Pope Leo in Lebanon and Catholics in the Middle East

Jesuitical

America Media

Spirituality, Christianity, News, News Commentary, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 949 Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on “Jesuitical,” Ashley and Zac chat with Daniel Corrou, S.J. Father Corrou is a Jesuit priest from the USA East Province who is currently the regional director of Jesuit Refugee Service Middle East & North Africa. Father Corrou lives and works in Lebanon, where Pope Leo XIV will visit from November 30 to December 2, 2025. Ashley, Zac and Father Corrou talk about: - The significance of Pope Leo choosing Lebanon for one of his first papal visits - Lebanon’s complex socio-political and religious context - How the region has been affected by U.S. foreign aid cuts In Signs of the Times, Ashley and Zac discuss the biggest news to come out of the U.S.C.C.B. fall meeting, held last week in Baltimore: the election of a new president and a “special message” on immigration. In As One Friend Speaks to Another, Ashley and Zac try to find God in a board meeting. Links for further reading: - Support Father Corrou’s work at the Jesuit Refugee Service - Analysis: The U.S. bishops showed their unity on behalf of immigrants—and may have repaired their relationship to Rome - U.S. bishops release rare message on Trump’s immigration crackdown in show of ‘fundamental unity - New USCCB president Coakley talks immigration, Viganò criticism and Pope Leo - Archbishop Coakley, Bishop Flores elected president and vice president of USCCB - Pope Leo backs U.S. bishops in opposing Trump’s immigration crackdown You can follow us on X and on Instagram @jesuiticalshow. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/groups/jesuitical. Please consider supporting Jesuitical by becoming a digital subscriber to America magazine at americamagazine.org/subscribe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Jesuitical, a podcast from America Media for saints and sinners.
0:15.2	You can join us each week for honest conversations about the Catholic Church and our world today, sometimes over drinks. I'm
0:21.5	Ashlyn McKinless, and I'm joined by Zach Davis. It's great to be with you, Ashley, but it would be
0:25.6	even better if those drinks you were talking about. We had one of the new De Pope beers. Yes. Did you
0:32.6	see this? I did. The governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, met Pope Leo today at the Vatican and brought him
0:40.4	de Pope beer, which is made by Burning Bush Brewery in Chicago. Have you ever been? I've not. I've
0:46.3	been to a handful of breweries in Chicago, but this is not one of them. But this, I feel like we have to
0:51.0	get... We have to. Yeah. So, Governor Pritzker, direct to camera. If you're watching this, could you please send us some the Pope beer? That'd be great. Or Pope Leo, if you're watching. If you didn't like your sample of it, you could just send it back over to the States. He did say, put those on the fridge, though. I think he's going to drink him, too. So we got a great show this week, though. That's right. So while we are having Turkey on Thanksgiving, Pope Leo is going to be traveling to Turkey. That's too lame. No, I love that joke. I've been trying to think of other ways to extrapolate from it, but we'll stop there for now. Okay. Yeah. So this is Leo's first foreign
1:28.7	trip as Pope. And so a lot of the focus is going to be on his time in Turkey. He is going to mark
1:34.7	the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. You might have heard of that because of the
1:40.4	Nicene Creed, which originated there. So he's going for ecumenical ceremony to mark that.
1:47.8	But he's also going to Lebanon. Yeah, that's right. And we've talked about NICIA a lot on this show,
1:53.5	and I want to point people again to Inside the Vatican's Deep dive on the Council of Nisive,
1:57.5	because it's just like a great history lesson and sort of it gives us an overview of where we're at in ecumenical dialogue today. But we wanted to focus this episode
2:06.4	this week on the part of the trip that is Lebanon, like you said. Lebanon, I think, is this
2:12.4	fascinating country for a number of reasons, but some of which are particularly interesting to the Pope and to Catholics around the world.
2:20.7	We've got an ancient Christian culture there that exists.
2:24.7	It's a sizable Christian population there that's been there for centuries.
2:29.6	You've got an epicenter, of which there are many, the refugee crisis.
2:33.8	And it's this laboratory of interreligious
2:37.3	flourishing. You've got a number of different religious groups that are trying to live in a
2:42.2	democratic society together. And I think all those reasons make Lebanon for a fascinating topic
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 3 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from America Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of America Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.