Pope Francis had some nice things to say in his address to the Vatican Observatory Summer School on Galaxies. Here’s an excerpt, but it’s worth reading the whole brief address:
Here too we see a further reason for the Church’s commitment to dialogue with the sciences on the basis of the light provided by faith: it is her conviction that faith is capable of both expanding and enriching the horizons of reason (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 238). In this dialogue, the Church rejoices in the marvelous progress of science, seeing it as a sign of the enormous God-given potential of the human mind (cf. ibid, 243), even as a mother rejoices and is rightly proud as her children grow “in wisdom, and age and grace” (Lk 2:52).
Sonja at Women In Theology points out that the recently released working document for the Synod on the Family curiously omits a number of gospel teachings on the family, and helpfully provides them.
Speaking of marriage and the family, there’s been quite a lot of conversation around marriage over at BLT: Suzanne McCarthy takes on N. T. Wright, I Ching, and Complementarianism, Theophrastus points out that Metaphors are Not Equations, J. K. Gayle inquires whether the Wife of the Lamb must be a Ewe, and I reflect on Meaning, Marriage, and Allah.
Finally, a couple of good substantive book reviews: Phillip Long reviews Dinkler’s Silent Statements, on the uses of speech and silence in the gospel of Luke. And Elesha Coffman engages with The Deconstructed Church: Understanding Emergent Christianity by Marti and Ganiel, reflecting on parallels between the contemporary Emergent movement and the Stone-Campbell Restorationist movement that emerged a couple centuries ago.
Gaudete Theology 