Category: Popes
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Are All Religions Paths to God?
Francis, Leo XII, Leo XIII, and the Catholic Distinction We Keep Missing When Pope Francis said in Singapore in 2024 that “all religions are paths to God,” Catholics understandably began debating what exactly he meant. Some reacted as though Francis had formally declared every religion equally true and equally salvific. Others reacted in the opposite…
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The Papacy: A Claim Every Christian Must Examine
Can we first agree on two basic principles? First, if the Catholic Church is right that Jesus Christ established the papacy, then every Christian should seek full communion with the Catholic Church. We would not be free to reject an authority that Christ Himself established. Second, if the papacy is an invention built upon a…
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Why the Bad Popes Saved Rome
When we think of the Papacy, we often imagine an unbroken line of venerable leaders. History, however, tells a much more complex—and often scandalous—story. How could the Church endure, let alone solidify its power, through periods governed by what E.R. Chamberlin, in The Bad Popes, calls some of the most corrupt men ever to sit…