Category: Pope Francis

What I wish is that someone in Rome can get Pope Francis to watch the new documentary, RBG. Those who made this movie have chosen brilliantly from the briefs and opinions of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to express clearly the argument for women’s equality and how any different treatment harms them. For men’s equality, too, and…
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From across the pond, as they say, it’s very bold of me to speculate on the meaning of the Irish referendum on #8 to make abortion legal. Probably unwise, too. But that’s never stopped me. And I have been feeling more than thinking about it all. Most interpretations focus on another radical change in a…
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In addition to Ellie Harty’s post in The Table about our Philadelphia demonstrations, most of the articles I am reading this week raise the question: how do things change in our church? Much of this discussion focuses on Juan Carlos Cruz’s report of his meetings with Pope Francis. The crucial quote is: “Look, Juan Carlos,…
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Our Joan of Arc is inspiring me again this week (see March 31 post). Emma Gonzalez is quoted by Joan Walsh in The Nation: About the flurry of inadequate but promising gun-safety measures passed [into law] since Parkland, she says: “It feels like: they tried to take a giant step—and then they tripped. I’m not…
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Holiness is not something to which I think I am called. Holier than thou is something I might be accused of. But in hearing on the news about Pope Francis’ new document, Gaudete et exsultate, I felt pretty good. I try to follow the Great Commandment and I resist over-intellectualizing things, as you can figure…
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I used to discount the stories of the saints in my Roman Catholic upbringing, but a couple of times this week I am reminded that they are not only our inheritance. New Yorker writer Rebecca Mead pulled out an image this week to write about the March for Our Lives.The silent, head-shaven Emma Gonzalez reminded…
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I was not going to write about this article by Ross Douthat, published on the front page of Sunday’s New York Times “Currents” section.  But half the page is such a beautiful photo I cannot resist. Pope Francis is facing the Holy Door of St. Peter’s, his hands on two bronze panels with Latin inscriptions.…
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It’s a bit difficult to see our faces in this photo of our 2015 annual Holy Thursday witness at the Cathedral of Saints Peter & Paul in Philadelphia, but really, how menacing could we possibly look? And yet, two years in a row, people, in protest to our presence, often in our faces, have held…
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This is a quote from John Allen in Crux, who notes that every twenty years, “the Vatican has felt compelled to issue a major statement on the role of women.” Leave it up to Crux to remind us of Inter Insigniores in 1976 and Ordinatio Sacerdotalis in 1994. This time the major statement has been…
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So how did the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops do on the inspired leadership front? (See “Ain’t that a Shame,” November 4, 2017, The Table) The surprise that made lots of news was the election of Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann as chair of the Pro-Life Committee over Cardinal Blaise Cupich, 96 to 82: no…
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