Keeping Faith in Demoralizing Times

- Good evening and welcome to our Salt and Light Gathering. Welcome to the Georgetown School of Continuing Studies. As we set upstairs, just a great example of the Georgetown mission and action and actually an accessible place and reaching young people throughout this city. My name is John Carr. I am the Director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life. I have two responsibilities tonight. One is to welcome you and introduce Kim, and the other is to make sure we finish by 8:

30 so we can watch the Nationals beat the Dodgers. Yeah. Linda and I, my wife Linda, she looks like she's under 40, but she's not really. We were talking and the Nationals have lost four, I think game fives to be eliminated. One of them was the night of my son's wedding and we were keeping track of the scores, as the celebration went on. And you might remember the seven years ago, the Nationals you probably don't. You were maybe 16 or 12 or whatever. Anyway, we were way ahead and it looked like

we were gonna win and I had purchased two tickets for the next round of the playoffs to give to the bride and groom for a surprise wedding present. So I was feeling great about that and we went home and they lost and they've lost three in a row since then. My son who is a great baseball fan said to me earlier this year, "Dad, is it a problem "that when I think about my wedding night I'm disappointed?" And I said, this is a thought you need to keep to yourself. (audience laughing) But we're not g

onna be disappointed tonight. The initiative does three things. We do large public dialogues up at the hill top. Many of you have been there, I hope. If you haven't, you ought to join us. We've done 70 of them. We've drawn 25,000 people. And we do a whole range of issues. We have done four big convenings around overcoming poverty, around overcoming polarization. We did a major one on lay leadership and dealing with the clerical abuse scandal. But I think in someone's the most important thing we

do is reaching out to young people in Washington. The Salt and Light gatherings, tonight's an example and a similar gathering with young Latino Catholics. And I'm obviously not young. I am Catholic, although there's been debate about that in some quarters. But I am always lifted up by meeting folks who come to this city to change the world. A wide variety of places in schools, and people say you get caught up in the partisan wars, the political wars, the press of the city, and it's a good thing

to have a place to step back and think about what are the values, what are the principles, what are the things that drew you to public service in this work? So we try and beat that. This is the first one of this academic year. I remember the first one we did in this room, Mike Gerson was here. I'm a great admirer of Mike. I'm excited about the whole panel. Mike has been a profile of courage and candor. And the first one Pope Francis had been elected, but Donald Trump hadn't. So a few things have

happened since then and maybe that's why tonight's topic is so important. Keeping faith in a demoralized capitol. Whether you're Democrat or Republican, liberal, conservative, whether you've been here a long time or just got here, it is hard to hold fast to fundamentals and your convictions in the middle of all that's going on around us. And so tonight we have three people. Liz Bruning who's going to be with us. She just got to us and has been taken off. And we're disappointed she can't join us

. We'll have her another time. But we are really lucky to have these people. I mentioned Mike. Jeanne is a friend of the initiative. She'll be introduced to you. Montse is doing remarkable work. My job is not to introduce them, but to introduce Kim Daniels, our Associate Director, my partner in crime along with Anna, the three Musketeers. And Kim is the Associate Director. She has a degree from Princeton and from the University of Chicago Law School. She has worked for the Bishop's conference. S

he's worked in pro-life work. She's helped explain the Pope's encyclical on care for creation, and she is part of the Sanity Caucus here in Washington and in our church. And so we're really blessed to have her at the initiative. Took a while, but we have her here. She's been here for a year, little more than a year. And she will take us through the evening and introduce you to our panel. And at 8:30 I will announce the time is up and we're going upstairs where the game will be on TV. So Kim. - T

hank you. Thanks John. Thanks everybody for coming. (audience applauding) This is the one John Carr event that will end exactly on time. Everybody can count on that. Listen, thanks for coming. This is gonna be a terrific conversation and a terrific evening. I'm so excited about this and this group in particular. And in particular, about the Salt and Light Programs that we have. It's something I always, my favorite, one of my favorite quotes about our faith is wherever the Catholic sun does shine

, there's always laughter and good red wine. And I think about that when I think about the Salt and Light Program. Tonight's not a night about laughter in many ways. One of our questions is how do we get past this kind of demoralizing time? It will be a night about a little bit of good red wine at the end, and hopefully a little bit before here too, because it is true that our faith gives us resources to respond to this kind of a challenging era that we live in. That's what this program is about

. Providing a place where we can talk about these issues. I think that it's important to route this in what Pope Francis says. I mean he talks about young people having tenacity and hope and a certain joy about them. Sometimes when you come to DC, that can be knocked out of you pretty quickly. So we're here to talk tonight about how to resist that. We also want to talk a little bit about what it means to be authentically Catholic in this kind of an environment. How do we resist ideology? How do

be that both end kind of Catholic that we know we're called to be? And also to live our faith robustly and explicitly and not keep it hidden under a bushel basket. So our topic tonight and the hashtag is keeping faith. Keep faith, excuse me, is how we live with faith, hope and love in demoralizing times. We have a crisis in our church. The clergy sexual abuse crisis has been going on for many iterations over decades now, but certainly this past year has been horrific and we're still waiting on t

he McCarrick Report, we're still watching church leaders drag their feet, we're still seeing reports come out day after day it seems with new stories that make us lose faith in some ways in the leaders of our institution, even as we draw strength from the sacraments and we draw strength from the people who live their faith in service day after day after day, and are really the essence of what it means to be Catholic and that involves our leaders as well. We are here in a place where our politics

is very demoralized. We're now in the middle of another impeachment process. Mike and I, everybody here on this stage, at least I think that Mike and I were around for the Clinton impeachment. And I remember how demoralizing that was. And now in an age of social media and in a time that's gotten so hostile and polarized, I know that we're in for even more this time around. And yet of course there's so much else that demoralizes us here. We look at what's happening in Syria, we look at what's ha

ppening at the border, we look at abortion still dominating our politics. And so finally, I wanna ask that despite all this, how do we know perhaps the most counter-cultural Catholic teaching of all, and that's the politics is a good thing. Politics is a vocation and being involved in politics is something that we're called to do in a certain sense as Catholics in public life. I wanna talk a little bit about Pope Francis' call to resist ideology. He just talked about it again today at his Wednes

day audience. And he talks about hogenlio is a word he said to the youth at World Youth Day in Brazil. Hogenio, make a mess. And what he means by that is have a certain holy restlessness and the courage to challenge what's going on and to draw light to it. And so with that, let's get started. I'm really looking forward to the folks we have up here to talking with them tonight. We have Mike Gerson, who's a Washington post columnist as you know. Jeanne Lewis, who was a friend of the initiative. We

'll talk a little bit more about all her work at the National Center for Responsive Philanthropy. And Montse Alvarado who was with Beckett Law, and I think I said every job except for a lawyer at Beckett Law and just brings terrific skills to her work. And so with that, let's get started. Jeanne, you're at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. I've known you for a couple of years now. We've worked together on something called a Convening on Overcoming Polarization. I think of Jeann

e as a bridge builder, as someone who reaches out to different communities, also as someone who is very rooted in your parish. St. Augustine's, which is a remarkable parish here and where Jeanne has been a real leader. Can you talk to us a little bit about what it means to you to respond to a demoralized politics and how you draw community and strength from your various roles in professional and personal life? - Absolutely. And thanks to the initiative for inviting me. I'm very happy to be here.

