Pope Francis at Ten Years

Article

Pope Francis’ First Mass

From 2013: Grant Gallicho reports from Pope Francis’ inaugural mass in St. Peter’s Square.

By Grant Gallicho

March 12, 2023

The Last Word

Pope Francis

Article

Bridge Builder

Commonweal’s editors react to the election of Pope Francis, arguing that his first responsibility is to repair division in the Church.

By The Editors

March 26, 2013

Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Francis

Article

Francis the Street Pope

From 2013: Pope Francis has created a new interactive mode of papal teaching, an epoch-making change in rhetorical style meant to inspire.

By William L. Portier

October 12, 2013

Article

Francis Goes to Congress

From 2015: For those listening carefully in the House chamber, Pope Francis will have presented some quandaries that they are more ready to ignore than to engage.

By Margaret O'Brien Steinfels

March 12, 2023

Article

Standing in that endless, pointless line, I realized, wasn’t communicating our affection for the pope but our acceptance of the authority of the security state.

Safe and Sorry

By Mollie Wilson O’Reilly

October 8, 2015

Article

How Francis Thinks About Love

From 2016: Francis offers a practical approach to the challenges of married love that gives us a surprisingly moving exhortation to a courageous way of life.

By Paige E. Hochschild

March 11, 2023

U.S. Catholicism

Pope Francis

Secularism and Modernity

Synod on the Family

Theology

Article

Catholics in the Philippines, more than anywhere else, have brought this encyclical to life and made it their own.

Living into ‘Laudato si’’

January 15, 2019

Article

Why Francis Termed the Death Penalty ‘Inadmissible’

What moral theology underlies the supposed changes to the catechism on capital punishment? It is an authoritative judgment of prudential reasoning.

September 5, 2018

Article

How Pope Francis Reframes the Politics of Being ‘Prolife’

One of the most influential figures of our time puts a consistent ethic of life at the forefront of religious and political conversations

September 13, 2017

Article

Taking on Abuse in Chile

How can the pope begin to address the pervasive corruption of clerical sex abuse? Women can help.

May 31, 2018

Article

What Francis Means by ‘Fratelli Tutti’

Yes, we should be concerned about the all-male ‘Fratelli tutti.’ But we need a more expansive, charitable view of Francis’s deliberate word choices.

By Carmen M. Nanko-Fernández

March 12, 2023

Article

Encyclicals that do not name the change that needs to happen within the Church’s own systems and teaching do not help those affected to feel invited into dialogue.

Reconsidering ‘Chisme’

By Neomi De Anda

December 8, 2020

Fratelli tutti

Pope Francis

Article

Many and One

A living Church must hold two seemingly opposed but equally radiant goods: the local and the universal.

December 14, 2020

Article

An Interview with Pope Francis

From 2020: Pope Francis addresses the English-speaking world as the coronavirus pandemic now reaches the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

March 12, 2023