{"id":12368,"date":"2026-04-30T08:23:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T08:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/04\/30\/liam-callanan-on-trump-vs-the-pope-literary-hub\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T08:23:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T08:23:42","slug":"liam-callanan-on-trump-vs-the-pope-literary-hub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/04\/30\/liam-callanan-on-trump-vs-the-pope-literary-hub\/","title":{"rendered":"Liam Callanan on Trump vs. the Pope – Literary Hub"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Acclaimed novelist Liam Callanan joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss American-born Pope Leo XIV\u2019s recent conflicts with the Trump administration. Callanan, who is Catholic, contextualizes the pope\u2019s critiques of the Iran war and other political comments within the long history of the Vatican\u2019s outspokenness against social injustices. Callanan also talks about the heroine of his most recent novel, When in Rome<\/i><\/a>, a realtor named Claire who finds herself torn between returning to an old flame and taking the veil. He explains Catholicism\u2019s connections to writing and tells the story of his own surreal encounter with the magnetic Pope Francis, who passed away last year. Callanan previews the role faith plays in his upcoming nonfiction debut, Stone Age Astronaut<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>the biography of a record-setting aviator who becomes a priest. He reads from When in Rome.<\/i><\/p>\n

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction\/Non\/Fiction Instagram account<\/a>, the Fiction\/Non\/Fiction YouTube Channel<\/a>, and our show website: https:\/\/www.fnfpodcast.net\/<\/a> This podcast is produced by Jennifer Maritza McCauley, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell.<\/em><\/p>\n

Liam Callanan<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

When in Rome<\/i><\/a> \u2022\u00a0Stone Age Astronaut: The Astonishing Adventures of America\u2019s Forgotten Flier<\/i><\/a> \u2022\u00a0Paris by the Book<\/i><\/a> \u2022\u00a0Listen & Other Stories<\/i><\/a> \u2022\u00a0All Saints<\/i><\/a> \u2022\u00a0The Cloud Atlas<\/i><\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

Others<\/b><\/p>\n

Trump Attacks Pope Leo as Too Liberal and \u2018Weak on Crime\u2019 \u2013 The New York Times<\/a> \u2022\u00a0JD Vance defends Trump amid spat with Pope Leo: \u2018Stick to matters of morality\u2019<\/a> \u2022\u00a0Pope Leo responds to Trump\u2019s attack: \u2018I\u2019m not afraid of the Trump administration\u2019<\/a> \u2022\u00a0Author Liam Callanan\u2019s Work Is Animated by His Catholic Faith<\/a> \u2022\u00a0Resurrection<\/i><\/a> by Leo Tolstoy<\/p>\n

EXCERPT FROM A CONVERSATION <\/b>WITH LIAM CALLANAN<\/b><\/p>\n

V.V. Ganeshananthan: <\/b>So we are going to talk about Pope Leo\u2019s most recent conflict with President Trump over the war in Iran. We\u2019re always going to get to President Trump sometime, although in this case, the conflict seems to be all on Trump\u2019s end. But before we get to that, I am curious about how popular Pope Leo is outside the U.S. Do Italian Catholics like him, given his history as a missionary doing work in the Global South? Does he have global popularity, and did he kind of have a strong reputation prior to this? Did they approve of his selection?<\/p>\n

Liam Callanan: <\/b>I think that he is. I saw one poll that said he\u2019s the most popular figure worldwide. I don\u2019t know exactly how you take a poll like that, but Gallup did, and he placed right up there. I think that he\u2019s also popular with American Catholics. He\u2019s not like a marquee, a movie idol. He\u2019s very unassuming. He\u2019s a very vulnerable leader, and I mean that in a good way, so you don\u2019t expect him to dominate the spotlight. But I think in part, that\u2019s what\u2019s made him popular\u2014 his accessibility, his humility and how he approaches situations. For American Catholics, he\u2019s done things that cater to the full spectrum. Progressive Catholics, Conservative Catholics, they\u2019ve each had something to take away from what he\u2019s talked about and done so far as Pope that makes them feel comfortable with him as Pope.<\/p>\n

Whitney Terrell: <\/b>Before we get onto the Iran stuff, people are going over to meet with him. David Axelrod was there recently. Didn\u2019t JD Vance go and meet with this current Pope? Or was it Francis that he met with right before he died? Am I remembering that correctly?<\/p>\n