So I think starting by framing NCRP, it is clearly a left leaning progressive organization and we're a nonprofit that tries to persuade foundations to give more grant dollars to social justice work and marginalized communities. Specifically community organizing and advocacy, that kind of thing. So at St. Augustan parish, I've been a member of st Augustan since 2011 and I've held various roles in leadership roles in ministry. Presently I'm elector, I sing in the young adult choir, but I previous

ly led our young adult ministry for several years. I was vice chair of our parish pastoral council. And when I entered the parish in 2011 and had recently moved back to DC, I looked around and I said, "Oh, our young adult ministry is flailing. "I'm gonna pick it back up." And I called our priest and I said, "So I'm gonna lead our young adult ministry now." And he was like, "Who are you "and what are you talking about?" So that's really what happened. So I met him personally, we met and then he f

ound out I was a great person. I'm a great person and that I had been to Catholic school and that I read Thomas Merton in my free time and he was like, "Oh you know what you're talking about. "Sure, you can lead young adult ministry." But I share that story because I think that as Catholics, a part of what we're being called to do is to identify the need and the gap and to fill it given our unique gifts and talents as given by the Holy Spirit. And that's what I do in our parish, and that's also

what I try to do in my work. I'm very open about the fact that I'm Catholic at work. I talk about my weekend including going to mass. I talk about my Catholic upbringing and it's actually not a contentious thing because Catholic social teaching is in line with a lot of the things that my organization works on. In instances where there organizations or groups who are advocating for things that are not necessarily in line with Catholic social teaching, my primary strategy is to center encounter. A

nd so really the center of the human beings that are at the root of the work and to really identify the places where people whose ideology might differ from mine are coming from a place of love and compassion and a desire to help others. And when I started in that place, if people respect me, then we're able to have a more complex conversation and we're able to translate differently how it might play out in policy and politics. - Tell me one other thing I wanna ask you about. I know you have bee

n opened about saying you're considering a run for office at some point. - Yeah. - We talked a little bit, I talked a little bit about politics being a vocation and that being good and at the end of the day we're living a public life right now where it's very hard to see that. Can you talk a little bit about why you see this as something that's a good thing and why you're pursuing it or considering it? - So part of my spiritual life, I pray every single day. I read scripture every single day and

not for like five hours 'cause I live in DC but I do. I make an intention every morning when I wake up, I have a chair in my house, I have my tea, I read some scripture, I say some prayers. And when I don't do that, my complete day is shot. My whole day just goes south. And one day I was doing that and I felt very strongly that I was called to run for office. It didn't just come out of the blue. People had encouraged me to do that for years and years, but I was really demoralized by our politic

al system and I thought, that's not something that I wanna do. I don't feel like I can make a difference in that way. But I had a real come to Jesus moment, which I can tell you about another time, and I started sharing that with other people of faith and talking about that with other people of faith and they really encouraged me to do it. As I explore a run for our office here locally in DC local office, I am asking questions and doing things differently from some of the wisest political advice

. I have friends who've held office, who currently hold office who work in the political sphere. I've previously done work with members on the Hill and other capacities. And sometimes, I get advice and I say, I don't really feel like that's what God is telling me. And so this is a constant discernment process. And sometimes people say, I don't really get what you're doing, but it sounds good. So let's see what happens. So I think that this, just like any other vocation is a constant discernment

process and that a personal life of prayer and discernment and reflection can help all of us figure out how to better engage in public life. - That's great. And I'd love to hear Montse say a little bit about that from you as well. 'Cause I know that you have a very robust prayer life too, but also one of the things Montse and I have known each other for years. My background, I'm a lawyer and my background is in doing religious liberty work as well. Beckett Law where Montse is, is agreed by peopl

e on both sides of the aisle as really being the premier religious law firm in the country, religious liberty law firm in the country. That's in large part due to the woman you see sitting right here. And she says she's held every job there but a lawyer. And it shows you how bringing your professional skills, whatever they are to the causes you believe in can really make a difference. Montse is an incredible manager, an incredible leader and an incredible communicator. And I'm glad I have this c

hance to say that in front of other people. But she's also someone, she's an immigrant from Mexico, but recently about 10 years ago now, I guess became a US citizen. She is also very involved in her various communities here in Washington and she travels all the time, serves on boards which is another gift in itself. It's another job. If you do that, you'll know and you bring your gifts to that. Tell us a little bit about, first of all, how you avoid burnout in your professional life and how you

keep your faith alive in the midst of a very busy and professionally focused DC environment. But also what does it feel like to work against the grain sometimes in terms of challenging ideological lanes that people might try to put you in? - Yeah. That's loaded questions. (laughing) So burnout. Let's talk about that first 'cause I think that's something that happens very, very easily. I made a terrible joke at the office the other day. I said that I avoid burnout by not being married and not hav

ing children. And that's a horrifying thing to say. I'm actually an elder in the church, so there's a reason why I'm not married and I don't have children. But that's actually not true. It's a horrifying thing to say and someone came up to me and corrected me on that, which is true. But I have the luxury of being able to structure my life in such a way that I have a place of prayer in my home. That's number one. You can talk about having a structured place of prayer, you can go to mass and the s

acraments are definitely number one in my life and I encourage everyone to have a real face to face encounter with Jesus Christ. If you're looking at the blessed sacrament, if you are in adoration and you don't know why you're there, there's a problem. (laughing) It's a beautiful experience, but you have to have that encounter. Otherwise it's not fueling you to have that personal relationship that's gonna drive everything else you do. Your validator can't be Twitter. It has to be that one human

person that was given to us as a gift from our Lord. So that's putting that aside and knowing that you have that special place of prayer where you center yourself every day. Structuring why you're doing what you're doing. My job is hard. It's incredibly difficult to keep your cool when every day you're encountering individuals who are going to say that you have ulterior motives, who are going to try to pigeonhole you. The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty is a nonprofit that's also nonpartisan.

