Vatican Access with Robert Duncan

Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy is Executive Director of the Catholic Mobilizing Network, the leading Catholic organization in the United States working to end the death penalty and promote restorative justice. For nearly a decade she has been at the forefront of the Catholic movement against capital punishment, engaging with bishops, lawmakers, victims' families, and people on death row. Earlier thi...

Massimo Introvigne is an Italian sociologist of religion and one of the world's leading scholars of new religious movements. He has written extensively on Catholic traditionalism, religious liberty, and the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), and has spent decades studying the movement, including interviewing Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, its founder. Following the SSPX's recent episcopal consecrations an...

CREDIT: Additional video footage courtesy Danny Anderson & Relic Films / Archdiocese of Denver. Archbishop James Golka is the Archbishop of Denver, having been appointed by Pope Leo XIV in 2026 after serving as Bishop of Colorado Springs. Before becoming a bishop, he was a parish priest in Nebraska, where he became known for his pastoral approach, commitment to evangelization, and work with Hi...

Katie McGrady is a Catholic speaker, author, radio host, and one of the most recognizable Catholic media personalities in the United States. A former youth minister and theology teacher, she is the host of The Katie McGrady Show on SiriusXM's Catholic Channel and the author of several books on Catholic faith and family life. Her work focuses on evangelization, Catholic identity, discipleship,...

Father Thomas Joseph White, OP, is a Dominican priest, theologian, and rector of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) in Rome. One of the leading Catholic theologians of his generation, his work focuses on metaphysics, Christology, ecclesiology, Thomism, and the relationship between faith and reason. He is the author of numerous books, including The Light of Christ: An I...

Father Tony Lusvardi is a Jesuit priest, sacramental theologian, and professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. His work focuses on liturgy, the sacraments, Christian salvation, as well as the relationship between faith, culture and the modern world. He has served in Native American ministry, taught theology internationally and written extensively on Catholic sacramental theology. I...

Michele Sagarino is President of Cross Catholic Outreach, one of the largest Catholic relief and development organizations in the United States. For more than two decades, she has traveled extensively through some of the world’s poorest communities, working alongside bishops, priests, religious sisters, and local Catholic leaders to address poverty through faith-based development, disaster relief,...

CREDIT: Opening three images animated with AI with permission from the artist. Copyright Nicola Magrin. Courtesy Nuages, Milano. Father Francis Tiso is a Catholic priest, scholar of Tibetan Buddhism, and former advisor on Buddhist-Christian dialogue for both the Vatican and the U.S. bishops. For decades, he has explored the intersection of Christian mysticism, Buddhist meditation, neuroscience, an...

Four experts on AI and Catholic teaching join Robert Duncan to discuss Pope Leo’s first encyclical on artificial intelligence and what they believe is its deeper message about the human person in a technological age. Drawing on theology, philosophy, media studies, and Catholic social teaching, they argue that the encyclical is not primarily about technology itself, but about safeguarding human dig...

Sean Tobin is a clinical psychologist who works at the intersection of psychology, spiritual formation, and the Catholic Church’s ministry of exorcism, helping individuals navigate experiences that blur the boundaries between mental illness, trauma, and spiritual suffering. In this conversation, he discusses the modern resurgence of interest in exorcism, the relationship between demonic influence...

Jesuit astronomer Br. Guy Consolmagno joins Vatican Access to discuss UFOs and what the Catholic Church really thinks about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Known around the world as “the Pope’s astronomer,” Br. Consolmagno is a planetary scientist, former director of the Vatican Observatory, and a member of the advisory board of the SETI Institute — the organization dedicated to the sear...

Veteran Vatican journalist Gerard O’Connell joins Vatican Access to discuss the inside story of the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope in history. Drawing from his new book, The Election of Pope Leo XIV: The Last Surprise of Pope Francis , O’Connell explains how Cardinal Robert Prevost emerged as an unexpected consensus candidate during one of the most consequential concla...

Pope Leo XIV received a delegation from Catholic Charities Network in private audience on May 4, as media scrutiny intensified over recent funding cuts by the Trump administration affecting Catholic organizations serving immigrants and refugees. In this conversation, Catholic News Service speaks one-on-one with Kerry Alys Robinson, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, reflecting on the del...

Matthew Sanders is a technologist working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and Catholic evangelization, building digital tools that are shaping how people encounter faith in the modern world. In this conversation, he discusses the rise of AI as a space for spiritual inquiry, the millions of users engaging with Magisterium AI, and the kinds of personal and religious questions being as...

Curtis Martin, founder of the FOCUS, has spent nearly three decades working on college campuses at the front lines of Catholic evangelization, engaging a generation often assumed to be drifting away from faith. In this conversation, he discusses the surprising rise in conversions alongside continued disaffiliation, the growing interest in Catholicism among young people, and the spiritual forces dr...

Sister Helen Alford, president of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences, stands at the intersection of faith, economics, and global policy, working to articulate the Church’s social teaching in a rapidly changing world. In this conversation, she reflects on her vocation and intellectual formation, the core principles of Catholic social teaching, and the major crises shaping our time. The disc...

Archbishop Fortunatus Nwachukwu — a Nigerian prelate serving at the Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelization — stands at the forefront of the Church’s global missionary efforts, helping guide its growth in some of the places where the Church is expanding most rapidly. In this conversation, he reflects on his vocation and childhood, the key social challenges shaping the African continent, and the sig...

Cardinal Michael Czerny — a senior Vatican official and longtime collaborator of Pope Francis — has become one of the Catholic Church’s most influential voices on migration, human dignity, and global solidarity. In this conversation, he reflects on his origins, shaped in part by his parents’ experience as immigrants of Jewish and Christian background—a story marked by displacement, survival, and r...

John Studzinski — a leading investment banker and philanthropist — has spent his life at the intersection of global finance and the Catholic Church. In this conversation, he reflects on his rise on Wall Street, his commitment to serving others, and the spiritual vision behind his philanthropic work. A trusted advisor to popes and cardinals, he has supported initiatives in human rights, charitable...

Elizabeth Lev — an American art historian who has spent decades guiding visitors through the Vatican Museums and the churches of Rome — has made it her life’s work to help people see beyond the surface of one of the most visited places in the world. In this conversation, she reflects on what most visitors miss, the difference between approaching Rome as a tourist or a pilgrim, and how art, archite...

Cardinal Edwin O’Brien — a former Vietnam War chaplain who later served as Archbishop for the Military Services and as a Vatican cardinal charged with a mission to the Holy Land — spent decades ministering to American soldiers and to Catholic communities around the world. In this conversation, recorded at Catholic News Service in Rome, he reflects on jumping from helicopters to reach troops in Vie...

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel — one of the principal architects of modern American healthcare policy — was recently invited to the Vatican to address the Pontifical Academy for Life. In this conversation, recorded at Catholic News Service in Rome, he reflects on his childhood in Chicago, his role advising U.S. presidents, his views on euthanasia and end-of-life care, and why his central message — especially...