In many countries, hundreds or thousands of cases of clerical sexual abuse have made the need for conversion in the church painfully obvious.

“I found it sad that the pope has to defend himself,” Gerard O’Connell said this week on Inside the Vatican. “EWTN is based in the United States. Can not the [U.S.] Catholic bishops’ conference defend the pope on this?”

As with much of his pastoral approach overall, the pope’s outreach to L.G.B.T. people can be characterized by the word “accompaniment.”

Maybe in this time of uncertainty, fear and doubt, it would be worth recruiting some young people like BTS, Greta Thunberg or Malala Yousafzai to officially join the pope in his fight for the future of our planet.

Today I would like to speak to you about my Apostolic Journey in Budapest and in Slovakia. I would summarize it as follows: it was a pilgrimage of prayer, a pilgrimage to the roots, a pilgrimage of hope.

“I personally deserve attacks and insults because I am a sinner, but the church does not deserve them. They are the work of the devil,” the pope said to the Jesuits of Slovakia on his recent trip.