When Pope Francis told an Italian Jesuit journal that the church “cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods” and that “it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time,” it seemed the culture war was all but declared over.
But not in Madison, Wisconsin. In fact, Bishop Robert Morlino insists Pope Francis has helped to make him a stronger culture warrior. “The media are deliberately trying to derail the truth about Pope Francis,” he tells me before Christmas in his Madison office, “and that’s truly unfortunate because the people are not able to break through to the real Pope Francis.”