“Daunting,” “heroic” and even “punishing.” Here’s what to expect during Pope Francis’ Asia-Oceania trip.
Pope Francis
Posted inFaith, Interviews
The Vatican’s only Indonesian official expects a warm welcome for Pope Francis—from Catholics and Muslims
In an interview with America, Father Markus Solo spoke about the reasons why Indonesia’s government and its Catholic and Muslim leaders wanted Francis to visit the country, which he described as “young and dynamic.”
Posted inPolitics & Society, Vatican Dispatch
A brief history of the Catholic Church in Indonesia
How much of Indonesia is Catholic? Is Christianity on the rise? Why is Pope Francis visiting? Here’s what you need to know.
Posted inPolitics & Society, The Weekly Dispatch
Heat will drive the next wave of migrants. Pope Francis thinks it’s a grave sin to ignore their plight.
Migration has been a defining reality of the human experience; that is not going to change because of 19th-century innovations like national borders.
Posted inFaith, News
East Timor’s sex abuse scandal has been ignored by many Catholics. Can Pope Francis’ visit change that?
The pope’s visit comes only two years after the Vatican acknowledged that the Nobel Peace Prize-winning, East Timorese independence hero Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo had sexually abused young boys.
Posted inFaith, Speeches
Pope Francis: Rejecting migrants is a ‘grave sin’
In his General Audience address on Aug. 28 centered on the plight of migrants, Pope Francis said, “The Lord is with our migrants…not with those who repel them.“
Posted inFaith, News
Pope Francis expresses concern about religious freedom in Ukraine: ‘The churches are not to be touched.’
During the Aug. 25 recitation of the Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis expressed his concern over a recent Ukrainian law that proscribed the Russian Orthodox Church.
Posted inFaith, News
Pope Francis says death penalty fuels ‘poison’ of revenge in preface to new book on prison chaplaincy
Drawing on work of lay Catholic prison chaplain Dale Recinella, Pope Francis paints death penalty as toxic and ineffective.
Posted inFaith, News
St. Maximilian Kolbe: Auschwitz martyr and a cautionary tale for humanity
On August 14, Catholics commemorate the death of St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan friar who sacrificed his life to save a fellow prisoner from execution by the Nazis.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
From Benedict XV to Francis: Popes have long played peacemaker in war—and faced criticism for their stance
There are no simple answers as to how to end a war. Benedict XV’s prophetic but ignored call for “a stable peace honorable to all” in World War I should be an example for Pope Francis.