UNITED STATES
Crux
By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor September 13, 2014
…
The vision behind Crux
Crux sponsored an event Thursday night at Boston College to present itself to the world, featuring remarks on Pope Francis from Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, described by Crux columnist Margery Eagan as the pope’s “BFF,” followed by a panel discussion, moderated by Eagan, with Mary Ann Glendon, former US Ambassador to the Holy See and a member of the Vatican bank’s supervisory board; Robert Christian, an editor of Millennial Journal; Hosffman Ospino, a theology professor at Boston College, and myself.
O’Malley was clearly the star of the show. He alternated between intriguing and often humorous insights about the pope, and passionate commentary on issues of special concern to him such as immigrant rights. He also took questions on the sex abuse crisis, outreach to LGBT Catholics, and more.
A good write-up by Crux national reporter Michael O’Loughlin is here.
Toward the end, I fielded a question about the vision for Crux and whether it can do something about the widespread polarization that many American Catholics perceive in the Church.
The truth is that if someone should be laying out a vision, it’s really not me. Brian McGrory, editor of The Boston Globe, and Teresa Hanafin, editor of Crux, are the decision-makers responsible for overall direction.
That said, it’s a legitimate question, and obviously I have my own reasons for getting involved. For what it’s worth, I’ll recap my answer.
To begin, the basic ambition of Crux is simple: To get the story right. Catholicism is a complicated and difficult beat; it’s hard enough to be accurate, comprehensive, and balanced in the way we cover the news without trying to accomplish another agenda.
That said, I also believe that if Crux can get the story right on a regular basis, one natural consequence could be softening divisions in Catholic life.
I told the audience a story about my liberal Jewish wife becoming friends with some people in Opus Dei, a Catholic group which has a reputation for being fairly conservative, back when I did a book on them in 2005. The moral of the story is that what took the edge off my wife’s suspicion wasn’t some rational argument (and certainly not my book!), but the experience of getting to know these folks on a personal basis.
Friendship doesn’t make disagreements disappear, but it does tend to make them manageable.
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