Vital parishes built on the Bible and the sacraments, committed to evangelizing their neighborhoods, will continue to flourish. The poor will be served, the sick healed, and the dying comforted. None of that is going to change, and I'd wager that it's going to get better.

"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 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.

When media "narratives" about [Pope] Francis get set in concrete, and act as filters bending or distorting (or ignoring) aspects of his vision and his teaching that don't fit the established story line, the Church has a problem.

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.

Then [Catholics] owe [pope] the loyalty that is expressed in speaking the truth to him - and that puts a premium on knowing whether what you're happy about, on unhappy about, has a basis in fact, or is merely a reflection of the "narrative.

[Pope] Francis communicates the pastoral embrace of the Church, the breadth and inclusiveness of Catholicism symbolized by the Bernini colonnade around St. Peter's Square, in a powerful way.