The only future is intentional Catholicism, evangelical Catholicism.

If [Pope's Francis] media-generated popularity, fragile as that may turn out to be when the world discovers that the pope is really a Catholic, opens windows of possibility for explaining that divine mercy leads us to the truths God revealed to us (and inscribed into the world and into us), then his reanimation of the papacy will advance the "Church in permanent mission" for which he called in Evangelii Gaudium, which is the grand strategy document of his pontificate.

The emphasis on the "peripheries" is also a distinctively "Franciscan" way of expressing the pope's respect for untutored popular piety - a respect, I might add, that was shared by St. John Paul II.

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] has felt the mercy of God in his own life and wants to share that experience with others.

The most important appointment Pope Francis has made is the appointment of the Australian cardinal, George Pell, as the Vatican's financial overseer.

There's an obvious investment in some media circles in the "narrative" of "the pope who's finally going to get with it."