Do you suppose the Vatican does a risk assessment analysis before publishing an encyclical? Can you think of a time the Holy See indemnified itself against potentially harmful, if unforeseeable, consequences of papal geopolitics? Do you remember ever having read a collection of theological essays that was followed by a legal disclaimer? Some formal language that warns you against relying on the contents? Or distances itself from any truth claims therein? Me neither. That is what is so telling about the full-page product warning—what else to call it?—that Continue Reading