South Sudan

Francis: An Unworthy Householder

There are moments in this media-conscious pontificate that compel us to turn our eyes away. To keep on looking is to risk stumbling over the edge of the Slough of Despond. “And his disciples remembered that it was written: ‘Zeal for thine house will consume me.’” (John 2:17) That Johannine passage came to mind when I saw the photograph of Pope Francis kissing the shoes of the leaders of opposing sides in the South Sudan’s brutal civil war. The man we call Vicar of Christ groveled at the feet of the president of South Sudan, the leader of his opposition, and several others in the room—as if a papal kiss equips tribal enemies to sally forth in harmony and goodwill. Continue Reading
The Church Suffering

This past November, Cardinal Ravasi posed in New Statesman as the Vatican’s impresario of contemporary art. At the same time, a continent away, Bishop Johnson Mutek Akio of South Sudan stood with his people under genocidal assault by the al-Bashir regime. The cardinal’s ambition to get the Church back into the contemporary art business was hailed as “a bold move.” Silence greeted the bishop’s valor in risking his life to sustain a persecuted diocese. Heroic endurance in the face of Islamic terror does not conform to the sensibility—or insensibility—that understands culture as a kind of sauce poured like hollandaise over daily living, over thought and action. Continue Reading