I get told every day that religious freedom is for conservatives only. I'm sorry, I'm a Mexican immigrant. Like really? (laughing) Most of the policies that I grew up with in Mexico are socialists that in on their face. So I definitely think that understanding the world that we live in now, we have to look at those things with humor and say, wow, you don't know me at all. Let me show you who I really am. Let me try to find Christ within you. So that obviously that's piece number one, having tha

t structured prayer life. And piece number two is just really filling your family life. My mom always said that you can't be a light to others if you're not a light in your home. (speaking Spanish) If you are the lamp on the outside, you probably have not turned on, you're the darkness in your own home. That's really sad, but it's a great thing to encounter when you realize that there are people in your daily life that probably need you in some way. And creating that space and developing that ri

chness and those rich relationships within the generations of your family, grandmothers, nieces, brothers, sisters, and then creating a family for yourself with your friends. When I chose where I was gonna live, I chose to live close to one of my best friends who has three kids. Obviously she has a husband, but he's got a real full time job. She's at home with them and she suffers a lot knowing that she's not out working, she's home dedicating herself to them. And I decided that I would be her c

ompanion. And then I have the joy of seeing those three kids as often as possible and enjoying them at mass as well. So there are ways to build family even when you don't have family and that encounter at home all the time and ways to be sacrificial in that way as well. When it doesn't feel like you want to give of yourself. They're extraordinary ways to be engaged and avoid burnout by having richness in other areas of your life. - And I think that's really interesting to say that to find a plac

e and really be intentional about choosing where you live. I know when we moved here to Washington now 20 years ago, we chose a block to live on because we saw a lot of bikes on the yards outside. We bought a house in a street 'cause there were 30 kids there and we were gonna raise our kids with a lot of other kids on a street where people could run around and play and it was really important. And to my mind, that's true. I draw strength and I avoid burnout by my family life and all our kids and

all our neighbors. So I think that's a great point whether it's intentional or whether it's something that you look for where you are. So thanks. That's great. - Of course. - Mike, let's turn to you. Mike has been Chief Speech Writer in the Bush White House. A serious policy aide to President Bush through what I think of as, and I think many people share the belief that PEPFAR is one of the great policy achievements of the last two decades. And it's really, I'd love to hear a little bit more ab

out that and what it did to help really reduce AIDS in Africa. And Mike was really a spearhead behind that and also works now with the one campaign, which also fights against global diseases. He's written books like "Heroic Conservatism," and "City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era" and he has just been a key advocate for issues that really actually help people on the ground. And in that sense has been a bridge builder as well. He has been a strong and courageous voice in these last few

years as a member of the Republican party who speaks out against our president when he challenges the things that we've believed in and the things we believe in as Christians as well. Mike, I'd love to hear what you have to say about how you keep your principled action, how you live with integrity and these kinds of challenging times and how you live in your personal life and professional life to try to avoid burnout, to try to keep your faith alive. - I should probably start by saying that I n

ever talk about my Catholic faith at work. (laughing) Because I'm not a Catholic. So I come from an Evangelical background and go to an Episcopal church. And have been profoundly influenced by Catholic social doctrine and I've talked about that over the years, but I come from a slightly different perspective. And to be honest, this has been a fairly tough time for me. I was involved in one way or another in trying to put together a set of ideas known as compassionate conservatism in the lead up

to the 2000 election and before which really incorporates a lot of those principles of Catholic social thought of subsidiarity and solidarity and trying to find innovative ways to strengthen private and religious institutions and the provision of social services. So we tried to do a lot of policy around that, but all through also a broader effort to give the party of the center right in America, a message of social justice. And that project is not in good shape right now. And so that's been very

difficult for me. The last few years have been very purposeful because the issues are important. And so it's felt purposeful but not all that encouraging. And so the question is how do you deal with that? For me, when I first came to Washington, I worked for a guy named Chuck Colson who was head of a prison ministry and but he had it on his desk, a little plaque on the desk saying that said, "Faithfulness, not success." And so there really is a calling sometimes, but sometimes it's a calling to

win, but sometimes it's a calling to hold something valuable against in a difficult moment. And I don't want that to sound depressing, but I would really encourage people in this room, particularly young people engaging political life to engage in the exercise of determining what lines exist for you. It is in my own community in evangelicalism, a lot of young people like my sons, they have seen a previous generation of older evangelical leaders who are deeply compromised and hypocritical. And t

his is a circumstance in which that generation, which is supposed to pass values is actually undermining them actively. And so it's... But I think you really have to intentionally go into public debates and say, I'm only gonna be, there are compromises, there are utilitarian calculations in politics, but there are principles that I won't violate. And I'm not sure. I think there's a lot of people who have not asked that question. And so I think it's a worthy kind of enterprise. I comfort myself t

hat I think it was Martin Luther King Jr. who said, "I don't know what the future holds, "but I know who holds the future." So from a Christian perspective, there is this confidence that the world and the universe does not depend on you. That the purposes of God are working themselves out in ways that you may not understand in your own life and in the life of your country. And it's very different from thinking everything's on my shoulder. If I don't rise to this moment, it's all gone. And I thin

k there's a little bit too much of that desperate tone in American politics, which is if the other side wins, it's the worst disaster you can possibly imagine. And thus you need to take any measures that are necessary to avoid that happening. So I think there's a significant amount of that. I also just a more hopeful perspective. I've been influenced by Robert F. Kennedy as kind of a model. And if you look at something like, I wish I'd bought the text with me, but his "Ripples of Hope" speech in

South Africa in 1966 at a time of deep, I mean his brother had just been killed and this was a time of deep division in American life, growing division that would blossom into 1968 kind of deep divisions. And he talked about how acts of individual acts of hope add up to one another with one another to bring down the strongest walls of oppression. And I do think that examples of conscience attract the support and commitment of others. They encourage others. And that can be important. You in your

own life, in your own small circumstance can be an example to others and that can make a huge difference down the road. So just. - That to me, it puts me in mind of the words of John Vinay, who is the founder of the large communities which serve people with mental disabilities. And he said, "We're called to be a sign, not a solution." So we're not just what you're saying. We're not called to solve all the world's problems. We're called to live our faith and to be a sign of our Christian witness

