Who is Pope Leo XIV?

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:40

From the heart of Chicago's south side to the highest office in the Catholic Church, the journey of Robert Provost is as improbable as it is inspiring. So in today's episode, we're exploring the life, legacy and cultural significance of the first American Pope.

From his early years in Illinois via his transformative missionary work in Peru, all the way to the papacy. This is a story that both reflects and reshapes the American Catholic experience. So who is Pope Leo xiv? Welcome to America A History Podcast.

I'm Liam Heffernan and every week we answer a different question to understand the people, the places and the events that make the USA what it is today.

To discuss this, I am joined by a professor of history and American Studies at the University of Notre Dame with a focus on the history of women, Catholicism and American religion. Her books include A Saint of Our Own, how the Quest for a A Holy Hero Helped Catholics Become American.

And we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. Welcome to the podcast. Kathleen Cummings.

Kathleen Cummings: 00:02:05

Thank you. Thrilled to be here.

Liam Heffernan: 00:02:08

Yeah, it's a real pleasure to have you on the podcast. Thank you for joining. And we're also delighted to be joined by a childhood friend of Pope Leo.

They attended Catholic school together in Chicago and he now lives in Texas running a beautiful stained glass business with his wife. And actually I'm going to link you all to that in the show notes because you must check that out. Hello, John Downey.

John Doughney: 00:02:29

Thanks for having me. Good morning.

Liam Heffernan: 00:02:31

Yeah, a real pleasure to have you.

And I will just say, even though this is completely off topic, I checked out your website for the stuff that you have and it's actually, it's so nice. It's just a shame that I live all the way here in the uk.

John Doughney: 00:02:45

We just had an experience shipping to Canada and I tell you what, it's a complicated process.

Liam Heffernan: 00:02:53

Well, if ever I have an opportunity to purchase, I sure will. But anyway, very off topic. So to kick us off, Kathleen, what do we know about Pope Leo's early life?

Kathleen Cummings: 00:03:06

Well, it's just so exciting for those of us in the United States to have a Pope who was born in the United States and he was born in a very interesting part of the United States on the south side of Chicago. John will be able to round this out a little bit better than I can since he experienced it personally.

But I know it as a historian as really tight knit neighborhood full of devout Catholics and organized around parish life. So his parish would have been the center of his life.

His mom was a very devout Catholic, very interesting woman who had studied, gone to graduate school at DePaul University and really instilled in the family a deep, abiding sense of faith. She was a librarian. I know she volunteered at actually the high school that John went to.

So he would have been enmeshed in a neighborhood that revolved around the parish and really, really valued faith. So his faith would have been nourished from a very early age, presumably, as.

Liam Heffernan: 00:04:05

Well, with his dad. I understand, being in the Navy, that respect for authority figures is probably something that was kind of drilled into him and his siblings from.

From a young age, I imagine.

Kathleen Cummings: 00:04:19

I expect it was. And, of course, he came of age during a time when authority was being challenged in American society and in the church. And so as someone.

And I know that he confided in his father about his own doubts about his vocation at different times. He really looked to his father as a spiritual director. He wasn't a spiritual director, but he was a spiritual guide to Pope Leo.

But, yes, I'm sure that had a big influence on his commitment to. But although he has a healthy respect for authority, he also.

I think one of the things that's distinctive about him is he believes in servant leadership. He believes that leaders should also serve, and that has come through throughout his entire career and even in these early days of the papacy.

Liam Heffernan: 00:04:58

How ingrained was religion in everyday life in America? But, you know, specifically in Chicago and Illinois and that part of the country.

Kathleen Cummings: 00:05:06

Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, which also means, for Catholics, a city of parishes. So the parish was the anchor. It was the grade school where the children went every day, where the whole family went on Sundays and other days, too.

Social life was organized around the parish. In contrast to the European countries where other popes were from, Chicago is part of a country that is not predominantly Catholic.

So Catholics in the United States, especially in the era in which Pope Leo grew up, have a different sense of community. It's very. They live in a very diverse society, but organized around these parishes where they. They become.

The parish becomes the center of gravity, like the neighborhood.

There's a lot of overlap there, but very aware that they are a minority in the country at large, but overwhelmingly Catholic in the immediate everyday life that they live.

Liam Heffernan: 00:06:03

Yeah, that's interesting. And we'll certainly come back to that kind of comparison between, you know, Leo and other popes later on.

