind my computer what day it is. Of course, the computer is as confused as I am.

We have a tremendous amount of things to talk about today. I would like to start off with a couple of clips. Let me start off with a clip. This first one, the sound quality isn't all that good, but here is the clip.

Salvation, Holiness, and the Force of Scripture

The issue, my friends, this evening has become very clear. Not necessarily intentionally so, but it has become clear. Thanks be to the Lord. The issue truly here is, is salvation not just a plan? Not sacraments?

Not possibilities? But is salvation itself totally and completely of God, or is it not? I submit to you that it cannot be otherwise. Cannot be otherwise. The dichotomy upon which Mr. Medetics has denied the force of the clear passages from John 6, John 10, Colossians 3, 1 Corinthians 1, in each of these places where the force of these passages is sought to be deflected upon the basis of the creation of a false dichotomy of an elect and a non-elect, but the elect somehow are saved anyways, is just that.

It's an attempt to avoid the force of the clear teaching of Scripture. This evening, I do not want you to leave this place thinking that the representation has been made of the Protestant position by such statements that we feel that it is not necessary to pursue holiness.

Any person who has been changed by the Spirit of God will desire to pursue holiness. And now let me play you a second brief clip. I come to you with a heavy heart because as I have listened to many evangelical leaders over the past 48 hours, I have been forced to the conclusion that for many today who are not Roman Catholics, they are not simply because they don't wear plaid, or they don't like blue, or they don't like spinach.

It's just simply a matter of taste. It's not a matter of conviction. It's not an issue of the gospel. It's just, well, I don't happen to like candles as much as somebody else does. And that's not a good reason.

That's not the reason that prompted the Reformation. The songs we have sung today, the song that was just sung in soul, the song that we sang together today, if you will listen to the words, and if you believe the words, they speak of foundational truths that are denied by the Roman Catholic system.

And if we believe that our standing this day, the peace that we have with God this day, is based upon the truth that Jesus Christ stood in our place, that we were united with Him in His death, that His death is perfect.

It admits of no addition. It cannot be represented over and over and over again upon any altar anywhere. If we believe that, then we should be troubled by what we have been hearing over the past 48 hours.

In fact, if you're a former Roman Catholic sitting here today, you've probably thought the same thing I've thought, and that is you know in the history of the Roman Catholic Church that many of the great saints of that faith had visions of former popes in purgatory centuries after they had died.

I wonder what's going on today. For the Vatican official came out and said that Mary is throwing open the door of heaven to Pope John Paul II, but if you know Roman Catholic theology, you had to sit back and go, no wait a minute, no wait a minute, that's only done for saints, and we don't know in this situation.

There's this issue of purgatory. There's this issue of the cleansing of temporal sins and the punishment for those sins. You can't go into the presence of Christ unless you are perfected, and to be perfected requires the finishing of sanctification.

That's what purgatory is all about in the Roman Catholic system, and so you may have even sat back and wondered a little bit at what was being said, but much more so I hope you wondered at what is being said by evangelical leaders.

I listened to one very well-known evangelical leader who has assured us that Pope John Paul II was the greatest evangelist of our lifetime. That makes me think, what is an evangelist? What does an evangelist do?

Does an evangelist take strong stands on moral issues? Pope John Paul II did, but that's not what makes you an evangelist. Does an evangelist live a moral life? Well, they certainly should, but that's not what makes you an evangelist.

An evangelist is a person who proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it seems in our day and age, that gospel has lost all specificity. Now, those two clips were both me. I know it didn't sound that way.

The first one, I think the tape had stretched over the years, and of course it was also about 14 years plus between those two clips. The reason I played them, the second clip being from the sermon that I delivered at Cornerstone Baptist Church on this past Lord's Day, the reason I played them is very simple.

We have said the same things about the subject of Roman Catholicism. We have said the same things about the reasons for rejecting Roman Catholicism all along. I'm saying nothing new today as far as the gospel, as far as salvation, as far as the issues that are important in regards to Roman Catholicism that I said in that debate in December of 1990 against geriatrics in Phoenix.

Years, just a few years after that in 1993, Richard Pierce and I went up to Denver to World Youth Day. I debated geriatrics twice up there on the papacy, but we also went to the World Youth Day activities.

We passed out gospel tracts about justification, about how it is a person knows God. We stood on the pilgrimage route and passed out tracts, the people walking the number of miles to where the Mass was going to be said, and our message was the same.

