In 2014, Pope Francis continued to exercise a fascination for members of his Catholic flock and for the rest of the world. There was no papal pronouncement in 2014 to match his electric answer last year to a question about gay priests: “Who am I to judge?” But the Jesuit pope from Argentina continued to press for Read more
Immediately after his election on 13 March 2013, Pope Francis told himself, “Jorge, do not change, continue being yourself, because to change at your age would be ridiculous.” He revealed this interesting personal detail in a wide-ranging 50 minute, exclusive interview with Elisabetta Piquè, for La Nacion, the main Argentine newspaper, published today, December 7 Read more
Pope Francis faces a tough road ahead, a veteran Vatican watcher told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview that aired Wednesday. “It’s a very tough period that is beginning for him, because of course people [are] enthusiastic about him. “I mean the believers but also non-believers are very interested in what he’s saying. “But within Read more
Last Friday morning, as I waited with my wife to greet Pope Francis after the 7 am Mass he says each day at the Santa Marta guesthouse, the strangeness of it all hit me. I was presenting a biography of the Pope to the Pope, and it had the bold title of The Great Reformer. Read more
Latin America is home to more than 425 million Catholics – nearly 40% of the world’s total Catholic population – and the Roman Catholic Church now has a Latin American pope for the first time in its history. Yet identification with Catholicism has declined throughout the region, according to a major new Pew Research Center Read more
Pope Francis’ transfer of Cardinal Raymond Burke on Saturday from being the Vatican’s “chief justice” to a mere cardinal-protector of the Knights of Malta has intensified yet more irresponsible talk of schism within the Catholic church. And top prize for the person most responsible for being irresponsible goes to none other than the man wearing Read more
We just happen to be Catholics, right? Does it make any difference what we are? Does being Catholic really, ultimately, mean much of anything? “So the power of deception, which is over others’ minds (symbolised by the invisibility given by the Ring), is an essential component to the power over others’ bodies and lives and Read more
I needed Pope Francis. And not only because I’m part of the Catholic Church and we were without a shepherd . . . I mean I needed him because I’m sinful, and broken, and I need a constant reminder of how to be like Christ. I have been awestruck by him from the first moment Read more
Imagine if the pope were invited to address a summit of Protestant leaders, and used the platform to take a swipe at Italy’s tiny Waldensian Protestant church — complaining that it tries to convert Catholics, and demanding that it shut up about the separation of church and state. Protestants would rightly howl about how crude Read more
Can you be more Catholic than the Pope? The American arch-reactionary Pat Buchanan clearly thinks so. He has been lambasting Pope Francis for sowing “confusion among the faithful” by refusing to defend “the unchanging truths of Catholicism”. Indeed, says the US Catholic paleo-conservative, the Pope may be “speaking heresy”, which would imply that Francis is Read more