Author: Daniel Gawthrop

This author has written 103 articles

Catholic Women: Doormats for Christ

Catholic Women: Doormats for Christ

Following my last post about Pope Francis’s surprising outreach to gay Catholics, a couple of friends weighed in on Facebook to argue in defense of a group whose victimization by the Church has been inestimably worse: women. Although the blog—inspired by comments Francis had made during his press conference on the way home from Brazil—was focused exclusively on the gay issue, I might have taken a moment to mention the most controversial thing he actually said…

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Gay-friendly pope? Let’s hope.

Gay-friendly pope? Let’s hope.

The announcement that Pope Francis has extended an olive branch to gay priests and the LGBT community in general should be seen as a major development in the Roman Catholic Church—although how much change it will actually lead to remains very much in doubt. The comments by Francis occurred during an 82-minute press conference aboard Vatican Air, following the pope’s visit to Brazil for World Youth Day. His Holiness addressed many issues during a wide-ranging…

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Putin, Sochi, and “You Can Play”

Putin, Sochi, and “You Can Play”

Now that the National Hockey League has finally confirmed it is sending its players to the Sochi Winter Olympics—and just weeks after Russian president Vladimir Putin unveiled some of the most homophobic laws on the planet —the obvious question for many is: so what will happen to the “You Can Play” project, and the NHL players who have endorsed it, some of whom will presumably crack the line-ups of Team Canada and various other participating nations?…

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Twitter, purgatory, and “authentic spiritual fruit”

Twitter, purgatory, and “authentic spiritual fruit”

There’s something more than a little odd about the latest news out of the Vatican, that good Catholics can win “indulgences” by following Pope Francis’s Tweets during World Youth Day, a week-long event starting on July 22. Of course, Jorge Bergoglio isn’t the first pontiff to take advantage of social media. Pope Benedict got the Twitter ball rolling when he opened the first @Pontifex account not long before deciding he’d had enough of being pope.…

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