Optimism and pessimism are mere matters of optics, of how you look at things, and that can change from day to day, or with a new prescription for your glasses - or with a new set of ideological filters.

[Pope Francis] comes to that conviction [of family crisis] as a pastor, not as Brad Wilcox or Charles Murray. So he wants to challenge the Church to find pastoral responses to that crisis that meet real human needs.

In the Vatican, if you don't get something new done quickly you may not get it done at all.

[Jesus Christ to Pope Francis] is the Lord with whom he speaks for hours every day in prayer. The Risen One who reached out, touched his life, and called him into mission.

"You don't believe what you read in the papers about anything else; why do you believe it about the pope?" That's where I'd start.

The short-term impact is that people are encouraged to give the Church another look. It's up to the liveliest parts of the Church - the dynamically orthodox parts of the Church - to seize that opportunity.

More pro-active Vatican communications might be able to do something about all this, but when the Holy See is constantly in the mode of, "No, what the pope really meant was . . . ," the game has already been largely forfeited.