Pope Francis Archives – Page 3 of 7

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.”