Catholic Studies publication

EPPC Distinguished Senior Fellow, George Weigel recently discussed his new book, the future of the church, and the challenges facing a new pope with author, journalist, commentator and Catholic scholar Michael Novak.

A commitment to doctrinal orthodoxy and a commitment to social justice and serving the true needs of the poor are often mistaken for contradictory goals. In truth, each is the necessary condition of the other, and Pope Francis is a man who embodies both.

Pope Francis is a keenly intelligent, deeply holy, humble, and shrewd man of the Gospel. He knows that he has been elected as a reformer, and the reforms he will implement are the reforms that will advance the New Evangelization. The rest is detail: important detail, to be sure, but still detail.

There are unique dynamics shaping the 2013 conclave–and, ultimately, the selection of the next bishop of Rome.

Things happen inside conclaves, away from the world and the buzz, that can shape papal elections–and pontificates–in surprising ways. The conclave of 2013 has its own unique framework, within which those unexpected intra-conclave dynamics will emerge and play themselves out.

It’s bad enough that children in public school must learn in an environment that no longer recognizes God. But it’s even worse when that educational environment no longer recognizes basic truths about the human person.

The next pope should be a charismatic, missionary culture warrior, challenging the world’s democracies to rebuild their moral foundations and offering Catholic social doctrine as one tool for that urgent task.

What do you do when your organization is fighting against leaks and an unscrupulous press? If you’re the Vatican, you shut down your single most refreshing and media-friendly source of positive information and commentary on a story that has riveted the world’s attention. Which is one more reason that reform cannot come to the Vatican bureaucracy soon enough.

No one ever heard a dreadful homily from Pope Benedict XVI, the greatest papal preacher since Gregory the Great.

Today, Rome is uniquely orphaned. Dioceses around the world still have their local bishops. But the Universal Pastor of the Church is Rome’s local bishop, and when the Chair of Peter is empty, Rome is empty. And you can feel it.

What can be changed in the Church must be changed, if mission-effectiveness demands it. What cannot be changed in the Church, because it is of the constitutional “form” of the Church, must be purified and reformed so that it may make its proper contribution to the mission.

George Weigel remembers William F. Buckley — who died five years ago, today — as part of an NRO Symposium.