On pope’s Asia swing, doctrinal tension is the dog that’s not barking
- John L. Allen Jr.
- Nov 20, 2019
As Pope Francis opens his third trip to Asia today, visiting Thailand and Japan, there’s a pretty big doctrinal dog that hasn’t uttered a peep – debates over the theology of religious pluralism.
One difficulty in getting those of us in the media to focus on subjects such as ecology, poverty and extractive industries in the Amazon is that it’s hard to know what the Catholic Church can really do about them.
After being away from my home country of Argentina for the past five years, only going back to visit with the family for Christmas and the odd long weekend, I decided to avoid Rome’s scorching summer this year and head back on a reporting mission to take the country’s temperature regarding my fellow Argentinian, Pope Francis.
Bishop Jose Maria Gil Tamayo, former secretary and spokesman of the Spanish bishops’ conference, said there’s an attempt to “extend an unfair veil of suspicion over the immense multitude of priests.”
The God’s honest truth is that of the 28 Synods of Bishops held since Pope Paul VI launched the institution in 1965, every one probably has been “rigged” to some extent.
In four official speeches opening an Oct. 3-28 summit of Catholic bishops from around the world, there was no direct reference to the clerical sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Church during summer 2018.
A new letter to the People of God from Pope Francis on the child sexual abuse scandals in the Church may frustrate as many people as it reassures.
After Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington followed Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston in withdrawing from the World Meeting of Families in Dublin this week, Pope Francis may be pressed in a new way to tackle the question of what to do about bishops who drop the ball on abuse allegations.