June 10, 2025 • 16 mins
Ambassador Francis Rooney is former US Ambassador to the Holy See (the Vatican) and a former member of Congress from Florida. He's a personal friend (or at least fairly close acquaintance) of the new Pope Leo XIV, formerly "Father Bob" Prevost.
More about Amb Rooney: Francis Rooney | Wilson Center
More about Amb Rooney: Francis Rooney | Wilson Center
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right to our KOA Common Spirit Health Studio line, and
we are. I'm so pleased to be joined by Francis Rooney.
And I don't think we've spoken before, although somewhere in
my brain I feel like maybe we have. But Francis
Roney was a member of Congress representing Florida's nineteenth congressional district,
(00:21):
basically overlapping Trump's first term in office. Before that, and
what's going to be the primary subject of our conversation today,
in the mid two thousands, he was United States Ambassador
to the Holy See to the Vatican, and so we
had a ton of stuff to talk about. Ambassador Rooney,
Welcome to KOA and thanks so much for being.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Here, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Hey, before we talk about the Pope and the ambassador stuff,
I have one quick question for you. I'm always pleased, impressed,
and slightly curious when folks who have not so in
Congress for very long and probably could win reelection decide
(01:05):
not to run again.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Why did you decide not to run again?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, the only reason I ran in the first place
was to get the money necessary to build out the
Everglades restoration projects and the other environmentally related things. That
we needed in southwest Florida, particularly extending the ban on
offshore drilling that George W had put in place back
when Jeb was governor of Florida. It was inspired in
(01:30):
two thousand and seven, and after that, I didn't really
care about all the sausage making. Look what's going on now?
I mean waste of time?
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, I mean are you glad not to be there?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Does any part of you wish you could be there
to knock some heads together and knock some sense into people?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Or do you realize or believe.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
It's a lot of cause there's no sense to knock. Yeah.
The process is defected from the start. Executive controls everything.
We really the Congress is a rubber stamp to the Senate,
which is generally a rubber stamp the executive event. So
once I got the things that I ran to do
and was thankful that I could get done with President
Trump and with the with the Senate, I said, what
(02:09):
am I doing down here? I have other things I
need to do with my life.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
What Why do you think members of the House of
Representatives don't more zealously guard their Article one rights and powers?
Why do you think they let the executive, and not
just Trump, but one executive after another for a generation
accumulate power that they shouldn't have.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
It's been going on ever since FDR. You know, Arthur
Schlessinger wrote a book in nineteen seventy two called The
Imperial Presidency. I reread it. I said, well, that's quite
compared to the way we are now with the overreach
of the executive and every part of the government. I
think it's because of fear of not getting re elected.
(02:51):
The Congress is like a dog with its like a
deer in the headlights. They don't want to do anything
controversial that can get them not elected. And as such
that righte these very vague, vague, milk toast bills that
can be interpreted by the bureaucracy and the president and
the executive branch anyway they want. Right, you know, we're
(03:12):
still operating under the same authorization for the use of
military force that was passed to allow us to go
into Iraq and Afghanistan, yep.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
And there are only a few people who ever talk
about it, right Rand Paul and a couple others.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
So are the only folks who ever talk about talk
about that?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Is there last question on this is there any reason
to have hope that it might get better or do
you think it's just Look, my son's middle name is
rand and you seem like a pretty intellectual guy. So
you know, I'm often of the mindset that nothing is
going to get better until it gets much, much, much worse.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
That's probably the case. I mean, you know, at the
end of Bill Clinton's second term, twenty six percent of
House districts were considered highly partisan. Now it's what nine
I mean. And so that all the elections take place
in the primaries, which drives these people to the polls,
and there's really no functioning democracy from an electoral point
of view.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Oh all right, I.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Can talk about terminuse. These guys get up there and
they use the power of the incumbency. They basically market
the people on their own money.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Yeah, I couldn't agree.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
I used to think, and now I'm talking about twenty
five thirty years ago, that an election was the term limit.