When the Pope came to Phoenix, I think it was 1986 if I recall correctly, and said Mass at Sun Devil Stadium at Arizona State University, I and others from this ministry walked up and down the snaking line of people waiting to get in, distributing literature until we were completely out of literature.

1987, someone just told me. The point is, we have said the same things all along. I'm not saying anything today that I did not say before, but it seems that the mindset is that the gospel is not and cannot be so important to be the center of what we do, say, and believe.

Therefore, that concern about the gospel should be muted for now. Oh, it's okay to talk about that some other time. However, now that John Paul II has passed away, you need to shut up. You need to be quiet.

You see, if you talk about the gospel, if you say Rome doesn't have the gospel, we're going to call you an anti-Catholic. Never mind that Rome has anathematized your gospel, and they're never anti-Protestants.

We're not going to use a singular standard. We're not going to be consistent here. We don't have to be. We have the Fox News Channel. We have the media eating out of the palms of our hands. We can say anything we want on television today.

We can describe the Bishop of Rome as the successor of Peter, and we can talk about 2 ,000-year-old traditions that are not anywhere near 2 ,000 years old, but we know that nobody in the press is ever going to challenge us on anything like that.

And we can talk about the Pope as the Holy Father, and we can refer to him as the Vicar of Christ, both titles of deity. And we can talk about the Pope going directly into the presence of God, and we can quote all sorts of allegedly Protestant evangelical ministers who agree with us.

But don't you dare bring up the issue of the gospel. Don't you dare bring up your belief that there's only one way to stand before a holy God, or we will attack you. We will attack your character. We will say you're mean-spirited and nasty.

We won't deal with any of the biblical issues you bring up. When you talk about Romans 5 .1, therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God, and that that's the only foundation that anyone can have peace with God, past tense justification, looking back upon that justification that has been explicated in Romans 4.

You can bring those things up. We won't talk about those things. We're not going to discuss those things. We're just going to shout you down. We're going to insult you. We're going to appeal to the post-modernism of our day, and recognize that the non-religious, the people who, interestingly enough, until last few days could have cared less what John Paul II said about almost any issue of morality, we know that they're going to agree with us that you're a big, mean, nasty person, because of the fact that you are raising these issues, and you won't join the great explosion of worship.

Because that's what it is. I mean, when you've got Brit Hume on the Fox News channel, talking about how the Pope has suffered for the world, when you've got Vatican representatives talking about how the Pope's suffering has undoubtedly released many souls from purgatory, I'm sorry, but if you love the Gospel, if you love the Word of God, if you love the truth about these things, you cannot sit on your hands and keep your mouth shut.

It's not possible. It can't be done. That's called compromise, and folks, let it be known, that is exactly what we're being told to do by all the Roman Catholics that have been just exploding with their vituperative attacks upon anyone who would speak about these issues.

Now, I am very thankful. I'm very thankful, I'm sorry. I saw, where did, I guess I lost it here in the thing. That's a shame. I'm really distorting really badly in my headsets, by the way. I lost a, oh, here it is, here it is.

This is a statement from Pastor Ralph Avedal, Pilgrim's Covenant Church, and he said, you know, I'm going to let somebody else say what I've been saying all along here, just to demonstrate there's at least two of us.

The tragedy which is upon us is not the death of the Pope, although neither will we revel in the death nor damnation of any man. The tragedy which is upon us, and which the Pope's death will clearly emphasize once more, is the dearth of integrity, discernment, and courage among evangelical, or should I say neo-evangelical leaders in our nation.

Remaining silent at this time, as reprehensible as that is, would be a vast improvement to the message many such leaders will feel the need to proclaim. The world's impression of Pope John Paul II was a true Christian man leading the true Christian church, teaching the true Christian gospel, will be strongly reinforced by the accolades heaped upon the Pope by evangelical leaders.

At the same time, the great milling mixture of sheep and goats, which fill up the evangelical churches in our land, will be further compromised and confused. The death of Pope John Paul II is a defining moment, which will reveal the hearts of many who present themselves as born-again, blood-washed followers of Jesus Christ, but by their words, will reveal that they are either not his, or that they should not publicly represent him.

To which I say, Amen. But since I have said Amen, there are many who have rushed to their keyboards, and have decided to blast me and anyone who would speak out at this point in time. I have invited those individuals to call in, especially since many of them, what they've decided to do, is to, once again, avoid discussing any of the important issues.

