The Catholic Church across the globe is desperately trying to respond to the most unprecedented crisis of the 21st century. In times of crisis, one looks to their leaders for direction and consolation. While Catholics are of course looking locally for this leadership, from their own clergy and Bishops, there is also always an instinct in a Catholic that looks towards Rome, to the Pope.
For this CV Connect Webinar, we are joined by Austen Ivereigh, papal biographer and one of the founders of Catholic Voices to talk about how Pope Francis is responding to the challenges presented by COVID-19. Austen will share insights about the Pope’s leadership in these days, especially in light of a recent interview he conducted with the Pope himself (recorded for The Tablet – the Pope’s first for a UK publication and first with a British journalist).
Guest Speaker – Dr Austen Ivereigh
Austen Ivereigh is a writer, commentator and speaker on contemporary church affairs, with a specialist interest in the Church of Latin America and the papacy of Francis. He drew on his D.Phil. from St Antony’s College, Oxford, in 1993 — which was published as Catholicism and Politics in Argentina, 1810-1960 (MacMillan 1994) — for his biography of Pope Francis, The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope (Allen & Unwin, 2015), which has been translated into many languages.
He has recently published a follow-up, reviewing the pontificate, published in the US as Wounded Shepherd: Pope Francis and the Struggle to Convert the Catholic Church (Henry Holt, 2019) and now available in the UK.
His other interest is in church communications. A former deputy editor of The Tablet, and later public affairs director for Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Dr Ivereigh is also founder of Catholic Voices and author of How To Defend the Faith Without Raising Your Voice (Our Sunday Visitor, 2012 & 2015), which has also been widely translated and republished. Most recently he was made Fellow in Contemporary Church History at Campion Hall, Oxford.