Letters to the Editor: March 2026

Pornographies of Power

Pieter Vree, in “Assassination Nation” (New Oxford Notebook, Nov.), writes that “assassination culture” is “the shadow across our politics, an internal expression of the violence on which our nation was founded, by which we identify ourselves as a people, and which we still celebrate in all its lurid appeal.” Indeed, from the first crack of a musket shot at Lexington to the latest missile striking an apartment complex in Ukraine, halfway around the world, our national pulse quickens. We’ve made a sacrament of violence and destruction — cloaked it in patriotism, baptized it in cinema, and called it freedom.

The recent $10 million verdict awarded to former Virginia teacher Abby Zwerner, shot in the chest by her six-year-old student, should have stopped us cold. But instead of disturbing our national conscience, it became another headline in the media feed, briefly reported, then buried beneath more bizarre news episodes. How does a six-year-old learn to kill? He doesn’t. Technology does it for him. He doesn’t need strength or malice or understanding, just the means. That pistol left carelessly in reach by his depressed and doped-up mother carries the genius of centuries of metallurgy, chemistry, and precision engineering. Our high-tech civilization compresses its intelligence into a palm-sized device, hands it to a child, and calls it progress.

An adult with a teenage perception of reality is just as dangerous, only better armed and more confident in his delusions. He lives and walks among us: a driver who turns a car into a weapon, a closet ideologue who assassinates by firing into a crowd, a political leader who orders missile strikes as if playing a video game. Each wields power magnified, acting without conscience to achieve stunning drama on the global stage, and America, with its gun shows and action movies, receives it as welcome entertainment.

Violence is a narcotic. It gives purpose to chaos, meaning to boredom, and profit to the arms-dealing Lords of War. Each generation inherits a new crusade — World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza — each justified as necessary, each leaving widespread physical and psychic rubble. Our media dress it up with martial music and noble language, as if courage could sanitize carnage. We favor decorated heroes in political elections. But beneath every patriotic, bloodthirsty montage lies the same addiction: the thrill of a life-or-death crisis, the pornographies of power.

We cannot sit in stillness long enough to feel the pangs of conscience, so we fill the void with spectacle — Wild West movies that glorify vengeance, war-like video games, politics of outrage, media algorithms that amplify our primitive reflexes. We confuse shouting with conviction, action with meaning, and shooting with resolution. Thomas Merton called this the unspeakable, that numb complicity which allows a society to preach prosperity and peace while manufacturing death and despair. The gun factories hum, the drones circle, the headlines scroll, and a child’s bullet remains embedded next to his teacher’s heart: a nine-millimeter slug in her chest that never reached our heart and soul.

Abby Zwerner will live the rest of her life with that bullet lodged inside her, a relic of the Greek god Ares, whom we worship by violence. One day, the body politic may reach the same conclusion her surgeons did: that removing our proclivity for violence would be too dangerous, that the penetration is too deep for safe removal. Centuries from now, when archeologists sift the ruins of our pagan civilization, they may find her skeleton and marvel at the lead bullet resting next to a heart that once pulsed, a sacramental relic from a violent culture.

Richard M. Dell’Orfano

San Marcos, California

In his list of the assassinated, Pieter Vree includes John Roll, a federal judge. On January 8, 2011, as I stood at the ambo of my parish church, St. Thomas the Apostle in Tucson, preparing to lector and looking down at those entering, I noted one of my acquaintances, the very same John Roll, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Arizona, who was a daily communicant. He went to Mass every day, including the morning of the shooting.

After Mass, I returned home, while he went to a “meet-and-greet” for Congressional Representative Gabrielle Giffords, just down the road at the parking lot of a Safeway store. He had previously spoken to her about the local courts being overwhelmed by narcotics and immigration cases.

Shortly thereafter came news of a terrible mass shooting at the store by a mentally unbalanced young man — many dead and wounded. Rep. Giffords was seriously wounded, but she survived; Judge Roll gave his life shielding one of her staffers. Having seen him at Communion minutes before, what made the event especially poignant for me was the appropriateness of that morning’s first reading, 1 John 5:14-21, which contains this verse: “We know that we belong to God, and the whole world is under the power of the evil one.”

Q.E.D. Rest in peace, John.

