Pope Francis’s thought involves a series of dichotomies: North-South, imperial-populist, ideological-historical, abstract-concrete, and so on. Rourke shows in detail the intellectual formation that gave rise to this eccentric version of the social magisterium. Continue Reading »
When my wife, Elizabeth, and I were married a quarter century or so ago, she was a practicing Christian in a mainline Protestant denomination, and her pastor married us. (N.B.: Neither of our true names, nor anyone else’s, appears in this piece.) I was decidedly non-practicing, a self-described . . . . Continue Reading »
What Benedict outlined in 2006 remains true eleven years later: In order to live in peace with “the rest,” Islam must find within its own religious and intellectual resources a way to affirm religious tolerance. Continue Reading »
Though Benedict is still living, Francis is trying to bury him. Continue Reading »
According to Francis, the world is divided into haves and have-nots, and the impoverished circumstances and dismal prospects of the latter are principally caused by the former. Continue Reading »
The pope’s deepest problems are the result of self-inflicted wounds. Continue Reading »
The pope’s historical formulations—about Luther and Jesuit missions—makes this historian wince. Continue Reading »
An important new book has appeared that carefully evaluates Francis’s pontificate, and provides something the pope—for all his good deeds—often hasn’t: context and clarity. Continue Reading »
There are statements in Amoris Laetitia which, although they admit of a true interpretation, more easily suggest a false one, and are likely to be used to subvert the teachings of the Church. Continue Reading »
Just as Peter was not the dazzling originator of new teaching, his successors have more often served as a brake on innovation than as its impetus. This is as it should be. The Pope serves the Church best by saying “no” to errors and heresies. Continue Reading »
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