Welcome to Mortification of Spin, the casual conversation about things that count.

With Carl Truman, Todd Pruitt, and Amy Bird, Mortification of Spin is a weekly podcast from the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

Let's join this week's conversation. Well, welcome to the mortification of spin. It's a slightly unusual episode today as I'm having to fly solo.

Amy Bird, the housewife theologian, is off pursuing her solo career, speaking

at our friend Chad Vegas' church, and Todd Pruitt's had to drop out at the last minute, claiming

that he's having to respond to a pastoral emergency. So it's just me this week. And we have a very

special guest today, an unusual guest perhaps for our constituency,

but somebody whose voice, I think, is very important for Protestant evangelicals to hear.

I've argued in numerous places over the last couple of years that the future of religious freedom

in the United States, and perhaps the West as a whole

depends to a large extent on the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church.

I think the Roman Catholic Church has a political and social presence today which no other church

has. Even in our secular times, the Roman Catholic Church commands some level of authority in the

public square. And intellectually, she has a depth of social teaching upon which to draw, which is the

envy, I think, of the rest of us. When I look at my bookshelves and I think of the great intellectuals

that have helped me think through many of the issues

currently pressing in on society in the church.

It's names like Robert George, Michael Hanby, Ryan T. Anderson, Tony Esselon, and Rusty Reno.

The latter two have been on the podcast, of course, in the last year.

It's those names that come to mind, and they're all Roman Catholic thinkers.

So the big question, I think, is will the hierarchy hold the key line on key issues?

And intellectually, who are the Roman Catholic intellectuals and thinkers and leaders

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