. And that I think is the question that we're called on today. What does Christian witness look like in these times? You point to Robert F. Kennedy. Who are some of your examples, Jeanne, of people that you look up to or that you say, this is Christian witness, this is what I wanna look to as a model or that you might recommend that people look to? When you think of people that you... - Christian witness. Oh wow. - Or witness in general. People who've lived a principled life. - So I actually rea

lly love Henry Nowan is another person who I read all the time. - Right here. - Yeah. All day, every day. - The prodigal son. Everyone must read it. - Yeah, it's just so good. And he has daily meditations. There's a book of daily meditations. It's fabulous. But I really adore Henry Nolan and for his insightfulness and his simplicity in talking about the core of what it means to be a Christian and the core of what it means to love one's neighbor. I mean, ultimately, if I can read just two or thre

e sentences by Nolan every day and just hold that in my consciousness, then it creates clarity and it tells me what to do in certain encounters that I have throughout the day. Another person who I really admire and I don't know if she was Christian, is Wilma Mankiller. She was the first modern day chief of the Cherokee Nation. And she was reelected several times and unfortunately, passed away of cancer. But she had a near death experience, car accident almost died and really was demoralized and

had to have a faithful experience to really think about what it means to come back from that. And she served her community and she was a Democrat, but she was very well known to work across the aisle to bring resources to her community. Little resources like water access, but also for the Cherokee Nation with the federal government. And she is deeply respected and beloved by a wide range of folks. But what I really admire about Wilma Mankiller is the way that she did her politics. So she would e

ncounter people in her community and want them to come to talk about a federal grant and they would say I come by, my roof needs to be fixed. And she would roll up her sleeves and help them fix their roof. You know, someone say, why come, but my kids and she would carry their kids with them in her truck to go to the meeting. She was just very present to the lived experiences of the people in her community while still holding a vision for them of what they could be and it was full with self-deter

mination while also demanding respect from our larger institutions. And I deeply, deeply admire that about her. - I love that. I love the idea of not just looking at sort of, we all, I certainly tend to do this here and I think here in DC it draws you to say, let's talk about abstract ideas and let's say the right things and think the right things. And then we're being Christians and then we're being Catholics. We're living our faith if we think it and say it, but it's living it out that makes a

difference. Who do you look to as someone who would be a witness, someone who lives out their faith? - So I think it's great to think about people who aren't living and looking at their examples in the lives of the saints. I recently started reading a lot more about St. Frances Cabrini and what she talks about. Her talks on sanctity. It's not really that grand thing you do in your life, but the daily little things that you do for others Meeting people where they are. And so I actually encourage

everyone to find a religious community nearby that they can learn from. Because of the Beckett Fund, I got really close to the Little Sisters of the Poor, the Sisters of Mercy. And it's incredible to see exactly what you describe. They're not trying to evangelize in an intellectual way. They're just trying to meet people where they are, where their needs are, their human needs, their spiritual needs, and accompany them. It's that art of accompaniment. It's that very Pope Frances style. Do you s

mell like the sheep? And if you do, you're probably gonna learn something even more insightful about your own spirituality and where you should be and what your drive, where does it come from? Why are you doing what you're doing? Why are these big ideas so important? Well, because they're rooted in something else, because they're rooted in this transcendent piece. It's not really about my path to success or my path to victory. It's about my path to sainthood. What does that look like? And if you

think, if everyday you wake up and you say, my dad actually said this to us and New Years one day We're all like sitting there and drinking, whining and all of a sudden he turns and he says, "So guys, what are you doing to become saints? "New year's resolutions, everybody wants to lose weight, "blah, blah, blah. "What are you doing to become saints?" And I was like, that's my dad. (laughing) But if you ask yourself that every morning when you pick up the angry phone call from someone, all of a

sudden your reaction is very different. It's not a reaction in visceral anger. It's a reaction of, wow, is this gonna help me actually have a clear conscience when I go to confession? Is it worth my saint points? And I'm saying that in great vernacular, but these are big ideas and these are well written by great people. Archbishop Cheky writes about this all the time, individual morality and individual witness. It's hard to live it when you're thinking about it just in terms of big ideas. - Yeah

, I think so. And at the same time, I wanna talk a little bit about big ideas too. I feel like compassionate conservatism is why I would've called myself a conservative for sure. And you think about all the great work that you all did both in actually putting together policies that advance that idea and in talking about it in a way that uplifted, I think the national conversation. But there were lots of challenges in the Bush administration as well from the Iraq war to different challenges that

various policies would confront when it hit the public square and ran into just stymied, stymied action. And I wonder over the course of your career, whether how you avoided cynicism when you saw things that were difficult, that were challenges that didn't go the way you planned. - Yeah, it's a tough question. I didn't really feel tempted to cynicism in a certain way. Maybe it's best to be kind of specific. I'm sure that we made a huge number of errors of judgment and factual judgment during the

Bush years. But on issues that I was involved in, particularly that related to global health and development and conflict issues, I saw a leader who had a reliable conscience. And that made a difference to me every day. I've been fortunate, really fortunate in a certain way to have worked for people in politics. Dan Coates of Indiana, who was my first boss on Capitol Hill. I worked with Jack Camp and I worked and then for George W. Bush and in different ways, they had this commitment to a polit

ics of conscience. But I'll give you one example to praise the president, not necessarily myself. But I got involved in the lead up to the Glen Eagles G8 in 2005. I was doing policy development for the summit that was coming up. And I helped put together with USAID the President's Malaria Initiative, PMI and everyone else in the system opposed it. The vice president, the chief of staff, the secretary of state, the director of OMB and went into this policy process. I went in armed for bear as far

as arguments for all this. And the president approved it without debate. And it's a program that now has saved the lives of more than five million children under six years old in the course of PMI. And for me that I could get, you could get glimpses at least of this is what politics can be. This is what's possible. And particularly when it embodies, what I think the most important Christian contribution to our political and common life is a Christian anthropology of view of human beings, their

rights and dignity. And I think Christians should be known for that. If they're not known for that, then there's a real problem. As the most fundamental commitment, a lot of our theological commitments when it comes to ecclesiology and soteriology and other kind of issues are not politically relevant. But your anthropology matters greatly. And so I think that it's possible to have a politics on left or right that is oriented towards that principle of kind of vindicating the idea of human dignity

. And I would just encourage people that are in political life to be looking for and trying to find that expression leader who will embody that kind of principle. And it's not impossible. I mean, it happens. Even people don't think that of George W. Bush. But this was a circumstance when government can do great good, and I will never be a cynic about government having seen what I've seen of what's possible and could happen again. - It could happen again. John always says, Mike Gerson knows that