But the power of incumbency is so great that I've
come around to thinking we actually need we actually need
term limits.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
I'm with you on that.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
The anti terminent people said the same thing you just did.
That You're right, there's so much power of the incumbency
that they can use to market themselves for free, if
you will. We need termlaments. Remember, we thought the founders
of this country thought of war to avoid a political
class and to get rid of one. And look what
(04:55):
we got.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah, we got to political class and political dynasties. Even
though you know, I kind of liked the Bushes, but
it's still a political dynasty, and then the Clintons and anyway,
all right, so, how how did you become ambassador to
the Holy See? I mean, I know George W. Bush
appointed you, but what's that process?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Well, these important appointments of the president are kind of
very personal, and I knew the president quite well, and
he reached down and offered me something that was very
very special, and I'm thankful for it. But we were
very good friends, and I've known him for a long
time and have helped him in all of his races.
(05:41):
We built some we built a baseball stadium for him
when he owned the team in Texas Rangers. And we'll
go way back. We go back to the late to
the mid eighties.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
So I assume if you were ambassador to the Vatican,
ambassador to the Holy See, that the Vatican and Catholicism
means a lot to you, and you know a lot
about it, and you clearly wanted that. And so let's
bring it forward now to our current pope, the first
ever American Pope, Pope Leo the fourteenth, who you know.
(06:12):
I hear on TV when he was a parish priest.
People called him Father Bob. I sometimes call him Pope Bob,
not with any disrespect, just because it sounds so awesome.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Do you know him, I've done him for thirty years,
me and my family.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Tell tell us a little like, tell me what he's
like as a human being, and then and then we
can separately talk about what you think about him as pope.
By the way, I'm Jewish, so I don't know a
ton about this.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Well, the our kids went to an Augustinian middle school
and high school in Tulsa, and Father Bob came head
of the Midwest Augustinians. That's their biggest province, the Midwest
one Chicago rased in Chicago, and so he would come
down to our board meetings every month. I to know
him real well. I was on the board of the
school for years and then lo and behold. In two
(07:01):
thousand and one, I think it was or two he
moved to Rome to take over the leadership of the
entire Augustinian Order, and come two thousand and five we
moved over there. In fact, the third night we were
over there, we had dinner with Bob and.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Bob Wow, all right.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
We did a lot of things. We saw a lot
of him. We went to a lot of Augustinian events
while we were there, and certainly invited him to all
the events we would have at the house for Americans
and things like that.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
What do you two chat about?
Speaker 1 (07:31):
And I don't mean when you're talking politics or anything
like that, just like two guys hanging out over a
beer or a glass of wine or something.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
What would be the last time we visited? He came
by our house in Naples two winters ago for about
two and a half hours. He was there for a
conference and had some time. They came by the house
with another Augustinian and we just visited about things going
on in the world, political things, challenges, the church spaces
that Since Father Bob had been in Peru, he was
(08:02):
keenly aware of the expansive role of Evangelical Christians in
Latin America six countries in Latin America are no longer
Catholic majorities, and we talked about that quite a bit.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Wow, So we went from and again I'm not Catholic,
but we went from a very conservative Pope in Benedict
to a very liberal Pope in Francis. How do you
think of Father Bob in that kind of spectrum.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Well, I think we'll have a little bit of both.
He will be more doctrinaire and adherent and respective of
the evolutionary Church doctrine as Pope Benedict was and his predecessors.
He won't be a rock driller, I don't think, well,
like Pope Francis was. On the other hand, I'm sure
that he will continue the social justice impetus that Pope
(08:58):
Francis whose consciousness Pope Francis rais. Because we have all
these things going on in the world, all these refugees,
all these migrants around the world, conflicts around the world,
I think there's a role for the Holy See to
play in resolving the UK brain things like that I
think will be emphasis for him as well.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Much of the growth of the Catholic Church in the
last at least couple of decades has been in Africa
and to a certain degree in Asia, not that much.