LC: <\/b>Definitely, the conspiracy theorists are on to that one.<\/p>\n

WT: <\/b>So, you say he\u2019s accessible. What is it like to be near a Pope? How do you meet them? Have you ever met a Pope?<\/p>\n

LC: <\/b>Funny you should ask, Whitney. When I was going around with this book, When in Rome<\/i>, when the paperback was out, I had the surreal experience of, in fact, getting to go to the Vatican. Pope Francis, near the end of his papacy, had a series of events where he was bringing in communities of people. Artists, comedians, writers, and filmmakers were all coming in, and he was having audiences with each of them for some give and take. Through many magic gyrations of the Holy Spirit, I found myself in the Sala Clementina, one of the large reception rooms in the Vatican, with a delegation from around the world, from Poland, from Nigeria, from Canada, from Britain and from the United States. There were several of us authors there, and then also, somewhat randomly, Martin Scorsese. He\u2019s more difficult to get to meet than the Pope.<\/p>\n

But the Pope gave us a wonderful talk. He used to teach high school literature, and he did this close reading a little passage from Tolstoy, and talked about how we needed to not necessarily stay in our lane, we needed to overwhelm the banks of what we marked out for ourselves. So it was really lovely. Then we got to go up one by one and greet him. In my case, I gave him a copy of When in Rome,<\/i> because I thought he might need a little light reading, and he received it with great glee. He was one of those people\u2014and I don\u2019t know too many people like this\u2014but instantly, I thought, \u201cOh, he knows me. There might be a million people here. There may be one-and-a-half billion Catholics in the world. But like, he really sees me.\u201d It was clear that he had a very magnetic personality like that. So, it was a lovely experience. And then we went back, and he said a few more words, and then off he went.<\/p>\n

I thought, did that just happen? It was, it was surreal. It was like visiting the 16th century, because we were in a castle complete with a ramp that we had to get up to the second floor, which is about five floors up, and we went up this ramp, which apparently was like a 16th century ADA ramp, so your donkey could take you up to the second floor. It was a wide path with little stairs every four or five feet going up. And it was just the most surreal experience. As part of that, I got a sense of what it\u2019s like\u2014I can\u2019t say I got a sense of what it\u2019s like to be pope, but you\u2019re in the midst of all this grandeur. The Sistine Chapel is just downstairs. You\u2019re living in a palace, although, in his case, very famously, he was living in very humble lodgings. But you\u2019re in this kind of magical spot, and it\u2019s hard not to see yourself as part of a larger narrative, shall we say.<\/p>\n

WT: <\/b>So he had some kind of \u201cit\u201d factor that made you go \u201cOkay, there\u2019s a reason why this guy\u2019s Pope\u201d?<\/p>\n

LC: <\/b>Absolutely. He had an eye for wit, and an ear for wit. He was very funny in person. His off-the-cuff remarks were very humorous, and he was just playing things by ear quite a bit. I really enjoyed my time with him. Again, it was 30 seconds, so it wasn\u2019t like the most extraordinary amount of time, either but I was like, \u201cOh, if I come back like he will see me in the crowd and call me up and say, \u2018Here, could you tell me what happened on page four?\u2019\u201d When he took the book, he was like, \u201cRome!\u201d That was the conversation that we had. I said, \u201cRome.\u201d We crossed the language barrier just like that. It was quite magical in that regard. And then he started flipping through it, much to the angst of his handlers, who were like, \u201cWe need to keep this moving along.\u201d And he was like, \u201cLook at page 150,\u201d and I said, \u201cWell, there\u2019s a cameo in the book where my main character runs laps around St Peter\u2019s Square in the middle of the night.\u201d So I was in the midst of a conversation about \u201cthis is how that all works out,\u201d when, in fact, I had to then give up my time in front of the papal throne and go back to my seat.<\/p>\n

Transcribed by Otter.ai. Condensed and edited by Rebecca Kilroy.\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acclaimed novelist Liam Callanan joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss American-born Pope Leo XIV\u2019s recent conflicts with the Trump administration. Callanan, who is Catholic, contextualizes the pope\u2019s critiques of the Iran war and other political comments within the long history of the Vatican\u2019s outspokenness against social injustices. Callanan also talks about the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}