A few passages from Pope Francis’ famous interview published in America have unsettled some people for many reasons. My reason for being unsettled is that it would not be a complete distortion to say that I have been “obsessed” with the issues of abortion, contraception, and homosexuality for nearly all of my professional life. … Continue Reading »
SIAULIAI, LITHUANIA”No one knows when pious Lithuanians first erected crosses of all sizes on a hill about seven miles north of the city of Siauliai; it may have been after an abortive 1831 uprising against Russian rule over the small Baltic country. Oftentimes, the bodies of Lithuanian patriots killed during that rebellion, and a similar revolt in 1863, could not be found. … Continue Reading »
In his remarks to the press this past Sunday, following the release of Antonio Spadaro’s broad-ranging and inspiring interview with Pope Francis, New York’s Timothy Cardinal Dolan called the pope’s pronouncements “a breath of fresh air” and added, “He’s a great relief to all of us” Continue Reading »
Pope Francis’ recent interview generated headline after headline about abortion and gay marriage. But more significant in the long run are the theological accents found in the interview, accents with important ecclesiological implications. … Continue Reading »
Friday saw the release of a fairly extensive interview with Pope Francis. The media was atwitter and reported the interview as a sign of a something big, something new. Some swooned. Perhaps this is the sign of the beginning of a long hoped-for liberalizing trend in the Church. Not likely. The Pope calls himself “a son of the church,” whose teachings are “clear.” But the tone is mobile, the rhetoric fluid, and he uses terms and phrases from the standard playbook of progressive reform. Thus, the media’s reading of the interview isn’t willful . . . . Continue Reading »
“America loves success stories.” This is how a 1983 admiring profile of the famed Robert Harold Schuller began. And back in 1983 “Bob” Schuller, as his friends called him, was certainly successful. The son of pious Dutch Reformed parents, Schuller was born on a farm in Sioux County, Iowa, in 1926. That was one year before Sinclair Lewis published Elmer Gantry, a satirical novel about a ne’er-do-well preacher from Kansas. Though Schuller would match Gantry in exuberance and flamboyant style, he was no charlatan… . Continue Reading »
“I am a sinner.” That is the key for understanding Pope Francis. He tells us so at the very beginning of his interview with Antonio Spadaro, S.J., for Jesuit publications worldwide. “This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.” He is also, he says, “a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon,” and upon whom the Lord has had mercy. Sin and mercy are two of the key words emerging from the interview which, at over ten thousand words, offers us the best picture yet of the pope and provides a broader context for the words and gestures of his pontificate… . Continue Reading »
Both the mainstream and Christian press have reported that youth are fleeing Protestant Christian churches, and rapidly. Not true. In fact, young people are not leaving the church“or at least some churches. The Pew Forum commented in their U.S. Religious Landscape Survey that the “proportion of the population identifying with large mainline Protestant denominations has declined significantly in recent decades, while the proportion of Protestants identifying with the large evangelical denominations has increased” … Continue Reading »
In these pages recently Stephen Webb suggested that the apostle Paul had stage fright. This would be remarkable, given his history of travelling throughout the Roman Empire speaking in many dangerous situations. But any reader of the Bible knows it is full of remarkable ironies. Such as the probability that Moses, arguably the greatest leader of Israel, was a stutterer… . Continue Reading »
The liberal journalist Peter Beinart and the conservative journalist Andrew Ferguson have both picked up on Ted Cruz’s “children of Reagan” framing for a rising group of young conservative Republicans like Mike Lee, Rand Paul and, of course, Ted Cruz himself… . Continue Reading »
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