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Issue 01 – Easter 2020

Historia Ecclesiastica

What We Talk About When We Talk About The Pope

On how to talk about the pope

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How should people talk about the Holy Father? To start with, I think non-Catholics should say whatever they want about the pope, and I think Catholics should say what they believe to be true. But I don’t care what non-Catholics say about him. They have no reason to treat him as somebody special. If they tell the truth it has the added benefit of letting Catholics know what others think about their religion. I think there are a fair number of Catholics who think the world has a respect for Catholicism that does not exist, and we’re all better off knowing the truth.

I think Catholics should be free to say what they really think. We can tell each other what we think is true, but I don’t think Catholics should talk about the pope the way people mad at Trump talk about him. I don’t like Catholics talking about the Holy Father in a contemptuous way—the way that liberal Catholics usually talked about the pope more or less continuously from 1968 until the election of Pope Francis.


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About the author

Michael Hamill

Michael Hamill writes from Philadelphia.

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