Asia Bibi appeals for the repeal of Pakistan's blasphemy laws
- Apr 21, 2021
Over the centuries, popes have always found plenty of ways to speak without using words, especially when words might be inconvenient or hard to take back.
Sciatica is not life-threatening, it doesn’t shorten the lifespan, and it doesn’t pose the risk of either physical or mental incapacity. That’s not to say it’s trivial – as Francis himself said talking about it in 2013, “I don’t wish it on anyone!” – but it’s not the sort of thing that raises questions about the pope’s ability to govern.
It’s sometimes thought that people too attached to their own tradition aren’t open enough to be able to dialogue with others; that to be universal, you’ve got to be a little less specific. John Paul II and Tommy Lasorda, through their remarkable lives, delivered the only Catholic answer to that claim: Bunk.
Archbishop Rowan Williams offered the example of Malcolm Muggeridge, a celebrated British journalist and satirist who was attracted to Communism in his youth and later converted to Christianity under the influence of St. Teresa of Calcutta.
Polish bishops defended St. John Paul II on Friday against evidence that he rejected reports that ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick slept with his seminarians, seeking to salvage a papal legacy that has been badly tarnished by his inaction on clergy sexual abuse.
Not only is Biden poised to become just the second Roman Catholic President of the United States, assuming his razor-thin victory survives the inevitable legal challenges, but he’s this pope’s kind of Catholic.
By publishing a recent article warning Pope Francis and the Vatican that their moral authority is at risk should they renew a 2018 deal with China over bishops, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo injected a sense of a high-stakes showdown to his visit to the Vatican this week.