Pope Benedict XVI
Bridge Builder
Anyone who followed media coverage of the papal conclave that elected the Argentine Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, couldn’t help noticing that the...
A New Center of Gravity
In winning election as Pope Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio defied the papal pundits, even though they should have seen him coming. His rise marks the decisive shift...
Regime Change
[Editor's note: William L. Portier's and Richard R. Gaillardetz's are the final in a special series of stories we are posting as the cardinals gather for the...
Letting Go
Several Orthodox friends have asked what I think of Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation. A few are, like me, former Roman Catholics. When I mentioned Joseph A....
Polarization, Church and Country
What do the Roman Catholic Church and the American political system have in common? Both are divided into factions that neither trust nor understand each other, and...
Shock Therapy
By resigning, Pope Benedict served the church well. He has spared it another prolonged period of mounting disarray. He has "humanized" the papacy, as Joseph...
After Benedict
"The church is not the pope, and the pope is not the church,” theologian Joseph Komonchak reminds us (see “Benedict’s Act of Humility”). Amen to that. Komonchak...
Benedict's Act of Humility
The last pope to resign did so more than seven hundred years ago, which is a long time even by church standards. The controversy surrounding Celestine V’s...
Looking Back
In our 2005 series of articles titled “What Next?”, Commonweal asked several writers to look at the challenges the then newly elected Benedict XVI was likely to...
Exit Signs
On February 11, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he would step down at the end of the month. His reasons? Age and infirmity. His doctors have advised him not to...
- Page 1
- ››
