a. good crowd down here today, and joining us on our set is george weigel who is the author of in this book -- he's the author of several books, but this is his most recent, "evangelical catholicism." mr. weigel, what is evangelical catholicism? >> guest: it's a catholicism that's being born in the 21st century out of the 125-year reform history -- reform period in the history of the church. it was given, i think, a definitive form by pope john paul ii and pope benedict vxi. in pope francis you're seeing an expression of this new missionary thrust in the church, a church that no longer can count on the culture to make its proposal for it. it has to make its proposal on its own. >> host: what does that mean? >> guest: it means that the culture in which i grew up 55 years ago in baltimore helped transmit the thing. that is not the case anymore.

you can't walk through any mall in suburban and not have -- washington and not have christian convictions assaulted. so the church has had to rediscover what its essence always has been. it's a missionary enterprise. and that mission begins inside the church with the further conversion of the people of the church, and it extends outside the church, as pope benedict vxi put it, by offering people the possibility of a friendship with jesus christ. >> host: but where does the word -- somebody thinks of evangelical, they think of -- >> guest: protestant. >> host: they think of protestant, but they also think of maybe a little more fervent. >> guest: yeah. well, there's nothing wrong with fervor. the word evangelical, obviously, comes from the word for gospel. but talk about gospel-fettered catholicism is really to talk about catholicism. the popes of the past 35 years

have used the term the new e advantagization, a new rediscovery of the church's missionary energy in the church's third millennia. i thought it would make a bit more sense and, frankly, be a bit more provocative rather than use the phrase the catholicism of the new e advantage lization, just say evangelical catholicism. that gets people's attention. >> host: george weigel, what do you think of pope francis so far? >> guest: i had the pleasure of meeting then-cardinal in buenos aires months ago. in the past six months, it's about what i expected. a genuine man of god, a real christian disciple. he has a marvelous ability to touch the hearts of the people who see him and hear him. and i think he's given a

positive thrust to the truce of catholic faith of which he is the custodian. i was interested when i was in buenos aires with him in may of 2012 to hear him say how little he liked to go to rome. so now he's living there. this is a man who's got a new job and took it as a sacrifice. but he's also a man of real christian confidence and joy, and i think that's coming through. >> host: in your view, has the church concentrated too much on gay marriage, abortion, some of the social issues that have been brought up? >> guest: i think these are terribly important issues. what we perhaps need to learn to do better is to articulate the yes to human dignity as we understand it through the gospel , to right relationships among human beings as we understand through the gospel for moral reasons, to articulate

the yes before we say the no that we sometimes have to say. and i think that's what this pope is calling us to. the other interesting phrase, it seemed to me, in that interview that was released is when he referred to the church as a field hospital after -- so as i put in an article that i wrote about this on national review online, i think it's still up there, you don't have to ask yourself what's the battlefield. and i think he thinks the battlefield is western culture, that there are an awful lot of walking wounded in the western world, people who have been betrayed by false promises of happiness. they may be somewhat 'em bittered. who are carrying burdens of guilt that they don't know how to deal with. and if the church can offer the mercy of god, friendship with

jesus christ, to those walking wounded, it's going to be doing exactly what it ought to be doing. >> host: 202 is the area code, 585-3890 if you'd like to participate in our conversation in the eastern and central time zone, 202-585-3891 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones. george weigel, you've studied and written about the catholic church for a long, long time. in all these interviews and articles about pope francis, it always comes up that he's trying to, quote-unquote, cut through the bureaucracy, change the bureaucracy. is there a big bureaucracy in rome, and has it become tilted? >> guest: it's remarkably small, actually. i think people have these da vinci code images of this vast, pentagon-like structure. 3,000 people work at the vatican. about 40 of them actually have something to do with what we would call policy in government.

so many that sense it's -- in that sense, it's not too big. what it is, is disorganized, it reflects a certain cultural bias given where it is. nothing gets done in a hurry. the communications are not adequate to the 21st century. and this pope was elected in part to straighten that out, and i think he's going to do that. when i mentioned a moment ago that he said he didn't really like to go to rome when he was the archbishop, i think what he meant was that it's just awfully difficult to deal with. and it shouldn't be that way. this should be a lean, mean, effective communications-savvy operation. and if over the next five or six years ec begin to gradually -- he can begin to gradually nudge the apparatus in that direction,

an apparatus in which i have to say there are some very, talented people working whose efforts are often frustrated by the culture in which they work, then the pope will have done exactly what he was elected to do. >> host: mike from florida, good afternoon. you're on the air with george weigel, author of this book, "evangelical catholicism." please go ahead. >> caller: i grew up a catholic, and years ago you knew the, he came to your house. today it seems they're more interested in protocol, all sorts of stuff exempt the parishioner and in jesus' teachings. i mean, if you look at when the nuns taught me and they were great for discipline, but they also told me what love was. today i don't see any of that.

