The U2 frontman told reporters he met privately with Francis on Wednesday to sign an agreement between his charity, ONE, and the Scholas Occurentes educational charity supported by Francis.

"We haven't figured out what we are going to do together," Bono said, "but we sort of have a crush on each other."

ONE is a campaign and advocacy effort working to end extreme poverty, especially in Africa.

Bono says one of its current focuses is education for girls and young women.

About "130 million girls around the world do not go to school, because they are girls," he said.

"Poverty is sexist" is the ONE campaign slogan.

Scholas began in Francis' Buenos Aires Archdiocese, supporting education in poor neighbourhoods by pairing local schools with private schools and institutions in wealthier neighbourhoods.

The organisation has grown to other countries and supports a variety of exchange programmes aimed at promoting education, encouraging creativity and teaching young people about respect, tolerance and peace.

Besides signing the ONE/Scholas agreement, Bono said hen and Francis also discussed a number of topics including "the wild beast that is capitalism," sustainable development and sex abuse.

Francis is "aghast" about sex abuse in the Catholic Church, Bono said. "I thought he was sincere."

He said when he told Francis that in Ireland "it looks as though the abusers are being more protected than the victims, "you could see the pain in his face."

Source

• America Magazine
• AP News
• Image: KFGO.com

"I would love if this conversation would inspire people who are writing these beautiful… gospel songs, write a song about their bad marriage.

Write a song about how they're pissed off at the government. Because that's what God wants from you," Bono said.

"Why I am suspicious of Christians is because of this lack of realism." Continue reading

I listened to hundreds of hymns on Spotify; I interviewed a bunch of hymn experts.

What, I asked them, was the most successful contemporary hymn—the modern successor to "Morning Has Broken" or "Amazing Grace"?

Some cited recently written traditional church hymns; others mentioned songs by popular Christian musicians.

But one scholar pointed in a different direction: "If you're willing to construe the term ‘hymn' liberally, then the most heard, most successful hymn of the last few decades could be ‘I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For,' by U2."

Most people think of U2 as a wildly popular rock band.

Actually, they're a wildly popular, semi-secretly Christian rock band.

In some ways, this seems obvious: a song on one recent album was called "Yahweh," and where else would the streets have no name?

But even critics and fans who say that they know about U2's Christianity often underestimate how important it is to the band's music, and to the U2 phenomenon.

The result has been a divide that's unusual in pop culture.

While secular listeners tend to think of U2's religiosity as preachy window dressing, religious listeners see faith as central to the band's identity.

To some people, Bono's lyrics are treacly platitudes, verging on nonsense; to others, they're thoughtful, searching, and profound meditations on faith. Continue reading

Source

• Joshua Rothman in The New Yorker

Joshua Rothman is The New Yorker's archive editor.