One of the reasons we created Millennial was because we were concerned that millennial Catholics did not have adequate forums in which to express their ideas on religion, politics, and culture. In particular, we felt that those who were both pro-life and pro-social justice, shaped by the personalist and communitarian principles of Catholic teaching, were too often excluded by those seeking to maintain ideological purity or advance a partisan agenda. In creating Millennial, we hoped to provide a forum to fill that gap and hoped that this would be done not only by recruiting a great set of writers but also by having a very open submission policy that welcomed millennial Catholic authors from a wide range of backgrounds. We had a great set of guest submissions in 2013, which can be viewed here. We hope to add even more voices in 2014, so if you have something to say and are willing to say it in a thoughtful, nuanced way, we encourage you to submit a post or idea today. Without further ado, here are the five most popular guest posts of 2013:

5. Liberty, Idolatry, and the Culture of Violence by Christiana Z. Peppard: “The idolatry of liberty—of rights unfettered from social responsibilities—is cancerous. In our culture of violence, it is at least partly fed by hyper-permissive interpretations of the second amendment. And we are too strapped to guns and gurneys for any of this to be even bleakly funny. If the body politic is to survive, the cancer requires surgery. Rethinking the contemporary stipulations of the second amendment seems as good a place to start as any.”

4. All Catholic Bishops Must Act on Medicaid Expansion by Ryan Casey: “Join me also in my hope that our Catholic clergy lead their flocks by embodying the social gospel that lies at the very heart of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, who did not just talk about compassion, but showed it; did not just teach us about love, but was it; and did not just preach about taking care of the least among us, but did it.  Will we as Catholics follow in the footsteps of Christ our Lord through our actions?”

3. Waging War on Porn: Trial and Triumph at our Finger Tips by Matt Aujero: “Our generation has been given the opportunity to grow up and explore the Internet, a tool that gives us unprecedented access to knowledge, but it has also given us an equally unprecedented set of temptations if we leave ourselves to our own devices… This is not just a personal battle; this is our collective battle.”

2. Letter to a “Conservative” Catholic by Rebecca Sharbaugh: “I promise to balance the emphases of my faith with yours by truly listening to what you have to say.  I promise to never demean the beautiful ways you serve God just because they are different than the ways I choose to serve God. And most of all, I promise that I believe the Church is better with you in it than it would be without you.”

1. The Danger of Pope Francis by Jonathan Lewis: “The danger of Pope Francis is no different than the danger that comes with the rise in popularity of any other figure, though it is magnified when the person happens to be the most talked-about person in the world: when we agree with someone, we are rarely moved to grow or change. The life of a Christian disciple requires growth and change. A God that does not make us uncomfortable is no god at all.”