John, I want to come to you because, you know, we're talking about his early life, and you went to school with him. So tell us about St. Mary's what are your memories of that school?

John Doughney: 00:06:23

Well, as Kathleen has just stated, that time in our history was about community and conformity.

And especially in the: 1950

Our family life was highly connected to the parish. Most of our friends, the mothers as well as the fathers. My dad used to usher every Sunday would serve in some capacity in the church.

And so when you talk about servant leadership, that sense of serving others and other focused really was part of our upbringing. And so it's no surprise at all that Pope Leo became the servant leader. You could see it, you could see it in him as a young boy.

Liam Heffernan: 00:07:30

Yeah. How close were you to him?

John Doughney: 00:07:33

Well, as we lined up according to grades, I was pretty close to him, but he was always ahead, highly, highly intelligent. I don't remember Robert being part of any one particular group.

And again, growing up during that time, there were different groups that kids belonged to and he just seemed to be someone who was just attracted and attracted and embraced by everyone. He, he was highly liked. He was seen for his, his passion for service in the church, his mindfulness about where, what he would actually become.

Nobody in our class would ever disagree that we knew many of us were going to become nuns or priests. As all young Catholic boys and girls think about, we knew Robert was going to be the one who would eventually go into the priesthood.

Liam Heffernan: 00:08:31

It feels like quite hard to believe that, like as far back as then, when you were that young, that they, there was something about him that stood out to such an extent that you thought actually maybe this is the guy that could be that senior one day. Was it really that obvious?

John Doughney: 00:08:49

I don't think any of us talked about him becoming Pope. Every mother in our parish probably envisioned their sons becoming priests.

And my mother used to joke about Pope John and, and, and that was kind of a running joke in our family of, of seven kids. But most young men in the Catholic Church ideated about could this be a path.

iew anybody from the class of: 1969

And many people have asked me, so was it a surprise that day when he was chosen? And I remember I was On I still do consulting work and education.

And so I was on a zoom call and my phone started blowing up and I realized, okay, not only did they choose a Pope, but it was Robert. And so from family and friends to media outlets across the world, were now trying to contact folks who might have known him.

And the question that most was asked was, was it a surprise to you?

It is no surprise that that's the kind of man who chosen as Pope because we saw the characteristics, even as a young man, when you think about humility, kindness, service, compassion, intelligence, you typically are not utilizing those, those characteristics. When you're describing a 13 year old boy, those tend to come at a later time, but those were already instilled.

And I think his upbringing, not only his family, but the influence of the church and the parish and the community that Kathleen talked about really shaped him as a, as a leader.

Liam Heffernan: 00:10:48

And actually I'd really love to just touch on a previous episode of the podcast that I actually did a, a short while back where we, we discussed the Latino urban riots that were happening in not just Chicago, but in New York and other cities as well.

But, but Chicago was, during the 60s was particularly hostile and there was, there was a lot of tension there and it became a bit of a center point of a lot of the, the kind of the racial tensions in the country.

Do you think that kind of growing up in that environment would have helped to instill that sense of social justice that I guess is needed to go into that sort of line of work?

John Doughney: 00:11:29

upheaval that was started in: 1954

And then ultimately, as segregated schools became less and less common, we witnessed the tension, especially on the south side of Chicago. That tension was high.

And, and for me, I chose, instead of attending the local public high school, I chose to travel deeper into the city to Mendel High School, where there was a greater diversity in the high school, but there was a lot less tension simply because we chose to be there. Our public high schools were being forced together and you saw the upheaval that, that came out of that. And it was a turbulent time in the 60s.

The culture was changing, societal issues were, were being raised, a focus on equality and equal rights. And then obviously our involvement in the Vietnam War really created a lot of tensions throughout the country.

And we, we saw it firsthand and so it certainly shaped my view of others and it can't help but have shaped Pope Leo as well.

Liam Heffernan: 00:12:46

Yeah, and I feel like there's a whole bunch of things that we could discuss off the back of that alone. But I'd like to just jump forward a little bit to some of his missionary work.

And, Kathleen, I wonder if you can enlighten us a bit on exactly what he was doing in Peru and how that kind of shaped his theology.

