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The Happy Atheist One of the perils of being a writer who is not easily categorized is that you tend to be easily misunderstood—even when you’ve taken pains to be clear enough for a twelve-year-old to understand. Take, for example, my decision to be out of the closet—not only as gay, but as an atheist—in promoting my new book, The Trial of Pope Benedict: Joseph Ratzinger and the Vatican’s Assault ...
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So, just how “progressive” is Pope Francis, really? So progressive, apparently, that he has been compared to the ill-fated John Paul I: he of the long forgotten, 33-day papacy in 1978 and the mysterious, did-they-or-didn’t-they-poison-him demise. “If I was Pope Francis,” wrote one blogger on June 3, “I’d be hiring a food tester right about now.” That was in reference to the pope’s comment that atheists who do good ...
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The last time most Canadians heard from Remi De Roo, it was in a carefully worded letter of apology vetted by his lawyer. In June 2000, the year after his retirement as bishop of Victoria, De Roo was publicly lambasted for having approved the purchase of Arabian show horses and then a parcel of land in Washington State—investments that were bleeding the diocese dry. In his public mea culpa, he said ...
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Jorge Bergoglio had just ascended to the Throne of Saint Peter a few hours earlier, but I was one of seven "experts" the CBC asked on March 13 to, er, pontificate on his likely impact for the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. It was slightly surreal, to be talking about a Church I had left 26 years earlier as if I was still really a part of it. Here's the ...
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