Just like the old joke: a priest, a priest and a rabbi entering a bar.

Except it wasn’t a bar that the religious power trio broke into last Tuesday. happened Sheen Center for Thought and Culture It’s on New York City’s famous Bleecker Street – but as the name suggests, it’s especially gloomy About what Rev. AR Bernard, Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan are researching before an eager audience ahead of the 2024 Election.

Although faith in a general decline — as fewer and fewer Americans declare themselves to be members of any religion — Bernard, Potasnik, and honored guest Dolan, Archdiocese of New York, were invited to the Sheen Center stage to watch live on Sunday morning WABC Radio talk and debate about the current state of religion and politics.

Two topics that most people actively try to avoid.

“Getting by is a lot easier than we think,” Sheen Center Executive Director MaryLou Pagano said as she introduced the gathering of religious minds. “They really care about interfaith events. Being different but getting along well. And there’s no better time than now.”

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This is the involvement that this enthusiastic trio embodies, not only with the invitation from Sheen, on whose board they sit, but also with the invitation they extend to people of all faiths.

Or perhaps more appropriately, having no belief at all.

October 22, 2024 — Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, and Reverend AR Bernard embrace each other at the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture ahead of the 2024 Presidential Election.

“I think we have a crisis here,” Rabbi Postanik said, addressing the decline of religion in America, especially among younger generations. “But we have an opportunity. Many of these young people do not enter the front door of the house of worship, but they walk toward the food pantry. They will do something to help others. And they will say, ‘I’m not religious, I’m spiritual.’ “We are trying to tell them, ‘What you call spiritual, we call religious.'”

“At the end of the day, it’s not what you say but what you do that matters, because faith is measured by behavior.”

— Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, who preaches with the motto “We do not force, we suggest”

“When you feed the hungry, help the poor, and do something to rehabilitate someone else, it is a religious act,” Potasnik explained. “At the end of the day, it’s not what you say but what you do that matters, because faith 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. causes great stress and anxiety For many, if not most, Americans.

“Jesus’ message transcended the political landscape of his time, and it transcended the political landscape of our time,” said Pastor Bernard of the Christian Cultural Center. “The truth is that we live in this world and are affected by policies, systems, structures and practices. We need to respond. We respond by voting. When we think about voting, we are actually giving power to someone. We should take this very seriously and so on to make decisions about our quality of life and the future of our nation.” We must imagine a nation. Consistent with our fundamental principles of human dignity and the common good.”

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Rabbi Potasnik, who serves as Vice President of the New York Board of Rabbis, compared the current division in the country to the difference in story between a book and a movie adaptation.

“We are called people of the book. I think the sad part is that today the movie is different from the book. It almost contradicts the book. In our places of worship, we talk about respect. We talk about togetherness, unity, cooperation, cooperation, communication, all of these. But when you go outside the place of worship, you see a completely different world.”

“We’re polarized. We just disagree with each other. We put each other down,” he continued. “I guess our problem is, movie and book are similar to each other. So we have to keep telling people that it’s okay to disagree. It’s okay to have a different perspective, but it’s not okay to take another person and completely devalue that because we are all children of God. If we are God’s children, then we are expected to behave in a certain way with dignity and integrity. And hopefully we can narrow the gap.”

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Cardinal Dolan, appointed 15 years ago by Pope Benedict XVI as the tenth and current Archbishop of New York, added to the Rabbi’s analogy: And Politicians with different beliefs should treat each other with more respect.

“We should be as passionate and excited about the issues as we can, but we should always respect the people who advocate for them.”

— Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York

“When the three of us were doing ministry preparation training, when we were doing debate training, when we were training in rhetoric, when we were studying logic, we learned that the weakest argument is when you go after the person,” Dolan told Fox News Digital. he said. “Stick to the principles. Stick to the policies. Stick to the issues. Don’t be aggressive. Don’t try to judge the motives or lash out at the person. We need to be just as passionate and excited about the issues as we can, but always respect the people who have them and that’s our name.” We don’t need hominem campaigns, and I’m talking from both sides.”

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“Do you think if we had a male or female candidate, you’d say, ‘I’m going to run a positive campaign. I’m not going to talk about the other person. I’m going to talk about their politics and policies?’ I’m going to talk about the issues and I’m not going to talk about myself and I’m going to talk about the things that I hope to accomplish.” Negative The archbishop said they would attack what they said they hoped to achieve. “Does that sound naive? I guess maybe it is. But boy, I wish that were the case.”

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, joins Rabbi Joseph Potasnik and Reverend AR Bernard at The Sheen Center on October 22, 2024, for a live episode of WBAC’s “The Rev and the Rabbi.” (WBAC / Sheen Center for Thought and Culture)

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With just a few days left until the election, the trio concluded their evening conversation by reminding both their audience and our audience that having hope for the nation’s future begins with believing in one’s own supreme power, and that the nature of each requires the other. .

“You cannot be a man of faith without being a prisoner of hope,” insisted Father Bernard.

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