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Francis, Our Jesuit Pope

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 »

From Crystal to Christ: A Once and Future Cathedral

“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 »

Prophet Pope

“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 »

Apostasy Alarmism

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 »

Was Moses a Stutterer?

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 »

Reagan’s Children

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 »

Where the 20th Century Happened

This past August, while contemplating the beauties of the Ottawa River from the deck of my family’s cottage on Allumette Island, Father Raymond de Souza, the Canadian commentator and a former-student-become-friend-and-colleague, offered an interesting take on World Youth Day 2016, which will be held in Cracow. When you think about it, he said, “the 20th century happened in Cracow” … . Continue Reading »

Interviewing Gary Krupp on the Pope and the Jews

Gary Krupp is the president of the Pave the Way Foundation, an organization whose main purpose is to break down the non-theological obstacles between religions, particularly the three Abrahamic faiths. Krupp has particularly contributed to Catholic-Jewish dialogue, and in 2000 Pope John Paul II knighted him Knights Commander to the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great… . Continue Reading »

Did the Apostle Paul Suffer From Stage Fright?

Scholars have long noted the contrasting portraits in the Bible of the Apostle Paul’s public speaking abilities. Acts depicts him as a bold and powerful rhetorician while Paul’s own letters tell a dramatically different story. His letters are rhetorical gems, but he did not think he was a polished speaker. Paul presents himself as one best known for the hard work of organizing small groups of new Christians rather than for persuasive proclamations in open theaters and forums. The difference between these portraits is one major reason why many scholars doubt the historical validity of Acts. There is, however, a simple way to reconcile them… . Continue Reading »

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