Hurd Baruch

Tucson, Arizona

I would have included Wyatt Earp among the “outlaws,” but no big chihuahua that Pieter Vree did not. Hollywood made big money on this interesting fellow, and since money is the biggest thing for a big percentage of folks, so be it. More troubling is that Vree didn’t include President Andrew Johnson as at least helpful in Lincoln’s assassination. After all, Mr. Johnson and John Wilkes Booth were in the same hotel — The Willard House, I think was the name — passing notes. President Johnson went on to do mostly bad stuff.

John F. Early

Bronx, New York

I usually agree with what I read in the NOR, and agree or not, I find most articles worthwhile. But Pieter Vree’s column disappointed me in a number of respects. To mention two:

1. Vree’s mention of Desmond Doss flabbergasted me. It’s my understanding that Doss was a World War II medic who refused to carry a weapon and saved many lives. The mention of Doss was not in keeping with Vree’s argument. Or does Vree know something about Doss of which I’m unaware?

2. As lamentable as assassinations and other instances of violence in America have been, they certainly do not make America unique. Such things have occurred throughout history, and continue to occur, in many times and places, sometimes on scales that dwarf what has happened in America. When it comes to assassinations, examples abound. “Uneasy rests the head that wears the crown.”

John Malnack

Omaha, Nebraska

Good grief! Pieter Vree seems to believe that the people of the United States are more violent than people in other nations. I concede that Americans assassinate — Vree provides a nice list of the episodes. But where is the evidence to support his thesis that Americans are more prone to violence than the people of other countries?

John Dyer

Vienna, Virginia

Pieter Vree’s column brought to mind the many mass shootings and mass assassinations in our nation in recent years. All of them are troubling, though some seem to be forgotten already, such as the one in Las Vegas in 2017, when nearly 60 country-music fans were killed by a man whose real motive has never been publicly disclosed. Why not, we still might wonder. The shooting at the gay nightclub in Orlando in 2016, in which some 50 people were murdered, also comes to mind and raises the same question. The list surely continues on.

The Rev. Henry C. Ruschmeyer

Stuart, Florida

PIETER VREE REPLIES:

I described Desmond Doss, along with Audie Murphy, Chris Kyle, and others, as “war heroes” and cultural icons about whom books have been written and movies made. But John Malnack is correct that I shouldn’t have included Doss on my list of “masters of violence.” Doss was a conscientious objector during World War II who won a Medal of Honor while serving as an unarmed medic. He is one of only three conscientious objectors to have been so honored, along with Thomas W. Bennett and Joseph G. LaPointe Jr., who both served as unarmed medics during the Vietnam War.

I never said or even suggested that America is unique or that Americans are more prone to violence (or assassinations) than the people of other nations. In fact, I didn’t mention any other nation. That’s because my goal was not to make such a comparison. What happens in other nations is irrelevant to my “thesis,” which is simply what I stated, that “killing for a cause holds a place of honor in our national heart.” Assassination culture is the “shadow across our politics, an internal expression of the violence on which our nation was founded, by which we identify ourselves as a people, and which we still celebrate in all its lurid appeal.”

I thought that was pretty clear. I don’t see why readers should cast about for some other thesis in my column or some obscure motive for my writing it.

Space limitations prevented me from exploring all the fascinating and troubling angles to the many presidential and other political assassinations I listed. I even had to limit my lists to American assassins — hence no mention of Sirhan, among others. This topic is so broad, and the incidents so numerous, that an entire book — nay, volumes of books — could be written on it. But it would have to be an ongoing project, because there’s no reason to believe that political assassinations in our nation have come to an end.

As my focus was on political assassinations, I didn’t get into the too-numerous-to-count mass shootings (or “mass assassinations,” as Fr. Henry C. Ruschmeyer calls them). As for the Orlando nightclub massacre, the motive of the perpetrator, Omar Mateen, is obvious, despite media denials to the contrary. Mateen targeted the club because he knew it would be filled with gay men. He was inspired by Islam in general and the work of radical Islamic terrorists in particular. Mateen admitted to this. He had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, his Muslim wife knew he was going to carry out his savage act of terror, and his Taliban-supporting father repeatedly said gays deserve death. You can read all about it in “Terror at the Disco: Why the Experts Always Come Up Empty” (New Oxford Note, Jul.-Aug. 2016). The motive of the Las Vegas shooter, however, remains a mystery.

