Robert Jeffress and Pope Francis agree on at least one thing: There is no moral reason for Christians to resist getting a COVID-19 vaccine. And further, neither the Baptist pastor nor the Catholic pontiff will give you a religious exemption…
Longing for tradition: The example of Pope Francis and the Latin Mass and what it means for non-Catholics
About two months ago, Pope Francis issued a statement that many readers of Baptist News Global may not have noticed. In Traditionis Custodes, the pope limited the use of what is commonly called “the Latin Mass” or “traditional Latin Mass”…
America’s two largest Christian bodies continue to become more conservative
The continual shift of the Southern Baptist Convention to the right was echoed by the latest meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Last Friday, the USCCB voted to create a teaching document that could rebuke and exclude…
Pope Francis practices Orwellian doublethink
Despite having declared in 2013, “Who am I to judge gay people?” (to the dismay of conservative Christians and the hope of much of the Western world) Pope Francis did just that in supporting a recent ruling by the Vatican’s…
Vatican makes clear that Catholic churches might welcome LGBTQ Christians but cannot bless their unions
Pope Francis signaled a bit of welcome for LGBTQ Christians in October, but the Vatican made clear March 15 that the Catholic Church will not bless same-sex unions, which it considers to be a sinful “choice.” While the pope is the…
Re-receiving the gift of inclusive liberty, with help from Pope Francis
This past weekend, I offered Baptist ecumenical reflections on Pope Francis’s most recent encyclical “On Fraternity and Social Friendship” (Fratelli Tutti) on the program of the Hearth for the Human Family conference sponsored by the Focolare Forum for Dialogue and…
Pope Francis calls for elimination of death penalty, and that’s only part of what he wants
On Oct. 4, Pope Francis published his third papal encyclical, Fratelli Tutti. Like all titles, Fratelli Tutti is revealing. Not only does it allude to the writings of the Pope’s namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, it also previews the themes…
Did the Pope compare Donald Trump to King Herod? Should he?
Meeting Dec. 5 with a group of 48 Jesuits from Southeast Asia during his apostolic visit to Thailand and Japan, the pontiff mentioned Herod while responding to a question about refugees in Thailand and how to live out a “ministry of hospitality.”
A case against the ‘Christian’ adjective
What does it really mean when we call something “Christian?”