Pope Francis hit out strongly against the way people have sought to manipulate Benedict’s death. “People who instrumentalize such a good person, [a man] of God, almost I would say a holy father of the church, have no ethics,” he said. “They are of a party, not of the church.”

A Reflection for Saturday of the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time, by J.D. Long-García

In addition to the critique of Cardinal McElroy’s focus on welcome and inclusion, critics are also reacting to the process through which that could happen: the ongoing synod of bishops.

“Top Gun” was cheesy. It was shallow. But it told a story that was in touch with its time.

“Our sexual lives have many areas of sinfulness and I’m not challenging that,” Cardinal McElroy says this week on the Jesuitical podcast. “All I’m saying is that in the Christian moral life, they don’t automatically represent mortal sin.”

“As I heard the chant ‘Cardinal Pell should go to Hell,’ I thought, ‘Ah ha! At least they now believe in the afterlife!’ Perhaps this is St. George Pell’s first miracle,” former Prime Minister Tony Abbott said.

A Reflection for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, by Jim McDermott, S.J.

A homily for the fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, by Terrance Klein

Pope Francis told the million Congolese gathered before him that Jesus has shown “three sources” from which “to nurture peace”: “forgiveness, community and mission.”

A Reflection for Wednesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time, by Christopher Parker