Pope Francis’s gift of St. Peter’s relics to the Orthodox patriarch is remarkable. Rather than righting a previous wrong, it constitutes a genuine self-emptying.
We are locked up in our own little worlds, trying not to get hurt too much or screw things up, and we have our backs to the fireworks going on all around us.
The veneration of relics is a hard thing for many Catholics of this time and culture to wrap their minds around. But the practice is humanizing, not superstitious.
The idea of religious liberty was not simply the product of the Enlightenment. It has ancient origins, going back to early Christians suffering persecution in Rome.