Catholic social thought better than most Catholics. And I think that that's true in the sense that, that this principle, that we all have equal human dignity because we're made in the image and likeness of God, which is a central tenet of Catholic social thought is something that can bring us together across right and left politics. And bringing that to the public conversation seems like something we're called to do regardless of our political party. I love talking about big national issues wher

e we came together like the Malaria Initiative, like PEPFAR. Jeanne, I know that when you think about politics, you think about very practical things that we can do at the local level that really do cross partisan lines. Is that right? Do you have those kinds of things in mind when you think about public service? - Yeah, and I absolutely think that centering the human person and centering human dignity is a part of that. DC has a budget surplus right now of several million dollars. I think it's

13 million, 17 million. I can't quite know the figure. But a lot of the decisions that are being made are not actually preserving human dignity. And so one of the things that I've been talking about recently, I've been going to Tenants Association Meetings and there's an organization trying to form a citywide tenants union. And I know that sometimes union can be seen as a bad word, but it's actually trying to bring together people who live in public housing, people who rent and single family hom

es and people who rent in larger apartment buildings to think about their common shared concerns. And when we look at the homelessness crisis in DC, some of the decisions or the proposals that are on the table are only going to exacerbate that. So what it might do is transform the quality of housing in our city, create more housing units in our city, make it more attractive to outsiders, but particularly outsiders without families. But it'll currently displaced families and not create space for

existing families to remain in the city. I have lots of friends, particularly Catholic friends who really love the city and who have great jobs and both the husband and the wife makes six figures and can totally afford to live here, but there's literally no space for them to have children and raise a family. And so they have to move to another place. And that is counter to our Catholic social teaching. That is counter to our values, because we are not creating space for people to build community

. And that's not a left or right issue. That's not a racial issue. That is a city that's saying, we don't care about families being able to live here, which is very anti-Catholic. And family, however you want to define it. So I think about a lot of things like that. Those are the kinds of things that motivate me to run. And I also think that the spirit of encounter that we've been alluding to throughout the conversation is really critical because as I go to work and I encounter the same people w

ho are asking for money or who are experiencing homelessness, when I have taken the time to stop and talk to people and learn their names and have relationship with them because they are literally my neighbors and I see them every single day when I go to work. When I've done that, then if I'm at a budget meeting or Tenants Association meeting, I'm thinking about people with whom I'm in relationship. So its not that homeless person that I gave a sandwich to one time. It's Mr. Walter. It's the per

son with whom I'm in relationship with because I see him every single day and I know his story. So I think that our teaching tells us the pathway to get to where we wanna go, it is that individual encounter, it's building relationships with one another and then it's listening for how policy either honors our human dignity or doesn't. - 'Cause that's another central tenet of Catholic social teaching where relational faith. And I find what so interesting what you said about family because I think

in many ways, that family is the bedrock of community in many ways. I know it certainly has been for us. And at the same time DC because it's a place you come when you're young and you're single and your family's somewhere else, it's very hard to find community here, I think. Where do you find community in DC? (laughing) - You make it. - You make community. You force your friends to figure out how to stay or you help them stay. You bring your parents. I mean, we had a conversation about intergen

erational housing and how a lot of people are considering that just to be able to afford to stay in the city. But you build it. I walked into St. Thomas Apostle Parish and I said, I'm gonna go to that Spanish language mass because I'm the bridge between that mass and the 10:30 mass. I'm going to hang out a little bit longer and turn my Sunday into a Sunday that's not so much about me even though I would much rather go sit at the pool. Whatever. You can come up with whatever strategy you have to

build that community and get engaged in some way. I loved what you said, Michael, about finding leaders. I feel like you have kind of a great example here in the panel where you're talking about building community with own work. Sometimes you have the great leader who feels called to be out there front and center and has the courage to create, give a face to the politics. And sometimes you have the great person that is supporting that leader and putting opportunities in front of them. That was w

hat attracted me to DC and to politics here and to a way to live out my faith was not so much for me, but to find those individual people who I thought were great leaders and encourage them and pray for them and also kind of stiffen their spines by showing them how that idea they had was so great, and why it is in line with what their conscience is telling them to do. And that's one thing that we just don't do. We don't build community within work. We're more interested in how we're going to get

ahead rather than an investing in that leader and how you can make their life better, make them smarter, faster, stronger and spiritually strong as well. If we think about spiritual and professional growth, if you're outgrowing one or the other, you're doing it wrong. You have to grow those two pillars side by side. And hopefully, the spiritual will overcast the professional, but at least grow them together. - Can I just add on that? - Sure. - I 100% agree because I think that if we truly want

to be powerful and we want to make or contribute to a big change in the world, it's gonna require faithfulness. Because as you were saying, Michael, the kinds of things that we have in our vision and our ideals, we can not do them as individuals. We cannot do them alone. And so we're not rooted in faith and we don't carry a faithfulness with us, we will not be able to even reach a small percentage of the success that we're hoping to gain. - I wanna remind everybody of the hashtag tonight is keep

faith. We're gonna get your questions in about five minutes or so. And I'll be passing around a microphone. So if you wanna start thinking about that, that would be great. Mike, I'd love to go back to you. You've been here in DC now for a while. How do you find community? Where do you find it? How has it changed over the course of your time here? - Washington has a way of building very intense forms of community, actually. If you're on a political campaign, like a presidential campaign, I've do

ne three of them. It builds community. You're with people 24 hours a day almost, and you see them at their best and worst, and there's an intensity and you create friendships that last your lifetime. And so there is that element. But I also have just found that in my own life, that the most important group to me has become my book group with people that are very much peers at similar stage of career. We generally pick religious books. But it's not a prayer group and it's been a way to build inte

llectual community that becomes something more. And I have found, I think it's essential in Washington to associate with people who share your views. CS Lewis used to call them first friends. There are people that read the same books as you do and come to all the same conclusions and you're having this deep fellow feeling with them. But also important to have what he called second friends. Are people are people that read all the same books that you do and come to all the wrong conclusions. And s

o there's an element of that as well in this group where not everybody agrees on everything, even though we come from a similar value system. And I do think in a kind of polarized, a bitter environment, it's really important to know people that hold different views because the greatest temptation of our time is dehumanization. It's essentially taking a whole group of people and reducing them in your own mind to something less than human. And so it's been important for me to have cross ideologica

l friendships to show that people can have good intentions and come to different conclusions. That that's possible. And so that form of community is an important one, I think as well. - I think it's so important to say that, and I think it's important, we've been beating on DC a little bit. But one of the things that Washington does offer that other places don't as intellectual community. That you talk about, this is an example of it. This is something we can come together and talk with people w

ho share your beliefs but not all your beliefs as you say. One thing that I think is often destructive of community and after this question we'll go to your questions is social media. And I wonder how you all maybe quick reactions from you on how you can use social media effectively, but in a way that doesn't dehumanize others that you don't become enthralled to it. Is that possible? Why don't we start with you Montse. - Is that possible? Just stick it in a box. You do it for a certain amount of

