Listen: Pope Francis biographer Austen Ivereigh talks building a new kind of dialogue in the church

On December 11, Outreach editor James Martin, S.J., and managing editor Ryan Di Corpo spoke with the author Austen Ivereigh, the pope’s biographer who served as an expert at this year’s Synod on Synodality. In this audio-only episode of Outspoken, Ivereigh speaks about discussions on LGBTQ inclusion at the Synod, the process of drafting the final Synod report and what Pope Francis hopes to achieve through global dialogue. 

“This machine, this thing that we’re constructing here, is neither democracy nor is it authoritarianism,” said Ivereigh about the synodal process. “It’s something that belongs to the church … which is about opening ourselves up, genuinely and authentically, to the guidance of the Spirit.”