Jeanie Hannaman

By Abp. Charles J. Chaput, First Things - In many ways, whatever its strengths, the Francis pontificate was inadequate to the real issues facing the Church. He had no direct involvement in the Second Vatican Council and seemed to resent the legacy of his immediate predecessors who did; men who worked and suffered to incarnate the council’s teachings faithfully into Catholic life. His personality tended toward the temperamental and autocratic. He resisted even loyal criticism. He had a pattern of ambiguity and loose words that sowed confusion and conflict. In the face of deep cultural fractures on matters of sexual behavior and identity, he condemned gender ideology but seemed to downplay a compelling Christian “theology of the body.”

By Carl R. Trueman, First Things - Intellectually, he was always going to be lackluster compared to his two predecessors. It’s hard to measure up to the author of Love and Responsibility and a man who could discuss the problems of European culture with Jürgen Habermas. But this should have prompted Francis to place the intellectual project of Catholicism into the hands of serious thinkers. Instead, he appointed Victor Manuel Fernández to head the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The position once held by Joseph Ratzinger, scholar of patristics and author of The Spirit of the Liturgy, is now held by the author of Heal Me with Your Mouth and Mystical Passion, which includes lurid ramblings about the theological significance of orgasms ...