# Season 6, Episode 27: Danielle, Rebecca and Jenny McGrath - Pope Leo and the President

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-arise-podcast-1194909/season-6-episode-27-danielle-rebecca-and-jenny-mcgrath-pope-leo-and-the-president
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-arise-podcast-1194909/season-6-episode-27-danielle-rebecca-and-jenny-mcgrath-pope-leo-and-the-president.md
Podcast: [The Arise Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-arise-podcast-1194909)
Published: 2026-04-17T16:33:13+00:00
Episode link: https://the-arise-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/season-6-episode-27-danielle-rebecca-and-jenny-mcgrath-pope-leo-and-the-president-j2kj_a93
Audio file: https://cdn.simplecast.com/media/audio/transcoded/bd06898f-69ef-483a-a593-0296d7cd0895/9d0c3dd3-fb62-4e3f-8a3a-d0fa1004c79b/episodes/audio/group/d308340a-b8ee-476a-9731-a4f1ca674f59/group-item/140cf841-ef06-41a3-aca0-35ff96d8935a/128_default_tc.mp3?aid=rss_feed&feed=4D0hmYFj
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Duration seconds: 3311

## Resource

This episode is a sharp, passionate, and often humorous conversation about religion, power, and political corruption in the current American moment. Using recent controversies involving Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and Pope Leo as a starting point, the three of us explore how Christianity is being manipulated for political gain and how sacred language is used to justify cruelty, nationalism, and violence. A central thread of the episode is grief and disbelief: How did so many faith communities get here? Rebecca especially wrestles with the collapse of theological integrity inside modern evangelicalism, while Jenny situates these distortions within a much longer historical pattern—empire repeatedly co-opting religion for domination. Danielle brings in race, imagery, and whiteness, asking how white depictions of Jesus shape public consciousness and who gets recognized as holy in the first place.

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## Transcript

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