They've managed to avoid the text of scripture, because that's just not their strong point anyway. Instead, they've decided to attack me personally, and any amount of lying is acceptable in the service of Mother Church.

I have seen things said on the Steve Ray web board, the Catholic Answers forums, the Envoy magazine forum, Planet Envoy, I think it's called. And see, it doesn't matter what anybody says. As long as a Catholic says it, it must be true.

So you get third, fourth, fifth hand stuff that is just so absolutely absurd, that to repeat it is, of course, to engage in rumor mongering. To lie. But that's okay in the service of Mother Church. And so, I've provided some of the comments on our blog.

And you can see that instead of responding in a meaningful fashion to what's actually been said, the idea is, of course, to just simply attempt to shout down what is being said, and to attack the person who brings it to you.

That's what's going on. And so, we have the lines open. We have two callers online. We will take the calls in the order they came in. But I would like to invite those individuals, Catholic dude, and was the other guy named Gary?

I forget what his name was. But these individuals who have been repeating these unfounded rumors that have absolutely no basis whatsoever, to give us a call. Stand up. If you're actually going to have the temerity to put something in print, then stand up.

Be counted. I'm not going to sit here and be a doormat. I will refute you. I have the facts. I'm confident of the facts. And if you think you've got the facts, then the number is 877 -753 -3341. I make myself available.

There are very few people who do what I do that do a webcast like this and have a toll-free number, and you can get in touch. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. And so we're going to hope that some of those folks who are so brave out in the web boards, who are so quick with a word of falsehood, let's see if you'll back that up.

Let's see if you can basically, you know, if you're going to make the claim, let's see if you can talk the talk. Let's see if you can walk what your talk demands that you do. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

The Gospel, Roman Catholicism, and Public Controversy

So I see the phone's ringing, and I'm going to scroll back here and talk to Keith in Dayton, Ohio. Hi, Keith. Hi, Dr. White. How are you? I'm doing all right.

Yeah, well, that's good. I appreciate you taking my call, and I've been reading your blog, and I've been reading a lot of the emails that have been written in response to your blog. And let me say from the outset that I'm a questioning Catholic, I guess you might say.

I'm reassessing many aspects of my faith. So I'm trying to look at this as objectively as I can, and let me say also from the outset that I appreciate your search for truth and your tenacious way of standing by it, especially in the face of a lot of, well, I think you're right, ad hominem type arguments and personal attacks, which I would never tolerate or defend.

But I wonder, under the circumstances, your opening blog, I didn't see anything bad about that. And then, of course, I think you probably could have predicted the reaction, couldn't you, under the circumstances?

This sort of snuck up on me. I honestly, though I had discussed on the program before, the opportunities that were going to be raised by the election of a new pope to discuss the relevant issues, the specificity of the emotional attachment, I really had not given much thought to.

This came on rather suddenly, at least I thought it did. I had heard positive things and talked about recovery and things like that, so I really didn't see it coming. From certain quarters, there is no question that no matter what I say, that's going to be the response.

I realize that many of these people, especially on Steve Ray's board, they've never listened to a debate that I've done, they've never read a book that I've written, they have no idea whatsoever, so they're just going on second and third-hand stuff anyway.

So I can expect that, but I would have to think that a serious-minded Catholic, at least a conservative Catholic, would have to go, no, wait a minute, we say the same thing about their perspective. If you go back to our dogmatic writings, this man is just being consistent with the position that he has announced for a long, long time, and this idea of basically saying, shut up, just doesn't have any foundation anywhere.

But I'm not seeing that. I'm not seeing anyone coming out and saying that. There's certainly been nobody on the Roman Catholic side that I've seen who has defended a discussion of the gospel at this time.

Everyone has said the same thing, and that is, put that aside, it's time to elect a new pope. And I go, excuse me, but I'm never putting the gospel aside, because that is the whole issue, that's the only way of salvation, that's the only way that anyone will ever have peace with God, is the gospel, and to simply sweep under the rug the differences that exist, I've never done that, never will do that.

So I've been consistent, I've been consistent all the way along on this, and it just surprises me that there are so many Roman Catholics that quite honestly have been deeply compromised by postmodern thought.

You know, it's funny, it's this pope, when he came to Phoenix in 87, he then went over to L .A., and in L .A. he said something I've repeated a number of times. He spoke out against what he called cafeteria-style Catholicism, where you pick and choose what you will and will not believe.

