The pope [Francis] knows that the marriage culture is in crisis throughout the world, and so is the family.

The world needs a pastor, whether it knows it or not.

The most enduring of the false narratives is that the signature phrase of the early pontificate - "Who am I to judge?" - was a matter of the pope jettisoning millennia of Catholic moral teaching. It was not. It was a specific response to the circumstances of a man who had repented and was trying to live an upright life.

I'd also hope that my liberal friends, who find in this pope a critic of what they're pleased to call "culture-warrior" Catholics, will read carefully, and ponder even more carefully, what Pope Francis had to say about the "ideological colonization" implicit in Western decadence when he was giving robust pro-life, pro-family talks in the Philippines.

One of the most important qualities in a pope is his judgment of people - can he get around him the people who can put into practice his vision of what the Church must be doing now to fulfill its mandate from the Lord.

The Church offers the medicine of the divine mercy so that healed souls can grasp the truth that will liberate them in the fullest meaning of human freedom.

There's the trope about an impending "global-warming encyclical." The pope is preparing an encyclical on nature and the environment, including the human environment (which includes the moral imperative of a culturally affirmed and legally recognized right to life from conception until natural death). So what happens? A low-ranking Vatican official for self-promotion gives an interview to the Guardian in which he claims that this is a global-warming encyclical - which he couldn't possibly have known, as the document wasn't drafted yet.