An American cardinal? Maybe, or maybe not: Some of Francis's choices last year were so unconventional that it’s difficult to know what he’ll do this time around.
The pushback to Pope Francis’s reforms is intensifying and the Jesuit pontiff is not shy to admit it. “But that’s a good sign for me – that it’s out in the open."
It's striking how many priests and bishops famous for quoting papal documents ad nauseam seem unable even to pronounce the name of Francis’s apostolic exhortation.
If people paid attention to what Francis says – including bishops and cardinals, even retired – they would not be confused about where he wants to move the church.
The highlight of an upcoming three-day sojourn will be a visit to the Phanar, the Istanbul home of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I.
After eleven weeks, the prefect’s chair at the CDW remains without a head. For a major Curia office to be vacant so long is unprecedented in contemporary history.
What purpose could there be for a three-day meeting touted as an “interreligious colloquium on the complementarity of man and woman”? Opposition to same-sex unions.
Laws that once upheld the "traditional views" of marriage social conservatives advocate were dismantled piece by piece because they inflicted other moral costs.
Only nineteen months have passed since Francis became pope. So much has happened it's easy to forget how different things might be if not for his personality.
Since the Synod of Bishops was instituted in 1965, no pope has ever begun an assembly’s first working session with an address like the one Pope Francis gave.
Those hostile to Pope Francis and how he’s governing the Vatican and church have affixed the bull’s eye on the backs of a number of people close to him.
The appointment of Blase Cupich will have an impact beyond the Catholic Church because it tells us about the role Francis wants the church to play in American life.
Francis’s view of “domination" as an impediment to virtuous fellowship in society represents concern with unjust relations of many forms, not merely economic ones.
The synod comes at a time when a huge gulf has opened up between the teaching of the church on sex, marriage, and the family and the practice of many Catholics.
