More Catholic than the Pope

For 30 years,conservative church leaders have watched as the Church failed to end its sex abuse crisis and the Vatican bank scandal. They have watched while Westerners left the Church in droves. That problem requires a pope with skill and charisma,someone with “authentic warmth”. Could Francis be that man,asks Michael D’Antonio. The Pope’s recent “who-am-I-to-judge” comments on homosexuality suggest he may be different,someone who will appeal to modern Catholics,writes D’Antonio. “Here,finally,is a pope willing to grapple with the implications of a social trend—the increasing acceptance of homosexuality—that threatens to relegate the church to irrelevance. Unlike his predecessor,Francis is not content to wait out the millennia with his head in the sand until Catholic orthodoxy once more becomes in vogue. Rather,this is a pope eager to explain how this ancient church should fit into a changing world.”

Fox News

Mr Obama,you should have met with Putin

Tensions between Russia and the US have been increasing,but it’s precisely in moments like these that Obama should have been talking to Putin,writes Matthew Dunn,author and former MI6 officer. Instead,the Obama administration cancelled a summit in Moscow over the Snowden issue. “Despite assassinations,scandals,proxy wars,missile crises,frenetic espionage,and the Sword of Damocles hanging over the world,leaders (during the Cold War) carried on talking to each other. Mr Obama and his administration would do well to remember that at a time when the world has enough existing problems to deal with,when we need statesmen to be magnificent negotiators and diplomats,and when snubs are antagonistic and destructive,” Dunn writes.

The Atlantic

Terror alert: Hype or real?

Last week,the US shut its embassies and consulates in the Middle East and North Africa after intelligence officials reportedly intercepted al-Qaeda e-mails. Is the latest terrorism alert earnest or hyped? Hard to tell,writes Conor Friedersdorf. “To what extent does this week’s news reflect changes in that threat,and to what extent is the American public being manipulated,or misled so that Team Obama can manipulate al-Qaeda…there’s just no way to know,” writes Friedersdorf,adding that it is strange that the government revealed surveillance details. “The al-Qaeda leaders themselves surely know what they said to one another. What good did it do to reveal that we overheard them?”