Pope Leo's long interview, free speech fallout, and Tricia Bruce on synodality

Heidi, Daniel, and David explore what we might learn from the first official interviews with the Holy Father. We then turn to the recent bouts of alleged political violence and the chilling effects on free speech in the public sphere. Then Heidi interviews sociologist Tricia Bruce about the continuing work of synodality in the Church.

INTRO

DAULT: Hello and welcome to the Francis Effect Podcast. My name is David Dolt. I host a radio show called Things Not Seen about Culture and Faith, and I'm an assistant professor of Christian Spirituality at the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University Chicago. I'm here with my dear friends, Heidi Schlumpf and Dan Horan.

Heidi is an award-winning journalist and part-time faculty at Loyola University Chicago. Dan is professor of philosophy, religious studies and theology at St. Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana. He is also affiliated professor of Spirituality at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas.

Every couple of weeks we get together to discuss news and events through a lens of our shared Catholic faith. Dan and Heidi, welcome to you both. Heidi. How have you been?

SCHLUMPF: Well, thank you for asking. It's it's feeling like fall. My class is going well at Loyola University and at my parish Ger in Chicago. We just started. Our gym mass, which takes a break over the summer. And so it was really lovely to have that community come together yesterday and see everybody.

And it reminds me that that's one of the things that keeps me in the church is really great participative liturgy with a very lay involved group. So that was wonderful and I have a number of things going on that I can't. Talk about yet, but that have been very exciting. And so I'll just put that little teaser out there.

But thanks to everybody's who's been praying for me during this career transition, and I hope to have news to share soon. So how about you, Dan?

HORAN: That's really exciting. Uh, I, I'm doing well, so. Sort of situation to the two of you in that the fall is really flying by, it seems. I mean, it doesn't feel like that for us here in the Chicagoland Michiana area where it's been very, very unseasonably warm the last week. But it's hard to believe that.

We're starting week five of the semester here in the tri-campus. My cl my classes are going well, really enjoying you know, the material this semester and the students are great. So, yeah, other than that, plugging along, trying to get a bunch of other projects that need to be finished because of deadline done working on.

Those book projects that David, I know you're quite familiar with the long term, long haul sort of situation. So I, as I always say, for my editors and publishers who may be listening or hear about this, I am working on it. Stay stay calm, stay ready. But other than that life is good and plugging along.

David how are you doing?

DAULT: Doing well over the weekend. Everybody knows it's fall and so that means that all around the Chicago area, there are various kind of fall centric and Halloween centric activities and. We had a sort of fortuitous thing happen. We've had some power outages on our block, and so this past weekend, the power company texted us on Friday and said, we're basically gonna be shutting off your power from seven in the morning till four in the afternoon.

All across the block as we're working on the sort of root. Causes of some of these power fluctuations. And so we had a quick emergency family meeting. Longtime listeners will know that we run our home here as a kind of autonomous Soviet collective where all four of us kind of work together in decision making.

And we decided that we would attempt to go out into the city in a, and try to be human for a day. And so we went to a Halloween popup over on Goose Island, which is a central part of the city over by the river. And it was just utterly fantastic. It was kitschy. It was just a bunch of like, kind of you know how sometimes things work both on a kid level, but also if you're like a an inebriated hedge fund manager, it will also work for you. It was that kind of vibe of like, this is gonna be one thing in the daytime, and then everything that we're seeing is gonna be like boozy adult fund in the, in the evening.

We were there in the daytime and we kind of went through the corn maze. We spent a long time in the corn maze. We spotted things in the corn maze, and my older kid was like, we didn't see everything in the corn maze. So we went back into the corn maze four times and saw literally everything it was.

Awesome. We took selfies with all of the sort of kitschy backgrounds of the various horror movies and things like that. And we just, we exhausted ourselves with fun, and then we all came home and took naps. And that's just, you know, that's delightful. So, a good weekend and now kind of into a very busy week, and I'm very glad to take a little bit of time and talk to the two of you and think about the world that we are in, because right now things are.

There's a lot going on. Listeners today on the show, we are gonna be looking first at the extended interviews that Pope Leo did back in the middle of the summer and sort of talking about what that might indicate for his papacy and for the direction of the church. Over the next few years, we're gonna be looking at the fallout that is coming in the wake of the horrible murder of Charlie Kirk.

And how that is affecting things like free speech as we're kind of thinking about the public sphere. And then in our third segment, I'm very excited for this. Heidi is going to be interviewing Tricia Bruce on Ality. She was one of the people who was at the Cenon Ality back in the past year.

And so very excited to hear that conversation as well. All of that is coming up here on the Francis Effect. Please stay with us.

SEGMENT 1 - Pope Leo’s long interview

HORAN: Welcome back to The Francis Effect. I'm Dan Horan and I'm here with David Dolt and Heidi Schlump. Every couple of weeks we get together to discuss a variety of topics from a perspective informed by our Catholic faith. Earlier this year, Pope Leo the IV, sat for a pair of 90 minute interviews that will form part of a Spanish language biography recently published in Peru. The biography will also be released in various translations in the coming months. These interviews were conducted by journalist Elise Ann Allen of the website, crux, and are the first official interviews of the Leo Papacy. Alan spoke about what it was like to interview the Pope, saying quote, the Robert Prevost I'd had occasion to interact with prior to his election was genuine, deeply sincere, honest and transparent, but also very clear about his ideas.

And despite his calm demeanor, he was not shy or easily intimidated or overwhelmed. That was the exact same person I encountered while interviewing Pope Leo the 14th. From the very first moment after the understandable nerves come for both of us, we settled into a deep and revealing conversation about himself and the most poignant aspects of his life and ministry, unquote.

The interview was wide ranging and offers us a unique glimpse into how both Pope Leo and we might be thinking about the direction of the church in years to come. National Catholic Reporters, Justin McClellan gave an overview of his five key takeaways from the interview, and it might be worth listing three of them here.

As McClellan writes, first, this lengthy interview is a real change from how Robert Privos engaged with the media when he served this prefect of the Dicastery of bishops. Then he kept a low profile. Now in his new role as Pope Leo seems much more willing to be a visible media figure. Second, Pope Leo seems willing to challenge the bishops in the United States, both individually and at the national conference level.

The Pope Leo stated that he will not engage directly in US politics. It seems clear he will follow the lead of the late Pope Francis issuing strong messages from Rome to prompt Episcopal action unquote. And third McClean notes that Pope Leo's vision of the church seems to be quote, forged in ality unquote.

