Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org.

I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with the 267th Pope elected today, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who has taken

the name of Pope Leo the 14th and is an American, although also a Peruvian citizen, having

spent two decades in Peru as a missionary. Joining us to discuss who this new Pope is and the direction he's likely to take the 1.4 billion Roman Catholics in

is Massimo Fagioli, a professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University.

He's the author of a number of books including Vatican II, The Battle for Meaning,

the Rising Laity, ecclesiatical movement since Vatican II, the liminal papacy of Pope Francis,

and global Catholicism between disruption and encounter. Then with 133 men-only cardinals, having elected the new American Pope, who has been a

cardinal for less than two years, we will get an appraisal of Pope Leo XIV from a woman priest in a church

that is yet to officially ordain women. Joining us is Bishop Jane Veer, who after several years of teaching religious studies at a

Catholic college and university, served as an attorney at county council in San Diego, California,

and as a county attorney with the district attorney's office in San Diego for a combined 26 years.

Jane is a bishop of the region of holy margins and a Roman Catholic woman priest.

Then finally, following the loss of air traffic communications at one of America's busiest airports,

we'll determine whether it is safe to fly now that Musk has gutted the FAA

and the reality TV star Trump has chosen a former reality

TV actor as Secretary of Transportation. We will speak with Jeff Wise, a science journalist

specializing in aviation and psychology, a licensed pilot of gliders and light airplanes.

He has served as an on-camera aviation analyst at CNN, Fox News and MSNBC,

and is the author of The Taking of MH370, and has a new podcast, Finding MH370.com.

Before you begin, for many years now on background briefing, informed guests have warned about a wannabe fascist fronting for a plutocracy out to buy and replace our democracy.

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