In the US maybe a little, and probably all religion
has been shrinking except for Islam in Europe.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
What do you think it means to have, you know,
Father Bob as pope for.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
The experience of American Catholics or for the growth of
Catholicism in America.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Well, I think that given his age, in his historical
teaching oria, he will be attractive to younger, younger Catholics
deciding whether or not to re engage with the church.
And I'm hoping that we'll see a groundswell of younger
people returned to or join the church. And because he's
(10:14):
going to present a very welcoming position to them as
far the like the real conservative Africans and things like that.
I think you're right, that's been the growth of the church.
But they're much more conservative than the mainstream church. Those
bishops and cardinals from Nigeria are very conservative. I know them,
(10:37):
and you know, the mainstream, mainstream church has moved towards
the middle a little bit, and I think for good reason.
The fact that he took the name pu Leo is
very instructive.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
I mean and I read about Leo the thirteenth, a
very interesting guy who I think you know far better
than I do.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
So maybe you should be these stories.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
But he seemed to me to be a guy who
really tried to balance nobody talking about social justice back then,
but that kind of thing, but also not as like
a socialist radical.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
No. A lot of people criticized Leo for being just
another liberal Democrat, Catholic guy, you know, but the fact
of the matter, what is he was calling out the
injustices and dislocations and inequalities that arose out of the
industrial revolution and the people, and he basically made the
(11:33):
argument in Rarham Novarum that if you don't have enough
people in your country that are benefiting from your system,
you're going to have a problem. He kind of foresaw
the communist revolution that made nineteen seventeen and we have.
So for Pope Leo the fourteenth to take that name
shows me that he's sensitive to the changes in upheavals
(11:55):
that we're facing right now around the world, whether it's migrants,
whether it's social media. Uh, you know, there's a lot
of ai there's a lot of challenges out there that
are uprooting our last couple hundred year away alive.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
I told you there would be no math, but I'm
going to do some.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
So Popolio the fourteenth, it just occurred to me, could
be Pope Lio the thirteenth, plus Popo Lio the First,
who is sometimes called Pope Leo the Great. There's only
I think three popes who have the great after their names. Now,
And I'm sure you're well aware of the famous story
about Pope Leo the Great.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
And Attila the Hun. Yeah, why don't you tell my listeners?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Well, he faced him down right, yeah, and welcomed him
to join the church and room, and.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
He did, and Attila the Hunt was going to basically
raid not just Rome but most of Italy. And Pope
Leo the First shows up and talks with him, and
Attila says, all right, I'll leave you guys.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Alone, and he keeps going.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Gossip became Catholics.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
It's an incredible story. And I is I wonder in
Father Bob's mind as he was picking his name, his
pope's name when he becomes pope. Clearly the Leo the
thirteenth connection is obvious, but I wonder how much of
the Leo the First was in his mind.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
It could be it could be that he wants to say, well,
you're welcome here, Okay. I mean Pope Francis had that
liberation theology thing that these Latin Americans are all eaten
up with, basically says, you know, the state needs to
dominate your life, and the rich states need to give
the poor states more money, and and there's no individual
(13:39):
initiative in their dogma. And I think that's why evangelical
christian Is Christianity has taken over Latin America. Will they
say to those people, it's good for you to provide
for your family and get ahead. God wants you to
do that, right, And there's nothing wrong with that message
within reason, and I think that that. I think certainly
(14:00):
after his experience in Peru, Pope Leo sensitive to that.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Well, there's certainly very major overlap in the Venn diagram
of liberation theology and socialism.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
M H. Totally.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
We're talking with Francis Rooney, who was a member of
Congress but before that, and the main subject of our
conversation today, Ambassador the Holy See and devout Catholic and
a friend of Father Bob who is now Pope Leo
the fourteenth, What all right I'm gonna ask you a
crazy question. If I got a chance to talk to
Father Bob and asked him tell me a little about
(14:36):
Francis Rooney, what do you think he'd said.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I think you would say that he was a good
ambassador represent the United States well, and he's a very
strong partner with the Augustinians. I'm much called an Augustinian affiliate.
