George Weigel and "The Next Pope"

In this episode, we chat once again with George Weigel, the distinguished senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. He has written a new book, "The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission". We discuss why he wrote the book, who it's for, and how every Christian, not just the Pope, has the responsibility to introduce people to Jesus Christ.

• The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission — Drawing on his personal discussions with John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis, as well as his decades of experience with Catholics from every continent, George Weigel examines the major challenges confronting the Catholic Church and its 1.3 billion believers in the twenty-first century: challenges the next pontificate must address as the Church enters new, uncharted territory. To what is the Holy Spirit calling this Church-in-transition? What are the qualities needed in the man who will lead the Church from the Chair of Saint Peter?
• The Irony of Modern Catholic History: How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform — A richly rendered, deeply learned, and powerfully argued account of two centuries of profound change in the church and the world, The Irony of Modern Catholic History reveals how Catholicism offers twenty-first century essential truths for our survival and flourishing.
• Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II — Witness to Hope is the authoritative biography of one of the singular figures—some might argue the singular figure—of our time. With unprecedented cooperation from John Paul II and the people who knew and worked with him throughout his life, George Weigel offers a groundbreaking portrait of the Pope as a man, a thinker, and a leader whose religious convictions defined a new approach to world politics—and changed the course of history. As even his critics concede, John Paul II occupied a unique place on the world stage and put down intellectual markers that no one could ignore or avoid as humanity entered a new millennium fraught with possibility and danger.
• Theme Song: "I Dunno" by grapes — I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: J Lang, Morusque