Modern Womanhood & Its Archetypes

Kaleb Hammond, in “Tolkien’s Insights into the Feminine Soul” (Nov.), notes that for J.R.R. Tolkien, “a woman is good as a woman, not just when she tries to impersonate a man,” and that he learned from his mother to “respect the intellectual capacity of women.” This raises a pressing question regarding its application in the modern workplace. Mr. Hammond cites Richard Purtill, who identifies envy as a “desire to be pre-eminent” and a “traditional masculine vice.” A specific, contemporary manifestation of this is when a male superior envies the superior intelligence and unique gifts of a female subordinate.

What happens in a professional hierarchy when a woman’s competence is not received with appreciation but instead is met with the envy of a superior who feels his pre-eminence is threatened? Her gifts, instead of building up the organization, become a source of conflict.

Hammond notes that devotion to Our Lady helps refine “gross manly natures and emotions.” How can this spiritual principle be practically applied to temper the vice of envy in a professional workplace? An expansion on this point would offer a valuable bridge between Hammond’s insights about Tolkien and the challenging realities many intelligent, faithful women face in their professional lives today.

Cynthia Gniadek

Okoboji, Iowa

Kaleb Hammond’s excellent exploration of Tolkien’s Marian women deserves serious consideration by Catholic men who struggle to lead in an age that has systematically confused both masculinity and femininity. Hammond’s analysis of Galadriel and Éowyn reveals something crucial that contemporary discourse desperately needs: Understanding the feminine soul is not optional for men who aspire to authentic leadership but completely foundational.

Hammond’s observation that Galadriel “does not seek to rule or dominate others,” despite being “one of the most powerful creatures in Middle-earth,” strikes at the heart of a problem plaguing modern Catholic men. We’ve been conditioned to view authority and submission as incompatible with intelligence and strength. Yet Tolkien shows us — and Hammond illuminates — that Galadriel’s “servient, helpmeet instinct” is precisely what makes her powerful, not what diminishes her. Her submission to Celeborn and her refusal to impose on the Fellowship don’t represent weakness but rather a feminine genius that masculine strength alone cannot achieve.

This has profound implications for men who attempt to exercise spiritual headship. Too often, we approach leadership as domination, the very thing Galadriel’s example repudiates. Or worse, we abandon leadership entirely, paralyzed by fear of being labeled “controlling” or “patriarchal.” Tolkien’s women show us a third way: authority exercised through service, strength manifested in willing submission to proper order. If we Catholic men don’t understand this feminine pattern, we cannot properly receive it in our wives and daughters, nor can we protect it from cultural forces that would destroy it.

Hammond’s treatment of Éowyn deserves particular attention from men. Her initial despair — viewing her womanhood as “a form of weakness that leads to enslavement to men” — mirrors the feminist messaging that has infected even Catholic spaces. But the solution to her despair isn’t “empowerment” or masculine impersonation, even if she might try to go down that route temporarily. It’s Faramir’s recognition and affirmation of her true femininity that finally “sets her free.” This places an enormous responsibility on Catholic men: Women’s flourishing depends partly on our ability to see and cherish their distinctive gifts, rather than asking them to imitate men.

I would, however, press Hammond’s analysis further on one point. He notes that Éowyn’s transformation came through “the love of Faramir, a good man who loves her as a good woman.” What makes Faramir a good man capable of offering this? Tolkien shows us: Faramir embodies integrated masculine virtue — courage tempered with wisdom, strength combined with gentleness, authority exercised with humility. The feminine soul can only be properly understood and affirmed by men who have first done the difficult work of recovering authentic masculinity. A feminized man cannot help a woman discover her true femininity; he can only reinforce her confusion.

Tolkien’s insights matter urgently for Catholic men today. We’ve been handed a crippled masculinity and told it’s virtue, and then we wonder why our relationships, families, and churches are in chaos. Hammond has done us a service by showing how Tolkien’s Marian women reveal the feminine genius. Now Catholic men must ask: Are we Faramirs, capable of recognizing and affirming this gift? Or are we still boys, afraid of true femininity because we haven’t yet become true men?