That means you're kind of a lay person that's associated
with the Augustinians. And we've been very close to him.
We think an awful lot of what they taught our
kids and their ministry, and and I think you'd say
(15:01):
things like that.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Have you spoken to him since he became pope?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
No, No, I wouldn't bother him. Now. Once he's set
out and he's organized, and he's on his guide path
to be pope, and he's done a few things and
gets a staff together, I'll call one of my Augustinian
friends and find out who to talk to over there
and pick all the kids and family over there to
go say hi to him.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
That would be just a remarkable experience for you, for
your kids. I mean, I'm sure you met at least
one prior Pope. I don't know who was pope when
or if there was just one. When you were in
that spent a lot of time with Benedict.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
That was my job. Uh huh, you know, every three
or four times a year, five times a year, I'd
go see Benedict. Now, Pope Francis I only met.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Once, right, which was probably enough.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I didn't agree with him all that much.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Ambassador Francis Ronie, fascinating conversation. I'm really grateful for your time,
and even though it's not your doing, congratulations on your
friend becoming pope. And I do think I think again,
I'm not Catholic, but I think this is a good
thing for the church. I think it's a good thing
for the American Catholic Church. I think it's a good
(16:11):
thing for America.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
I think it's a super thing for America to have
someone that shares our values. Look, he's gonna do some
big deal in White Sox Park next week. That's as
American as you can get.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Well, maybe he should be at at Wrigley instead. The
White Sox ain't much.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
That was the big debate right away. People didn't care
about his theology. They cared about whether he's the White
Sox or cubstance.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
I know, I know, And.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
One of my producers here said, the White Sox need
to make up a jersey for him that says LEO
on the back with XIV as the number and send
it to him.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I mean, they probably did it already to.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Believe we've already done it.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yeah, they've probably already done it. Francis Rooney, thanks so
much for your time. I thoroughly enjoyed that conversation.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Glad to do it.
Right to our KOA Common Spirit Health Studio line, and
we are. I'm so pleased to be joined by Francis Rooney.
And I don't think we've spoken before, although somewhere in
my brain I feel like maybe we have. But Francis
Roney was a member of Congress representing Florida's nineteenth congressional district,
(00:21):
basically overlapping Trump's first term in office. Before that, and
what's going to be the primary subject of our conversation today,
in the mid two thousands, he was United States Ambassador
to the Holy See to the Vatican, and so we
had a ton of stuff to talk about. Ambassador Rooney,
Welcome to KOA and thanks so much for being.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Here, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Hey, before we talk about the Pope and the ambassador stuff,
I have one quick question for you. I'm always pleased, impressed,
and slightly curious when folks who have not so in
Congress for very long and probably could win reelection decide
(01:05):
not to run again.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Why did you decide not to run again?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, the only reason I ran in the first place
was to get the money necessary to build out the
Everglades restoration projects and the other environmentally related things. That
we needed in southwest Florida, particularly extending the ban on
offshore drilling that George W had put in place back
when Jeb was governor of Florida. It was inspired in
(01:30):
two thousand and seven, and after that, I didn't really
care about all the sausage making. Look what's going on now?
I mean waste of time?
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, I mean are you glad not to be there?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Does any part of you wish you could be there
to knock some heads together and knock some sense into people?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Or do you realize or believe.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
It's a lot of cause there's no sense to knock. Yeah.
The process is defected from the start. Executive controls everything.
We really the Congress is a rubber stamp to the Senate,
which is generally a rubber stamp the executive event. So
once I got the things that I ran to do
and was thankful that I could get done with President
Trump and with the with the Senate, I said, what
(02:09):
am I doing down here? I have other things I
need to do with my life.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
What Why do you think members of the House of
Representatives don't more zealously guard their Article one rights and powers?