time and when your time is up, time's up. Or you only do it for 30 minutes in the morning. You can really waste your time on social media and watch the hours go by and watch your arms start to get numb because you've been holding the phone for so long. I know a lot of people agree with me in that. So just sticking it in a box. The moment that I started disciplining myself at social media, my life changed because I was getting wrapped up in narratives that weren't mainstream narratives. We have

to remember it's only 10% of the population that's on Twitter. 10% have a very 1% ish population that's on Twitter. It's a segment of the population that is probably out of touch with most of the things that actually matter to you. So take it for what it is, enjoy it, be a part of it, try to do something positive by being a positive voice and not going after people who you shouldn't be going after. And also use it as a form of encounter. If you find someone who is going after others in a way tha

t you don't love, send them a quick message. Try to go to coffee with them. Try to be that person that changes who they are on Twitter. Because it works. I've had great experiences where I saw something I didn't like and I said, I know you're better than that. Well, I don't know what's going on there. And when you're brave enough to do that, that's a tiny, tiny thing that you can do to make that space better. - [Kim] And it's an act of courage to to do it. How about you Jeanne? Go ahead Michael

- No, I just anted to add, not to tweet after you've been drinking. (laughing) - Absolutely, I agree. (mumbles) - That's the line of thought. - Put it away. - I agree with that. I would say be clear with social media is, and what it isn't. It is not a place of deep dialogue and encounter. So I think it can start the encounter, but it is not the encounter itself. And so I think sometimes people treat Twitter like the gospel or Facebook, like it's the gospel and this person said this and I have wr

itten record and I will hold it against them for the rest of their lives. That is not what it is. It's a platform to share ideas, it's a platform to invite people into other events or activities, but it is not a deep encounter, so don't get it twisted. The other thing is grace. We've received grace. We need to be gracious with one another. And so this is literally like take a breath before you post. Just take a literal breath, read what you wrote, not just for typos, but also would you say this

out of your mouth to a person in real life, in front of you, then probably don't put it on the Internet. So I think it's literally about slowing down, being clear about what it is and what it isn't. And I also wanna talk a little bit about like Instagram and Facebook and other places where there are more images. I think also just being really wary and cognizant of our own vanity and narcissism. So I am only on Instagram because my little cousin who's 14 got on Instagram and I wanted to make sure

she wasn't like being stalked or anything. That's the only reason I'm on Instagram. But every once in a while I find myself like falling into a five-minute black hole trying to get a good selfie. And I'm like, who is this person? This isn't even me. I don't even do this. I'm only on Instagram cause my cousin is on Instagram. So I think we all are attempted by our own narcissism at times. And so I think being really rooted in our faith and not falling victim to that. - Mike, do you see it changi

ng, I mean, how have you seen a real transformation of the political environment because of social media? Or is that sort of an easy answer? - No. I'm a curmudgeon on this. I was involved in presidential campaigns where we gave major speeches. We had white papers that went along with them. There was a day of news related to our proposal that we were kind of putting out there. And from that perspective, communicating with that brevity is digression. It's not just another form of communication. It

's a less content filled form of communication. And so insofar as it becomes a replacement for the normal elements of American politics of communication and how you build coalitions and the idea orientation of politics. I think it can be very destructive. And I think we're likely to see a reaction again against somebody who's gonna come and be a little more old fashioned in the way they communicate. And it's gonna be a welcome contrast, I think. It's one of the things, by the way, that I always

liked when I traveled around a little bit with Barack Obama when he was running for president. They had a great social media operation. They were fantastic. But he gave speeches from teleprompters. He was very idea-oriented. It wasn't a replacement for what he was trying to do. But if that becomes the substance of politics, then it's just shallow. And so I think we need to guard against it. - I think that's a great way to sum it up. Not a replacement for politics, not a replacement for relations

hip either. How about we get to some of your questions now. Anna and Tessa both have microphones. Does anybody wanna start us off? Anybody? We go right here and then you next. - My name is Marty and I'm nobody special. I just came to this 'cause I was interested. You mentioned "The Prodigal Son" from Nowan. You mentioned Thomas Merton and you mentioned Chuck Colson. The idea of they were all prodigal sons. Merton was quite a character and Chuck Colson was in jail. (laughing) We tend to put our p

oliticians on pedestals and they're not human beings. I'd like to know what do you think there's a place in public life for the prodigal son? Because one of the things with the prodigal son is it's not until he's ruined everything, he's come back, he's begged forgiveness and the father gives him the ring. And you know what the ring means? The ring is the ring of authority. It means now that you've been out there and you've lost everything and you've ruined everything, now you know what it means

to be my son. And now I give you authority. So I know as in public life, you wanna look like you got it all together and that you're perfect. But as a Catholic, what's the importance of conversion? That I was this and now I'm this and now I wanna lead. - Great question. Any of you wanna tackle it first? - Yeah, I'll take that. So I absolutely think there's space in our public discourse for the prodigal son or daughter. And I think that good politicians do that well. So Barack Obama told everybod

y that he did cocaine before somebody else told everybody that he did cocaine. Nobody cares that he did cocaine. I mean, some people might. But ultimately, when you look at the arc of what he did in his political career, that's like a little snapshot because he told it. He confessed. Stacey Abrams told people that she had hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and she told the story of why she had hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and it's partially because she was taking care of her br

other who has a heroin addiction. And she told that story, no one on earth the scandal, that she has hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, therefore she's unfit to be Governor of Georgia. So I think that for me, I think the opportunity in politics in the parable of the prodigal son is that when we confess our own shortcomings and we are able to illuminate our vulnerabilities and who we are fully as human beings, people see themselves in that, people hear themselves in those stories and then

people can relate to us. And then we have an entry point to envision together to be converted together and to repent and repair together. - Great answer. - I would only add to that. On the other side, you have to avoid what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called cheap grace, which is essentially the use of grace as a way around genuine turning away. And so I think we have to be wary in that sense, but open to the possibility of redemption, which is needed. Which I think to some extent for Christians in part

icular, there's a recognition that it's needed by everybody. It's not just the great sinner who comes to salvation, that we're all in a similar circumstance of separation from God that it's necessary to come to some point, not just a point, but a process in your own life where you turn away from something toward something better. And so I don't know. I think that that causes you both to not be judgmental but to recognize that true grace is actually a difficult and transforming experience. - Yeah

