Blog
‘The Hour of the People: Pope Francis and the post-Covid moment’
A lecture I was invited to give by Zoom to the Archdiocese of Boston’s Social Justice Convocation on November 13, 2021. I was given a warm welcome by Cardinal Sean O’Malley and Fr Bryan Hehir gave a thoughtful response. At the heart of the talk is what I describe as a shift in Francis’s reading of the signs of the times following the outbreak of the pandemic. From a sombre view of the direction of history prior to March 2020, the Pope began to discern a new hope in what he saw as an awakening “from below” of fraternity and solidarity in the world. I see Let Us Dream, his address to the popular movements and his calling of the global synod as signs of what I call “the hour of the people”, and spell out some of the implications for the Church’s pastoral ministry.
Pope Francis was right to call out the attacks from EWTN (and to use the ‘d’ word)
While in Slovakia recently, Francis told the Jesuits that “a large Catholic television channel” had no hesitation in “continually speaking ill of the pope”, and that its attacks were the “work of the devil”. An editor of America magazine, J.D. Long-García, took issue with Francis, claiming his was an attempt to silence criticism. My response, also at America, argues it was no such thing, but alerting the People of God to the action of the diabolos — as popes should.