The Morning Verse
The Morning Verse
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A line from Lamentations offers steady ground for a reader who is tired.
Daily Briefing
Pope Leo Confronts Abuse at Lourdes as a Vatican Trial Looms
The day's most consequential story came from Lourdes, France, where Pope Leo used a visit to the Catholic healing shrine to address what Religion News Service called the "wounds" of clerical abuse. According to RNS, the pope encouraged the church to "have the courage" to recognize its failures, and called on bishops to remain vigilant. RNS reported that the visit was shadowed by ongoing clerical abuse scandals and by the Vatican trial of the Rev. Marko Rupnik.
Two items turned to how Christians speak and are spoken about. Religion News Service published a conversation, hosted by the Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, with the religion scholar Dr. Matthew D. Taylor about his new book, "Defying Tyrants: Following Jesus in a World of Christian Antichrists." RNS framed the discussion around Taylor's account of what he terms "Christian antichrists." Separately, The Gospel Coalition made the case for what it called, at least sometimes, wordless evangelism. In the essay, the writer describes seeking to love a server well for Christ's sake, and argues that the server saw the beauty of the gospel in that wordless proclamation. The Gospel Coalition offered the account as an argument for witness carried by conduct rather than speech.