In this sense, the pontiff is signaling that he will continue the vision initiated by Pope Francis. Again, as McClean reports, quote, Leo's Citadel outlook was formed not only during his high profile role at the 2024 Synod Assembly at the Vatican as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, but also earlier in 2022 when he launched the Synod process at the diocesan level as Bishop of Chileo, Peru unquote, David, there is a lot to look at it in this interview. What are some of the parts you think we should be focused on as we begin here?

DAULT: Well, for me, what is really the most. Sort of fascinating and important question is as the first sort of United States Pope. And we've had now, you know, two popes from the Americas, but now this is the first Pope that actually has English as a primary language and has a deep understanding of the politics and the sort of.

Complexities of United States, Catholicism. I wanna be careful about my language here because American Catholicism is all of North America, all of South America, that's all American Catholicism, but not United States Catholicism. And there has been such attention. Over the last couple of decades between the conference of Bishops here in the United States and the papacy in ways of sort of thinking about how Catholicism gets translated.

For a culture that is secular but also not secular because the United States culture is simultaneously founded on these ideas that religion is not sort of central to public life, but everybody gets to do religion in their own way. At the same time, there is a very much a public religion operating here.

And so Catholicism has constantly had to navigate that in a way that is very different from. European contexts very different from Latin American contexts. And so having a pope that has what the Germans would call a fingertip feeling about that is fascinating to me. And so I am trying to look at this interview very carefully and get a sense of how is he not just answering with text, but how is he also using context subtext to help to.

Indicate kind of what to expect. I don't have clear pictures yet and I don't think anybody does. I think that as we have reported before here on the podcast what we're seeing here when when Pope Leo sort of makes. A statement. A lot of different folks from various ideological camps begin to say, aha.

He's talking to us. And I think we're seeing different parts of this interview being pulled out of their wider context and sort of being used for. That kind of affirmation. And I, I'm not saying that in any kind of judgment way. I think we all do that all the time, but it's really interesting to sort of see that in real time with this much information.

This is not just a soundbite that is being taken in translation as it was with Pope Francis, you know, raisins in the cake or whatever, you know. But instead now we have something that is a kind of full. A kind of full text that's going for literally like three hours at this point if we take the reporting seriously of the length of time of the conversation that happened.

So those are my initial thoughts, but I'm very interested in what you two are taking away.

SCHLUMPF: Well, first of all, my kudos to Elise, my colleague, for getting that interview and for sharing it. It the way she did. The book is coming out in Spanish first, so, those of us with English only will have to wait a while. But I'm really appreciative to crux in the way they've shared a lot of information from the interview.

In fact the transcripts of the interview, it is interesting some of the stuff that he said about you know, sort of US politics and I know he was care. He, He's still cautious. I think we can walk away from this interview saying he's still cautious. But he was willing to sit down for three hours and I understand that she told the Washington Post that he did get to look at the.

The manuscript. So, which, you know, NATO as journalists are open to doing so, but that means we can also be sure that what's been shared here is, you know, what he thinks so. So I guess he's still cautious, but he's sharing a lot. And he did say about at least American politics or about Trump that, you know, unlike with Pope Francis, people are not gonna be able to say, well, like, he doesn't get the US context.

So. To me some of the inner church politics topics were very, the most interesting to me. So like the issues of women deacons, the issues of L-G-B-T-Q openness and even some of the things he said about sex abuse. And then to see the reactions, you know, from folks in the US who are dedicated, who have dedicated their lives to these issues.

So, just, I'll just mention them briefly and then. Stan, you can jump in, but like, you know, snap was not survivor's network of those abused by priests was not happy with his comments about sex abuse because although he did express, you know, the requisite, you know. Disappointment in all of this and concern for victims and survivors.

He did mention that he was concerned about false allegations against priests that they do happen and about, you know, kind of priest rights in those situations. Which John Allen had a good column about that. Like he's that's been something that people have been kind of reluctant to say publicly, especially for a pope to say that new ways ministry.

Which ministers to L-G-B-T-Q Catholics was a little disappointed because, you know, on both issues of women's leadership, I guess you could say, and openness to L-G-B-T-Q people, the gist of what he said is we're I'm still, ality is still the way, we're still gonna listen. I'm open. We're not gonna be having changing in church teaching on either of these things or now.

I mean, he used the arb phrase about like, not right now. New Ways Ministry was kind of disappointed with that. The Discerning Deacons folks who I think are often trying to work within church structures and find the positives said they applauded the fact that that Pop Leo is still affirming ality and that they plan to reach out to him and share their stories with him.

'cause he wants to listen. So, I, you know, I think in general. I am also happy to see that A, he was open enough to do the interview, and B, he continues to wanna listen. I think those are like the minimum bars that we can expect from our church in this time. And I'm grateful to see them, but I also understand people who are hoping for more and don't, and we'd like to see it in their lifetimes, you know, or their children's lifetimes.

So that was a lot. Sorry, Dan,

HORAN: It's all

SCHLUMPF: do you think? What do you think?

HORAN: Well. I have a lot of thoughts as well. I think three things maybe to get started from my initial take, you know, the first is very superficial. The other two may be a little bit more substantial. And the superficial thing is something that I think a lot of people, particularly from the US context have commented on, which is in watching some of the video clips that Crux has put out, it is striking to see.

The sitting Pope speak with an American English accent that he's speaking as a native English speaker, and that is just, we've literally never had that before. And so it's really kind of striking and interesting and so it just is. To see him speaking English. 'cause he often, you know, is speaking Italian or occasionally Spanish.

And so, so that is really just something that is new and interesting. Maybe the two substantive things I, I have been thinking about. One is around thought and one is around style. On the thought. You know, Heidi, you mentioned this and he did say, and this has been commented on by journalists and in Crux as well, that, you know, around doctrine, he's reluctant to make any kind of promises. If anything, he seems to have precluded any kind of major doctrinal change or updating. As you rightly said, Heidi, he signaled a kind of for now, I have mixed feelings about that. One aspect that I find a little bit disconcerting is that would've been an opportune time as the kind of primary teacher of the faith to remind.

The church and all of its members that doctrine develops. It's an ongoing living reality. It's something St. John Henry Newman talked about something St. Augustine talked about. This is a staple of it's something John Paul II talked about. I'm just rereading one of his encyclicals actually just this morning for a course that I'm teaching and was reminded that he talks about the development of doctrine, uses that language explicitly so.

