Insisting on Winners and Losers

 

 

 

Empire and Christianity

Insisting on Winners and Losers

Sunday, October 18, 2026

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Father Richard Rohr points to the creation of winners and losers as a sure sign that an “empire consciousness” is at work:  

There is an overall paradigm that I’ve been calling “empire thinking,” which is a zero-sum game. And in a zero-sum game, one can only win by causing another to lose. Unless that assumption is stated very clearly, we don’t realize how often it’s at work. It will not really be a game where I have a wonderful skill to share or a gift to be highlighted. I just have to defeat the other side. We could also call it the win-lose worldview. I want to say as strongly as I can that the win-lose worldview, the expectations of the zero-sum game, are absolutely dominant in the minds of most people. 

Posted inVatican Dispatch

Pope Leo, five days after surgery, says he will resume his work ‘gradually’

by Gerard O’Connell October 18, 2026

Pope Leo XIV leads the Angelus prayer from a window of the Apostolic Palace, following his discharge from hospital after surgery for lung cancer, at the Vatican, Oct. 18, 2026. (OSV News photo/Yara Nardi, Reuters)

A great cheer went up from some 20,000 people in St. Peter’s Square at midday on Sunday, Oct. 18, when a smiling Pope Leo XIV appeared at the window of the papal study on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace. It was the first time he had spoken publicly since undergoing surgery at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital five days earlier.

Looking well and speaking in a strong voice that showed no sign of weakness from the Oct. 13 operation, which removed the lower lobe of his right lung, the 71-year-old, Chicago-born pope began with a brief reflection on the day’s Gospel reading (Mt 22:15-21), in which Jesus says, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

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Posted inVatican Dispatch

What will Pope Leo’s lung cancer diagnosis mean for his papacy?

by Colleen Dulle October 16, 2026

Pope Leo XIV gestures as he leads the Angelus prayer in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Oct. 11, 2026. Credit: OSV News photo/Elisabetta Trevisan, Vatican Media

“He is not a man in a rush,” America’s veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell often told me in the early months of Pope Leo XIV’s papacy. The then-newly elected 69-year-old pope seemingly had time on his side: He took a lengthy summer vacation shortly after his election and implemented a weekly day off on Tuesdays, which he would often spend at Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer home, playing tennis, swimming and responding to personal messages from friends.

Pope Leo's surgeon says he should be fit for Latin America tour

 

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