At Morning Briefing, NCR has a link to a story about a parish in Iowa hosting an open house for disaffected Catholics. The Francis Effect. My dad cuts out items from the local Connecticut papers and sends them to me along with the church bulletin from my home parish. This week's envelope contained two Francis Effect items. First, the church bulletin had an insert page with quotes from Pope Francis related to Advent. The second was an editorial in the Willimantic Chronicle, a small newspaper that serves an old mill town and the surrounding villages, and said that while the World Meeting on the Family is the reason for his visit to Philadelphia, he could also look at the poverty in that city too. Everywhere you look, the pope is driving the conversation.
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