You know, I think there's a black and white binary sort of worldview that a lot of Americans in particular bring regardless of what their ideological positioning is to questions of church doctrine. It either never changes or it just changes. And if it's in the latter camp and you're critical of this, then it's an arbitrary thing.

If you're in the former camp, then it's this sort of also. Incorrect view that, you know, church teaching comes down from above in a cloud and propositional form. These things are not real. Doctrine develops and doctrine develops in consultation with and arising from the census alium. And I think maybe in a generous read, that's what Leo was getting at when he talked about attitudes and cultures need to change before doctrine changes.

But that phrasing is actually, I think really problematic from a theological perspective. 'cause it isn't actually about. Cultural changes. It isn't about a fad, it isn't about a majority sort of view or a kind of, you know, polling situation. If that were true, then the church leadership would've changed, you know, human vita a long time ago.

Right. In terms of, you know, the vast majority of Catholics do not have not received the church's teaching artificial birth control, and that hasn't changed. So I don't think that's what he meant, but that is what he said. And so I would just say that I think the cidal element, the church is teaching on census fidelium and the way that the church teaching is received, and then that the bishops then take that which arises back from the people and practice.

And in, in liturgical worship and so forth. I think all that needs to be taken into consideration. And there's more to say there. I think the la the last thing I would say is about style and it's striking also in the transcripts and in, in the videos that have been released and in, you know, the early months of his pontificate that, and I mean this as a compliment, pub Leo is very American.

And what I mean by that is somebody who has worked as a, an appointed theological advisor by Rome for a general chapter of the Franciscan order. Who have worked in Italian contexts as a theologian. I have experienced what Italian cultural dynamics are like and bureaucracy is like, and it is very different from the kind of way that Americans think and operate.

And there are benefits, there are pros and cons, there's cultural differences, but Americans tend to be very strategic, kind of very task oriented, very structural in our thinking. And as a Singaporean brother of mine once explained to me after his many years working in Rome, he said, Italians are all about opera.

It's all about a performance and there's a kind of ongoing fluidity to the dynamism, to the way things. Come together. And that's neither good nor bad. It's just the way it is. But I do think that Pope Francis, who came from Italian heritage and was raised in, you know, Argentina, which is also very, you know, has a lot of expats from Italy and other parts of Central Europe he has this kind of poetic.

Almost Italian demeanor and style. It's very hard. You know, he would say things off the cuff. He would, it would be hard to kind of pinpoint Francis here and there. And I think Leo, we can use the term cautious, but I actually think it's a strategic sort of American task-based way of thinking and behaving in leading.

Again, neither good nor bad. We're all affected by our nations, countries, families of origin, cultures of origin, and I think it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. I think things will be very different when it comes to Pope Leo's leadership in revising things like the Vatican finances, even though Pope Francis had the desire and was calling for this.

Again, these kind of forms of thinking and leadership styles will have different outcomes, so I'm eager to see how that plays out.

DAULT: One thing that I'm hearing in the background of what you're saying is that for all the similarities of Pope Francis and Pope Leo, there may be a distinction or a different. In terms of their theological imagination as they think about the church and what might be possible from these differing backgrounds.

Am I hearing that correctly in what you're saying?

HORAN: Maybe I don't, I think it's a matter of articulation, right? And I think when you had some of Francis' most ardent critics in the United States, oftentimes not people of goodwill, right? I think they were bad faith criticisms. Nevertheless, if I wanted to be generous and say what do they mean when.

Pope Francis is not speaking clearly or adding confusion. I think that could be actually read as a stylistic issue. Right? I'll give another example. Like I said, I've been reading a lot of JP two lately rereading, and one of the things that my students often point out too, when you look at.

Different styles in papal documents. If you're looking at Catholic social teaching, Leo the 13th and the 19th century Pius ii John the 23rd, Paul ii John Paul ii, Pope Francis, they all write very differently. John Paul II is all over the place. He is not a clear thinker. He was an actor, a theater person.

I think he was dramatic in the best sense, and some of his writing style reflects that. It's not well structured, it's not well organized. It's very repetitive. And yet, I mean. The theological claims that are beneath it are good and true and valid. Pope Francis had a very structured way of putting together his exhortations and encyclicals.

Lato Sea is in six chapters, two chapters each that mirror. See Judge Act, it's reflective and builds on the same kind of structural thinking of John the 23rd. Again, very different styles. So I don't know about their theological imagination. I think it might impact some of that. I think we just haven't learned yet how to understand and to make sense and to contextualize somebody who comes from an American cultural background.

And I think that is really significant in a way that I haven't heard a lot of people talk about yet.

DAULT: One other piece on this, coming back to the statement that attitudes have to change first. Every time that I've come across that excerpt from the interview I think about one of my moral touchstones. A man by the name of Miles Horton who helped to found and run the Highlander Folk School later, the Highlander Research and Education Center in Appalachia.

This was a place where civil rights Movement leaders came. It started out as a union training school, but then it became a sort of civil rights center. So, for example Rosa Parks before she refused to give up her seat on the bus, she was at Highlander. Sort of for one of these trainings.

And so one of the things that Miles Horton talked about when he was, before he founded Highlander, when he was A-Y-M-C-A organizer sort of going up and down the eastern seaboard he would have integrated dinners, but he wouldn't tell the participants that they were coming to a dinner where they would be sitting at a table with African Americans and white people all mixed together, which was very much, you know, against the law and against.

The practice at the time, he would just show up and he would seat people at the table. And if they started to complain, he would say, well, then you don't get dinner. And he wouldn't ask them to change their attitudes. He would simply say, you now have the option to make a big scene and ruin dinner.

Or you can just sit down and have a meal. And I would really, like, my desire would be for Pope Leo to take this ladder course to say, we're gonna set the table. And those that, that can't yet sit down and have the meal. If you wanna make a big fuss, you can make a big fuss, but the rest of us, we're just gonna have a good meal and we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna kind of bring together these people that you say don't belong.

And we're gonna invite them to be part of the table too, because this is God's kingdom. I wish that our leadership, both at the Episcopal level and also at the papal level, would take that kind of thing. Saying that you need to adjust attitudes basically means that you're never actually gonna change things.

It just means that you're gonna work on attitudes for the next millennia. And we don't have time for that. People are dying. And so I would like very much for radical hospitality to win, but you know, people don't often listen to me at the leadership levels of the church.