Juan Domínguez

Bogotá

Colombia

Kaleb Hammond’s article was refreshing and interesting. Galadriel is the archetype of womanhood in the form of the Virgin Mary, without doubt, and his analysis of Éowyn is compelling; she is very much a mix of heroism and darkness. But a question arises: Is Hammond’s article about insights into the feminine soul or feminine behavior? I think the latter is what Hammond portrays. As an example, I find it hard to be so certain about women having an “innate affinity” for beauty. What is beauty? Is it physical charm or vanity?

Hammond describes Galadriel as tall, with golden hair, without sign of age, her voice deeper than most women’s. There is nothing more in terms of physical description, but she and Celeborn are described as “grave and beautiful.” This beauty seems to be partly due to lack of aging, but it is internal more than external, as “no sign of age was upon them, unless it were in the depths of their eyes; for these were keen as lances in the starlight, and yet profound, the wells of deep memory” (The Fellowship of the Ring).

Galadriel is indeed a mirror of the Virgin Mary; she must overcome pride, vanity, and the temptation to seek power. Galadriel’s humility shines through, and she passes the test, as did the Virgin Mary.

I agree with Hammond’s comparison of Éowyn to Joan of Arc, who acted contrary to the mores of her time. It is significant that Joan was canonized in the 20th century, when views of her rather masculine behavior were starting to change. Éowyn can be viewed as a Joan of Arc type, or even a “feminist,” asserting the right to do as she wishes, but, as Aragorn points out, this would be to neglect her obligations to her father and people. The change in her at the end of her story is missing from modern versions of The Lord of the Rings precisely because it is politically and philosophically unacceptable these days, as Hammond states.

The two world wars can be viewed as giving the impetus to women to leave the home and do things they had not previously done; however, poor women have always worked, throughout history. What was different in the world wars, especially in the second, was that middle- and upper-class women, who had no financial pressures, went to work by the thousands, which had not happened before. This middle-class rebellion against established practice changed society. Was Tolkien reacting against this new kind of woman? It seems likely, though the evidence Hammond presents from Tolkien’s nonfiction writing is thin. We can, of course, look at his portrayals of Galadriel and Éowyn to understand his views on the subject, along with the male characters, of course.

I would love to see more of Tolkien’s writing on the subject of men and women and how they should behave. I hope Hammond has more in him.

Ruth Seddon

Bury, Lancashire

England

Ed. Note: We have accepted for publication Kaleb Hammond’s article exploring Tolkien’s views on masculinity, the counterpart to the article in question here. Stay tuned!

A False Attribution?

I enjoyed Marcus Peter’s article “How the Incarnation Transformed History” (Dec.). Any insights I can gain into the transformational aspects of the Incarnation are helpful for my interior life and discursive meditation. Dr. Peter’s closing paragraph, however, dilutes the rest of the article. He writes, “As St. Teresa of Ávila said, ‘Christ has no body now but yours.’” I have seen this quote in scores of articles, speeches, homilies, and retreat talks. But there are two problems: St. Teresa never wrote it, nor is there any record of her saying it, and it reflects the heresy that Christ’s physical body somehow ceased to exist post-Resurrection. I would be happy (and astonished) to be proven wrong with a citation. At this point in my 15-plus years of studies as a Secular Discalced Carmelite, nobody has produced that evidence for me.

My apologies for what might seem to be a niggling trifle, especially regarding an otherwise absorbing article.

John Miner, O.C.D.S.

Saranac Lake, New York

In Memoriam

It is with a heavy heart that I announce the sudden and untimely passing of James Como, a founding member of the New York C.S. Lewis Society, on November 24, 2025, in Bucharest, Romania. He was attending the C.S. Lewis and Kindred Spirits conference in Iași, where he was a plenary speaker.

Jim was a professor, lecturer, scholar, author, and friend. His devotion to C.S. Lewis’s thoughts and ideas led him to become a founder of the society, which has enjoyed 56 years of successful existence due to his interest and devotion. His humor, accessible style, and erudition influenced countless numbers of people, too many to measure. Those of us who are fortunate enough to have known him will always be grateful for his friendship, kindness, and learning.

Jim is survived by his devoted wife, Alejandra, and his children and grandchildren. Please pray for him and for them. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

Clara Sarrocco

Glendale, New York

Ed. Note: Dr. James Como was a friend of the NOR as well. His article “John Milton, Farewell” appeared in our Jul.-Aug. 2022 issue, and he was an occasional composer of letters to the editor. Requiescat in pace.