Well, you know what? I have a much easier time talking to a Roman Catholic who actually believes something, than talking to a Roman Catholic who believes nothing. It's a whole lot easier to do that, and I respect that a whole lot more than I do anybody else.

Well, I agree, and you have been consistent, I would not argue against that, and I think that's admirable. Yeah, you want to defend the Gospel at all costs, and of course, you're going to get a lot of responses depending on the state of affairs.

And I think it's the state of affairs that I'm worried about, and I would never ask you to stop doing what you're doing, in the sense that you want to keep promoting the Gospel. But I wonder, okay, look at it like this.

If you have, let's say there's this individual who believes in ancestor worship, and their parents have died in a tragic accident. Now, of course, you and I don't believe in ancestor worship, and we think it's sinful.

And we wouldn't want anybody to practice that, but they're going through a period of grief. They're emotionally distraught. Now, we wouldn't want to, under that set of circumstances, maybe, I don't know, I'm not saying compromise, but maybe just, I guess maybe, I can't think of the right word, adapt.

Adapt our evangelical techniques. Because I'm telling you, Dr. White, and you know, you know Catholics very well. They have a certain way of looking at the Pope. It's almost like, well, many of them look at him like he's their father.

Oh, I understand that.

Yeah, and they're emotionally distraught. They're emotionally, I understand that, but believe me, I hear what you're saying. There's one major difference, though, in the illustration that you offered, and it's very similar to what someone else offered on the Planet Envoy web forum.

And that is, if you had a person who was into ancestor worship, there would have to be 1 .1 billion ancestor worshipers who looked to this person, who then sent hundreds, if not thousands, of their representatives to the major news outlets to promote his infallibility, to promote their theology, to promote the wonderful nature of this person and his teachings, and to promote the beliefs of ancestor worship.

And because that then becomes the very substance of the discussion in the culture for the next period of time, then you would have a parallel, and I think I could make a very strong argument that if that then becomes the parallel, yes, it becomes incumbent upon the believer that if this is what the culture is talking about, if this is what people are talking about around the water cooler, over lunch, in the classroom, all around our culture, you don't sit back and go, well, you know, everything that's being said is directly opposite to what I know to be the truth.

It's directly opposite to the gospel. There could be people who are going to be deceived by these things, but you know what? I'm not going to say anything because, you know, they might be a little emotional about this.

Well, you know what? I'm a little emotional about the fact that I'm listening to the truth about the gospel of grace being drug through the mud on a regular basis on the Fox News channel right now. That's got me a little emotional, too.

So am I supposed to say, hey, you folks need to be quiet because my emotions might be, I might be offended by something that's said? You will find nowhere in my blogs where I have said, I am so offended.

Will someone please stop the offense? Look, I understand that that's going to happen. I'm not a postmodernist. I don't think that, you know, so, but what I'm saying is, though, there's no parallel between those two because the fact that this is a cultural phenomenon.

Is it not? Is this not what everyone's talking about? In fact, I got an email from one of the pastors that was at my, yeah, it's right here. This pastor said he attended the Toledo Reformed Conference this past weekend and enjoyed hearing you speak.

He said, thank you for your sound biblical approach to the pope and the gospel, which he preached. The question came up in my youth group that Sunday evening as I knew it would. With love, I explained the gospel of Pope John Paul II, showed how that was different from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So here is the point. What is more important, the feelings that people have or the fact that in our culture right now, there is a major discussion about how people get to heaven. And it seems to me that on both sides of the aisle, the majority viewpoint is you get to heaven by being a good person.

And the fact of the matter is there's no such thing as a good person. And so what do we do? Do we sit on our hands? No, I don't believe that we can.

Not if we love. And see, I'm defining love very differently. Well, I know you're not defining it in the postmodernist way. That's right. And I wouldn't either, and I know I'm not going to take up all your time.

I know you probably have to hang up here. But the analogy that I was using wasn't used in the sense that I would tell the person, the people who are trying to evangelize the person who believes in ancestor worship, I wouldn't tell them to shut up and stop evangelizing.

I would just say maybe we should modify our evangelistic technique. I'm not saying abandon logic. Use logic. Dr. White, you probably know as well as I do because you argue with people all the time, and I do too.

Logic is a very powerful weapon. And oftentimes when people are in mourning or they're in states of grief, they don't want to be logically decapitated, as easy as it might be to do it.

