Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Audio: Sirico on Pope Francis, the Media, and the Future of The Catholic Church
Audio: Sirico on Pope Francis, the Media, and the Future of The Catholic Church
Mar 15, 2026 9:42 AM

Last week, the first major interview with Pope Francis was released to the world via a number of Jesuit journals; you can read the interview for yourself at America Magazine. As usually happens, major media outlets reported on the interview, often putting their own spin on it (the New York Times provides an example of this type of coverage here).

This morning, Frank Beckmann of Detroit, Michigan’s WJR Radiocalled upon Acton President Rev. Robert A. Sirico to discuss what the popereally said, and how Pope Francis’ thinking will shape how the Catholic Church addresses the big issues of our time. You can listen to the interview via the audio player below.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Markets and Their Importance to the Electorate
I have argued for many years now that free markets are intrinsically good. I have tried to engage this issue with Christians but many are either not interested or do not see any importance in the pursuit. I know markets can e bad masters when people lack virtue. I also know that the alternatives to free markets have littered the twentieth century with more death than any single cause in human history. (Think socialism, fascism and Marxism.) And representative democracy,...
Global Warming Consensus Alert
Today brings disturbing news of new consensus that seems to be developing: Modern women want men who are keen on recycling rather than good at making wisecracks, a survey said. The poll for men’s magazine Nuts said going green is now the main way to a woman’s heart, with a “good sense of ing in second. Oh great – a clean, tidy, and humorless future. Thanks, ladies. Thanks a lot. ...
‘Coerced, Perfunctory, and Unreflective Patriotism’
Here’s the text of a letter sent this morning to the editor at Woman’s Day magazine (don’t ask why I was reading Woman’s Day. I read whatever happens to be sitting in the rack next to mode): Paula mentary on the Pledge of Allegiance (“Pledging Allegiance,” September 1, 2007) sounds incredibly McCarthy-esque. Are we to now believe that having qualms about mandatory recitation of the Pledge constitutes an un-American activity? Spencer dismisses the many reasons that one might object to...
Our Counter-Majoritarian Constitution
In his review of Sanford Levinson’s Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It) in the Claremont Review of Books, Randy Barnett highlights some of the same features of the US political structure as particularly unique that Lord Acton emphasized. In conclusion Barnett writes of our Constitution: It is counter-majoritarian by design. Precisely because the founders feared majoritarian fecklessness and abuse, they inserted the veto points to which Levinson objects. Most people...
Economics and Happiness
Chuck Colson locates the perennial problem of human unhappiness with the inability to perceive where happiness es from. There’s the economic argument that while “increased prosperity can’t make you happy, it can, ironically, contribute to unhappiness,” an argument which Colson says, “doesn’t tell us anything about what makes people happy in the first place. Thus, it can’t tell us why increased prosperity doesn’t translate into increased happiness.” As I’ve noted before, the economic argument is helpful for locating a source...
Bulgaria embraces flat tax and freedom
The speaker for the Seventeenth Acton Institute Annual Dinner is former Estonian Prime Minister, Dr. Mart Laar. One of the economic reforms Laar implemented in Estonia was a flat tax. After what was described as a brilliant economic turnaround, other countries have followed Estonia’s lead on flat tax policies and free market policies in general. Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Romania, and Macedonia also have flat taxes for e. The country of Bulgaria is now introducing a flat tax rate...
Romney’s Religion
Michael Gerson’s “What Matters About Romney’s Religion” in today’s Washington Post: There is a long tradition of American leaders who believe that religion is so personal it shouldn’t even affect their private lives. But this rigid separation between religious conviction and public policy lies outside the main current of American history. Abraham Lincoln’s theology, while hardly orthodox, was not his “own private affair.” “Nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness,” he asserted, “was sent into the world to be...
Bucer, “The Sixth Law: Poor Relief”
Readings in Social Ethics: Martin Bucer, De Regno Christi (selections), in Melanchthon and Bucer, Book II, Chapter XIV, “The Sixth Law: Poor Relief,” pp. 306-15. References below are to page number. Giving aid to the needy in the church is a manifestation of an attribute of the church, for “without it there can be no munion of saints” (307).What the church and its representatives are and are not responsible for: “First, they [deacons] should investigate how many really indigent persons...
Acton Media Update
Dr. Jay Richards made an appearance on the Steve Deace show yesterday on central Iowa’s 50,000 watt blowtorch of a radio station, WHO in Des Moines. The topic of conversation was climate change, and you can listen to the interview by clicking right here (3.2 mb mp3 file). More: Jay also put in an appearance on Knucklehead Radio today on the same topic. You can listen to that one right here (2.5 mb mp3 file). ...
Time Magazine Gets It Wrong: Boys Are Still In Crisis And Securing An Immoral Marketplace
The boy crisis is not a myth. David Von Drehle’s article, “The Myth About Boys,” in this week’s Time Magazine argues that the boy crisis of the 1990s has leveled off and is now improving. Not exactly. This assessment, however, pletely dependent on one’s moral framework. Boys are still in crisis, regardless of what feminists and other women, like some published in the Washington Post, are saying. It’s a crisis of morality. The ongoing crisis will have dire consequences because...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved