This will probably come as no surprise, but I\u2019m a fan of Pope Francis. A big fan. I\u2019m under no illusions that he isn\u2019t without his flaws, but when it comes to the Christian faith and in particular being Christ-like he just seems to get it, probably more than any other major Christian leader I know.\u00a0<\/span> This will probably come as no surprise, but I\u2019m a fan of Pope Francis. A big fan. I\u2019m under no illusions that he isn\u2019t without his flaws, but when it comes to the Christian faith and in particular being Christ-like he just seems to get it, probably more than any other major Christian leader I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
<\/span>From rejecting the luxurious papal apartment to washing the feet of a Muslim female inmate to his theology that seems more concerned with loving the poor and defending the oppressed than drawing lines of exclusion to that time last week when he put a kid on the papal seat during a talk at St. Peter\u2019s or just the other day when he embraced and kissed a man stricken with a disfiguring skin disease Pope Francis never ceases to wow me and, more often than not, bring a few tears to my eyes.\u00a0<\/span>
<\/span>I\u2019m not Roman Catholic, but he\u2019s the sort of leader I would gladly follow, the kind of Christ-like example I want to follow. But incarnated grace aside, the thing that\u2019s really shocked me the most about Pope Francis is the response he\u2019s received from those outside the faith. And I don\u2019t just mean non-Catholics. I mean those of entirely different religious traditions, but especially those with no religious affiliation at all and those who oppose religion altogether.\u00a0<\/span>
<\/span>If you spend enough time on the internet, you can just about predict the sorts of comments that will appear under religious news stories, particularly stories about the Roman Catholic church. To say the comments are typically not kind would be an understatement. Even calling them irrationally hateful doesn\u2019t quite capture the vitriol spewed in those comment sections. Which is why I\u2019ve been so blown away by the comments left on stories about Pope Francis.\u00a0<\/span>
<\/span>Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"