i see a lot of anger and hate, and we're kind of -- what kind of uniform i've got on or you've got to dress -- it's not the same. and i think jesus was a working guy, not a cardinal or something. >> host: thank you, sir. george wieg with l? >> guest: i'm not sure what the question was -- >> host: i think it was just comments. >> guest: yeah. i think if our friend would get out and see the lives of catholic parishes in his neighborhood today, he will find priests, religious sisters and now lay people be large numbers take -- in large numbers taking responsibility for the life of the church. the catholic church of the united states -- which as we all know has had all sorts of problems in recent years -- is nonetheless the most vital and vibrant catholicism in the developed world. and that is very good news, i

think, for the future. >> host: next call is from -- [inaudible] dennis, you're on booktv. >> guest: mr. weigel, glad to see you on c-span today. by the way, you were on a radio show that i did a couple years ago, but i don't expect you to remember that. what i'm about to say i hope it doesn't conflict with what pope francis has said, but number one, i think we all kind of know that the way catholics have the ability to determine the outcome of political elections in the united states of america, and it's my understanding that not only does the pope or the catholic church have the right, but also the obligation to speak out regarding matters of a moral nature that are in play politically. and when we do have issues in play, things like the homosexual agenda or abortion and so on, i am just wondering if you feel like the church is speaking out vigorously enough in the united states of america.

>> guest: i think everyone knows what the catholic church's position is on all of these hot button issues. i'm afraid a lot of the people in the church have not quite gotten the message. and that's what the pope is asking us in part to reflect upon, why haven't they gotten the message? that getting it in terms of the moral life only comes from a long process of conversion, so we have to begin the new e advantagization within the church itself. let me say one other thing about voting and religious conviction in the united states. the single best predicter of voting behavior, and i believe it's now the last six presidential elections, it may be the last eight, is how often are you in a religious service? those who are in religious services once a week, catholic, protestant, jewish, muslim, whatever, tend to skew to one end of the political spectrum,

namely republican. those who are rarely or if ever in religious services tend to steer towards the democratic end of spectrum. and hen the slide is -- and then the slide is consistent in between. that's a fascinating portrait, i think, of the relationship not simply of religious conviction, but of religious practice and civic life in the united states. >> host: what is the ethics and public policy center? >> guest: ethics and public policy center has been washington's religion and society think tank for the past 35 years. i had the honor to be its president from 1989 til 1996 when i had this crazy idea that i should write the biography of john paul ii. and couldn't run a think tank and do that at the same time, so i transitioned into a senior fellow status at the center. we are catholics, protestants and jews, we address the full range of public policy issues from out of judeo-christian

ethics and classic american constitutionalism. >> host: did you have a chance to meet john paul ii? >> guest: about three dozen times. [laughter] >> host: we were together many, many, many occasions. my two-volume biography of john paul ii was not an authorized biography in the sense it was vetted. the pope never saw -- he certainly never saw the second book because it was published five years after he died. first time he saw "witness to hope" was when i handed it to him in 999. but he agreed to cooperate. we had an enormously frank conversation about his life. there was no question i put to him that he didn't answer. and, indeed, in some instances he would push me into probing facets of his life and his experience like his work with young college students, for example. that i just wouldn't have thought of. so it was a full and frank discussion, as they say in

diplomacy. >> host: george weigel, how much of the current catholic church and the political debate within the catholic church is a result of the second vatican council? >> guest: a lot of it is, it was the most important event in the history of the catholic church since the reformation. obviously, that's going to have a ripple effect. i think we're only now beginning to settle down into the catholicism that the council called us to be. because catholicism rediscovered the centrality of christ in the church. and the catholicism in which every baptized catholic understands that he or she enters mission territory every day. we're all baptized to be missionaries. it's a great gift of faith we've been given. it's something we have an obligation to share, to propose, to offer to others.

>> host: next call for george weigel comes from kathy in pleasantville, new jersey. hi, kathy. >> caller: hello. thank you, mr. weigel, for your appearance there today, and i appreciate all the work you've done for the catholic church. >> guest: thank you. >> caller: i have two comments, and i want you to comment on two facts concerning pope john paul, if you would. when pope john paul was a young man, i read that he -- the government often attacked the clergy for any reason, calling them pedophiles for the simplest reasons. so pope john paul was very, very aware of that unfair comment about them. so i would, i wouldty that would have flavored -- i would think that would have flavored his feelings about the attack on the clergy and his time on earth here. and also don't you think that the accusations had to be, had to be investigated thoroughly by

the bishops? a lot of people accuse pope john paul of not reacting fast enough, but that wasn't the routine. it had to go through the bishops s and it had to be -- and it could take years. what is your comment on those things? just thank you, kathy. >> caller: thanks for the question. there is no question as i show in the second volume of my biography of john paul ii, the end and the beginning, that charges of sexual impropriety were used on a regular basis by communist secret intelligence services throughout the warsaw pact countries as a way to attack the church. and it may be that john paul ii's familiarity with that act tick was one factor -- tactic was one factor in what some regard as slow response from the vatican in 2002 to the scandals here in the united states. i think the real problem was a bad information flow from the vatican embassy here in washington to rome.