Well, there's no trust me, I recognize that there are many Roman Catholics who are only being confirmed in their Catholicism by the preaching of the gospel to them. I understand that to be the case.

I do not believe it is logic that's going to break most of these people that I've quoted on my blog wouldn't know a logical statement if it hit them in the face right now. There's no question about that.

My point is that I also know that there were a number of people who came up to me Sunday morning after my sermon who said, I am a former Roman Catholic. I was a Roman Catholic for 30 years. I was involved in the church.

God got hold of me. He broke through to me. I found out what salvation truly was all about, and you don't know how I needed that encouragement. You don't know how I am going to go speak to my family now, and I'm not going to just sit on my hands.

There's two aspects here. There's, first, the encouragement of the saints, and on the other side, I obviously believe that if the Holy Spirit of God is bringing conviction of sin upon a person's heart, that this is the time this is the day of salvation.

This is the time to address it. This is not the time to be silent. So are there lots of people on both sides of the aisle that disagree with me about that? You better believe it. There are. No question about it.

I stand by what I've said. I really believe that we have to address it this time, and you're right. Our lines are full. I appreciate the character that you displayed in your call. I appreciate your call.

Thank you very, very much, and I'm going to let Rich take care of handling things like that. All right, let's go to Apollonio. Hi, Apollonio. Hello.

Hello, sir. Hi. I want to have a represent what the Catholics are feeling, or what they thought of your blog, because when I read the first couple of your blogs I haven't listened to your sermons, so I can't judge that.

But on the first couple of blogs, I think it was, as Keith says, it was a sensitive moment for us and for other people. I mean, I'm not saying that you should be absolutely silent on these issues. Could you be specific, please?

Huh? Could you be specific, please? Could you quote from the blog what, for example, was where I made fun of the Pope, for example?

No, I'm not saying that you did.

Okay. Could you show me where I was rejoicing in his death?

No, that's not what I think some Catholics are worried about. I think it was because the person's dying, and it seemed like you were just going about your everyday routine of apologetics.

Actually, Apollonio, wasn't the fact of the matter that what I was doing was responding to the major coverage of a theological apologetic issue by every news outlet on the face of planet Earth? Mm-hmm.

Isn't that what I was responding to? Isn't that what every person reading my blog was likewise going to be seeing and hearing and thinking about, right?

Yeah. So I don't think yeah, I have, like, no quality with that. The thing is, for example, I'm not going to, like, complain about how the media covers the whole thing, but a person was dying, and he was, you know, dead the day after, I think, and it seemed like you just went about your everyday routine.

Well, Apollonio, wait a minute.

Let me point something out to you. Is it not true that every monsignor, every father, every cardinal, every Vatican representative that showed up on Fox News and CNN was likewise pursuing their everyday promotion of the bishop of Rome as the vicar of Christ, the head of Christ's church?

They called him Your Holiness. Did they not say that the doors of heaven were being opened to him? Aren't these all issues that the Roman Catholics who had the microphones and the television cameras were themselves raising?

Yeah, but that's, like, ordinary if a person dies. For example, if your father dies, and you would probably hear that from a person who's giving a sermon at his funeral, so I'm not going to, like, stand up and say, no, he's blatantly false and that's heretical.

Wait a minute. Apollonio, there's no parallel there.

How can you say there's a parallel? No one knows who my father is. The Fox News channel is not going to be covering the death of my father. CNN is not going to cancel its commercial time to say that my father is going to heaven while teaching such things as indulgences and purgatory.

There is no parallel here. I'm sorry, but can you show me where there would be a parallel there?

Well, there is a parallel in the sense that both of them are dying and people are praising Spurred Temp. And I wasn't quarreling with you because you're criticizing what the media is doing. I think it's just improper timing of how you do it, how you did it.

But, Apollonio, again, again, are you saying then, let me see if I understand what your statement is, you admit this is a unique event, it's the first time in 26 years, you admit that the media invested a huge amount of time going wall-to-wall coverage for, what, 48 hours or more, canceling even for a while their commercial schedules.

I mean, last time that happened was like 9 -11. They're the ones who are bringing Roman Catholics on, including Roman Catholic apologists, Apollonio. I don't know, were you on? Everybody else was. Jimmy Akin was on, Dave Armstrong was on, Mark Brumley was on.