, I mean the perfection fetish. It's horrible. It's horrifying and it's what's stopping people from actually being a part of public life. It stops people from being courageous because they think they're not perfect enough to be in public office. And read the Bible guys. No leader and great story came from this perfect individual. None of the great, courageous women in the Bible were perfect either. And so taking that reality and leading with grace, understanding sin. They go together and the mom

ent that we separate the two, the moment that we forget what sin is and we only lead with grace or we forget what grace is and only lead with sin. When you separate them, you lose the opportunity to be an authentic leader or even just an authentic Christian. - [Kim] Someone over here. - [David] Hi, David Amenis. I lobby on criminal justice reform and as a another member with Jeanne at the St. Augustine Young Adult Choir. She's definitely the best singer in our group. I guess the question for you

all, and especially Michael, when you were discussing the grace that comes both in winning and walking away, at what point do you think it's time for young Christians today to think about more dramatic forms of walking away in the sense of the both parties we've gotten so bad with Democrats not willing to meet much of the country halfway on abortion, same sex marriage, the GOP being this weird mixture of kleptocracy and nationalism that Christians need to start thinking about either just zoomin

g in on a very narrow set of issues or joining the American Solidarity party and thinking about third party alternatives to what's going on. - Well, I think some of those decisions may eventually be necessary. I think we're not necessarily wedded to the two parties we have now. Right now we do not have a party that represents in a European sense what would be known as a Christian Democratic Party. There isn't one in America that has kind of a value-oriented center right party. And so I think tha

t that's a real challenge. But I would warn very strongly against the Benedict option. Basically because I don't think it's possible to take a break from the, of engagement in politics because there are always great issues of justice at stake at any given moment. I mean, you can't lick your wounds. There are important causes that have to be engaged right now and there's an urgency to that, that if we don't feel we don't quite understand what justice means, there are people in my tradition or com

munity who talk about culture being upstream from politics. Let's not talk about politics. Let's just focus on culture. And it's the kind of viewpoint that could only be held by comfortable people. If you live in a neighborhood with schools that don't work and run by gangs and have real problems, you can't take a sabbatical from this. You can't take a break from it. You have a need for justice now. And so I just hope that before people become too tired of political engagement, it's like I unders

tand when you read Reinold Nieber and you get kind of the complexities and difficulties and gray of politics and you distrust your own passion. And I understand those arguments, but it's really important for people to read first the letter from the Birmingham jail. To have that as your basis before you become a little more jaded about politics. And basically, the whole argument of that document, that extraordinary document is we can't wait. I mean, people would say, wait, are not experiencing in

justice. And I think that you have to try to imagine yourself in that position. That's an essential element of empathy, political empathy. - That's exactly right 100%, 150000%. One of the things that I tell people who ask, why are you doing what you're doing? How did you get into it? Quit waiting. Quit discerning. Get out there, do something. It will come with the work. Get your hands dirty. When I die, I wanna be able to say, my hair is half fallen out and I've got scrapes on my knees. I mean I

wanna be bloody from having lived my life. You have to live 100%. Every experience is worthwhile. Every experience deserves that kind of enthusiasm and throwing yourself into it. And politics is a part of that. You have really engage in that way. You have to make sure that you're bringing everything that you have, both intellectually and sincerely in your beliefs as well. I love, I say this often. Father Sarico's "Piety is no substitute for technique." I'm a great zealot. I love, love, love, lo

ve my Lord. But at the same time, I also know that I have to make sure that I know what I'm doing and that I've studied and that I'm not relying on the Holy Spirit to make up for the things that I forgot to read last night both in school and at work. So the reality that that's what we're bringing to the table when we engage in politics or when we engage in daily life or when we encounter our families is this full sense of really investing ourselves and we can't wait. We can't wait. I mean if you

look at Canada, there's a fantastic story of how Jack Layton started the NBP there. The Orange Wave is what they call it. It's a third party that blew everyone away and has centrist values. Gee, do I think it's possible here? I frankly don't care if I think it's possible. No one ever waited and said, I wonder if I can do this. They just did it. Who is that person in our generation? Who are those people? Hopefully, they'll come from a place of faith, but they might not. - And it's a real questio

n, right? How we work for the common good together at a time and again, be a look to be a sign and not necessarily the solution. Although being a solution is not a bad thing. I mean, I don't want to knock that either. Other questions? John? - I'm not the one to channel Liz Bruning. She's my favorite pro-life socialist. But I suspect if she were here, she would say, this is inspiring, but our situation is demoralizing and she would be very tough on institutions. And the last time she was in this

room, she went after the institutional church for the horrible harm done by sexual abuse. Debris would just right as sold itself. Twitter is not an abstract problem and it has the name, Trump. The evangelical community, and sometimes, even though we may not have a prayer space in our home, we pray, sometimes this breaks us and somebody made a joke, don't tweet after drinking. Sometimes we just drink. Mike has been eloquent about the struggle. He's failed. What do you do when the institutions you

depend on fail us in fundamental ways and bring us down? - Go ahead. - Yeah, I'm happy to answer that. So when I think about my upbringing as an African American, and I think about my mother's from new Orleans, my dad is from North Carolina. Both of them were first generation college students. My grandparents on my mother's side only went to the eighth grade. I didn't meet my grandparents on my father's side because they both died before I was born. I say all that to say when I think about the

family that I know in love and who raised me, they did not trust institutions. They didn't trust institutions because institutions had failed them repeatedly over and over again throughout their lives. So now in the times that we're in, in the demoralizing times that we're in, where more and more people are starting to see the cracks and the fissures in our institutions, people that I love and care about, many of whom are African American are like, I mean, that's just kinda how it is. So it's a

different experience of our country. It's a different experience of our institutions. That includes the Catholic church. I was raised Catholic. That includes the Catholic church, it includes our political system, it includes our school systems, all of our systems. All that said, I was always taught to engage. I was taught to vote every single time you go to vote, it's your right, people died for it. You go vote. I was taught to go to school. There is a system to this. There's a game to it. You h

ave to take tests. There are rules that you may not be oriented to. You do whatever you need to do. You work really hard so that you can excel in the system. And so I think that as Americans, we don't do very well holding dichotomies and holding contradictions, but that is actually what we need to do in these demoralizing times. Our institutions are manmade, men are fallible, women are fallible too, but not as fallible as men. (audience laughing) Our institutions are human. Our institutions are

human and so therefore, they are going to disappoint us over and over and over again. And yet we are called spiritually to continue to engage. I think that being honest and confronting the fears and the disappointments and the hurts that come through our institutions is what we are actually being called to do and that's what I feel called to do. I have so many disappointments in the Catholic church around so many things, and yet I still go to mass every week and yet I sat on the parish council a

