Archbishop William E. Lori has spent nearly 50 years in Church leadership as a priest and bishop, over 20 years as chaplain to the Knights of Columbus, and 14 years as Archbishop of Baltimore, the first Catholic diocese in the United States. His 2026 pastoral letter, In Charity and Truth: Toward a Renewed Political Culture, names something most American Catholics feel but rarely say out loud: our political culture has gone toxic, and we've stopped seeing each other as brothers and sisters.
Host Jonathan Lewis talks with Archbishop Lori about where that forgetting comes from, what it costs a parish, a presbyterate, and a country.
Key Moments
[00:53] Growing up the youngest of four brothers in southern Indiana, and the sacrificial love his parents showed his brother Frankie, who had special needs.
Catholic formation · family · disability and dignity
[03:10] Two Masses he'll never forget: a Christmas liturgy at a homeless shelter that ended in "Jingle Bells," and saying Mass alone at the empty tomb in the Holy Land.
Eucharist · the poor · Holy Land pilgrimage
[05:59] Why American public and family life have grown so divided — collective amnesia about the image of God, an information ecosystem built to inflame, and the fading family dinner table.
polarization · pastoral letter · Catholic social teaching
[09:41] Is the Church a thermostat setting the culture's temperature, or a thermometer just reflecting it back? You can guess someone's news diet by how they react to a homily.
culture of encounter · Evangelii Gaudium · parish life
[13:10] Polarization isn't just a pew problem — forming younger priests, why bishops like each other more than the press assumes, and what changes when a presbyterate eats at the same table.
clergy formation · Church unity · leadership
[17:19] The line that anchors the conversation: do I want my side to win, or do I want Christ to win? Catholic identity ranked below political identity.
Catholic identity · partisanship · synodality
[27:09] Boutique parishes versus real belonging — and why 2,000 Easter converts in Baltimore say something about which one wins.
evangelization · parish renewal · Easter converts
[29:51] From Archbishop John Carroll and Cardinal Gibbons to Isaac Hecker's conviction that being Catholic and being American reinforce each other — in America's 250th year.
US Catholic history · religious freedom · Catholic schools
[37:47] Why a 19th-century parish priest started a fraternal order instead of letting immigrant Catholics join secret societies, and why the Knights are growing again in an age of "Bowling Alone."
Knights of Columbus · Michael McGivney · loneliness epidemic
[41:23] One practice to start with: find someone you're pretty sure disagrees with you, and have an actual conversation.
practical wisdom · dialogue across difference
[42:42] What fills his heart, what breaks it — the condos going up that the Church isn't reaching, and the twenty-somethings packing the oldest cathedral in the country on a Sunday.
hope · evangelization · Church renewal
[44:35] Lightning round: a case for St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, and the one thing he'd want a curious inquirer to know about entering the Church.
Elizabeth Ann Seton · human dignity · evangelization
Guest
Archbishop William E. Lori has served as Archbishop of Baltimore since 2012, leading the oldest diocese in the United States. He previously served as Bishop of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Auxiliary Bishop of Washington, D.C. Since 2005, he has served as Supreme Chaplain of the Knights of Columbus. He is the author of several pastoral letters, most recently In Charity and Truth: Toward a Renewed Political Culture.