Why do you think they let the executive, and not
just Trump, but one executive after another for a generation
accumulate power that they shouldn't have.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
It's been going on ever since FDR. You know, Arthur
Schlessinger wrote a book in nineteen seventy two called The
Imperial Presidency. I reread it. I said, well, that's quite
compared to the way we are now with the overreach
of the executive and every part of the government. I
think it's because of fear of not getting re elected.
(02:51):
The Congress is like a dog with its like a
deer in the headlights. They don't want to do anything
controversial that can get them not elected. And as such
that righte these very vague, vague, milk toast bills that
can be interpreted by the bureaucracy and the president and
the executive branch anyway they want. Right, you know, we're
(03:12):
still operating under the same authorization for the use of
military force that was passed to allow us to go
into Iraq and Afghanistan, yep.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
And there are only a few people who ever talk
about it, right Rand Paul and a couple others.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
So are the only folks who ever talk about talk
about that?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Is there last question on this is there any reason
to have hope that it might get better or do
you think it's just Look, my son's middle name is
rand and you seem like a pretty intellectual guy. So
you know, I'm often of the mindset that nothing is
going to get better until it gets much, much, much worse.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
That's probably the case. I mean, you know, at the
end of Bill Clinton's second term, twenty six percent of
House districts were considered highly partisan. Now it's what nine
I mean. And so that all the elections take place
in the primaries, which drives these people to the polls,
and there's really no functioning democracy from an electoral point
of view.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Oh all right, I.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Can talk about terminuse. These guys get up there and
they use the power of the incumbency. They basically market
the people on their own money.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Yeah, I couldn't agree.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
I used to think, and now I'm talking about twenty
five thirty years ago, that an election was the term limit.
But the power of incumbency is so great that I've
come around to thinking we actually need we actually need
term limits.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
I'm with you on that.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
The anti terminent people said the same thing you just did.
That You're right, there's so much power of the incumbency
that they can use to market themselves for free, if
you will. We need termlaments. Remember, we thought the founders
of this country thought of war to avoid a political
class and to get rid of one. And look what
(04:55):
we got.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah, we got to political class and political dynasties. Even
though you know, I kind of liked the Bushes, but
it's still a political dynasty, and then the Clintons and anyway,
all right, so, how how did you become ambassador to
the Holy See? I mean, I know George W. Bush
appointed you, but what's that process?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Well, these important appointments of the president are kind of
very personal, and I knew the president quite well, and
he reached down and offered me something that was very
very special, and I'm thankful for it. But we were
very good friends, and I've known him for a long
time and have helped him in all of his races.
(05:41):
We built some we built a baseball stadium for him
when he owned the team in Texas Rangers. And we'll
go way back. We go back to the late to
the mid eighties.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
So I assume if you were ambassador to the Vatican,
ambassador to the Holy See, that the Vatican and Catholicism
means a lot to you, and you know a lot
about it, and you clearly wanted that. And so let's
bring it forward now to our current pope, the first
ever American Pope, Pope Leo the fourteenth, who you know.
(06:12):
I hear on TV when he was a parish priest.
People called him Father Bob. I sometimes call him Pope Bob,
not with any disrespect, just because it sounds so awesome.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Do you know him, I've done him for thirty years,
me and my family.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Tell tell us a little like, tell me what he's
like as a human being, and then and then we
can separately talk about what you think about him as pope.
By the way, I'm Jewish, so I don't know a
ton about this.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Well, the our kids went to an Augustinian middle school
and high school in Tulsa, and Father Bob came head
of the Midwest Augustinians. That's their biggest province, the Midwest
one Chicago rased in Chicago, and so he would come
down to our board meetings every month. I to know
him real well. I was on the board of the
school for years and then lo and behold. In two
(07:01):
thousand and one, I think it was or two he
moved to Rome to take over the leadership of the
entire Augustinian Order, and come two thousand and five we
moved over there. In fact, the third night we were
over there, we had dinner with Bob and.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Bob Wow, all right.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
We did a lot of things. We saw a lot
of him. We went to a lot of Augustinian events
while we were there, and certainly invited him to all
the events we would have at the house for Americans
and things like that.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
What do you two chat about?