Kathleen Cummings: 00:13:06

Sure. He arrived in Peru in: 1985

It was a time when a guerrilla insurgency in Peru was threatening the church, abducting priests and nuns, extorting money from them. It was a time marked by violence and also poverty.

It would have been very different from what he had experienced in Chicago or in Rome, where he had studied before that.

He was known throughout his missionary work in Peru as a person who was very close to the people who wanted to feed and feed the poor and find jobs for them. He welcomed people who were displaced by violence.

His missionary work in Peru involved doing what priests do, which is preside at Mass and hear confessions and various other sacramental and pastoral duties, but also auto repair. He did everything.

And he was known for a really down to earth person who wore jeans, gave short homilies which endeared him to people, but also was a man of courage and a man of faith. So it was a time when the leader of the Peruvian government went from being a strongman to a dictator.

So it was a time when there were voices who were speaking out against that, and the Catholic Church was. And so there was a lot of people protesting that.

And Father Prevost, as he was called then, joined in those protests and became committed to the cause of peace.

Liam Heffernan: 00:14:35

How do you think his experiences in Peru sort of shaped his future path.

Kathleen Cummings: 00:14:43

Towards the Vatican when he protested in Peru, and actually he had participated in some protests while a seminarian in Rome for peace in the Cold War. And he would have embraced the mantra of if you want peace, work for justice.

He saw that peace wasn't just the absence of war, but peace was to work to create the social conditions that were equitable, that didn't create violence.

And so I think, you know, I think about when he emerged on the balcony on that day in May, his first words to the people assembled there, but really to the whole church, were, peace be with you. And I think that derives from his time in Peru.

I think in another way, being in Peru for so long really made him very conscious of what makes the Catholic Church Catholic, which is it's a universal church, but it's rooted in very local cultures that are very different from each other. The culture that John described in Chicago was incredibly different. From the culture that he lived in in Peru and for that matter, his time in Rome.

And I know we'll get to this later, but one of the factors that led him to emerge as a likely candidate for the papacy was his appreciation of the global church and how diverse it was and what unites Catholics across these cultures. The fact that he lived that in his own experience, so formed in one very distinct Catholic culture, became a missionary in another one.

I think that has really shaped his global vision, which is going to be so important for his papacy, of course.

Liam Heffernan: 00:16:24

And I think actually one of the common characteristics of any pope is that they have all been quite worldly in their career path. They've gone to other countries, they've done a lot of that work.

And actually that, that seems to be, perhaps it's something as we'll, I guess, touch on later, it might be something that's quite unique for American clergymen, but not necessarily unique to other popes. Right.

Kathleen Cummings: 00:16:46

Well, I know we'll get to this a bit later, but yes, I think he combined that global vision with also a very pastoral heart.

So some of the other candidates, including some Italian ones, had the global experience, but had never served as pastors in the way Pope Leo did in Peru. And so I think it was really that combination. You're exactly right.

Men who are cardinals are by nature attuned to the global church, but very few of them had also that pastoral heart, which I think the cardinals were very aware of as a necessity following Pope Francis.

Liam Heffernan: 00:17:22

ow, you say he got to Peru in: 1985

Kathleen Cummings: 00:17:33

Well, even before that. And, you know, I'm from Philadelphia, so I have to say that he did go to Villanova University for college.

So I have that on John, he's from Chicago, but he did spend. Pope Leo did spend four years at Villanova University, and then he was sent to Rome then to study there. And after his ordination was mission to Peru.

He spent over almost 15 years in Peru.

his Augustinian community in: 1999

He must have been incredibly good at that and earned respect because just two years later, he was elected Prime Minister Prior General of the entire Augustinian order. So when he was the provincial prior, he would have overseen 120 men who were missioned from Chicago.

But when he became Prior General of the Augustinians, he was then overseeing 3,000 men who were in almost 50 different countries. And in that responsibility, the term of a prior is six years. He was re elected six years later.

So he spent a total of: 2012

In retrospect, a very fateful meeting.

cese there and did that until: 2023

It's a very important position. He would have met with Pope Francis for two hours every Saturday morning to discuss this important visit. So he got close to Francis there.

But he also, again, really honed that sense of the global church which he had cultivated as Prior General too, of the Augustinians. But that was a tremendously important position. That was when Pope Francis named him a cardinal.