Breaking the Code

Monica Migliorino Miller expresses reasonable concern about Pope Leo XIV’s interview with Elise Ann Allen of CruxNow.com (“A Critique of Leo XIV’s Comments on Changing Church Doctrine,” Nov.). I share Dr. Miller’s concern, especially in light of some of the “ambiguous” statements of Leo’s predecessor. Specifically, I agree that we shouldn’t “have to break the code in a pope’s public statements when his God-given mission is to clearly enunciate the truths of the Catholic faith.” I am, however, not as alarmed as some of the commentators Miller cites. Leo’s comments are nuanced — perhaps too nuanced. We need to read what he says accurately, carefully, and in context. I’m going to focus on three words: say, attitude, and welcome.

I suppose it is not necessary to preface my response by pointing out that an interview is not magisterial. But many do not understand the “theological notes” and the place (or lack of place) an interview has in their hierarchy. I acknowledge that the way Leo speaks in interviews seems imprudent and perhaps he should be more careful about them in the way Popes Benedict XVI and St. John Paul the Great were and Francis wasn’t.

First, I think a distinction must be made between irreformable dogmatic formulas and what the Church “says” about something. St. John Henry Newman said, and Benedict agreed, as did even J.R.R. Tolkien, that what the Church “says” can and must change based on cultural contexts and new challenges, even if the doctrine itself does not change. So, perhaps Leo is talking about the development of the doctrine in Newman’s sense and not advocating corruption in Newman’s sense. He does, as Miller notes, reaffirm the Church’s insistence on the essential place of monogamous marriage between a man and a woman in Catholic sexual doctrine.

Second, I wonder if the change in attitude Leo talks about is toward persons, not ideas. I have familial situations similar to those Miller describes, and I know I must, to the extent possible, relate to persons who have chosen not to live according to Church doctrine in such a way as to communicate reverence for them as made in the image and likeness of God. Sometimes even a “soft,” personalist approach to expressing adherence to Church teaching and practice is interpreted as condemnation.

Third, I once read about the distinction between “welcome” and “inclusion.” We welcome everyone (“todos, todos, todos!”), but we cannot include everyone in everything, especially Holy Communion, because inclusion involves assent to the truth and a willingness to abide by the moral consequences, including a commitment to repent when necessary. We should, as much as possible, make all people as welcome as their behavior allows. In other words, they may not be willing to abide by reasonable decorum — respecting the values of the context into which they are being welcomed. Disruption is not welcome.

As for ordaining women to the diaconate, I agree that we know enough already to consider the question closed. However, no explicit magisterial teaching that I know of has affirmed it. Of course, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting canon law, affirms that “only a baptized man validly receives sacred ordination” (no. 1577). But the rest of the paragraph focuses on “the college of bishops, with whom the priests are united in the priesthood,” without mentioning deacons. Would that it had.

Perhaps — and I am giving Leo the benefit of the doubt here — the Pope is saying something to the effect that we need to have more explicit clarity and precision in the teaching on the relationship between the diaconate and the priesthood before we can make an explicit, definitive statement closing the question. Or maybe he’s saying, “Hey, you guys don’t even understand the theology of the deaconate; why are you talking about changing practice?” Of course, as Humanae Vitae demonstrates, a pope doesn’t have to wait until the understanding of theology is “adequate” to make a pronouncement.

I’m not saying my interpretations of Leo’s comments are the only ones, but my interpretations are sufficiently plausible that I consider it premature to sound the alarm bells. I hope Leo is more careful in the future not to give the impression that settled Church doctrine may be subject to change, even if he says it’s “highly unlikely” to change during his pontificate.

Robert F. Gotcher

Franklin, Wisconsin

I appreciate Monica Migliorino Miller’s analysis, but I am unable to share even her reserved optimism. Perhaps I’m too cynical, but it seems to me that Rome’s “clear as mud” communications style, to which it has adhered faithfully for years, is deliberate. Miller quotes Leo: “for now…I’m trying not to…promote polarization” because of “my understanding of being pope at this time in history.” His tangled messaging reads less like he was unprepared for the question and more like a tactic.