Speaker 1 (07:31):
And I don't mean when you're talking politics or anything
like that, just like two guys hanging out over a
beer or a glass of wine or something.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
What would be the last time we visited? He came
by our house in Naples two winters ago for about
two and a half hours. He was there for a
conference and had some time. They came by the house
with another Augustinian and we just visited about things going
on in the world, political things, challenges, the church spaces
that Since Father Bob had been in Peru, he was
(08:02):
keenly aware of the expansive role of Evangelical Christians in
Latin America six countries in Latin America are no longer
Catholic majorities, and we talked about that quite a bit.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Wow, So we went from and again I'm not Catholic,
but we went from a very conservative Pope in Benedict
to a very liberal Pope in Francis. How do you
think of Father Bob in that kind of spectrum.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Well, I think we'll have a little bit of both.
He will be more doctrinaire and adherent and respective of
the evolutionary Church doctrine as Pope Benedict was and his predecessors.
He won't be a rock driller, I don't think, well,
like Pope Francis was. On the other hand, I'm sure
that he will continue the social justice impetus that Pope
(08:58):
Francis whose consciousness Pope Francis rais. Because we have all
these things going on in the world, all these refugees,
all these migrants around the world, conflicts around the world,
I think there's a role for the Holy See to
play in resolving the UK brain things like that I
think will be emphasis for him as well.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Much of the growth of the Catholic Church in the
last at least couple of decades has been in Africa
and to a certain degree in Asia, not that much.
In the US maybe a little, and probably all religion
has been shrinking except for Islam in Europe.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
What do you think it means to have, you know,
Father Bob as pope for.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
The experience of American Catholics or for the growth of
Catholicism in America.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Well, I think that given his age, in his historical
teaching oria, he will be attractive to younger, younger Catholics
deciding whether or not to re engage with the church.
And I'm hoping that we'll see a groundswell of younger
people returned to or join the church. And because he's
(10:14):
going to present a very welcoming position to them as
far the like the real conservative Africans and things like that.
I think you're right, that's been the growth of the church.
But they're much more conservative than the mainstream church. Those
bishops and cardinals from Nigeria are very conservative. I know them,
(10:37):
and you know, the mainstream, mainstream church has moved towards
the middle a little bit, and I think for good reason.
The fact that he took the name pu Leo is
very instructive.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
I mean and I read about Leo the thirteenth, a
very interesting guy who I think you know far better
than I do.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
So maybe you should be these stories.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
But he seemed to me to be a guy who
really tried to balance nobody talking about social justice back then,
but that kind of thing, but also not as like
a socialist radical.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
No. A lot of people criticized Leo for being just
another liberal Democrat, Catholic guy, you know, but the fact
of the matter, what is he was calling out the
injustices and dislocations and inequalities that arose out of the
industrial revolution and the people, and he basically made the
(11:33):
argument in Rarham Novarum that if you don't have enough
people in your country that are benefiting from your system,
you're going to have a problem. He kind of foresaw
the communist revolution that made nineteen seventeen and we have.
