During his recent trip to America, Pope Francis sought to answer a fundamental problem posed by C.S. Lewis in his 1942 sermon “The Weight of Glory.” Lewis was responding to the perception of Christianity as a negative religion, concerned primarily with the virtue of Unselfishness, rather than with Love. In the New Testament, however, Christ [...]
It has been said by some of his critics that Pope Francis does not understand capitalism, having grown up in Peronist Argentina. This may be true. But it is also true that the economic system which is now a way of life in our own country is not exactly free enterprise as the proponents of [...]
Following the release of Pope Francis’ encyclical on human society and the environment, many have lauded what it says about the climate. The Sierra Club pontificated that “Pope Francis’ guidance as a pastor and a teacher shines a light on the moral obligation we all share to address the climate crisis that transcends borders and [...]
Much has been written about Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’. On the American Right, there has been much hand-wringing over his handling of climate change, whereas the American Left has been praising it for the same reason. The Right’s opposition is largely rooted in a combination of economic arguments and suspicion of the science supporting [...]
Far be it from us to strip down and leap into the hot-tub with Hegel and Lenin; and yet…and yet… there is an attraction to thoughts of historical inevitability. It seems as if Western collapse is a chain of unavoidable causes and effects, but this is a mistake. Unlike a lesser stage magician, its progenitor [...]
As a civilization we have abandoned our belief in the archetypes—not just of man and woman but even of good and evil. We’ve been trying to chart our course without them. But they haven’t gone away, and an archetype spurned can be a dangerous thing. In his famous press conference on the plane coming back from Rio, [...]
Naïve. Imprudent. A “Jesuit.” Such are some of the negative attributes that have been imputed to Pope Francis in the worried emails and dismayed blog posts that have come across my laptop screen in the week since the English publication of the Holy Father’s interview with Antonio Spadaro, S.J. Why such consternation from those who number themselves [...]
Pope Francis “No one is saved alone, as an isolated individual, but God attracts us looking at the complex web of relationships that take place in the human community. God enters into this dynamic, this participation in the web of human relationships.” Pope Francis to Antonio Spadaro SJ What is a conservative, really? [...]