Fr. James Martin, S.J. (whom Miller mentions) wrote of the infamous Allen interview: “Synodality, says the Holy Father, is an ‘antidote to polarization.’” How ridiculous, considering the extent to which Fr. Martin delights in polarization. It’s his bread and butter! Yet, by joining in the kumbaya sharing circle, he gets to present himself as a willing participant in a peacemaking process. We who refuse to take part are now classified as the revolutionaries.

If Leo indeed wants to be the “Pope of Appeasement,” he won’t succeed by liberally peppering one half of the Church with Traditional Latin Masses and the other half with same-sex blessings. Appeasement breeds impunity in the powerful and bitterness/desperation in the weak. It doesn’t liberate truths or call forth repentance and conversion, which are the real foundations for unity.

I predict that circumstances will not allow this approach to last. Something is going to happen that will require Peter to stand and speak. Like Miller, I’m praying for the Holy Spirit to descend in power.

Suzanne Abdalla

Ypsilanti, Michigan

Thank you for another all-consuming issue of the NOR. It’s a publication that leads the reader to start and not put it down until the last page is read. That is a wonderful attribute. The November issue gave me a great deal to reflect on. Monica Migliorino Miller’s article was enlightening and discomforting. I was going to say “disappointing,” but that would imply that I am not in the mode of being let down by the hierarchy on a regular basis.

Leo’s attempts to encourage the faithful, welcome all, and maintain orthodoxy appear to be carefully scripted steps along a tightrope. I appreciate that, but his nuanced approach to pointed questions leaves us catechists and most inquirers (converts and reverts) dissatisfied. My parish’s OCIA program has grown from three to five candidates annually to 21 this year. They are seeking God and want to understand the Church. Essentially, they want as much clarity as we can convey. Nuance has its place and is a great tool of communication when seeking common ground or a place from which to start, but it is not the best way to respond to questions when people truly desire clarity.

I believe the Holy Spirit is active in OCIA ministry and in the hearts of our candidates. We do not shy away from teaching what the Church teaches, even when uncomfortable and rejected by the movement of the times. If our hierarchy must be careful, nuanced, and often opaque, where does that leave us who must be clear, concise, and compelling?

Francis Miller

Bloomfield, New Jersey

MONICA MIGLIORINO MILLER REPLIES:

Robert F. Gotcher may well be right to not be as alarmed as those who’ve criticized Leo’s “imprudent” remarks. However, that Gotcher must interpret Leo’s statements reveals that there’s a problem with what the Pope said. In attempting to explain what Leo meant, Gotcher employs phrases such as “perhaps Leo is talking about,” “I wonder if,” and “I am giving Leo the benefit of the doubt here.” When all is said and done, I think Gotcher would agree that we shouldn’t have to “wonder” about what our Holy Father actually intended to communicate.

Suzanne Abdalla, on the other hand, doesn’t cut Leo any slack — she believes his obfuscation is “deliberate.” She’s right to be leery of his statement that synodality is an “antidote to polarization” when it gives credibility to those, like Fr. James Martin, who dissent from Catholic teachings and makes those of us who insist on fidelity to the magisterium look like “revolutionaries.”

I thank Francis Miller for his heartfelt response. He is correct that we need the Pope to proclaim the faith with clarity rather than with nuance.

Since my article appeared, our Holy Father has said many things that reassure the faithful that he does indeed have our back. For instance, in a November 2025 meeting with JB Pritzker, he appealed to the Illinois governor not to sign an assisted-suicide bill. And in his January 9 “State of the World” address to Vatican diplomats, he strongly condemned abortion and surrogate motherhood, warning that “a new Orwellian-style language is developing which, in an attempt to be increasingly inclusive, ends up excluding those who do not conform to the ideologies that are fueling it,” and insisting that “we need words once again to express distinct and clear realities unequivocally.”

However, there is still cause for concern, most importantly in Leo’s recent appointments of LGBTQ-friendly bishops: Ronald Hicks to the Archdiocese of New York; Ramón Bejarano to Monterey, California; Thomas Hennen to Baker, Oregon; and Carlo Roberto Maria Redaelli as secretary of the Dicastery for the Clergy. Appointments such as these ultimately undercut Leo’s strong defense of marriage in his interview with Allen.

I pray for our Holy Father daily, and, as I did at the end of my article, I urge all Catholics to do the same.

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