The papacy is an impossible job. So the best thing Catholics can do for the pope is to pray for him.

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

The only future is intentional Catholicism, evangelical Catholicism.

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.

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.

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.

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.