SCHLUMPF: Well, let me just say David, that, sometimes Popes and other leaders surprise us and they're not what we expected them to be, or they're not what they look like at the very beginning of their tenures of leadership. And while this I think somebody looked up and said, like, while this interview does give us quite a bit of more insight into, to Leo, because as provost host, he did not do a ton of public speaking and interviews, and everyone was mining the same quotes over and over during, right after the conclave. You know, it remains to be seen. What kinds of things he'll do not just say. And so, you know, for example, he says. In the interview that he's gonna continue to point to appoint women to leadership positions.

Okay. Let's see. How many and where and how, well, how soon that gets started. He says he's committed to ality and he wants everything to be about ality. Okay. Well, those commissions that were spun off are going to be sending their reports in this fall or this winter, and let's see. What happens with that?

You know, are they gonna be made public or how will the rest of the church interact with that? So, I don't know. I think we all want to understand him. And so, and I'm grateful for this interview because I think it does give us more to chew on, but I think we should also allow for the.

The presence of the Holy Spirit maybe, or also the you know, just the human nature to see what other kinds of things influence him in terms of where he might take his leadership.

HORAN: I just wanna add too, that like everybody has a different role and responsibility in the church. I know this goes without saying, it should go without saying, but you know, I'm thinking, David, you made a really good point about the urgency, right? There's a sense of urgency, particularly around dignity and value of all human life, of, you know, particularly those who are at the margins or especially vulnerable.

And the good news, you know, again, this is not. Fully, it's not exhaustive the information we get from this interview but there are clear affirmations that he's not changing anything. He's not like, there's no whiplash here, in other words. Right. So, you know, trans and other queer folks are welcome and he is gonna continue that.

He's made that clear, he made it clear to Jim Martin, among others. You know, he's reaching out and giving people like Cardinal Burke an opportunity to share his views. That's a little bit, I think of a maybe mediated version of the dinner kind of thing you're describing there when you start putting these folks together.

But I just want to say something as a theologian and David, you might relate to this too, so maybe I'm just talking to us, but maybe to other listeners as well. You know, I think of the good work. Heidi, you mentioned discerning deacons. I think of your good work as a Catholic journalist and people are doing things and continuing to do good work in their domains.

And I think one thing that's worthwhile is that urgency that David you're describing, I think can be. Kind of incorporated into the work of theological research. You know, if it weren't for the work of DeLoach and Ronner and Inger and John Courtney Murray and others who were under at times great scrutiny, just like theologians have been in the last 30, 40 years, depending on the Pope at the time the groundwork would not have been there for the mento and resource Mont of the Second Vatican Council.

And so I think there's, Heidi, you made a really good point. There are really good people who are working in these commissions that were established by the Senate on Ality. But then there is also the other work that can be done in academic research and public discourse and journalism and sharing and conversation and dialogue.

So let's, you know, keep at it. And I think you know, maybe that is a positive way to look at what Leo meant. Maybe it was a throwaway line about attitude changes. Part of that is, you know. Having conversations that may be new to some people, so let's keep having them.

DAULT: Well, listeners, speaking of conversations, I don't think that Pope Leo is gonna sit down at any point for an interview with the Francis Effect, but we will definitely be coming back to these moments when our Holy Father speaks and offers us a glimpse into his thinking and his papacy, and we will do our best to help you navigate.

These complexities as you continue your own journey of faith. We're so glad that you are here with us in these conversations. We're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, we're gonna take up the free speech fallout that has happened in the wake of the horrendous murder of Charlie Kirk. And so all of that is coming up in just a moment on the Francis Effect.

Please stay with us.

SEGMENT 2 - Free speech fallout

DAULT: Welcome back to The Francis Effect. I'm David Dlt and I'm here with Dan Haran and Heidi Schlump. Every couple of weeks we get together to discuss a variety of topics from a perspective informed by our Catholic faith, as most listeners will already know, the right wing political organizer and provocateur.

Charlie Kirk was assassinated on September 10th while, speaking on a university campus in Utah in the nearly two weeks since Kirk's murder. Political rhetoric, particularly from the MAGA movement. Members of the Republican Party, including President Donald Trump, vice President JD Vance, deputy Chief of Staff Steven Miller, among others, have used the tragedy as an occasion to ratchet up anti-democratic rhetoric and scapegoat, the left as singularly violent, and a threat to the nation, despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.

This tonal shift was on full display on Sunday when at Kirk's memorial service in Arizona, politicians departed from the generally non-sectarian and religiously focused. First part of the service in honor of Kirk's life and increasingly disparage their political enemies again, using the tragedy of Kirk's death to justify vilifying their political opponents.

Toward the end of the service, after Kirk's widow, Erica delivered. delivered remarks in remembrance of her late husband, expressed forgiveness to his alleged murderer and called for love over hate. In a paraphrase of Jesus's teaching in the gospels, she said quote, the answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love.

Love for our enemies, and love for those who persecute us unquote. Trump who took the stage after Ms. Kirk was the final speaker and departed sharply from Kirk's widow expressing unapologetically that quote, I hate my opponent and I don't want the best for them, unquote. Trump's remarks and general tone while heightened in this moment, are not surprising given his track record of incendiary rhetoric and penchant for stagecraft to elicit an excited response from his followers.

What has been more surprising is the way several high profile Catholic leaders who have embraced comparable positions with regard to Kirk, his murder and the graphic picture they are presenting without any nuance reflecting Kirk's controversial legacy. Bishop Robert Baron of Winona, Rochester, Minnesota, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, two American pellets who are close to many Republican leaders.

Each spoke of Kirk with glowing enthusiasm and lofty praise. Baron wrote on social media that. Kirk was quote, a kind of apostle of civil discourse unquote, and Dolan Extolled, the late activist on Fox News as quote, A modern day St. Paul unquote, and quote, a missionary. He's an evangelist. He's a hero unquote.

There's much to talk about here, including debates about what the appropriate response to the events of the last two weeks might look like. Dan, why don't you get us started? How are you thinking about the death of Charlie Kirk and everything that has unfolded in the political and popular discourse since?

HORAN: Well, I think, you know, like everybody, I've been really troubled, or I shouldn't say everybody because in fairness, there have been people who. I found it quite abhorrent to have celebrated this murder. That is not something that I support. It's not something I endorse. I saw the news of first Kirk being shot.

The headline that came through once The New York Times confirmed that you know, there was a news alert. On Wednesday afternoon of September 10th, and I had a pit in my stomach because I knew already that this was not gonna be good for anybody. And especially, you know, for somebody who was shot and his family.

