James Talarico Discusses the Importance of Faith Leaders in this Moment

Transcript:

Who would you say are some of the people

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we need to listen to? Not necessarily

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just politicians, but people who are

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inspiring you to do the work that you

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are doing.

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U well, I'm sitting across from one of

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them and and I do think um faith leaders

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at this moment in time have so much to

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offer us that really politicians can't.

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And and again, as a politician, we play

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an important role um and we and we are

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we are leaders and at our best we we

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lead people. to something bigger. But I

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think right now people are asking much

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deeper questions about

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what does it mean to be a human being um

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in all this chaos? How do we make

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meaning out of all this? How do we

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remember how to love others? Especially

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loving people who are different from us.

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And I don't know if politicians are best

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equipped to do that. I really think

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that's the job of faith leaders.

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Um so people like you, people like um

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like u Reverend Barber, I mean providing

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that moral clarity that I think is

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missing in this country. It's something

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we had U in the last century um and it

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often times came out of the church.

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U feels like we've we've walked away

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from that in some ways as we become more

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secular as a culture.

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Um and I don't know I I think the the

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results of that haven't been good. I

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think the reason especially among young

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people, millennials like me, Gen Z,

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the reason there's so much anxiety,

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there's so much uh depression

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is because a lot of young people are

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growing up in an incoherent universe.

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Yes. Right. They no one has provided

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them a framework to understand all the

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things that are coming at them. And I

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understand the problems with organized

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religion. I know you do too. And we've

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just talked about the problems with the

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church.

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But there's a baby with that bathwater.

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And if we just throw the whole thing

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out,

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um I think we're going to leave people

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lost and and unmed spiritually. And I

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think that's a accurate description of

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what's happening in this country right