Fr. John Wauck, a communications professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, delivered a talk entitled “Communication in the Age of Pope Francis” to students and faculty on September 6. Wauck examined the different communication styles of Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI as well as the media’s approach to each papacy.

Fr. Wauck is an American priest of Opus Dei. A native of Chicago, he studied Renaissance history and literature at Harvard University and philosophy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, where he has lived for the last nineteen years. He teaches a course on literature and Christian faith at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (in 2005, this course was aired as a 13-part television series, called Mirror of the Soul on EWTN) and organizes an international seminar entitled Poetics and Christianity. He has written for many publications, including The American Scholar, The Christian Science Monitor, and The New Criterion, and appeared frequently as a television commentator on matters dealing with the Catholic Church.