And then not long after that, of course, the confirmation came that he died. So, you know. In all sincerity, my, my thoughts and prayers my feelings were oriented toward the tragedy that unfolded. It is deeply disturbing. I find it disturbing when anybody is killed regardless of their views.

And that's something I've made very clear. Over the years and very publicly, sometimes controversially, including when people who have been labeled enemies of the state and that sort of thing have been killed even by military campaigns. I have been on record speaking out against that. And the reason is because, you know, this podcast is about us analyzing and assessing and having conversations about culture and politics.

From a lens informed by our Catholic faith and our Catholic faith makes it very clear that we are consistent ethic of life people. To be pro-life means every life has dignity and value. What has disturbed me in the 12 days as we're recording this, since his death has been the way, as you mentioned David at the outset of this conversation, that his death has been used.

And I find it deeply upsetting and disgusting that his death has been used to justify political violence, including in rhetoric, in threats. The kind of language that's been used has been really disturbing. I think the one shining beacon of hope in contrast to all of that is what I saw in the memorial service on Sunday when Charlie Kirk's widow, Erica Kirk spoke, she was the penultimate speaker.

You know, it's interesting that the widow of the deceased at. The memorial service for her slain husband doesn't actually get top billing, but Donald Trump of course, reserved that right to himself. She nevertheless spoke very movingly. I don't agree with her politics and I don't agree with Charlie Kirk's politics or a lot of the tactics he used in his lifetime in the mission of his own sort of political career.

But I did find her. Her remarks compelling and I found her remarks about forgiving the person who killed her husband. Very moving and deeply Christian. I was disgusted by the President's remarks immediately following in which he kind of foe, apologized to Erica Kirk and said that Actually, no, he does hate his opponent.

And basically what he positioned himself to do in a Christian memorial service after these very moving remarks by you know, an assassinated person's widow was declare very publicly that he himself is not a Christian, that he does not believe what Jesus said after she quoted Jesus in the gospels directly.

He explicitly said so, then apologized. And I think that hasn't been really processed very much. So I'm disturbed by all of that in the background, but in some ways I think it's to be expected and I think some of this is not new. I think the thing that I'm interested in talking about, and I want to hear what both of you are thinking generally, but then also about, this is what you said, David, about.

You know, Bishop Baron, Cardinal Dolan. I found their remarks also very disturbing as well, because it's one thing to honor the life of somebody who maybe you agree with ideologically, and it's clear. Baron and Dolan are Republican kind of activists who move in these circles and are close. You know, the reporting's been very clear and they've not been shy.

Both of them were commenting on Fox News of all places. It's one thing to honor somebody that you admire. It's one thing to talk about the tragedy of a murdered. Victim. It's another thing, as you said, David, to be ha geographical, to start making them into martyrs or saints. And maybe we can talk about that theologically.

We can talk about that culturally. We can talk about that spiritually. There's some real dangerous slippery slopes going on here. And I find that upsetting and may be worth further discussion. But what do you all think?

DAULT: One thing, and this is where my sort of civic sense of the American experiment. End my attempts to be Christian and my attempts to be Catholic, sort of co coalesce when you're engaged in the public sphere, when you are having vigorous disagreements around politics. There is a sense in which there is a hope there, that over time your opponents, those that consider themselves to be your enemies, will be in some ways softened or convinced, and maybe some of the hardness of their heart or the hardness of your heart will attenuate and you will find ways to work together.

To build this common project that we are in when political violence breaks out or when a voice is removed from the public sphere by use of state violence in some way. You're basically saying that we don't believe in that project anymore. And I mean this like. The whole notion of Christian forgiveness is the notion that a person who did something really terrible today might move to a better position tomorrow.

And when violence occurs, you don't give a person the possibility of that growth and that movement, you basically eclipse all of the possibility of repentance and repair. And they are left static in, in maybe their best moment or their worst moment or an intermediate moment.

But either way you've interrupted the possibility of their growth. And that is something that I think from a Christian standpoint and from a civic standpoint, is a tragedy. I want to be able to be in conversation with those in. With whom I'm in profound disagreement. I want to be in conversation as a Christian with those that have declared themselves to be my enemies.

It's not always possible, but that's always the desire. And, you know, that's gonna work better sometimes than others. But I still remain committed to the idea of what Freud called the talking cure. The idea that we can somehow we can somehow move away from animal violence towards something that we might call human discourse.

And those are my initial thoughts. It's just, you know, for me I'm in disagreement with what Kirk stood for. As you said, in a lot of points, I, there are points where I've seen quotations from Kirk, where he was profoundly Christian in his standpoint. I've also seen points where he was profoundly bigoted and profoundly, I would say, kind of lost and confused.

I would imagine that people could mind my own quotations from the last 50 years and find similar sort sorts of things. So, so I'm just, I'm sitting with all of that as I'm thinking about this.

SCHLUMPF: Yeah, David, what you're describing from a Christian perspective also talks about like the Democratic project of our country and how, you know, when I, so I was riding the bus home from a flight when I saw the news about the shooting and. That's was my immediate fear is that I just see our democracy slipping away with, like you said, when we're no longer able to solve things by talking them out, by having free and fair elections when people feel like for some reason, and I guess the assumption that his.

Assassination. His killing was politically motivated, has not even been proven yet. But just because he was this you know, outspoken figure, you have to assume that there was, you know, at least it appears that way when he is killed in a public place. Actually. Speaking in a polarizing way at the moment of his death.

I was shocked as I was by the school shooting that happened that same day and continue to be horrified by the levels of violence, especially gun violence in our country. And you know, I'm grateful that some people on the other side of the aisle who are not concerned about gun violence seem to be concerned when instead of young children being killed and democratic lawmakers being killed, it's somebody they.

Identify with, and let's be honest, a lot of conservative, especially young men who have conservative viewpoints, who haven't felt included in some way in public discourse in the past, really identified with him. So, for him to be a victim of that violence really struck them. And I think in the immediate aftermath of that day, and, you know, 24 hours, 48 hours after that was not the time.

For anybody to be, certainly not celebrating, never is the time for that. But to be raising, well, he was kind of a bad guy and racist or whatever. And I feel like that kind of commentary, you know, immediately sometimes is not helpful either. So like you said, as Catholics and as Christians, we abhor violence against any human life and certainly grieve for all victims of violence.

