Sara Lin Wilde is a recovering Catholic (and cat-holic, for that matter - all typographical errors are the responsibility of her feline friends). She lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where she is working on writing a novel that she really, really hopes can actually get published.
Chicago-based advocacy group SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) is keeping a close eye on the upcoming conclave, hoping for a Pope who will responsibly address the problem of priestly sexual abuse and the ensuing cover-ups, with due focus on protecting the victims instead of protecting the Church. To that end, they’ve taken a close look at the papabili and released a list of those who they think would be disastrous for Catholic children… and who would be “least worst”. Read more
For a conservative Catholic who meticulously adheres and assents to every word of the Church’s teaching, these are difficult days, filled to the brim with cognitive dissonance. It’s hard to accept the Pope as Jesus Christ’s chosen representative on Earth while groups of abuse victims call on him to stand trial for crimes against humanity. Read more
When the Vatican established Pope Benedict XVI’s Twitter account as @Pontifex (rather than @BennyRatz or something more Ratzinger-specific) I thought it was a smart move. Individual popes come and go, but the office remains, and it remains relevant to his millions of followers, Catholic and non-Catholic alike. I envisioned a Twitter feed that would pass from pontiff to pontiff until some other networking tool inevitably pushed his tweets off the Internet’s collective radar. Read more
Following the recent resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, the world is watching to see who will become the next pope. With a wide range of papabili — an Italian noun with no exact English equivalent, best translated as “popeables” — getting plenty of press coverage, how do they stack up from a secular perspective? Let’s take a look at the major contenders. Read more
