Pope Francis Archives - Public Seminar

North America

Democrats Have a Religion Problem

2020 confirms a trend of religious voters moving away from the Democrats, with a few notable exceptions

December 2, 2020 • by Musa al-Gharbi

_____ In a previous essay I demonstrated that Democrats have been consistently losing ground with both people of color and people of faith in virtually every midterm and general election cycle after 2008. Republicans, meanwhile, have seen consistent gains with many constituencies. What occurred in 2016, therefore, was not an aberration – but the culmination ...

Uncategorized

On Pope Francis, Climate Change, and Global Capitalism

A psychological perspective

December 7, 2015 • by Neil Altman

Pope Francis’s recent encyclical, Laudato si': On Care for our Common Home, has drawn worldwide attention to climate change and its relationship to global capitalism in advance of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change to be held in Paris in late November ...

...

On Pope Francis, Climate Change, and Global Capitalism

Race

And Yet It is Round!

Untimely thoughts on Europe, Migration, and the State

August 31, 2015 • by Chiara Bottici

Untimely thoughts on Europe, Migration, and the State

As I do every year, I have spent most of this summer on the Italian coast, in the region around the Gulf of Poets. This summer, as soon as I put my head underwater, I am struck by the beauty of the sea: the ...

Uncategorized

When the Pope “Drops the F-Bomb”

Meditations on media, society, and the philosophy of language

March 12, 2014 • by Zachary Sunderman

On March 3, 2014, a stream of troubling, breaking news about Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine was interrupted by another event, this time originating in the Vatican, which similarly reached prominence in journalistic organs. This event, however, was not a child abuse scandal, papal resignation, or other such event that ...

Uncategorized

The Once and Future Pope

How an imaginary 3rd Vatican Council report sparked public debate

January 8, 2014 • by Chris Crews

Tears were welling up in my eyes as I finished reading the story. One of my old friends said he almost fell out of his breakfast nook from shock. Posts about the story have 10k+ shares on Facebook. People everywhere are either "liking" it or condemning it as an <a ...