And really I had my eye on him since then because he said some really wonderful things about what the Church needed in its bishops at that point. And it occurred to me that he could well become the first Pope from the United States.

Liam Heffernan: 00:21:13

Would you consider him quite a forward thinking or progressive pope?

Kathleen Cummings: 00:21:18

I wouldn't characterize it that way. I think the categories of traditional and progressive don't make sense in the same way.

That's in a very Western framing of the differences among American Catholics. And Pope Leo doesn't fit nicely into those categories. What he is is radically inclusive.

He's influenced by the Augustinians, who focus on friendship and love and community. He gave a homily just last weekend where he said, the supreme rule of the Church is love. No one is called to dominate, all are called to serve.

ation about back in the early: 1980

We all must listen to each other. No one is excluded. No one possesses the whole truth. We must Humbly seek it and seek it together again.

That's a quote from a very recent homily that he gave and that's his vision for the church. You can call that progressive if you'd like, but it doesn't really fit that category.

It's really about radical inclusiveness, which is important for the Augustinians and of course important for, for the Gospels.

Liam Heffernan: 00:22:31

When you see Pope Leo on the TV and you, you hear him today, how much do you still see the Robert Provost that you went to school with? Or, or do you think there's been a noticeable change?

John Doughney: 00:22:44

Number one, he, he hasn't changed physically a whole lot. He looks, he looked like that when he was in eighth grade.

time I spoke with Robert was: 1969

The same kind of characteristics that he displays now that Kathleen just enumerated, you can see that as, as a young man and that's not to typical. He was not a typical kid. He was different.

He, and we knew he was different, different in a good way because most of us had not developed the same kind of characteristics of social justice and service and, and the kinds of things that he talks about now, they truly I believe were part of his being when he was a 13 year old.

Liam Heffernan: 00:23:51

Do you think that it's maybe a bit of, a, bit of a shame that he grew up too quickly? Obviously it's, it's great for the rest of the world, but it feels like he was an old man for his age and very like very mature for his age.

And I mean, did he, did he have a fun childhood?

John Doughney: 00:24:09

Oh, he was, he was very fun. He was very witty, he had a great sense of humor. But when you say did he grow up too fast?

He influenced so many for so many years and I think that's the blessing for all of us. He influenced the kids around him. When we were at St. Mary's we didn't probably realize it at the time, but looking back, he certainly did.

And as he progressed through his education, all the way through Villanova and then into the priesthood and, and further, he just kept growing. Those, those characteristics became stronger and stronger and stronger.

And so the number of people that he has influenced and impacted before he reached the Papacy is innumerable. And now he's in a position where those same characteristics will come to play as he influences the church worldwide.

Liam Heffernan: 00:25:06

And, you know, Kathleen, I would normally say in this instance that, you know, these characteristics must be shared among, you know, all cardinals and all credible candidates to be pope.

But there must have been something that really stood out about Robert when the decision was being made of who to elect, because it feels like a big statement to elect an American pope.

Kathleen Cummings: 00:25:32

It's interesting. I don't think most of the cardinals thought of him as an American pope, as in a pope from the United States.

He had been a leader among the South American cardinals. He was considered really one of them.

He was not very well known in the United States because he hadn't spent much of his ministry in the United States, but he was very well known in other parts of the world.

And again, that was back to his time as prior general the Augustinians, when he traveled throughout the world and in his capacity as the head of the dicastery for bishops, because he would have been involved in conversations about bishops throughout the world. So I think he wasn't elected because he was an American. He was elected almost in spite of the fact that he was an American.

I think that what happened was that the cardinals were looking for three things, and it was Prevost that really ticked all the boxes. They wanted someone, as I said before, that had the heart of a pastor.

So Pietro Parolin, Cardinal Parolin, who was the Vatican Secretary of State, was widely considered the Italian frontrunner. And he had a lot of, as we said, he had a lot of diplomatic experience but had never served as a pastor. Prevost did.

They were looking for someone who had administrative savvy and experience. The Vatican is a mess. There's a lot of reform that has to be done. It is a complex, enormously complex place.

And they need someone who has that administrative savvy.

Some of the cardinals who had bigger person personalities maybe, or were known as more charismatic, were not as well versed, not as experienced as administrators. Prevost had that. He was a very good administrator and had a reputation for that with the Augustinians and in the dicastery for bishops.

