pope francis

In the Guardian, Bisi Alimi writes, “If you say being gay is not African, you don’t know your history.” His story notes, “The idea that homosexuality is ‘western’ is based on another western import –…

We reported last week on the UN Security Council briefing convened by American and Chilean diplomats to discuss the anti-LGBT brutality of ISIS. In an Advocate commentary last week, Jean Freedberg of…

Responding to Pope Francis’ announcement that during the upcoming “Year of Mercy” all priests would be empowered to forgive women who have had abortions and return them to full communion with the…

The headlines are everywhere—Pope Francis says priests can forgive women who’ve abortions—and the implications are unmistakable: cool Francis is once again breaking with tradition on hot button issues…

One of the first posts I wrote for RD was whether or not there was or would be a discernible “Francis effect,” a term used in a variety of ways, but frequently understood to indicate an uptick in…

Calling Pope Francis their “holy conundrum,” Catholic scholars, theologians, activists and religious convened in Chicago on Saturday at a forum titled “Women in the Catholic Church: What Francis Needs…

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones/Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold… who kept thy truth so pure of old. – John Milton on the 1655 slaughter of 1,700 Waldensians at the hands…

Conservative Catholics are working overtime to downplay the radical nature of Laudato si, the pope’s encyclical that offers a sweeping condemnation of the free-market, libertarian Catholicism that has…

I had to read Brooks’ column on Laudato si a couple of times to realize fully what a risk-taker he is to put this stuff out there, apodictically as it were, without pausing to consider whether Francis…

Mexico: Catholic bishops perform anti-marriage-equality exorcism At conservative journal First Things, intern Matthew Young contrasts the “weak” opposition from Irish church leaders to the marriage…