Welcome back to the Word on Fire show. I'm Matthew Petrusik, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire show. Thank you for joining us.

Pope Leo the 14th has recently formally declared St. John Henry Newman, who was canonized only in 2019 by Pope Francis, a doctor of the Catholic Church, a recognition given only to 37 other saints in Catholicism's over

2,000-year history. This places Newman among great figures like St. Augustine, St. Gregory

the Great, St. Jerome, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Teresa de Abila, St. Catherine of Siena, and the

little flower, St. Therese of the Sioux. What is the significance of giving St. John Henry

Newman, an Englishman, an Anglican convert to Catholicism, who was born over 200 years ago,

this title? What is it about Newman's approach to communicating the faith that earned him

this great honor? And why now? Equally important, how can contemporary evangelists draw inspiration

from his work to proclaim the gospel in a drastically different world, religiously and morally,

from Newman's 19th century Victorian England? Here to discuss Newman's importance for both the past

and the future of the church and to share how Newman has deeply influenced his

own evangelical work is Bishop Robert Barron.

Bishop, welcome back to the studio.

Matt, always good to be here.

So today we're celebrating, celebrating St. John Henry Newman being named a Doctor of the Church.

It's going to officially take place on November 1st.

A lot to celebrate here.

Before we get into the substance of today's topic, what have you been up to recently?

Well, as we record these words, I'm just back from the Good News Conference down in Orlando,

which is a wonderful gathering sponsored by corporate travel and Word on Fire.

And Jonathan Rumi was there and Father Mike Schmitz was there and many others.

And I said mass and gave a presentation the first night. So that was a lot of fun.

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