Priest, pastor, rabbi address 'crisis' of declining faith population in divided America: It's an 'opportunity'

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It's just as the old joke goes: a priest, a pastor, and a rabbi walk into a bar.

Except it wasn't a bar the religious power trio walked into last Tuesday. It was The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture on New York City's famed Bleecker Street — though, contrary to what the name might suggest, there's nothing particularly bleak about what Reverend A.R. Bernard, Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan explored in front of an eager audience ahead of the 2024 Election.

Though faith is in an overall decline — as fewer and fewer Americans declare themselves to be subscribers of any one religion — Bernard, Potasnik, and their guest of honor, the Archdiocese of New York's Dolan, were invited to the Sheen Center stage for a live look at their WABC Radio Sunday morning talk and a discussion about the current state of religion and politics.

The two topics most people actively try to avoid.

"Getting along is a lot easier than we think it is," said Sheen Center Executive Director MaryLou Pagano in introducing the meeting of the religious minds. "They really care about interfaith events. They care about being diverse, but getting along. And there's no better time than right now."

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It's that very inclusion the spirited trio embodied — not just by their invitation from the Sheen, of which they also sit on the board — but by the invitation they extended to people of all creeds. 

Or, perhaps more aptly, no creed at all. 

Oct. 22, 2024 — Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, and Reverend A.R. Bernard embraced one another at The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture ahead of the 2024 Presidential Election.

"I think we have a crisis here," Rabbi Postanik said, in addressing the decline of religion in America, particularly among the younger generations. "But we have an opportunity. Many of these young people don't walk through the front door of the house of worship, but they will walk to a food pantry. They will do something to help others. And they'll say, 'I'm not religious, I'm spiritual.' And we try to say to them, ‘what you call spiritual, we call religious.’"

"At the end of the day, it's what you do, not what you say, because belief is measured by behavior."

— Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, who preaches with a "we don't impose, we propose" motto

"When you feed the hungry, help the poor and do something to rehabilitate someone else, that's religious," Potasnik explained. "At the end of the day, it's what you do, not what you say, because belief is measured by behavior."

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The trio sat down with Fox News Digital ahead of their show to discuss the upcoming presidential election, one that's causing tremendous stress and anxiety for many if not most Americans.

"The message of Jesus transcended the political landscape of his time, and it transcends the political landscape of our time," Rev. Bernard of the Christian Cultural Center shared. "The reality is that we live in this world, and we are affected by policies, systems, structures and practices. And we need to respond. And we respond through vote. And when we think about voting, we are actually giving power to someone to make decisions about our quality of life and the future of our nation, so we should take it very seriously and imagine a nation that's consistent with our key principles of human dignity and common good."

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Rabbi Potasnik, who serves as the Executive Vice President of the New York Board of Rabbis, likened the current divide in the country to the story discrepancy between a book and its film adaptation.

"We're called the people of the book. And I think the sad part of that is, today, the movie is different than the book. It almost contradicts the book. In our houses of worship, we talk about respect. We talk about togetherness, cohesiveness, solidarity, cooperation, communication, all of those things. But when you go outside the house of worship, you see a whole different world."

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"We're polarized. We don't just disagree with each other. We denigrate one another," he continued. "I think our challenge is to have the movie and the book resemble one another. So we need to continue to tell people it's okay to disagree. It's okay to have a different point of view, but it's not okay to take someone else and completely devalue that, because we're all children of God. If we're children of God, then we're expected to act in a certain fashion with dignity and decency. And I hope we narrow the gap."

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Cardinal Dolan, who had been appointed 15 years ago by Pope Benedict XVI to be the tenth and current Archbishop of New York, added to the Rabbi's analogy, imploring people — and politicians — of different beliefs to treat one another with more respect.

"We need to be as passionate and as excited about the issues as we can be, but always to respect the people who hold them."

— Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York

"When the three of us studied preparing for ministry, when we studied debating, when we studied rhetoric, when we studied logic, we learned that the weakest argument was when you go after the person," Dolan told Fox News Digital. "Stick to the principles. Stick to the policies. Stick to the issues. Don't be lashing out. Don't be trying to judge motives or lashing out at the person. We need to be as passionate and as excited about the issues as we can be, but always to respect the people who hold them. And that's what we don't need, these ad-hominem campaigns, and I'm talking about both sides."

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"Wouldn't you guys think that if we had a woman or a man candidate who said, 'I'm going to run a positive campaign. I'm not going to talk about the other person. I will talk about their policies and issues, and I'm not going to talk about myself. I'm going to talk about the issues, and I'm going to talk about what I hope to accomplish — not attack what they say they hope to accomplish," the archbishop posited. "Does that sound naive? I guess maybe it is. But boy, I wish that could be the case."

Archbishop of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan joined Rabbi Joseph Potasnik and Reverend A.R. Bernard at The Sheen Center on Oct. 22, 2024 for a live episode of WBAC's 'The Rev and the Rabbi.' (WBAC / The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture)

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With the election mere days away, the trio concluded their conversations for the evening by reminding their audience, as well as ours, that having hope for the nation's future starts with having faith in your higher power — and that the nature of each requires the other.

"You can't be a person of faith without being a prisoner of hope," Rev. Bernard urged.

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