In a recent blog post for On Faith/FaithStreet, Mathew N. Schmalz, associate professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross, writes about the five unique aspects of the first year of Pope Francis.
Schmalz writes, “They say that change is rare at the Vatican, but most everyone seems to agree that something new has happened in the last year. Pope Francis happened. Not a policy or a proposal, but a person. The leader of a 2000 year-old religious institution was the most-talked about subject on Facebook in 2013. Non-Catholics love him. And among many Catholics there is a renewed sense of hope and optimism — a lightness about being Catholic, where recently there was only the heaviness of scandal.”
This "Holy Cross in the News" item by Cristal Steuer.
