#12524 The First American Pope, Faith Revival and More | End of Year Show - Edgar Lujano

Catholic Answers Live

Catholic Answers

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Cy Kellett, Edgar Lujano, and Todd Aglialoro examine the defining Church and cultural developments of 2025, beginning with the historic election of Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, following the death of Pope Francis. They also discuss why the Church’s vast charitable work is so often overlooked, the surprising rise of Christianity among young people, and debates surrounding a potential Person of the Year. The episode closes with a sobering look at growing threats to religious freedom in the West and the rapid expansion of euthanasia and assisted suicide as one of the most urgent moral crises facing society.

Questions Covered:

03:30 – The election of Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, following the death of Pope Francis
29:30 – The Church’s charitable work remains massively underreported
36:00 – The rise of Christianity among the young
45:15 – Person of the Year Discussion
49:13 – Threats to religious freedom in Western countries
51:34 – The rapid spread of euthanasia and assisted suicide, perhaps the most urgent moral crisis Catholics are not talking about enough.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Buying or selling your home, real estate for life can connect you with a pro-life real estate agent.
0:05.2	When Real Estate for Life receives a referral fee, they donate 65% to Catholic Answers.
0:11.5	Learn more at realestateforlife.org. Welcome back, Catholic dances live.
0:32.6	All right, we're getting to the, we're doing our year and we do two years.
0:36.2	No, we don't do two years in review.
0:38.9	We do the year and review twice.
0:41.0	We do the penultimate year in review where we talk about some stories that maybe we'll talk
0:46.6	about tomorrow as well, and then we do the ultimate year in review.
0:49.7	So we spend two days.
0:51.1	We used to divide it up more neatly between we do secular stories one day and church
0:54.9	stories the other day. And that's just not as much fun. So we're just doing a couple of year
0:59.6	in review shows. They won't overlap perfectly. But here with me as Edgar, how do you say
1:08.8	your last name? Lujano. Lujano.
1:28.6	Okay. And you want to be more... Have I been pronouncing it wrong? Edgar Lujano? Actually, if you want to be more specific, it's actually Edgar Lujano. Okay. Edgardo Lujano. Specific or pretentious, which is... If I'm in Mexico, correct. If I'm in the States, pretentious. All right. So I won't mess with people's names.
1:45.2	Also with us is Todd Golden Garlic, the head of publishing here at Catholic Answers. Welcome. Head of garlic. Wouldn't that be a great job? There aren't people in this state who probably have the job title, Head of Garlic, because you know up there in... Garlic Zarr. Yeah, the Garlic Zarar because they have the garlic festival gilroy gilroy the gilroy garland festival yeah i grew up near gilroy
1:49.6	have you ever been to the garlic festival i've never been to the garlic festival it looks like fun
1:53.9	garlic man i am the town i grew up and we did the almond blossom festival oh that's very nice
1:59.4	yeah they got strawberry festivals up there they everybody's got some kind of thing stockton has the almond blossom festival. Oh, that's very nice. They got strawberry festivals up there.
2:01.5	Everybody's got some kind of things.
2:02.9	Stockton has the Asparagus Festival.
2:04.9	Just do not go there at night because you will get shot.
2:10.9	Well, you've really talked me out.
	...

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