Well said, Paul. (I wish more people would comment on the blog, though apparently many hundreds read it!)

I really enjoyed this post. It's hopeful and constructive. The Church and we as individuals and as a society have to find ways to become different and better, as Pope Francis has been talking about. "A change to develop new ways of living" and, as Prof. Gillespie says, of worshipping.

Excellent post, Jennifer. I had similar feelings watching the conventions and politicians. It makes me think of the Jesus' quote, "Not all those who call out, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the Kingdom of God, but those who do God's will."

Thank you, June-Ann, for reminding us of the wise insights of a theologian we lost all too early. It was a great treat to have met her in person in the early 2000s, for which you were responsible, I believe.

Great job, Gerry! Without your post, these two documents would have escaped my--and many others'--attention. The Australian plan sounds very promising; let's hope the bishops discern it positively. A lot is possible if leaders and laity try. As you sum it up, "It’s as if because they wanted to be inclusive, they found a way."

Excellent discussion about the limited imagination of many parishes in reaching out and building community, as difficult as that was and remains. When I asked my parish to have a rosary for justice outside the church in the days after George Floyd's murder, we did, about 40 people with pro-black lives signs as well, and it was more meaningful and connected than any videoed mass we had.

Your writing is beautiful and invites deep reflection, Jennifer. Thank you!

Excellent! There's so much going on here; I need to re-read and ponder it several times.

Great job on this post, Jennifer! I think you are completely right about how St. Francis is so relevant for us today, and I love how you relate him to your new home city of Santa Fe and to your interfaith chaplaincy work.

Good job, Brent. I appreciate your literary examples and use of Nussbaum.

As the author of this post, I want to make a few follow-up comments. First, I am happy to say that my own pastor I consider to be one of the exceptions to poor preaching. Second, I'm aware that Catholics want a lot of different things from their services. What one parishioner thinks is a poor homily, another might really appreciate. While one might want more social-justice preaching, another wants more opportunities for praying the rosary after Mass. But the "big church" that Catholicism is should be able to meet a lot of diverse needs *if we are more bold and experimental. That will likely entail more contention and hard conversations in the church, but it's better than playing to the safe, bland middle. It seem to me that from the parish level up to diocese pastoral planning, we mostly rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic. I appreciated that Archbishop Lori called for us to be bolder.

Great job on this post. Nouwen and Vanier and Adam modeled the humility and mutual servant leadership that is the essence of Christian community.

This post is very good. It led me to go read the emeritus pope's letter, which I had not gotten to yet. For whatever mild benefits in Benedict's letter, his simplistic blaming of the 1960s based a few personal anecdotes is ridiculous. Op-ed responses (which do better than "hot takes") by Michael Sean Winters (https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/benedicts-letter-about-sex-abuse-crisis-regrettable-text) and Tom Reese (https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/signs-times/benedicts-unfortunate-letter-ignores-facts-catholic-sex-abuse-crisis) are worth reading. Both make two obvious points: that the great bulk of priest abusers where educated in the pre-Vatican II seminaries (Winter's link to some data is helpful) and that Benedict mentions nothing about the hierarchical cover-ups. Finally, back to that "Pope Emeritus" title: Reese makes three great points about how retired popes should comport themselves and how the Church should deal with them: 1) speak with prudence, 2) only one pope at at time (return to your baptisimal name), 3) stop canonizing popes so soon after their deaths.