But the way it quickly pivoted into. An opportunity to attack people on the left was frightening to me as a quasi-public figure myself. And you know, I'm on social media platforms that I know at least you, Dan, have left because they're. Not even accurate representations anymore of what's going on with the amount of bot traffic and everything.

What I saw on Twitter in the immediate aftermath of Kirk's death was frightening. And I had plans, that was on a Wednesday. I had plans to go to an event, not a protest so much, but it was called a Mass and. March, I guess. Up at the Great Lakes Naval base on Saturday that was responding to another, more violence happening in our world, which is violence against undocumented and sometimes documented and legal people in our country by masked armed agents and including in our city, the shooting and killing of a person.

So that was the purpose of that. It was going to be up at the Great Lakes Naval Base, which is connected with both ICE and potentially when Trump was talking about sending the National Guard here. And for a second I thought like, is this smart to go to this protest or this mass because it's a bunch of progressive, you know, religious folks gathering.

And I went and it was safe. But I am saddened that the. Clamping down on free speech such that conservative people like Tucker Carlson and others are expressing concern about what the Trump administration is doing in the aftermath of Kirk Step doing, you know, clamping down on the very free speech that he himself was advocating for, and not even, you know, recognizing the hypocrisy or irony of that.

HORAN: The. Is really disturbing to me, and maybe that's the word I was searching for earlier. Which is like you said, Heidi. Yeah. There were people who were abhorrently celebrating his death or being glib about it, which was dehumanizing and disrespectful, but nearly as quickly, just as quickly you had you know, Republican lawmakers and this is something a lot of reporting has already.

Shown is that the, those who are disrespectful to the life and the occasion of the tragedy of the death of Charlie Kirk tended to be kind of independent actors. These were folks on social media and so forth, but elected democratic officials, or those who'd be considered progressive in the public sphere tended to all be of like mind and heart, which was expressing sympathy, decrying the violence and so forth.

What you see on the right, unfortunately. From the president all the way down has been this consistent, opportunistic kind of deployment of pugilism and violence and vilification. And I think the thing that I haven't seen people name exactly is that this opportunism actually disrespects Kirk just as much.

I think that's what set sit with me so uncomfortably, you know, in, in Trump's remarks at the wake or at the memorial was he couldn't help but make it about himself and his interest and his gripes and his desire for retribution, not about. The tragedy of somebody shot down by gun violence, not, you know, the, yeah I just, and then we have, again the cases of religious leaders who are kind of on, you know, associating with these sorts of views as well.

I don't know what you two think about that. I mean, it's not just Bishop Baron and Cardinal Dolan, though in the Catholic church. They tend to be the highest profile in the us but I'm curious what you're thinking from a religious perspective.

DAULT: Well, I'm thinking that Bishop Baron was in the front row of this event as Steven Miller was there at the Deus saying, you are nothing saying to me. I mean, because he means me and he means people like me, that I am evacuated of all moral consideration that there is nothing worth redeeming.

That is the language that I heard, and I don't know what it means to have a prince of the church visibly there giving one would assume, at least tacit approval. I didn't see, I didn't see him shaking his head. I didn't see him standing up and storming out. I didn't see him shouting and saying, that's not the gospel.

I instead saw him politely sitting there. And so does that mean that Bishop Baron also thinks that I am. Nothing that I am empty. That I am not worth considering or redeeming. One wonders. One wonders. And I mean, I don't want to cast dispersions on bi Bishop Baron particularly, but when you are publicly associating with like, like, so the, I get a lot of invitations to a lot of places where.

The whole draw of this, because I'm a quasi public figure, is you get to sit across the table with the people with whom you disagree. And sometimes there are people, and I don't go to those events because there are people there for whom I do not want to have my character, my reputation associated with this particular viewpoint.

I don't want picture to be taken where someone would say, dot approves of this stuff. Well. Bishop Baron, Bishop Dolan, others sitting in that auditorium, they were giving some kind of tacit approval to Steven Mi Miller, saying not only does he not recognize my moral existence, but one could take the implication that he thinks I don't deserve to exist or that violence done against me to keep me from existing, or people that I love from existing would be legitimate.

SCHLUMPF: Yeah. Well, he did more than sit in the front row. He tweeted, excuse me. Posted on social media about what a wonderful event it was. I would say that the whole, I mean, LA last night I did not watch the whole thing. I watched, you know, I educated myself about it to be able to respond today. But the Christianization of Kirk's death, like you said, Dan, of turning him into this martyr and some epitome of Jesus.

Even on the Catholic side, this some right wing Catholics are, you know, oh, he was wearing a St. Michael's medal and his wife is Catholic. And so they've already said like he was on his way towards conversion to the Catholic faith with no real evidence of any of this. And of course when we go look at his words about Catholicism and about Pope Francis, they weren't kind at all.

DAULT: Called the Pope Marxist. Yeah. Yeah.

SCHLUMPF: doesn't sound like he was on his way to being received into the Catholic Church. But just the c the general Christianization of this sets it up into a black and white us and them kind of thing. And then you see you know, people for whom their Christian faith is important to them deciding, oh, well this must be, you know, the road I need to go down because everybody there is talking about Jesus.

So therefore this represents me as a Christian. You know, when. I'm not doubting the individual faith of people, but these are not people who are following the words of Jesus. Like you said, the His widow. She was quoting things that I think most Christians could agree with. But there's a lot that goes on in Christian organizations that is not very Christlike.

I will say that people who are trying to even further fuse. The Catholic Church with right wing politics were disappointed that the US Bishops Conference did not come out with any sort of official statement about Charlie Kirk and his death, and they were pressuring them. And you know that the leadership of the Bishops Conference right now is not exactly the progressive side of things, so I don't know what that means.

Except to say that it seems like they are being cautious and maybe even aware of how this is being used in ways that aren't beneficial for our country, for our church, for individuals. So, but yeah it's very frightening and it means to me that those of us that see Jesus's message as different from that are. Further marginalized from the church when you have two leaders who are bishops being so public about their kind of fusing over on that side. And it, it sends a message to all those people that we keep talking about who say, this church is, doesn't have a place for me anymore. I can understand why this could be the nail in the coffin for them.

They're like, I'm outta here. So that to me is sad and unfortunate.

