On this episode of “Interesting Times,” Ross Douthat is joined by the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and the editor of America Magazine, to reflect on the legacy of Pope Francis and the challenges facing the next papacy.

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Ross Douthat: The death of Pope Francis ends, or at least temporarily suspends, a tumultuous period in the life of the world’s largest religious institution. A period where the pope was often pitted against his own bishops and cardinals in arguments about how much, and in what direction, Roman Catholicism should change.

My guest today and I were often on the opposite side of those debates, and so I’m hoping that our conversation can help illuminate the stakes in Roman Catholicism’s conflicts, the prospects for the church’s continued unity and the implications of these debates for the future of religion in the modern world.

Father James Martin is one of the most famous Catholic priests in the United States. I think the only Jesuit to ever appear on Stephen Colbert’s late night TV program, and the author of many, many books. Most recently, a meditation on the New Testament story of Jesus’ raising of Lazarus from the dead.

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