And then finally that global vision. He spent a third of his life in the United States, a third in Rome and a third in Peru.

He has a real sense of the complexity and diversity of the global church Church.

So it was really Prevost that had all three of those things, the pastoral heart, administrative savvy and global vision, and very few of the other front runners had all three of those things to the degree that he have. And I think that was the decisive factor.

Liam Heffernan: 00:27:40

I must mention the fact that although the church does act independently and they obviously have a huge amount of influence worldwide, there must still be an element of political diplomacy because of the, the seniority and the rooms that, you know, the pope sort of finds himself in.

Considering the landscape of: 2025

Kathleen Cummings: 00:28:25

Of course, I don't know. But I'm fairly confident that was not what the cardinals were thinking in choosing Robert Prevost in voting for him.

,: 2025

This was the largest and most diverse conclave in history, and Pope Francis had appointed 80% of the members of that conclave as cardinals, which meant that 80% of them were participating in the conclave for the first time. They were coming from all over the world. Cardinals don't actually know each other all that well. They don't meet very often.

Prevost was someone that they knew because, again, because of the dicaster of bishops, he was in contact with cardinals throughout the world.

He was also appointed to the synod that Pope Francis sponsored in Rome for the last two years and made a name for himself there as someone who was thoughtful, someone who listened. He impressed people there. So Prevost was one of the people that the cardinals knew and, you know, know it's all top secret in the conclave.

It will come out eventually. It always does. But one of the things we're hearing is that the South American cardinals, as I said, already thought of him as one of their own.

And it was really the Asian cardinals and the African cardinals who said, we're not going back to an Italian pope. We need a pope who understands the global South.

And I think it was when you add up all the Asians, the Africans and the South Americans, that is a tremendous back, that's tremendous backing. And I think that was the decisive factor.

So as hard as it is for us to believe, the United States was not really on the minds of the cardinals when they were voting.

Liam Heffernan: 00:30:19

Let's put politics Aside, John, I mean, you're now living in Texas, which is I guess, perhaps one of the more outwardly religious states. What was the reaction to Pope Leo being elected?

John Doughney: 00:30:33

Well, it's interesting that from all of the, the news outlets that contacted me, none in Texas. I've, I've been contacted by, again, folks from across the globe was on Canadian television. Catholics in Texas are a minority.

And so there wasn't, there was certainly a reaction of Catholics and certainly reaction of all of us who grew up in the Chicago area, who are now in every part of the country, but certainly it was covered in the media, but it was not, it was not the same dynamic as was experienced in other areas and especially on the south side of Chicago.

Liam Heffernan: 00:31:19

Yeah.

John Doughney: 00:31:19

And it is interesting that I even reached out to a local reporter to say, you know, in case you want to talk, and was never contacted. So it wasn't as big a story here as it was in other parts of the country, especially in, in Chicago.

Liam Heffernan: 00:31:37

It's really fascinating to me.

I, I, I would have thought there'd be more excitement in a state like Texas than, than other parts of the country because Texas is quite religious, right?

John Doughney: 00:31:48

Texas is quite religious. But, but Texas is not quite Catholic.

Kathleen Cummings: 00:31:53

And that goes back to what I talked about, about how the European Pope, certainly the 221 popes from Italy, grew up in a very Catholic culture, a very homogenous culture. The United States is a very diverse place religiously. Catholics are not and have never have been majority. They're about 24% of the population.

And in Texas, I suspect there are a lot less than that. So he is coming.

John Doughney: 00:32:18

I think it's about 16% in Texas.

Liam Heffernan: 00:32:21

Wow.

What I find interesting, and I'm asking this from a place of complete naivety, as someone who considers themselves an atheist now and doesn't really, you know, study religion at all, whether it's, you know, Catholicism, Christianity or any other denomination, you will worship the same God. And would the Pope still not be the figurehead of that?

John Doughney: 00:32:44

No.

Kathleen Cummings: 00:32:45

In fact, the United States and I don't really get too far back into US History, you're not in one of my classes, but there was actually a lot of antipathy. Traditionally, for most of this country's history, the Pope was seen as a threat and there was a lot of anti Papist rhetoric.

nedy was elected president in: 1960

Now it's just a tiny, tiny little area of real estate that we call Vatican City. But the Pope had power, and many US Christians, non Catholics, believed that the Pope had designs on the interior United States too.