when john paul ii understood the magnitude of these problems, he addressed it vigorously, and he called the bishops who in cases had not been as aggressive as they ought to have been in resolving these cases to do precisely that. the catholic church today is probably the safest environment for young people in the united states. it was a horrible cleansing experience, but that cleansing operation has been done, and the church is better for it. >> host: george weigel, the next call for him comes from barbara in henderson, kentucky. hi, barbara, this is booktv on c-span2. >> caller: hi. >> host: we're listening. please go ahead. >> caller: okay. i'm calling in, i have a concern. i've been a catholic all my life, and i respect the catholics, but with i feel like we're doing so much changing and

that i came from the old school, and i feel like that we've turned liberal. it's like if we were right in the first place, why do we have to do all these changing? you know, we need to show good examples spiritually and morally. and when we start changing, then we're, you know, what are we learning from all this? >> guest: the doctrine of the catholic church doesn't change. it's settled matter. the forms in which the church expresses its position particularly in its prayer life and what we call the liturgy has changed over time and dramatically over the last 50 years. i think we're now into a settling-in period. i wouldn't look for a whole lot of dramatic liturgical change in the future. but the church has to change in its modes of proclaiming the

gospel, in its way of approaching people, in its ways of offering the possibility of friendship with jesus christ because cultures change and history changes. and we can't expect that the catholicism of the mid 950s, which seemed so stable and unchangeable, was going to do 50 years later. that's just not the way the world works, and frankly, not the way the holy spirit works in the church. >> host: barbara was concerned about the church being more liberal than it used to be. is that -- do you agree with that? >> guest: i think church has understood that rules will only make sense in the context of conversion. if the church is simply understood as saying, no, no, no, no, no, and yes, yes, yes, yes, yes that gives rise to what we have to say no to is not

understood, the no isn't going to be heard. conversion first, moral reformation throughout our life. catholicism is not really about left and right, liberal and conservative. it's about true and false. it's about right and wrong. it's about what's noble and what's based in human life, what's compassionate and what's cruel. those are the relevant categories. >> host: next call for you comes from michael in cincinnati. michael in cincinnati, we're talking with george weigel whose most recent book is called "evangelical catholicism." >> caller: i'm also through with your book, i think it's a remarkably inciteful and coherent treatise. i wanted to ask you about another author who had a great deal to say about vatican ii, and he was very influential, father malachi martin. perhaps you could contrast your vision of things with what he espoused in his books?

>> caller: well, we're getting dangerously close to violating -- and here i will knock off a latin quote on booktv -- [speaking in native tongue] >> speak no ill of the dead. malachi martin is long passed from the scene. his books struck me as sometimes being a bit hard to tell where the border between fact and fiction was. he was a great irish storyteller. perhaps there was a bit of cultural background to that permeable border between fact and fiction. i think malachi's was the possibility of a quite darker theory. i think evangelical catholicism is, i hope, a rallying call for vitality and vibrancy in the church. not sure quite how he would have heard that. >> host: next call is another michael, this one from colorado springs.

michael? we're going to move on to joseph in rockville, maryland. hi, joseph. >> caller: yes, hello, this is joseph, and i'm formerly of rockville, i live in western maryland now. and my question is why do people tend to see the flaws in their enemies or those that they oppose and not focus instead on their own problems or their own issues? for example, there's a phrase in the bible talking about seeing the bee in other people's eyes or not seeing the splinter in my eye, i think i got it wrong -- >> host: joseph, why are you bringing that question up on this call-in program? what's your point? >> caller: the point that i'm trying to make is i notice in human behavior that people so often see the flaws in their enemy. we attack communists for doing this, that and the other as the

gentleman did just a few minutes ago. and we don't see, we don't see why that horrible system of communism came about as a response to the excesses of corruption in the other, in the capitalist system here. >> host: okay, thank you, joseph. i think we got the point. george weigel, anything there you want to address. >> guest: you know, two weeks ago i had the honor of visiting a place i had wanted to visit for 35 years, central lithuania. it's called the hill of crosses. it was, throughout the entire communist period, lithuania's occupation by the soviet union, a place of pilgrimage where people would erect big crosses, little crosses as an expression of their religious belief, as an expression of hope for political freedom. every time the crosses would go up, they'd be knocked down. every time they were knocked

