A few months ago, I wrote an article imploring Pope Francis to finish Benedict XVI’s encyclical on faith. My rationale? The theological virtues exegesis that began with Benedict XVI’s encyclicals on hope (Spe Salvi) and charity (Deus Caritas Est) was incomplete without a corresponding papal discussion of faith. It was the appropriate hour, during the… Read More Ghostwriting the Faith: Reflections on Pope Francis’ Lumen Fidei
I recently took a few moments to read the much discussed conversation Pope Francis had with reporters on the plane home from World Youth Day. I came across his comments regarding concerns about his security and safety during the trip (an issue that prompted New York’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan to suggest that Francis needed to… Read More Francis and a Risk of Madness
We millennials are the ultimate products of the postmodern project. We are the children of the screen, the device. We are in constant flux, ever-entranced by the new and the expedient. And yet we’re also besieged by meaningless academic or vocational competition. Success is all about results and nothing more. Our world, as British philosopher… Read More Walker Percy and the Millennials
Pope Francis has a problem. It certainly doesn’t look that way at first glance; after all, it seems like the whole world is infatuated with the current Bishop of Rome. Catholics and non-Catholics alike cannot help but be mesmerized by him, and for good reason: every day it seems like Francis is doing something crazy,… Read More A Voice Crying Out in the Blogosphere: Pope Francis and the Problem of Poverty and Action
My vote for Hollywood’s next action hero and the literary model for young Catholics of the 21st century was first described with the following words: “He had a face as round and dull as a Norfolk dumpling; he had eyes as empty as the North Sea; he had several brown paper parcels, which he was… Read More Fr. Brown: A Model for Young Catholics in the 21st Century
The Daily Progress ran a photo of a six-year-old girl holding up a sign that declared “Stop deportation now!” in their coverage of an immigration reform rally held here in Charlottesville, Virginia on April 8. Along with these signs calling for an end to deportations, it is not uncommon to scriptural passages used by those… Read More The America We Want: Comprehensive Immigration Reform Now
Few events have defined Pope Francis’ young papacy as much as his monumental decision to break from tradition in the Holy Thursday ritual of washing the feet. The moving witness of him bending over and cleaning the feet of twelve marginalized poor (non-Italian) young men and women may be remembered as an important moment in… Read More The Pope and the Power of Humility
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