In New York, Pope Francis called nuns “women of strength, fighters, with that spirit of courage which puts you in the front lines in the proclamation of the Gospel. What would the church be without you?” More
PHILADELPHIA – Jamie Lynn Black, a twenty-something Catholic communicator, says Pope Francis’ appeal to everyday people echoes the charisma she saw in Pope John Paul II. More
“The UN speech sounded like the fading days of Benedict’s papacy: too many shopworn abstractions that put people off and aren’t capable anyway of capturing the dynamism of power relations on the international scene.” More
“In Washington, for a few hours, he helped transcend polarized politics; in New York, again for a moment, he transcended discouragement, even cynicism, about the now 70-year-old dream of peace through international cooperation. In both cases Pope Francis recognized disagreements and acknowledged discouragement, but he deliberately enlisted himself and the Church in the work of building solidarity and practicing shared responsibility.” More
If Pope Francis may have begun a slow rehab of politics for millennials, he appeared to have done even more for religion. More
“The use of Lincoln and King provided an avenue to some of the U.S. public’s best ideals of solidarity, persistent hopefulness—the dream—and shared responsibility, a word used to set the tone right at the start of the speech.” More
If saints should be individuals who transcend their times, what does that say about the canonization of Junipero Serra? More
View a gallery of photos by Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly producer Noelle Serper from the “Rally with Pope Francis in the Call to Moral Action on Climate Justice” on the National Mall on September 24. More
Read the homily Pope Francis delivered September 23 in Washington, DC at the canonization of Junipero Serra. More
Watch excerpts of interviews about why Pope Francis elevated to sainthood an 18th-century Spanish missionary and Native American concerns about the impact of early missionaries on indigenous cultures. More