nd got so frustrated sometimes with my pastor, and yet and yet, and yet I'm still there because I know that continuing to be present gives me the greatest authority to hold set institution accountable. All that said, I'll just end by saying, I don't demean anyone who decides to leave and institution because they have felt traumatized by it or because they are so disenchanted that they can't do it anymore. I think that we have to make those decisions according to our conscience and I think that t

here is a role for people to be outside of institutions and shine a light on hypocrisy or on shortcomings. But I don't think that there is one right answer. I don't think the right answer is to stay or to leave. I think that we have to discern that for ourselves. - Well, let's talk about that a little more. Mike, let's talk about the a particular institution, the Republican Party. I mean, do you think that in an age where we have a president who says we should shoot migrants in the leg to slow t

hem down across the border or to change policy in Syria because I decide to today and it doesn't get the kind of pushback from party leaders in the way that we might've expected even a few years ago. Is that a broken institution? - I think in many ways it is. But let me step back one second. When you're dealing with this, with institutional failure, usually it's not a circumstance where there are good people and bad people. There are people that have the line between good and evil through their

own hearts and they need leaders and examples to bring out the good side rather than to feed the bad side. So it's not so much the children of light against the children of darkness. It's whether you have institutions and leaders that will draw out the light out of our political system because there's an inherent, there's a capacity for both good and evil in that system. So it has been disturbing that I think the Republican Party has taken leadership which has been oriented towards encouraging d

ivision and dehumanization. But I think the worst thing in all of that for me has been what that has done to good people in the system is that it's been easier for them not to stand up. and it's easy to be intimidated in this environment. And I hate to see that people I like and respect in that circumstance. But I do think that, I mentioned Robert F. Kennedy as an example of the possibility of leadership. I mean, if you look at his speech on the night that Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in th

e Indianapolis speech that he did where he talked about the country having a choice between love and hate, a conscious choice between love and hate as it went forward in one of the bloodiest most horrible years of modern American history. And so I have been disillusioned and disturbed by some of what I've seen, but I think it's possible to have leaders to appeal to the better angels and to do that effectively. And so we both have to wait for that and work for it. Some of it is patience and then

some of it is impatience. It's taking action and then when leaders don't exist becoming those leaders. But that's I mean it's a generational kind of challenge. I mean it may take a while. And sometimes this movements do take a while. But that doesn't release you from responsibility. - In some ways I think just bringing it back to the Catholic church for a second, Pope Francis has in many ways been a transformational leader in that regard. And then you see the challenges though of the age that we

live in that makes it, that makes division and come back around again. And I think that we do live in a time in which institutions are losing trust and leadership is harder and yet at the same point, coming together around these principles we share seems to be a path forward out of it. I wonder as we wrap it up here, since we are trying to be sure that we a hit that all important Nats game. I wonder if we might take one more a run around here up on the seat. I throw up on the dice and say, what

do you think of as our main takeaway from tonight? I mean if you were to say to folks out there, here's what I want you to leave with. Here's what I want you to walk out of the door tonight. Why don't we start with you Montse? - Going off of, I think the beautiful way that Michael closed. When politics is everything, when that's your identity and it defines you, you miss opportunities. You really have to decide. And in order to not be demoralized, you really have to decide what's your purpose h

ere? Define it for yourself. Why are you here? What are you trying to do and who is your validator? What really matters is how do you define success? And if you identify that it feels ungrateful and selfish to wallow in self pity over the state of our country. We live in the greatest country, arguably the greatest country of all time on the planet in the most privileged city, in the most privileged situation. I feel horrible when I look at myself and I'm sad. I think it's an opportunity for us t

o wake up and do something and really find that talent that we were given, that we're supposed to use in some way. So identifying that journey and identifying that validator that isn't Twitter, Facebook, et cetera, or success or vanity. I mean go through all of the lists of the things that we're not supposed to be. Whether you're Christian or not. Who are you? Really find that and if you can't find it, decide it. - [Kim] How about you Jeanne? What do you think take away? - So I really appreciate

d the themes that were running through our conversation. And for me, there were three words. Encounter, compassion and honesty. I think that truth really will set us free. And I think that sometimes we are so in love with our own ideas and our own ideology that we are afraid to encounter other people who might challenge that. But I deeply believe that if what we believe and what I am doing and what I adhere to is true, the truth with a capital T, the true that's coming from God, then an encounte

r can't completely dismantle that. And it can only eliminate the pieces of that that are false and aluminate the pieces of that that are true. So I think that challenging ourselves in a town that is very transactional to deeply encounter one another, to listen to one another and to approach one another with compassion because in the state that our society is in, we are all suffering in various ways. We're all traumatized in various ways that can actually eliminate the truth. And I think being ho

nest with ourselves and with one another is one way to do that. - [Kim] Thanks, that's great. Mike, one take away from tonight? - Well, I will tell you honestly, my personal takeaway is just being deeply encouraged and impressed by these principled young women who are gonna make a huge difference. And that it sounds like the response of an old person and it is. (audience laughing) But you guys are so much more mature in your knowledge and judgment and spiritual insight than I would have been at

that age. And so I came away just impressed and encouraged. - I'm encouraged too. I wanna thank all of you for being here. I want to before we go, I wanna tell you all about what we have coming up because we've got a great schedule coming up in the rest of the fall. First of all, we have a major public dialogue on the 4th of November on the clergy abuse crisis. We spent a lot of time last year focused on that. We want to follow up on it, and talk about what's happened. Where we are right now and

where we can go. That'll be on the fourth. That'll be over on main campus. On the 21st, we're gonna have a major public dialogue on the Francis factor at six. Every year, the initiative has talked about what's going on with Pope Francis, where he's been for the year, where he's taking us, where this one will be with Archbishop Gregory. It will be with Helen Alvary who was a major leader in the church, is a George Mason University law professor and lead with John Carr who has been deeply involve

d in this as well. And finally our next Salt and Light Program. I'm very excited about this. This will be on the 20th of November. We've had a major conversation going on in journals and academic life, intellectual life here on nationalism and post liberalism. I think it's time to bring that conversation to Pope Francis. So it's gonna be nationalism, post liberalism, and Pope Francis. We're going to have Austin Ivory, who is a major biographer of Pope Francis, Ross Douthat, who's written a very

critical book about Pope Francis, Matt cinnamon from Commonweal and Leah Libresco, who's written about in many different publications across the spectrum and also written about building the Benedict option. I think that's gonna be a exciting night. Finally, in December, we're going to have one of our Latino Leaders Gatherings and that'll be over at St. Matthews. So we want to thank our panelists tonight. Thank you all for coming and I hope to see upstairs at our reception. (audience applauding)