All these people are out there and they're not avoiding the theology, are they? And so in the midst of all this, because someone's dying, these folks get free reign to promote this stuff, even if I believe it's wrong.

Is that the point?

No, I think what Melissa Paul just said and some theologians did was, they simply praised, and I think that's ordinary if a person dies, that he would get that kind of response.

You don't think they talked about him as the successor of Peter, as the spiritual leader of 1 .1 billion Catholics?

They didn't speak of his suffering. Again, I'm not criticizing you because you're criticizing the media. I think you could have, for example, you could have... I'm not criticizing the media.

Apollonio, I'm not criticizing the media. I'm not criticizing the media. I'm simply saying the fact of what the media did is a fact. It made it a cultural event and it brought the issue of the gospel to the forefront, or at least it should have.

It didn't for the vast majority of people, and I think the only way you could be fair in criticizing me is to recognize that the vast majority of my strongest criticism was not for Roman Catholicism, was it?

It was for alleged Protestant evangelicals who say they believe one thing, and then when the time comes for the rubber to meet the road, they don't actually believe it.

I think, for example, you criticized Pat Robertson for saying the things he said. Yes. Throwing away the gospel, I think.

Yes, yes. I said he threw it on the trash heap.

Yeah, I mean, you could have said that, for example, send him a letter or called him and said that, look, I think you're throwing away the gospel when you said those things on TV. And when you write a public post for everyone to see, especially Catholics who apparently read your blog, of course you're going to get the same kind of reaction you would get.

No, no, wait a minute, Apollonio.

This man has a television network. He couldn't be more of a public teacher. People have tried to get him to focus upon the gospel for a long, long time, and he makes a statement to millions of people, and my response should be to write him a letter?

Yeah, I don't see a problem with that. Or you could, like, pray to God about it, because if you do, it is in God's hands. It's not everything that's in your hands, and you have to write every public post.

So when you criticized me on the Planet Envoy blog, you had written that to me personally first, right? Answer, no, you didn't. No, I didn't. Okay, so we're a little bit inconsistent there, aren't we?

Well, first of all, I don't think I criticized how you said a thing. I criticized you personally.

But I'll tell you one thing. I'll tell you one thing. You know the people on that blog did, and you know that they've attacked me personally, and I have not seen one Roman Catholic other than Jonathan Prejean in one place.

I think it was over on the Catholic Answers forums. I mean, I've seen foul language being used by Roman Catholics to describe me.

Well, you also know what's going on behind the scenes, too. I mean, I contacted some Catholics who what they said was really foul, and I told them to calm the language down a little bit, because this isn't helping at all.

No, actually, the response from your side has not helped out at all. But there are other people who are online to respond even right now. So you said you only had a few minutes. Was there something else you wanted to say before you go?

Okay, yeah, God bless, and I'll probably talk to you about Romans in the summer or something. All right, thanks for calling.

Bye-bye. All right, well, let me see here. We're not taking a break today, folks. We're obviously going to try to leave as much time. There are at least two lines open right now. We have two lines full.

So if you wanted to comment today, this is your opportunity. We've got the lines open, 877 -753 -3341. Yes, I think that we will be continuing this on Thursday evening because there are, especially back east, it's the afternoon, people are very busy.

I'm just trying to look which one I'm supposed to go here. All right, let's talk to Chris in Evansville. Hi, Chris. Hi, Dr. White. How are you doing?

Fine, sir. Thank you for addressing many people who have the courage that you do. Some people would use a different term. Well, you certainly have much opposition. And I've watched so much of this hoopla on television the last couple of days.

You know, I've gotten the impression, even though they use religion, I'm sure they've also, but basically it almost seems to take a back seat. You know, the news media is very interested in politics. Yes.

Fox News, I know, I've heard many of their journals.

I honestly don't know, and to be honest with you, I was taken aback a little bit during that first day at the comments of basically every single one that I saw of the commentators on Fox News directly saying they're Roman Catholics, talking about such things as the Pope's suffering for us, and when the Roman Catholic representatives came on, they could say anything they wanted to.

They could refer to 2 ,000-year-old traditions that are not 2 ,000-year-old traditions, and they could talk about the Pope's sufferings releasing people from purgatory. They could talk about Mary.

I mean, when it first broke, when they had the false reports of the Pope's death and then started the death watch, when it first broke, I couldn't believe the amount of Marian devotion demonstrated in what was seen from the Vatican.