down, they'd be put up again. it was a marvelous example of the human spirit refusing to be crushed by political -- [inaudible] i had done some work here in washington 30 years ago trying to be of some help to persecuted catholics and other religious believers in lithuania, and when i went there to that country for the first time two years -- two weeks ago, i just had to go to the hill of crosses. and it's absolutely spectacular. even under concerns of freedom, that symbol remains present as an aspiration to decency. not as a cry for freedom any longer, but as an expression of an aspiration to live freedom nobly. so i think that's worth thinking about each as we ponder the -- even as we ponder the splinters in our own eye or the boulders in our own eye or the logs in

our own eye. >> host: we have a few minutes left with our guest, george weigel, who has written several books. in fact, he's been on booktv's "in depth" program talking about his body of work. his most recent, "evangelical catholicism: deep reform in the 21st century church." the next call for him is ruth in pennsylvania. >> caller: hi, thank you for taking my call. i was wondering mr. weigel's opinion on the role of women in the church and women becoming priests. >> host: what's your opinion, ruth? >> caller: oh, i think, i think i'd like the church to open up to women becoming priests and having a stronger role in the church. >> host: thank you, ma'am. >> guest: women are, obviously, one-half of the catholic church, perhaps more than one-half of the catholic church. when i was growing up in baltimore in the 50 and '60s, i think it was fair to say that women, meaning religious sisters, really ran the church. they ran the schools, they ran the hospitals, they ran the social service agencies, and

many of them continue to do that heroic work. catholic church has a very distinctive view of what a priest is. a priest embodies in a unique way, in an iconic, graphic way the priesthood of jesus christ. that's why the catholic church has said it doesn't have the authority to call women to holy orders. pope francis has recently said this is not a power question. we have to find a way to incorporate gifted women of whom there are tens of millions in the catholic church into all of the things that the church does, especially this new evangelical mission tear -- missionary -- [inaudible] that's the future of the catholic church. riding a desk in rome is not the most important way to be a catholic or riding a desk in an

american diocese, bringing people to conversion, to healing, offering the compassion of christ, that is far more important than who's running what on a flow chart. >> host: is there a danger to the catholic church de-emphasizing some of the social issues that have been discussed in the last -- >> guest: i don't think so. i mean, these issues so engage all americans, particularly in our context, where there's still an open debate. i mean, europe is europe, and things are a bit different there. in the united states, these are not settled questions, they're certainly not catholic questions only. my protestant and jewish colleagues at the ethics policy center think they're deeply constitutional questions. so the questions aren't going away, and i doubt that the catholic voice is going away either. >> host: a few minutes left. rose in florida, you're on booktv. >> caller: hi. i would like to question mr. weigel on what he said previously about the church must

take a stand on abortion. he said, ultimately, it has to be yes or no. when it is by understanding that jesus came not to condemn, and i feel that there is a schism there between jesus' comments about not condemning and the very rather tyrannical stance that the church takes on abortion. and i wonder if you could comment on that. >> host: thank you, ma'am. >> guest: thanks for the call. the catholic church is about protecting, lifting up the dignity of every human being in any condition of life and at any stage of life. the church believes, with

medical science, that human life begins at conception and continues until natural death, that that human life has an inalienable dig dignity and vale that ought to be recognized in law. in addition to trying to bring those truths which are public reason truths, not disat this pointively catholic views, to the attention of the public, let's also remember that the catholic church in the united states serves tens of thousands of women caught in the dilemma of unwanted and unplanned pregnancy every year. there are crisis pregnancy centers operated by, compassionately-operated by catholic people within, you know, a five-mile radius of where we're standing here on the mall. so the church is not only about saying no to the taking of innocent human life at any stage of life and in any condition of life, it's about saying yes to service to women in crisis which

is the positive side of the pro-life movement that, unfortunately, gets very little attention. >> host: last call for our guest, george weigel, comes from rhonda in min yapless. hi, rhonda. >> caller: hi. thanks for taking my call. my question is what do you think pope benedict vxi's contribution was to catholicism. >> guest: i think he completed the urn from what i call in the church from the counterrevelation to the church of van gellization. benedict said in the certificate phase of his term that the first characteristic of van yenningism -- evangelicalism which identified in the book. i think jost ratzinger understood that the church cannot be a kept institution anymore, either kept by legal

establishment or kept by cultural habit. it just isn't going to happen. so the church has to get back into the proposal business, back into the missionary business, and that's exactly what the last three popes have done. >> host: here's the cover of the book, "evangelical catholicism: deep reform in the 21st century church." george weigel is the author, and this