George Weigel on Pope Francis: "I was frankly surprised by the rapidity of the conclave (although I had been given a tip before the Wednesday voting session that things might in fact move faster, which they clearly did). I was pleasantly surprised by the determination to clean house, and not just in terms of letting a few manifest incompetents fade into the sunset, but in the sense of a real commitment to cultural change in the curia -- which I take as a sign that the new evangelization is taking hold, because it's seized the imagination of the Church's shepherds, or at least a critical mass of them. And I was sadly surprised that some senior churchmen still don't seem to understand that chronic self-referentiality is not a winning way to preach the Gospel."Apologies, if this was linked in the many Popenotes below.Who are Weigel's "manifest incompetents"? And self-referentiality! Name his book.

Margaret O’Brien Steinfels is a former editor of Commonweal. 

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