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By Damian Thompson, UnHerd - The dark secrets of this pontificate will weigh heavily on cardinals’ minds in their pre-conclave discussions before they cast their votes in the Sistine Chapel. They will be speaking in code: no one wants to take the risk of openly trashing the reputation of a recently deceased (or retired) Supreme Pontiff. But the cardinals will be forced to talk about the increasingly poisonous divisions between liberal and conservative Catholics, which date back to the Second Vatican Council but have been made far worse under this pontificate. And they will find it hard to draw a line between Francis’s policies and his personality, since he takes such visible delight in using his powers to spring surprises on the universal Church.

By Gayle Somers, Catholic Exchange - Our reading today comes from a section of St. John’s Gospel that is often called “the Last Supper discourse.” After He washed the disciples’ feet, Jesus spoke at length with them in a most serious manner. This was straight talk; no more parables. We should be keenly interested in every word He had to say... He begins with a dramatic statement: “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinegrower.” ....

By Connie Marshner, Crisis Magazine - Some of my conservative Irish-American friends, who cherish the old romantic myth of The Ould Sod as a place where 1950s culture and Catholicism reigned, in The Quiet Man and Bells of St. Mary’s harmony, ask: How could the Church in Ireland have “allowed” divorce/abortion/same sex marriage? And they assume the Faith is dead in Ireland... “Allowed?” As if the Church could have prevented the secularism, materialism, and self-indulgence of the contemporary West from taking hold in Ireland? As if the Church anywhere has been able to do that?