Pope Francis

Conservatives pounce, the media fiddles.

The Francis pontificate has always emphasized the importance of mercy. How will that come into play in the sex abuse scandal?

The depressing reality behind Cardinal Cupich's comments that the pope has "got to get on with other things."

When it comes to abortion, the Pope is Catholic.

'Reportedly' is a key word here.

Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, Adam Keiper and Stephen White join to discuss his recent article The Pope's Mess, a review of Ross Douthat's book about Pope Francis. Later, Andrew Egger and Jim Swift discuss the battle royale inside the West Wing to replace Hope Hicks, and host Charlie Sykes…

Pope Francis's pontificate did not begin with doctrinal controversy. It began with the appearance of an amiable Argentine on the balcony of St. Peter's and endearing stories about a pope who rides the bus and pays his own hotel bills. His papacy seemed to pre­sent an opportunity to draw together…

Reports emerged Monday that Vatican officials have been pressuring two Chinese Catholic bishops to resign their offices in order to be replaced with bishops favored by the Chinese government. The Vatican has not confirmed or denied the reports.

With the norm-demolishing, nationalist-establishment civil war in America’s Republican party, we sometimes lose sight of what the other great disruptor is doing over in Europe.

President Trump and Pope Francis have now both expressed support for Charlie Gard, the British infant who a court ordered to be taken off life support.

What is the Francis Effect? Recent surveys show that despite all the hype since Jorge Mario Bergoglio first became pope in March 2013, there has been little change in how often Roman Catholics in America attend Mass. This is not to say, though, that the pope has not deeply changed the lives of many…

What is the Francis Effect? Recent surveys show that despite all the hype since Jorge Mario Bergoglio first became pope in March 2013, there has been little change in how often Roman Catholics in America attend Mass. This is not to say, though, that the pope has not deeply changed the lives of many…

Bernie Sanders is leaving the country ahead of the New York primary. The Democratic presidential candidate is heading to the Vatican.

Pope Francis’s synod on the family adjourned on Sunday, October 25, after an acrimonious three weeks. This assembly of bishops, like a similar one last year, was convened because the pope is interested in changing Catholic teaching on divorce, remarriage, and, to a lesser extent, homosexuality.

If readers weren’t made aware already by the wall-to-wall coverage, Pope Francis was recently in Washington, D.C., where he met with the president, addressed Congress, and canonized a saint (Junípero Serra) at a mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. While local…

About 48 hours after Pope Francis decamped from America's greatest city, reports started circulating in the press-later confirmed by the Vatican-that the Holy Father had secretly met with Kim Davis, that Kentucky clerk who refused to grant same-sex marriage licenses. Davis, you'll recall, has been…

Two distinguished politicians, one with a constituency of over one billion souls, the other a constituency of over one billion subjects, visited us this week. The pope’s souls, of course, are voluntary adherents to his cause, with the price of disobedience deferred until the disobedient enter…

Pope Francis spoke at the United Nations Friday morning and his remarks were, more or less, what was expected: a long push for climate change legislation mixed with concern about the world’s unjust economy. So in general, there wasn’t much to see. But in their particulars, some of the pope’s…

Pope Francis spoke before Congress Thursday, and numerous politicians lived up to their most iconic moments. 

While there have been extensive comparisons of Bernie Sanders to Larry David—and there are undeniable similarities—some are now comparing the Jewish senator and presidential candidate to Pope Francis. 

In the middle of his trip to Washington, D.C., Pope Francis made an "unschedued" stop to meet with members of an group of nuns suing the federal government over the Obama administration's contraception and abortifacient mandate in the health-care law. The Little Sisters of the Poor is an order of…

After his morning visit with President Obama, Pope Francis ambled over to St. Matthew’s Cathedral (which is easily the most beautiful building in Washington) to meet with America’s bishops. 

Chinese leader Xi Jinping, in scheduling his U.S. visit, seems to have fallen into a trap common for many communist leaders: underestimating papal power. Xi will be following in the footsteps of Pope Francis on visits first to the White House in Washington, and then to the United Nations in New…

On the continuing question of whether Pope Francis is a menace or a farce, the Holy Father offered another data point during an interview with members of the media aboard his flight to the United States on Tuesday. CNN’s Rosa Flores asked a pretty straightforward question about Francis’s refusal to…

In eleven days the much-travelled Pope Francis will set foot on American soil for the first time: Unlike his two immediate predecessors, he did not visit this country before rising to the papacy. His baggage will include the mind-set typical of Latin American anti-U.S. populists, in his case the…

Liberals and progressives go to great lengths to keep church and state separate. Just try to have religious schools share in a voucher or other government program that provides relief to students trapped by the teachers’ unions into failing schools. No can do. It violates the separation of church…

Pope, President, Prices and Paris. That covers just about everything you need to know about the next step in the battle to prevent what has come to be called climate change, the title now preferred to “global warming” by those who worry that CO2 emissions are causing, er, global warming. The Pope…

Ever since the environmental movement began it has had a religious fervor: Like God, Earth is always capitalized, and there is an annual celebration, Earth Day, rather like holidays celebrated by other religions. Of course, the dogmas of green religionists have changed over time: Prophecies of a…

Last week, Pope Francis hosted a Vatican summit on global warming where one of his cardinals called for a “full conversion of hearts and minds” to the fight against the “almost unfathomable” effects of fossil fuels on the environment. The pope will soon issue an encyclical on the subject,…

“Oh, Khatcher agha, the killers have come.” Those words were spoken to my grandfather, Khatcher Matosian, with a tap on the back so that he would redirect his gaze. He and relatives had been peering from the rooftops of their Armenian village in central Turkey after hearing about the Ottoman…

CNN reports:

The White House has just released details of President Obama's upcoming Europe trip, which includes a visit with the pope in Vatican City on March 27. "The President looks forward to discussing with Pope Francis their shared commitment to fighting poverty and growing inequality," says the White…

Everybody has an opinion about the pope these days and, what’s worse, feels compelled to express it. Rush Limbaugh has an opinion about the pope. He says he finds the pope “upsetting.” And he’s not even Catholic!

You may have heard that last week Pope Francis said that gay Catholic priests were a-okay.

There’s something in the new papal encyclical Lumen Fidei to disappoint everyone who longs for direct political action from the Vatican.

Even though it’s only April, the New York Times may already have run the most embarrassing correction that will appear in any major newspaper in 2013. In their story on Pope Francis’s first Easter message, no less than the Times’s Vatican reporter informed readers, “Easter is the celebration of the…

Among its many splendors, a papal conclave affords a refreshingly unguarded window into the media’s parochial view of the larger world.

A commentator on CNN dubbed Pope Francis "the hope and change pope" earlier today:

President Obama released this statement on Pope Francis: