Robert Luna
Appearances
Global News Podcast
Negotiators close to securing Gaza ceasefire deal - White House
The debris still smoulders. Thousands of damaged acres are still untouched by recovery teams. Today, roadblocks and patrols by the National Guard have visibly increased, and there have now been more than 60 arrests in evacuated areas, mainly for looting and burglary. A number of people are still missing, and teams with search dogs are going house to house looking for human remains.
Global News Podcast
Negotiators close to securing Gaza ceasefire deal - White House
Robert Luna is the LA County Sheriff.
Global News Podcast
Negotiators close to securing Gaza ceasefire deal - White House
Around 92,000 people are still under evacuation orders. The largest fire in Pacific Palisades is still only 14% contained. And strong winds are forecast over the next two days, once again increasing the fire risk.
Global News Podcast
US senators question Robert F Kennedy Jr at heated confirmation hearing
I didn't say it was deliberately targeted. I just quoted an NIH study that showed that... I'll take that as yes.
Global News Podcast
US senators question Robert F Kennedy Jr at heated confirmation hearing
I probably did say that. Did you say that?
Global News Podcast
US senators question Robert F Kennedy Jr at heated confirmation hearing
News reports have claimed that I'm anti-vaccine or anti-industry. I am neither. I am pro-safety. I am pro-safety. I worked for years to raise awareness about the mercury and toxic chemicals in fish, and nobody called me anti-fish. And I believe that vaccines play a critical role in healthcare. All of my kids are vaccinated. I've written many books on vaccines.
Global News Podcast
US senators question Robert F Kennedy Jr at heated confirmation hearing
My first book in 2014, the first line of it is, I am not anti-vaccine, and the last line is, I am not anti-vaccine.
Global News Podcast
Night-time curfew imposed in fire-hit areas of Los Angeles
You cannot be in these affected areas. If you are, you are subject to arrest. That is important. We're not doing this to inconvenience anybody. We're doing it to protect the structures, the houses that people have left because we ordered them to leave. And I want them to feel confident that we are doing everything we can to secure that.
Global News Podcast
Zelensky offers exchange of North Korean soldiers
When I was out there in the Malibu area, I saw a gentleman that looked like a firefighter, and I asked him if he was okay because he was sitting down. I didn't realize we had him in handcuffs. We were turning him over to LAPD because he was dressed like a fireman, and he was not. He just got caught burglarizing a home.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Could I maybe suggest, in some ways, the climax of the New Testament revelation is the claim that God is love. I like the way you set that up. If power and hedonism are absolute values, then we're in serious trouble. Put love above both of them. Now power is directed by love. And what's love but to will the good of the other?
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
So the sacrificial narrative of the cross fits under that heading as well. But if the ultimate reality is love, then we can find a place for all these subordinate values. if we get rid of love as a supreme value, then we have the serious problem of power unleashed, or hedonism for its own sake. So I think that's the trajectory toward which the entire New Testament is going.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
That God's name is being in the Old Testament. I am who I am. And Christian theology recognizes that as a supremely high name of God, but higher still is the claim that God is love. And in fact, the Trinity comes from that. You know, if God is love in his own most nature, there must be lover, beloved, and love shared.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
So I might suggest that's where the New Testament is going, is love is the supreme value, the supreme reality.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
That's the great expression of love. Right.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
One thing I would say in response to your question is the logos being talked about here is the interior word of the Father. So the word of creation is more of a word that goes out. But within the Godhead itself, there's an interior word. The Father has an imago of himself that we call the Son. The Father and Son fall in love with each other. The mutual love is the Holy Spirit.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
So we would see from the beginning, this very text, there's a Trinitarian overtone. But it's the Word that, in a way, precedes the Word of creation. It's interior to God Himself. So the Word was God, as it says.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Why did I jump in? I completely agree with what you're saying. And you're very close to Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI. He said, Trinitarian doctrine turned upside down the classical view. It said substance is primordial, relationship is accidental, just the opposite. Ultimate reality is a relationship, hence the importance of in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
And take the next step, Aquinas says this. that a creature is, he says, , it's a kind of relationship to the Creator. It has to be. If it's coming into being every moment from nothing, the creature is a relationship. Then I'd link it to Jesus' ethical teaching. Why do you love even your enemies?
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Because it's not so much substance against substance, but all of us are, whether we like it or not, connected to each other through God. So I think that's really an absolutely right intuition. And it's the metaphysics of this opening line.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Jordan, thank you. I'm Robert Barron. I'm the bishop of the Winona Rochester Diocese, which is basically southern Minnesota. I'm also the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, which is an evangelical So I'm here as a believing Christian, as an evangelist, and I think there's saving power in these great texts.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
The other thing you need is that the world is not God. So the world has to be intelligible for science to get off the ground, but also it can't be God. If it's God, you're going to worship it or you'll keep it at a distance. If it's not God, you know you can experiment, you're going to analyze and so on. And both those are contained here. It's radically intelligible and it's not God.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
It's been made by God. I think those two things have got to be in place for the sciences to emerge.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
But I'm also here as someone interested in the cultural impact right now of the scriptures. I think it's fascinating, you played a role in this, that there's been a revival of interest in the Bible. And a lot of my ministry is directed toward the nuns, the N-O-N-E-S, those who have no religion. But many of them are fascinated by the Bible. So I'm eager to hear everyone's perspective.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
And I'm here partially to, you know, try to unlock some of the power of this text for those who have been alienated from religion for different reasons. But just delighted to be part of it.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
And it's layered, like it's layered in all these different ways. Can I just add something to that? Because that's, I think, the right framework. And I'd add the temple perspective, the very fact he's introduced as the son of a temple priest, his mother's from a priestly clan. So the question is, why isn't John the Baptist in the temple?
