Tell us a little bit about yourself.

First of all, thank you, Evelyn, for bringing a guiding voice on.

My name is Jason DeRose.

We have a guiding voice.

It's a podcast.

Basically, what we do is we spotlight people.

individuals and organ and organizations that not only helped me when i was struggling and down on my luck but also help other people and we attack it through doing things like instead of getting a job we help them get a career we point them in the right direction and we just network with the right people and do everything so a guiding voice started in 2024 of august we uh my my uh my mother-in-law and i were doing a raider event and we were doing it at shannon west for the kids and we were sitting there waiting for the people to show up and uh i might tear up saying this but uh she said you know i said uh i said mars why do you really do this you know i know why i'm doing it is to keep me out keep my head straight she goes i want to build something for my daughters and my family that'll be be around after i'm gone And that's where I was like, you know, a guiding voice.

Yes.

Why do you think this is emerging now?

Well, you know, for many years, as you said, Republicans really had the market cornered on this, and I think that Democrats finally figured out a way to have clergy, the people best trained and most trained and most used to talking about their faith and how it inter- how they use it in public life, and they s- these people emerged through state legislatures.

Three of these candidates serve in state legislators, legislatures right now.

So they realized, "This is our moment," I think.

I don't think there was a big campaign to get them to run, say, from the Democratic Party.

It was much more these were people serving their neighbors in state legislatures who said, "It's now time for a larger stage."

Mm.

And I think that for, uh, James Talarico in particular, he came to prominence talking out against Christian nationalism while being a seminarian, while being a politician.

Why do you think this is emerging now?

Well, you know, for many years, as you said, Republicans really had the market cornered on this, and I think that Democrats finally figured out a way to have clergy, the people best trained and most trained and most used to talking about their faith and how it inter, how they use it in public life, and they s- these people emerged through state legislatures.

Three of these candidates serve in state legislators, legislatures right now.

So they realized, "This is our moment," I think.

I don't think there was a big campaign to get them to run, say, from the Democratic Party.

It was much more these were people serving their neighbors in state legislatures who said, "It's now time for a larger stage."

Mm-hmm.

And I think that for, uh, James Talarico in particular, he came to prominence talking out against Christian nationalism while being a seminarian, while being a politician.

Mm.

In Iowa, there are two clergy people running for two US House seats there.

Sarah Trone Garriott is a Lutheran pastor in the Des Moines area, and Lindsey James is a Presbyterian chaplain in the Dubuque area in northeast Iowa.

There's also Adam Hamilton.

He's running as a Democrat in Kansas for the Senate, and he's a Methodist pastor at a large congregation there.

Now, each of them says they have different reasons for running.

In Texas, redistricting was a big issue.

Yeah.

Jason, is that something that has come up in your reporting?

Well, it's pretty unusual for, you know, in a pluralistic society, for people to say, like, "The Bible says this.

Here is the legislative agenda laid out by the Bible." I think that, you know, many biblical scholars and historians of Christianity would, would argue that the Bible does not offer a legislative agenda.

There isn't a one-to-one, you know, correlation.

Like, you can't look at ancient Israel or ancient Greece and say, "This is how legislation should happen here." However, I would say that during the last year or so in the Trump administration, we are seeing more and more of that.

Again, not necessarily from President Trump himself, but from those in his circle, like, uh, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, like Pete Hegseth.

I think just recently to the birthright citizenship case that was, uh, argued in the Supreme Court, there were a number of religious groups who filed friend of the court briefs, and one in particular was a very broad-ranging one that included Catholics and Protestants and Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists that made broad appeal to many world religions' understanding of the value of welcoming the stranger-

Hmm.

I'm wondering if you could talk me through what a typical relationship between a US president and the pope has looked like before.

Well, you know, I think it's never a perfect fit, and it doesn't really fit into the way that we think of American politics being liberal and conservative, left and right.

I think of abortion, you could say the Catholic Church is conservative on that issue, but if you think of the death penalty, then you think the Catholic Church is liberal on that issue.

Poverty, it might be considered liberal on that issue.

Peace, it might be considered liberal.

So I think that that relationship is never a like Democrats always go with the pope and Republicans always go against the pope or vice versa.

Um, it's been very tense under Trump given the war in Iran and actions in Venezuela, but it's also, I think, a lot of it has to do with, um, immigration enforcement, which the church for years has been very concerned about, in part because the Catholic Church in America is a, a largely immigrant church.

It is very often about politics and how you're voting.

Sure.

I mean, that was really striking.

I mean, another thing that really struck me was the central imagery on the stage was the Turning Point USA logo sort of floating around on those screens.

Not the Christian cross, which, you know, is a surprising thing to not have at a memorial service.

While there was an overlay of religion, the central iconography, I think, was the Turning Point USA logo and a very large portrait of Charlie Kirk there on the stage.

Also, a lot of flags, military flags, the US flag, which, you know, is not an uncomplicated thing to have at a worship service.

Lots of clergy would say, "I don't want a US flag in a worship service because God is God of all the nations, not just of this nation." So I really saw this fusing of the two, and I call it a hybrid because they weren't bumping up against each other.

Um, for Trump, it's very different and he kind of gives the crowd a permission structure to not have to feel like they have to forgive, but you gotta get on your horse, so to speak, and get to work politically.

Uh, we could fill the entire show with this question, but, um, top level, what is the state of the Catholic Church that Pope Leo has, is now in charge of? What are the biggest challenges he's gonna face?

Well, you know, he, in an address to cardinals just the other day, he really focused in two areas.

He told them that he chose the name Pope Leo because of a previous pope Leo, Leo XIII, and his encyclical Rerum Novarum.

Now that document offers really expansive social teachings on economic justice, human dignity, specifically related to the Industrial Revolution.

And what he called for, I think, is a new Rerum Novarum, a new of new things, to address the digital age, and specifically to address artificial intelligence.

So I think that he's feeling the weight of what that will mean for Catholicism.

In fact, we talked to a cardinal last week who referred to that as the digital continent, something that the church has to figure out how to be involved in.

What are the biggest questions you have going forward? What are the storylines you're now thinking of reporting on?