Pope Francis
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Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in a 2005 issue of Sojourners magazine.
"El Papa Juan Pablo Segundo Murió" read the banner shown on the TV set in the El Salvador bar I was sitting in April 2, 2005. The pope's death had been rumored all week. One taxi driver told me the pope was dead, though the next one informed me he was not.
Pope Francis greets the Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, at the Vatican Embassy in Washington. Sept. 24, 2015. REUTERS/Gary Cameron/File Photo
Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Donald Wuerl as archbishop of Washington, D.C., the Vatican said on Friday, making him one of the most senior Catholic figures to step down in a worldwide sexual abuse crisis.
Image via Reuters/Gregorio Borgia/Pool
"The pope has the right to freely resign. That's what the canon says. The doubt is whether the situation Francis is in now really allows for a free choice because there is a political faction in the Church trying to force it," said Nicholas Cafardi, former dean of Duquesne University School of Law.
This past February, as we have done for years, my daughters and I loaded a crockpot of taco meat, all the fixings, serving utensils, and dessert into the trunk of my SUV. My two busy teens claimed they had too much homework to stay long, so they drove a different car to the nearby town where we’d eat with homeless families.
FILE PHOTO: Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano delivers a Mass at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago, Nov. 18, 2014. REUTERS/Charles Rex Arbogast/Pool/File Photo
The full extent of journalists' involvement in the statement — from conception and editing to translation and publication — emerges from a series of Reuters interviews that reveal a union of conservative clergy and media aimed at what papal defenders say is a campaign to weaken the reformist Francis's pontificate.
A statuette of the Virgin Mary is seen inside of a house in front of Charles Borromeo Parish church, formerly St. Joseph in Ashland, Penn. Aug. 17, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Pope Francis concluded his recent trip to Ireland with a Mass at the World Meeting of Families, during which he called on families to “become a source of encouragement for others.” What sort of encouragement does he envision, I wonder.
Pope Francis prays in front of a candle lit to remember victims of abuse by the church, inside St Mary's Pro Cathedral during his visit to Dublin, Ireland, Aug. 25, 2018. REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini/Pool
There is a soulweariness shared by these ecclesiastical cousins on both sides of the Atlantic that pervades in the face of so much pain from the original insult, the resulting denials, obfuscation, and general mishandling; and, ultimately, the hope — that some measure of justice might be achieved and true healing commenced — repeatedly dashed.
Pope Francis leads the World Meeting of Families closing mass in Phoenix Park, Dublin, Ireland, August 26, 2018. REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini
Pope Francis wrapped up a whirlwind tour of Ireland by issuing his most detailed public apology to date for the horrific abuses suffered by generations of Irish families at the hands of the Catholic Church during an outdoor Mass for an estimated half-million people in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. In a litany of prayers described as “off-the-cuff” by spokespeople for the World Meeting of Families, the international event that brought the pontiff to Dublin this week, Pope Francis begged forgiveness for a laundry list of atrocities wrought by the church and its emissaries.
Pope Francis speaks during the Festival of Families at Croke Park during his visit to Dublin, Ireland, August 25, 2018. REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini
Standing just a few feet away from where many Catholics believe the Virgin Mary appeared in 1879 to a dozen denizens of this bucolic corner of western Ireland at the height of a famine, on Sunday morning Pope Francis begged God’s forgiveness for the abuse of countless innocents by priests and other members of the Catholic Church.
Pope Francis smiles next to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at Dublin Castle during his visit to Dublin, Ireland, Aug. 25, 2018. REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar delivered a firm challenge to Pope Francis and the Catholic Church Saturday in Dublin Castle, where the two met with authorities, civil society, and diplomatic corps. Pope Francis visits the country after decades of revelations of abuse of women and children at the hands of clergy. Hundreds died from apparent malnutrition, unwed mothers lived in servitude, and many of their babies were illegally adopted.
Before the papal visit, a sign in Dublin references to the Magdalene laundries, run by the Catholic Church, where unwed mothers were abused. Photo by Cathleen Falsani for Sojourners
When Pope Francis steps off of his chartered Alitalia flight from Rome at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, he will be walking into a country that is in some ways barely recognizable from the last time he visited the Irish Republic nearly 40 years ago.
A pilgrim is blessed by the newly ordained Father Gerard Quirke after Mass at the summit of Croagh Patrick holy mountain during an annual Catholic pilgrimage near Lecanvey, Ireland, July 29, 2018. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne
Francis will pray at the Knock shrine as part of his two-day visit to Ireland this week, the first by a Pope in almost 40 years that have transformed the once staunchly Catholic country into a far more secular and liberal society.
FILE PHOTO: Pope Francis delivers a speech after a meeting with Patriarchs of the churches of the Middle East at the St. Nicholas Basilica in Bari, southern Italy July 7, 2018. REUTERS/Tony Gentile/File Photo
Pope Francis has responded today to recent reports of clerical sexual abuse and ecclesial cover-up through a letter titled “Letter to the People of God.” This letter comes on the heels of a 884-page reportdocumenting clerical abuse in Pennsylvania and ahead of the World Meeting of Families taking place Aug. 21-26 in Dublin, Ireland, where Pope Francis is scheduled to speak later in the week.
FILE PHOTO: Cardinal Donald William Wuerl from U.S. waves as he arrives for a meeting at the Synod Hall in the Vatican March 7, 2013. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi
The Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, withdrew on Saturday from next week's World Meeting of Families in Dublin, the second senior cleric to pull out of the Roman Catholic event amid clerical sexual abuse scandals in the United States.
“It seems a new video emerges every week in the burgeoning genre of white people siccing police on nonwhite people for taking part in everyday activities … Now, some of the small but growing numbers of people featured in those videos are using the attention to run for office, become activists, form nonprofits or otherwise enter the fray of race, politics and social change.”
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FILE PHOTO: Pope Francis leads a Holy Mass at the Palexpo in Geneva, Switzerland, June 21, 2018. REUTERS/Tony Gentile/File Photo
The Roman Catholic Church formally changed its teaching on Thursday to declare the death penalty inadmissible whatever the circumstance, a move that is likely to be viewed askance in countries where capital punishment is legal.
Pope Francis prays inside the cripta of the St. Nicholas Basilica in Bari, southern Italy July 7, 2018. REUTERS/Tony Gentile
"Truces maintained by walls and displays of power will not lead to peace, but only the concrete desire to listen and to engage in dialogue will," he said in his second speech of the day, after a private meeting among the religious leaders.
Pope Francis waves as he arrives to lead the Wednesday general audience in Saint Peter's square at the Vatican, June 20, 2018. REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini
Pope Francis has criticized the Trump administration's policy of separating migrant families at the Mexican border, saying populism is not the answer to the world's immigration problems.
A boy is carried by his father as he receives HolyCommunion during a mass on Christmas Eve at Saint Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Cairo, Egypt December 24, 2017. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh/File Photo
“Walking together” is one of the pope’s favorite mantras. When dealing with tense theological debates inside the church, he is putting equal weight on both words.
FILE PHOTO: Pope Francis arrives to lead the Wednesday general audience in Saint Peter's square at the Vatican, May 23.
A document for a meeting of Catholic bishops from the Amazon, expected to evaluate ordaining elderly married men as priests for the vast region, says the Church should make "daring proposals."