HORAN: I think sad and unfortunate are the words that is. Scribe, pretty much everything we've seen unfold around this topic in the last two weeks. Maybe a place for us to wrap up here is to keep in mind and to offer our prayers and solidarity for all those who are victims of gun violence. For Charlie Kirk, for Melissa and Mark Horton, for the victims of school shootings, and especially those we don't often hear that make the headlines, but those who die by suicide from gun violence, the number one cause of gun death in the United States.

So for all those who, our victims of gun violence are under the threat of gun violence in whatever form. You know, we're keeping them in prayer, and we're offering prayer and solidarity for those who mourn their loss and keep their memory. With that, we're gonna take a break and we'll come back with Heidi's interview with sociologist Tricia Bruce, you're listening to the Francis Effect.

SEGMENT 3 - Heidi interviews Tricia Bruce on synodality

SCHLUMPF: Welcome back to The Francis Effect. I'm Heidi Schlump with today's guest, Tricia Bruce, a sociologist who is affiliated with the University of Southern California's Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies, and with the Center for Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. Tricia just finished her term as president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion.

That group held its annual meeting in Chicago this summer, and I was able to attend a special track on the future of the Catholic church. It was very interesting. During those sessions and in Tricia's presidential address, the topic of ality came up repeatedly as something that was providing hope for the church.

Ality, of course, is the consultative process of decision making in the church. That is one of Pope Francis' signature legacies. Last year, Tricia was named as a consult to the Vatican's General Secretary of the Synod, which means she attended the final series of meetings in October, 2024. We're grateful that she's agreed to join us on the podcast to talk about ality the new Pope, and what sociologists are saying about Catholics today. so welcome to the podcast, Tricia.

BRUCE: Wonderful to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation at this great moment to be thinking about these important questions.

SCHLUMPF: Great. So let's jump right in as a consult to the Synod. Last year, I believe you had the chance to meet. Cardinal Robert Prevost, who was eventually elected as Pope Leo the 14th this spring.

Do you have any thoughts on the new Pope as somebody who's met him?

BRUCE: Well, what an amazing opportunity it was to be in that space more generally. And I would say too, there was this sense of surrealness even in that moment recognizing the import. Of Pope Francis bringing us all together in the conversations that we were having, but realizing too that it was ultimately going to be passed along to others and likely to someone else in that room.

So there, there was some conversation and curiosity around who perhaps. From this room might be the next holder to carry that rock of St. Peter. And as it turns out, yes, someone who was at a table category, cat corner to my own and someone from my own home country, which is certainly something that came as a surprise to so many.

Yes. Robert Provost, Cardinal Provost at the time left a wonderful impression on me. In fact, it was quite funny when he was named as Pope, I went back to look through my, looked through my notes that I had scribbled throughout the experience of ality and being in that space. And I even saw a little note that I had left that had his name down and a circle and a star around his name.

And it said I had written I like him. And. And this was really a reaction to hi, both his presence, but also what he shared on the floor. And you know, Pope, now Pope Leo. Really strikes me as someone who is deeply attentive and a listener first, and someone who clearly brings a level of context and understanding that goes beyond a singular place and time.

He has a. A calmness to him that I certainly could tell right away in these more both informal and formal interactions. And he's also an expert. I mean, he's a Canon lawyer, you know, not only was he on the floor of the Senate participating in these large group conversations, but also the small group conversations.

And he was brought in as an expert on a panel that was really trying to dive into some of these more. Specific issues. So he spoke as a panelist, and so, you know, I, I have I had already a deep level of respect for this person and his service and leadership to the church. And now a high level of optimism and enthusiasm because it does seem like he is going to carry not only the experience and knowledge and expertise he has, but also carry forward this legacy and process.

That was introduced through Pope Francis and Ality

SCHLUMPF: Well, that's high praise. A circle and a star. So.

BRUCE: and Scar. Yes.

SCHLUMPF: So, in your address to the sociology of religion leading over the summer, you talked about ality and how it represents Pope Francis' attempt to listen to reality, not just ideas. And I found this really interesting. You said, quote in all the messiness, all the contextual differences, all the disagreements, all the people everywhere.

So why is that significant? Listening to reality, not just ideas and. Can you say a little bit more about that?

BRUCE: You know, as a sociologist, of course, we so often circle in the land of reality, but also the ideas that sort of narrate that reality. And I think sometimes the tempt. Patient. Certainly among well anyone trying to see society as they want it to be is to close our eyes to what is in the interest of what ought to be.

And that's strategic and also. So, you know, helpful sometimes, right? Because we want to have sort of a guidepost and a vision of where we're going, but I think the risk is that we don't first look around and see who we are and what we are and where we are. And so of course I have been really.

Enamored for some time, and by the ways in which Pope Francis has integrated very specifically and articulately in his encyclicals and even on the syn floor, this idea of reality is greater than ideas. You know, we have to see. Who and what is in front of us, no matter how uncomfortable or different or unfamiliar that might be.

That is part of what it means to build, in this case, to build a church together. And of course, the Senate floor was a. A phenomenal example of that. You know, you had people who were bringing great differences from the experience of the church in South Africa, the experience of the church in the Philippines.

The experience of the church as a deacon as someone who has a disability. And we were seeped in those kinds of realities and certainly the, that, you know, even sense of yeah, the messiness, the discomfort. But I really think. That was by design and that was exactly what was intended.

There are of course lots of challenges from that, and sociologists ourselves, we often get in trouble for sharing too much reality. And, you know, don't let's tamp that down. Don't talk about that. But it is in fact that step towards moving forward and I think Pope Francis saw and rec.

That and could see that through reality is how we can actually move towards ideas that can help bring us together and unify and move us in a place that is a good place for the church to be ultimately.

SCHLUMPF: That's interesting to me. So sort of a both and, but you have to figure out the reality first before you can move to the ideas.

BRUCE: Yeah. Well, and I do think that some of the critiques of ality, which are certainly fair, are that it creates almost too much noise and the perception of all realities being equal or this sort of idea of relativism or who's, whose notion of reality is superior to another. And that's certainly an undercurrent to it.

But I think. You know, the, my, my experience of ality and those conversations were really not that it was intended to rank order and prioritize, but in order to really have a better discernment process to be able to see where things ought to be. So they're not necessarily mutually exclusive but that, that can be very uncomfortable.

It can be very uncomfortable.

SCHLUMPF: So you've mentioned that our new Pope has signaled that ality will continue. We don't know exactly. Yet, but what are your hopes for the future with that? Is there anything you'd like to see differently or make sure that continues?

