In an opening with historic import, Pope Francis has said he wants to study the possibility of ordaining women as deacons, a step that could for the first time open the ranks of the Catholic Church’s all-male clergy to women.
Joyless about ‘Amoris Lætitia’
The Catholic Church, a multi-century institution, moves at glacier speed. Pope Francis’s recent post-synodal apostolic exhortation finally moved the Church into the 20th century. Like his earlier apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (EG), Francis attempts a joyful evangelical call for a…
Meet the tech world’s hottest new marketing tool: Pope Francis
And the Pontiff is the first to tell you how much he gets from the Internet, which he once called a “gift from God.”
Christians, Muslims fear backlash from Brussels attacks
The deadly explosions in Brussels Tuesday morning had some American Muslims and Christians awaking with dismay. “I’d like to say I was surprised, but I wasn’t,” said Joe Bradford, founder of the Houston-based nonprofit American Muslims Care. The previous arrests…
Not all evangelicals afraid of dialogue, Muslims and Christians say
A new study illustrates in numbers what many already know intuitively: evangelicals aren’t big on dialoguing with anyone but themselves. “Evangelicals seem to have a particularly difficult time talking to those outside their group,” the Barna Group reported in a March…
Religious voices respond to State of the Union
(RNS) In his last State of the Union address, President Obama made an impassioned case against religious bigotry and cast other key issues in moral terms. He rejected “any politics that targets people because of race or religion.” “This is…
The quotable Thomas Merton
My favorite definition of God is Thomas Merton’s: God is “mercy within mercy within mercy.” -Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB A special issue of ” Signs of the Times ” devoted to Thomas Merton (31 January 1915 – 10 December 1968)…
#IStandWithAhmed, Pope Francis, and a LONG history of fear
A few weeks ago the hashtag #IstandwithAhmed didn’t even exist. Now it is the latest viral hashtag to take twitter by storm. The incident in Irving, Texas has drawn attention around the world. Prominent names from a wide range of…
Kelly Gissendaner, the death penalty, and being pro-life
The Golden Rule also reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development. This conviction has led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels for the global…