The Dispatch
A crisis of leadership? Francis’ defenders call for reform on sex abuse
For even his staunch supporters, Francis’ moral authority hangs in the balance. […]
Articles by Christopher R. Altieri
The Dispatch
Sending Abp Scicluna to Chile raises more questions than it answers
The Vatican is sending a highly-qualified investigator to examine the case against Bishop Barros. Is this an ad hoc response to bad press, or a […]
Analysis
Will the Pope’s project result in real reform—or turn Rome into a Buenos Aires-on-Tiber?
The mainstream media portrait of Francis as a smiling, friendly old grandpa has always been at the very best a gross caricature, and more often […]
The Dispatch
Observers remain “mystified” over Pope’s remarks on clerical sex abuse, and call for bishop accountability
The Vatican deemed Bishop Barros’ accusers credible. Why doesn’t the Pope believe them when they say the bishop knew about their abuse? […]
The Dispatch
Francis, fake news, and “snake-tactics”
Fake news is fake. Bad press may be the result of very sound journalism. The problem is that the standard proposed by Pope Francis cannot […]
Features
The Pope’s misuse of “calumny” distracts from deeper, more troubling questions
The problem with Pope Francis’ defense of Bishop Juan Barros is not that Francis has a poor grasp of technical legal terminology or misuses certain words, […]
Opinion
The Jesuit Pope and the problematic reform of the Roman Curia
2017 was a year in which the micro-fissures in the structure began to be visible to the naked eye. 2018 is likely to be the […]
Features
From what, precisely, are Amoris Laetitia “dissenters” dissenting?
If even Pope Francis could be unsure about the orthodoxy of his controversial post-Synodal Exhortation, surely the faithful will be allowed to have perplexities of […]
Analysis
Pope Francis’ “open and incomplete” leadership and the puzzling “reform” of the Curia
Fr. Antonio Spadaro, SJ, the Editor-in-Chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, says the Holy Father’s leadership “is based on the success-error dynamic,” which inevitably “destabilizes whoever […]
The Dispatch
The complicated context of Pope Francis’ confusing remarks about the “Our Father”
The Holy Father’s remarks, made to the Italian bishops’ TV magazine program, invoked a drawn-out and at times acrimonious controversy under the tent of French […]