BRUCE: Well, I'm very encouraged and I think all of us who participated in the Senate process and dare I say, drank the Senate Kool-Aid we're energized by Pop Leo even in that first. Moment on the balcony to bring in that word. It is kind of funny because the word itself, of course, is a little bit daunting and unfamiliar and even the notion of it.

So there was a study that was conducted by Pew Research Center a handful of months ago, and one of the questions that they asked was with regard to familiarity of ality among everyday lake Catholics. And this is in the. United States context. But what they found is that 77% of Catholics had heard nothing at all about ality, nothing at all.

So I think it's naive to think that it's through, you know, awareness or proliferation of this word itself, that we're going to see this, you know, permeate through the church. But to me that is not really the. Right metric necessarily. I think what we're looking at is a different kind of process that is one that makes space for different kinds of voices and.

And the inclusion of people and experiences and realities as leaders in the church, and that, that term might be broadly defined here too. Leaders lay people who are very much involved in the ongoings of a parish and a diocese, begin to see what that looks like moving forward. So my hope is that in this.

Implementation phase, these coming years that the church can begin to learn from these tools and this process and this strategy of ality in order to have it integrate into the church more wholly. I don't think that's going to be an easy thing. I will say from my own experience too I have.

I was grateful to be able to participate in some diocesan strategy sessions locally for my diocese. And so there's a, an openness and an eagerness, but also the challenge of how do you translate words like. Co-responsibility or, you know, these sort of the OD language in ways that make sense to people.

And so I think that's where the language and the process is going to need to be translated in ways that feel accessible in order to have a long-term impact.

SCHLUMPF: I've always said there's a bit of a marketing challenge there with that topic of ality. And in my class last night at Loyola, we were talking about Synod and we did a practice Synod list. Session in our class, but I asked my students 34 of them, if any of them had heard of it. Nope. Zero. But they have now.

BRUCE: Yes, they have now. Yeah. Yeah. I think the generational piece is huge too. Because age matters and I've been especially. Curious about some of the efforts to activate the digital space of ality? Because it accesses the church in way and people in the church in ways that I think other spaces don't.

And I, so I, I think that there some, having some energy there will have positive fruit for getting the word out more. And you're teaching Nice. Well done.

SCHLUMPF: Well, and ality is part of the future of the Catholic Church, which was the special topic that we had during that, that meeting this summer with the sociology of religion. I know you were busy as president running around to a lot of different things, but did you have any impressions from that track?

Do you feel optimistic or hopeful after that? Or was it you in general? Sometimes by sharing the reality, sociologists bring us bad news.

BRUCE: So true. But you know, this is a. A fascinating moment to be thinking through these questions. You know, here we have the transition in a papacy and these generational trends as well as trends in decline in religiosity as. Measured, especially by church attendance and the like. And so for a group of sociologists not only sociologists, we also had theologians.

We had people in pastoral spaces and ministry who were part of this conversation really trying to think through what is this? And a number of things I found so fascinating. You know, there was one. A set of presentations actually by the same presenter who described the dynamics of ality as it played out in his home country in Poland, as well as in a separate presentation the story of the ebb and flow of Polish serving parishes in the US context.

And I think those global pieces so what's happening elsewhere, but also how. Migration and immigration and the interconnectedness also becomes a part of the Catholic story. And certainly the church in the United States is a fascinating microcosm of so many different forms of.

Difference by way of national background class background and otherwise. I was also struck, especially by a presentation that looked at how the church state interactions translate in very local governance. So essentially the question of how do local, folks in local governmental positions who are Catholic, think through where religion shows up and how do they make these sort of difficult decisions.

Thinking through maybe a plural list lens that makes room for religion, but not only in, in one way. So in many ways these questions are. Very contemporary, but they're also longstanding. And I think one of the values of disciplines like sociology is that for better and worse, we keep asking the same questions.

And sometimes we get the same answers, but sometimes we get different answers. And I do think in this moment in the climate of the United States as far as what religion looks like, where it's going, what public opinion on politics looks. Looks like we have to be asking those same questions and wondering what happens next.

SCHLUMPF: Yeah, I mean, I. Was a lot of really interesting research shared as well as the other conversations. And I did cover it for Common Wheel and I'm hoping that piece will be out by the time this interview with you airs. But there are, in addition to the ality thing, there are a lot of other interesting things shared as well.

Is there anything else that you're looking at in your research right now that might be of interest to our listeners? I know we've talked before for other publications and you're always researching such interesting things. What are you looking at these days?

BRUCE: Yes. Oh, well, I get excited, excited about so many different kinds of questions. But you know, I've been quite intrigued. In recent years and have done some work, especially through the Villanova Center for Church Management, who has really been asking questions about the material conditions of church.

You know, we have again, thinking about the US context, although it's certainly not solely a us. Condition looking at really big decisions around church property and what happens to church property. So where does church live and what happens to places that have to. Shut down even quite literally materially so deeply curious about those kinds of questions.

Also thinking too about, you know, for example, the pew study that I mentioned that came out recently that I consulted for again, picked up on this thread of cultural Catholicism. So the ways that Catholicism is starting to exist in identities that don't have as. Formal of tethers to the church.

But at the same time, the essentials, especially for those who are you know, who identify as Catholics and who do who are attending mass, we always, I think we, the, those who aren't get more attention than those who do. But the essentials are the same. The belief in Jesus Christ, the attention and care for the poor focus on the Eucharist and the like.

So I think we have to keep asking questions about those who. Who remain and what does that look like to be deeply invested in the church at this moment. And then probably the last thing too that's spent a lot on my mind is, thinking about, you know, sociologists like to think a lot about power and authority in the church and what does that look like?

And as we have a church that is trying to rethink parishes in ways that can be sustained and thrive without a high number of priests, it requires a certain level of creativity. Alongside Fidelity with the, with regard to power and authority. And I think to bring the senate it back, there was lots of conversation in the Senate documents too, around what does it look like to hold responsibility in different ways and how can that be shared?

So those are things too that I'm looking back in my own work in a number of places on that and thinking about more that can be done to, to better understand this moment and what happens next.

SCHLUMPF: Well, thank you so much for all the work that you do and for the work that you did in terms of consulting with this, with the folks at the Senate. We're all looking forward to hearing where Pope Leo's going to take those things in the future and also what some of the context in our United States Church might be.

So we may be speaking again, but for now, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast and being able to speak to our listeners.

BRUCE: Wonderful to be in the conversation. Thank you so much. Id.

SCHLUMPF: You're listening to the Francis Effect.