Tag Archives: Pope Francis

Chaucer’s Friar and Abusive Clergy

Wednesday Like many, I had hopes that Pope Francis’s Vatican meeting on clergy sexual abuse would yield something substantial, and like many I have been disappointed. The pope, according to the New York Times, decided that the best way for the church to address the problem lay not in issuing an edict from Rome but […]

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On the Pope, Walls, and Robinson Crusoe

Pope Francis recently labeled as “not Christian” those who build walls but not bridges. By this standard, the walls, both literal and metaphorical, being advocated by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz bring their own Christianity in doubt. An examination of the walls build by Robinson Crusoe, however, shows how Christians have rationalized walls.

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Pope Francis as Shaw’s St. Joan

Christianity is all very well in its place, but when Pope Francis comes to America counseling a dismantling of capitalism, he gets the same response that Joan of Arc does in “St. Joan.”

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A Guest Worthy To Be Here

Jesus learned to accept a Canaanite woman at his table and George Herbert learns that he belongs at that table. We can use them as models as we face refugees and immigrants.

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Christianity vs. Capitalism

Conservatives criticizing Pope Francis would benefit from this Robert Nemerov poem.

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As Kingfishers Catch Fire

Gerard Manley Hopkins tells us how to access the god within ourselves.

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