pope francis

Francis is attempting to bridge two pastoral approaches, evangelization and a preferential option for the poor, that have been at odds with each other in the Global South. But will he accomplish either?

Pope Francis turned heads with statements that suggest a course correction in the church’s attitude toward gays and women, but ultimately it’ll be what ministry, decision-making power, and moral authority women share that will answer the question.

While Francis’s visit to Brazil threatens to be overshadowed by his comments on gay priests uttered on the plane to Rome, it has generated an enormous outpouring of emotion and fervor. From the time…

As Francis heads to Brazil, is the new pope signaling a shift away from John Paul-era “conservative restoration” or is this simply a return to JP’s image-conscious conservative populism?

We tend to assume that interfaith dialogue is automatically a good thing, and that the best way to learn about another religion is to study its texts and its official positions. The Paris trial challenges both.

Amid the clamor to figure out who Pope Francis might be, observers never failed to mention that he is the first Jesuit pope. But what does that really tell us and, more importantly, as his decisions begin to come down the pipeline, what is most important to know about his Jesuit worldview?

I think it is time for Catholics to grow up and realize that royalty does not become us. The Church is a service organization whose primary stakeholders are people who are poor. Their needs, and not the whims of pampered prelates, are the priority. Nothing less is acceptable. Raise the bar for heaven’s sake.

Today we are a great distance from the ecological situation of medieval Italy. With the aid of capital and industry, we humans have become so practiced, and coldly efficient, in matters of animal domestication that we now have health insurance on offer for wealthy domestic pets while billions of other creatures in our care are heedlessly slaughtered. Our domestication practices are a mess.

The Pope-to-be expressed strong critique of the Church in advance of the conclave that elected him.

Statistics are one way to tell the story: In 1984, 87% of Irish Catholics went to weekly Mass. In 2011, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said 18% of Dublin Church members attend services. Images are another option: gaggles of green-bedecked youngsters and young adults line the St. Paddy’s Day parade route, but in Dublin’s cathedral youthful faces only speckle the crowd.