Category: Current Events

On Wednesday, the Vatican released Pope Francis’ Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit. The document includes familiar themes of Pope Francis’ writing: advocacy of openness as opposed to a stale defensiveness; emphasis on joyful encounter with the person of Jesus; and attention to realities of violence, poverty, and empty indifference. But at points in this document, I’m sad to say, Francis’ beautiful notes ring hollow for me. The problem is that appeals to openness and inclusion, even to the beauty of the encounter with Jesus, are not adequate responses to the profound objections to church teaching I hear  from my college-age students.