So for Pope Leo the fourteenth to take that name
shows me that he's sensitive to the changes in upheavals
(11:55):
that we're facing right now around the world, whether it's migrants,
whether it's social media. Uh, you know, there's a lot
of ai there's a lot of challenges out there that
are uprooting our last couple hundred year away alive.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
I told you there would be no math, but I'm
going to do some.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
So Popolio the fourteenth, it just occurred to me, could
be Pope Lio the thirteenth, plus Popo Lio the First,
who is sometimes called Pope Leo the Great. There's only
I think three popes who have the great after their names. Now,
And I'm sure you're well aware of the famous story
about Pope Leo the Great.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
And Attila the Hun. Yeah, why don't you tell my listeners?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Well, he faced him down right, yeah, and welcomed him
to join the church and room, and.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
He did, and Attila the Hunt was going to basically
raid not just Rome but most of Italy. And Pope
Leo the First shows up and talks with him, and
Attila says, all right, I'll leave you guys.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Alone, and he keeps going.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Gossip became Catholics.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
It's an incredible story. And I is I wonder in
Father Bob's mind as he was picking his name, his
pope's name when he becomes pope. Clearly the Leo the
thirteenth connection is obvious, but I wonder how much of
the Leo the First was in his mind.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
It could be it could be that he wants to say, well,
you're welcome here, Okay. I mean Pope Francis had that
liberation theology thing that these Latin Americans are all eaten
up with, basically says, you know, the state needs to
dominate your life, and the rich states need to give
the poor states more money, and and there's no individual
(13:39):
initiative in their dogma. And I think that's why evangelical
christian Is Christianity has taken over Latin America. Will they
say to those people, it's good for you to provide
for your family and get ahead. God wants you to
do that, right, And there's nothing wrong with that message
within reason, and I think that that. I think certainly
(14:00):
after his experience in Peru, Pope Leo sensitive to that.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Well, there's certainly very major overlap in the Venn diagram
of liberation theology and socialism.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
M H. Totally.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
We're talking with Francis Rooney, who was a member of
Congress but before that, and the main subject of our
conversation today, Ambassador the Holy See and devout Catholic and
a friend of Father Bob who is now Pope Leo
the fourteenth, What all right I'm gonna ask you a
crazy question. If I got a chance to talk to
Father Bob and asked him tell me a little about
(14:36):
Francis Rooney, what do you think he'd said.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I think you would say that he was a good
ambassador represent the United States well, and he's a very
strong partner with the Augustinians. I'm much called an Augustinian affiliate.
That means you're kind of a lay person that's associated
with the Augustinians. And we've been very close to him.
We think an awful lot of what they taught our
kids and their ministry, and and I think you'd say
(15:01):
things like that.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Have you spoken to him since he became pope?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
No, No, I wouldn't bother him. Now. Once he's set
out and he's organized, and he's on his guide path
to be pope, and he's done a few things and
gets a staff together, I'll call one of my Augustinian
friends and find out who to talk to over there
and pick all the kids and family over there to
go say hi to him.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
That would be just a remarkable experience for you, for
your kids. I mean, I'm sure you met at least
one prior Pope. I don't know who was pope when
or if there was just one. When you were in
that spent a lot of time with Benedict.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
That was my job. Uh huh, you know, every three
or four times a year, five times a year, I'd
go see Benedict. Now, Pope Francis I only met.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Once, right, which was probably enough.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I didn't agree with him all that much.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Ambassador Francis Ronie, fascinating conversation. I'm really grateful for your time,
and even though it's not your doing, congratulations on your
friend becoming pope. And I do think I think again,
I'm not Catholic, but I think this is a good
thing for the church. I think it's a good thing
for the American Catholic Church. I think it's a good
(16:11):
thing for America.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
I think it's a super thing for America to have
someone that shares our values. Look, he's gonna do some
big deal in White Sox Park next week. That's as
American as you can get.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Well, maybe he should be at at Wrigley instead. The
White Sox ain't much.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
That was the big debate right away. People didn't care
about his theology. They cared about whether he's the White
Sox or cubstance.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
I know, I know, And.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
One of my producers here said, the White Sox need
to make up a jersey for him that says LEO
on the back with XIV as the number and send
it to him.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I mean, they probably did it already to.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Believe we've already done it.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yeah, they've probably already done it. Francis Rooney, thanks so
much for your time. I thoroughly enjoyed that conversation.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Glad to do it.
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