30 January 2014, The Tablet

Francis rocks


 
Where will it end? He’s been on the cover of Time magazine, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair Italia and now America’s premier rock paper, Rolling Stone.The Pope is pictured giving his characteristic cheery wave alongside the headline: “Pope Francis: The times they are a-changin’” in an echo of the Bob Dylan song. Inside is a lengthy profile by contributing editor Mark Binelli, which is mainly flattering to Francis but extraordinarily hard on his predecessor.According to Binelli, Benedict XVI was a dour academic who “looked like he should be wearing a striped shirt with knife-fingered gloves and menacing teenagers in their nightmares”. By contrast, Francis is “cool” and, like Bill Clinton, thrives on personal contact. Binelli finds another p
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