About a year ago, I suggested to one of the top editors of a major American newspaper that his journal’s coverage of things papal left something to be desired, as it seemed based on the assumption that Pope Francis was some kind of radical wild-man, eager to toss into the garbage bin of history all those aspects of Catholic faith and practice that mainstream western culture finds distasteful. My friend replied, in so many words, look, you know how these media narratives are: they’re like bamboo. Once they get started, there’s no stopping them. They just keep growing. Continue Reading »
It is now widely acknowledged that the media’s initial reporting of the pope’s recent speech on creation and evolution—with notable exceptions—was a journalistic debacle. Despite blaring headlines that Francis had finally placed the Church behind evolution, he was merely repeating long-standing Catholic teaching on the compatibility between faith and science. Continue Reading »
Pope Francis recently gave a speech to the International Association of Penal Law advocating for the improvement of prison conditions and reiterating pleas made by his predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI for an end to the death penalty. Continue Reading »
I was recently accused of (actually, praised for, but it seemed to me an accusation) supporting “marriage equality”—a slogan that indicates whoever uses it fails to understand either of the terms it combines. The occasion for this slander was, rather ironically, a piece I had written rejecting calls for gay marriage. The piece was misread, I think, because I had positive things to say about gay people and about the love present in countless gay relationships. Apparently this fact was significant enough that there was no need to attend to my actual conclusion. Continue Reading »
Pope Francis has called a special session of the Synod of Bishops, which will meet from October 5–19 and prepare the agenda for the ordinary session of the Synod that is scheduled for the fall of 2015; both sessions will focus on the family. In my view, the Synod should focus on two related themes: Marriage culture is in crisis throughout the world; the answer to that crisis is the Christian view of marriage as a covenant between man and woman in a communion of love, fidelity and fruitfulness.Continue Reading »
The New York Times titled its article, “In Weddings, Pope Looks Past Tradition.” The Wall Street Journal announced that the pope’s presiding over twenty weddings at St. Peter’s on Sunday indicates his desire for a more “open and inclusive church.” CBS News called the mass ceremony “progressive.” Continue Reading »
The pope’s apology to Pentecostals during his visit to the church pastored by Giovanni Traettino speaks to the importance of memory. As Augustine recounts in his Confessions, the memory is a vast storehouse of many chambers filled with countless images. Continue Reading »
As that familiar parody of bad fiction has it, “it was a dark and stormy night”—March 21, 2000, to be precise—when I made my way from the Jerusalem Hilton to the Notre Dame Center, to meet a Senior Vatican Official who had promised me a diskette with the addresses John Paul II would deliver during his epic visit to the Holy Land. The diskette was duly handed over, and back in my hotel room I browsed through the upcoming speeches, paying particular attention to what the Polish pope would say when he came to the Holocaust Memorial at Yad Vashem—a meeting about which there had been considerable controversy, involving considerable yammering. Continue Reading »
A recent story in the L.A. Times about the Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops devoted to the pastoral care of families, offered this provocative view: “Vatican to Debate Teachings on Divorce, Birth Control, Gay Unions.” Continue Reading »