So, no, there was actually a tremendous amount of anti Catholicism and anti Papist sentiment.

So for me, as a US Historian, the fact that an American Pope is greeted so positively by Catholics in the United States, but by non Catholics in the United States too, is what makes it really interesting.

Liam Heffernan: 00:33:54

So then, going back to Pope Leo, what is his vision for the Church?

Kathleen Cummings: 00:34:00

Well, I quoted that line from his homily about radical inclusiveness, about listening. He's emphasizing peace. I think there were a lot of us, I do a lot of commentary on Catholic issues.

r Pope Francis was elected in: 2013

When Pope Leo walked out on that balcony holding a piece of paper that he read from, I thought, oh, my goodness, we are in a different era. Pope Francis said a lot of things that were off the cuff, the back of the papal plane and caused sensations.

This is a much more cautious man who took the time to write his comments out. And honestly, throughout the first couple months, I mean, not much happened. There was not much news about him. He. He was learning the ropes.

He was taking his time, really. And so I think he's very measured. He knows the Vatican really well, but he is trying to learn what it means to be Pope.

So he is starting to make some important decisions. He is starting to speak out on issues, but not in the way Pope Francis did. And that's to be expected. Pope Francis was a bit unique in that.

And I think the Church needs a someone a little more. The feeling is that someone who's a little bit more reined in than Pope Francis is what the Church needs. I loved Pope Francis.

I thought it was all great. But I think that, that Leo's a little bit calmer and proceeding more cautiously. But his first message is peace. Has to do with peace, love. And he.

He believes that leaders should also serve the people. So he sees himself as a servant of the global church, but also the world, and he's behaving that way.

Liam Heffernan: 00:35:51

And so what is the significance of him choosing the name Leo? You know, what does that tell us about the person he is, but also the Pope that he intends to be.

Kathleen Cummings: 00:36:03

It was a beautiful choice. If he had chosen the name Francis ii, that would have sent one signal. If he had chosen John Paul iii, that would have sent another one.

Everybody was waiting for, what is it going to be? And then he reaches back all the way to the 19th century to choose Leo. Leo XIII was pope during a tremendously tumultuous time.

. But Pope Leo was elected in: 1878

It was a time when the world was changing so rapidly through urbanization, through immigration, industrialization. And Pope Leo XIII was the author of Catholic Social Teaching, which is what is the Catholic moral vision in a time of this change.

And so by choosing Leo xiv, what Cardinal Prevost did was signal that he wants the Catholic Church to offer a commission, compelling moral vision in the face of tumultuous change. He specifically cited AI as one of the things that is upending everything we know.

And so it was really allying himself with a pope who met challenging times with courage and with faith. And I think in that sense, it's a very reassuring choice and a choice that is ultimately a very hopeful one for our times.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:28

And that's a. A lovely way to wrap up our conversation, as always. There's just so much more that we can cover about this.

But certainly for me, it's been incredibly interesting to find out more about the man behind the papacy. And I'm sure over the next however many years, there's going to be a lot more to talk about regarding Pope Leo xiv.

But we're going to wrap this up right here. And Kathleen and John, thank you so much, both of you for joining me for this. Anyone listening?

If you want to find out more, we'll leave links to everything we've discussed in the show notes, so go and check those out. But if anyone wants to connect with either of you, where can they do that? Kathleen?

Kathleen Cummings: 00:38:11

Well, you can find me at the University of Notre Dame. All my information is there.

I'm in the Departments of History and in the Department of American Studies, so my contact information is available there.

Liam Heffernan: 00:38:23

Wonderful. Thank you.

John Doughney: 00:38:24

And John, My email is Downeyjmail.com and if you want to check out any of the stained glass work that we do, it's rinrindowney.com and do educational consulting during the day and stained glass at night.

Liam Heffernan: 00:38:43

What a wonderful combination. And, yeah, I'll absolutely link to that for you in the Show Notes as well, John. And um, thank you both again.

And to to those of you listening, if you enjoy the podcast, please take five seconds out of your data, leave us a rating and a review wherever you're listening to this, and give us a follow as well so that all future episodes appear in your feed. And additionally, if you really love what we do, you can follow the links in the show notes to support the show from as little as $1.

And that would be greatly appreciated. But thanks again to Kathleen and John and and thank you all so much for listening. Goodbye.