The persecution of Christians in the middle east reveals, in bloody relief, the grave shortcomings of American partisan politics.

To apprehend Francis’s thought, and dare I say the thought of the Church, requires a more tepid disposition toward modern notions of freedom than most Christians are willing to provide.

Michael Novak is worried “whether [Pope Francis] has a very good theory for how you get the poor out of poverty.” Let’s be honest, there’s exactly one thing that would force the prevailing fates to judge Francis with favor, and it sure as heck wouldn’t require something so original as all that.

The division we’re given between an “ecumenical imperative” and a “presumption of self-sufficiency” might be descriptively helpful, but it can’t be normative.

Alarming enough is the prospect that our public acceptance as Christians has, indeed, come to an end. But more worrisome is the deficit we face in recognizing the reality of our current predicament.

If there are any connections in the Piketty-Francis firestorm, they’re not the ones you’ve been reading about. They have a lot less to do with economic models, and a lot more to do with individuals as more than just producers and consumers.

While on the face of it Kasper’s conclusions might align with a pontificate characterized by pastoral sensitivity, if Rist is correct, they’re also fundamentally opposed to that same pontificate, which has made the rejection of ideology a hallmark.

Can the Church of God turn her back on the world, if only temporarily? Will the world forget us while we seek to recover the spiritual resources we seem to have squandered? No. Neither will the world allow us that leisure nor ought we even to seek it.