Is There a Spiritual Crisis in America?

WSJ Opinion: Free Expression

Gerard Baker, Editor at Large, The Wall Street Journal

Society & Culture, News

4.6 • 591 Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2023

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is religious faith on the decline in the U.S.? On this episode of the Free Expression Podcast, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Catholic archbishop of New York, tells Wall Street Journal editor at large Gerry Baker that a lack of religion and moral conviction is to blame for our toxic cultural environment. He also discusses how Pope Francis is leading the church worldwide, the importance of the separation of church and state, and where the pro-life movement stands a year after the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.
0:08.9	Hello and welcome to the Free Expression podcast with me, Jerry Baker from the Wall Street Journal Opinion page.
0:13.8	If you're not already a subscriber to Free Expression, please do sign up wherever you get your podcasts.
0:18.1	This week is America facing a spiritual crisis? As more and more Americans
0:23.2	say that religion, in the traditional sense, is not important in their lives. What are the
0:27.7	implications for a nation founded under God? Is the decline in traditional religious observance
0:32.6	a big reason for the increasingly dystopian state of our social and civic life? Or is the assent of reason over
0:39.2	faith, something that should be welcomed? Our other so-called secular religions, such as the
0:44.2	passion for environmentalism and the green movement, and the modern creed of social justice,
0:49.0	are they replacing traditional faiths, especially for younger Americans?
0:53.0	What would me to discuss the state of faith in America,
0:55.8	and also to look in particular at the condition of the Catholic Church, is Timothy Cardinal Dolan,
1:00.3	the Archbishop of New York. Cardinal Dolan was ordained priest almost 50 years ago and has served as
1:05.2	bishop in St. Louis and Milwaukee. In 2009, he was appointed Archbishop of New York by Pope Benedict
1:10.7	the 16th. Three years later, he became
1:13.1	a cardinal and then participated in the papal conclave that elected Francis as Pope in 2013.
1:19.8	He's the author of several books, including Call to Be Holy and to Whom Shall We Go? Lessons from
1:25.1	the Apostle Peter. His eminence Cardinal Timothy Dolan joins me now. Good to be with you, Jerry. I appreciate your invitation. I want to talk to you about lots of things, obviously, but let's start off with looking at kind of the state of America today, if you may. Now, the Wall Street Journal had a poll a couple of months ago, which we do over a long period of time. And this poll asked people about values and the importance of certain values to them.
1:46.8	And what it found was that faith in certain values or belief in the importance of certain values
1:52.6	has declined dramatically.
1:54.1	One of them is religion.
1:55.0	In 1998, 62% of Americans said that religion was very important to them.
	...

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