William L. Portier

If John Paul II was the philosopher and Benedict XVI the theologian, Pope Francis is the poet pope, giving voice to the dreams and wisdom of migrants and the poor.

Readers expecting a tour de force of church history shouldn't. The question for Wills is this: Why do we need the church or Pope Francis to remind us of God’s love?

Hauerwas divides Approaching the End into three parts dealing respectively with eschatology, the church, and what he calls “the difficulty of reality.”

From 2013: Pope Francis has created a new interactive mode of papal teaching, an epoch-making change in rhetorical style meant to inspire.

In content, theological style, and pastoral voice, Lumen fidei belongs primarily to the pope emeritus, but not entirely and not decisively so.