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
And part of what I think is there's a really pronouncing of judgment on the temple. He's proposing a kind of new temple out in the desert, a new washing. There are people seeking forgiveness of sins, not in the temple, but from him. And then his announcement in the Gospel of John when Jesus comes is, behold the Lamb of God.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Part of the Messianic expectation was the renewal of the temple, right? So he would gather the nations, he would reign as Lord, and he would renew the temple. So I think it's the beginning of a temple renewal program. And then when Jesus comes, he goes, well, here's the Lamb of God. Here's the one who's meant to be sacrificed in the true temple.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Then, of course, Jesus picks that up with, you know, I will tear this place down in three days, rebuild it, referring to the temple of his body. So I think that's the liminal thing, too. He's the end of the old temple, the beginning of the new, right?
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Well, he does, he says he does it. Can I try to answer John's question about baptism? I think it draws a lot of the themes together. Our sins are forgiven in the cross of Jesus. They're forgiven in that great act. And when the soldier pierces a side, out comes blood and water. And the church fathers read that as the blood of the Eucharist, but the water of baptism.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
And they further linked it to Ezekiel's great prophecy that, you know, the Shekinah of the Lord had left the temple and it'll come back someday. And when it does, that's when water flows forth from its side for the renewal of the world and of the human heart and all that. And I think that's how they read it, is from the side of the renewed temple.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
So when John the Baptist, this priestly figure, says, behold, there's the Lamb of God, there's the one who will be sacrificed, and whose very body is the new temple, that's what the baptismal water symbolizes. It's the water coming from the redemptive act of Christ on the cross. I bring all those themes together.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
When that's the scandal of it, so from the beginning, And even scholars today recognize that the fact that it's in the Gospels is scandalous. Why would Jesus, the Son of God, have to seek a baptism of repentance? So the fact that it's there means that, boy, this really happened. It's one of the stronger arguments.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
He's the icon of the invisible God. Now, what's going on inside his own psychology, his own human psychology, is a famously, you know, controverted issue. He grows in wisdom and understanding. Right, it says that.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
So I think that's really fine to say that in his human nature, to use more technical language, sure, he grows.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
go into the desert and encounter satan and begin his ministry as a concept well in its human nature and i think that's part of the baptism is the identification with the sinner so he stands shoulder to shoulder with sinners in the muddy waters of the jordan and anyone walking by would say oh there's another one of those sinners but that's anticipating the cross that's right becomes sin on the cross and that also explains the question of why do we need john the baptist because
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
I agree. I mean, one of the earliest fights the church had was against Marcion. That's right. So the Marcionite heresy that tried to divide the New Testament from the Old. And the church, by a very deep and correct instinct, led by St. Irenaeus, said, no, you cannot understand Jesus apart from the Old Testament. So that's a very bad instinct to say, just read the gospel, you'll be fine.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
You won't get the gospel apart from the Old Testament.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
When people say, oh, the God of the Old Testament, cruel and violent and all that. I love the God of the New Testament. That's a neo-Marcionism. And the church has got to stand against that just as clearly today.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
As she brings the presence of the God of Israel back into the temple, fulfilling Ezekiel.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
So partly what you're saying.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
That's very important. To me what's so beautiful in that story, many things, but Mary's the new Eve. So another Old Testament reference where Eve grasps the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I'm going to grab this for myself and make it my own. Mary, the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
And that allows the divine to flow through her in this powerful way. So that's the way the church fathers read it. Sure. She's not putting herself at the center of creation. And the Latin writers, right, the Latin writers love doing the Ave of the angel, you know, Hail Mary, reverses the Eva of Eve. And it's just a beautiful motif of how the divine flows through. The lack of pride. Right.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Because he's the son of Julius Caesar.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
I think it's a formula that in some ways sums up the whole Bible. You know, glory to God in the highest and peace among us. That's how it works. When you give glory to something other than God, then violence breaks out and division breaks out. But if you really give glory to the sumum bonum appropriately, then peace will obtain among us. So the angelic message is that's the whole Bible.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
It's the whole Bible. That's for sure.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
So Jacob's Ladder. But what is the Greek again for the, we say host or we say company of angels, but it's like something with army, like stratios.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Yeah, and I find it so fascinating. So Caesar can dominate the world because he's got this big human army, but in fact the baby king has the real army. It's an angelic army of these fearsome supernatural realities. So who's going to win this battle? The baby king's going to win.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
It's deeply Israelite that Israel is chosen, but not for their own sake, but chosen for the sake of the nations. To your earlier point, I mean, ultimately... the whole world's come to Torah. Well, you find it in the Psalms, you find it in Isaiah. From a Christian standpoint, here's the beginning of it. As Christ comes, the other nations get interested right away.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-09-2025 6PM EST
If you are in one of these areas and you do not belong there, you are going to be subject to arrest. I hope that is as clear as I can make it.