the vatican

As Francis heads to Brazil, is the new pope signaling a shift away from John Paul-era “conservative restoration” or is this simply a return to JP’s image-conscious conservative populism?

Called to the carpet for the decision to reinstall controversial bishops, the Vatican has taken to doing what it does best: issuing public statements, coupled with obfuscation and outright denial.

Statistics are one way to tell the story: In 1984, 87% of Irish Catholics went to weekly Mass. In 2011, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said 18% of Dublin Church members attend services. Images are another option: gaggles of green-bedecked youngsters and young adults line the St. Paddy’s Day parade route, but in Dublin’s cathedral youthful faces only speckle the crowd.

Catholic Christianity has a long tradition of being shaped from the margins.

Let’s be clear: half of the world’s poor are women, and the church’s effort to deprive the Catholic women among them of contraceptives, of the use of condoms that could protect them from HIV-AIDS, and of the ministry of women priests who would marry, absolve, and anoint them, is no service to them.

Kidnapped Jesuit priest accused Bergoglio of virtually handing him over.

While I do not doubt that there are certain similarities between apartheid (as well as US segregation) and the exclusion of women from Roman Catholic ordination, and while I can believe that Fresen’s feelings about these two injustices are similar, it is not ethically acceptable to say that they are “just the same.”

Celibacy as “radical doubt.”

Critics cite the “devastating” impact of Benedict’s papacy when it comes to the place of LGBT people within the Church, as well as his antagonism toward women religious.

What do you give to the Pope on the occasion of his retirement? I am sure he has more Rolex watches than he needs, and the red shoes he likes are out of my price range. But a new Church would be just the thing to assure him a dignified old age.