encyclical
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For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. – 1 Cor. 1:25 Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. –…
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I am headed on retreat and off the grid for a couple of weeks starting tomorrow, but I couldn’t let a pope release a social encyclical without at least a quick skim before I left, and Pope Leo released Magnifica Humanitas this morning. So here I am. I haven’t read any of the commentary already…
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If reports are true, Pope Leo XIV will release his first encyclical on May 15th, titled Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent humanity). Since this is unrelated to my day job, I will almost certainly not be among the first to read and report on this, so I wanted to try to flag a few things in advance…
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We who live in the 21st century risk living the life of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz, says Pope Francis in his new encyclical. At the societal level, we’re missing a heart. I started this blog to give me a place to write about things that Pope Francis was saying and doing,…
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You probably wouldn’t think that the answer to the challenge of Pope Francis’ encyclical would be found in Bhutan. (In part because, you, like me, couldn’t find Bhutan without Google.) One of the reflections I’ve had on reading Laudato Si’ is that maybe our problem as a society is that we focus on the wrong stuff.…
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I haven’t seen a thoughtful conservative response to Laudato Si’. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been any; in fact, I’d welcome the chance to read any you’ve seen. Here’s one worth trying on, though. Pope Francis focuses heavily, and rightly, on the plight of the poor; this isn’t new — it’s in keeping with the history…
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In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis outlines several daunting challenges of modern life: pollution, climate change, water scarcity, loss of biodiversity, decline of human life, breakdown of society, global inequality. That’s a lot. Dig a little on just one of these, like this one, is enough to leave you thinking we are, well, in bad shape.…
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If anyone’s interested, I can outline the argument that I think American economic conservatives can and perhaps should make about Laudato Si’ and Pope Francis’ social teaching in general. (I have some thoughts about the argument religious conservatives could have made about marriage equality, too, believe it or not.) But until someone asks, here is…
Reading Francis 