Pope Francis transcends political categories: like any pope he is neither liberal nor conservative; neither progressive nor traditionalist; and certainly neither Democrat nor Republican. But that doesn’t mean that his words and deeds have not had a powerful impact on people who self-identify with all of these categories.

In this lecture writer John Gehring will show how Pope Francis has influenced both the Catholic Church in the United States and the American political discourse, thus altering the spiritual and cultural landscape for perhaps decades to come.

Ghering is Catholic Program Director at Faith in Public Life, an advocacy group in Washington. He is the author of The Francis Effect: A Radical Pope’s Challenge to the American Catholic Church (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), which Publishers Weekly praised as a “well-researched work that features dozens of Catholic voices driving the conversation about Pope Francis.” His commentary and analysis have appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the National Catholic Reporter, America and Commonweal. He is a former associate director for media relations at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and has been a staff writer at The Catholic Review, The Frederick Gazette, and Education Week.

John lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Timi, and their children, Sophie and Leo,

There is no cost for this event