I was just telling somebody the other day, I see in some ways, Pope Francis is a gift to the church.

Yep.

A difficult gift at times. The Pope has exerted power. In doing so, he has undermined his authority.

And I will say the McCarrick scandal was probably a big moment for me where I just said,

okay, I can't just act like things are okay here anymore because it's so

obvious they're not. I'm also one to say that that made me realize that the way JP2, God love him,

the way he managed to church at times. And then frankly, Benedict, resigning, it still hurts me

this day because I felt like it's my father just saying, see ya, kids,

I'm out. I honestly think it's very painful, but it's also very healthy. The Pope, he's a celebrity,

so he has authority. No, he has authority given to him by Jesus, but it's limited to these

particulars, not to, okay, he thinks this about climate change, therefore we have to think that

about climate change. That's not, that's not how Catholicism works.

Welcome back to Loopcast. Today I am joined by Eric Sammons.

Eric is the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine.

I'm sure many of our listeners are familiar with your work over there.

Crisis is America's leading source for Catholic perspectives on religion, politics, and culture.

You know, as a loop editor here, I might have to say second, second most leading source, but that's okay.

We can argue about that later.

A little enter-nestine conflict going on.

We have our wrestling contest.

Yeah, right.

He's also the host of Crisis Point, which, again, hopefully many of you listen to a weekly

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