MARK SHIELDS: I cannot think of a single public figure””secular, religious, or any other kind””who has inspired, provoked the level of civil discourse and discussion and animated exchanges that this man has.
[BOB] ABERNETHY: But could all the adulation of Francis be too much?
[JOHN] CARR: One of my more cynical friends, someone skeptical about all this, said “this is just a big Vatican PR campaign.” And I said, “Name the last successful Vatican PR campaign.”
ABERNETHY: Alongside Francis’s popularity, Brooks saw a danger. He called it “mushiness.”
[DAVID] BROOKS: Francis’s core message is the person of Francis. The risk therein, it seems to me, is the Church is not only a feel-good institution about a humble guy. It is a doctrine and a creed, and it is a specific set of beliefs and convictions, and they are beliefs that are reasonably tough-minded, and if you lose contact with the doctrine, the stuff that actually makes outsiders a little uncomfortable, with a charming guy who washes people’s feet, then you are losing something elemental to the Church.
Thought it odd that the word “God” appeared nowhere in the transcript.
Also thought it was interesting to compare how the act of making people uncomfortable about issues is treated in this article with how it is treated in the article about Theatre a few posts up here at T19.