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Richard Alleva, who writes for the Catholic journal Commonweal, says ”Pope Francis: A Man of His Word” is the kind of documentary he usually hates, but he loved this one. Having considered director Wim Wenders’s other films, Alleva says Wenders, who was raised Catholic, “was destined to make this film.”

An interview with Wenders appears in the current issue of Commonweal: https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/worthy-his-name

In the second part of the show, Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which works for full equality in the Church for LGBTQ Catholics, takes up a recent affirming statement — made in private to a gay survivor of sexual abuse — that God made him that way and loves him that way.  Asked why he thinks the Pope lets the current less pastoral Church teachings stand, DeBernardo theorizes that a) the Pope has other priorities, such as poverty and the environment, and b) he may be strategically paving the way for updating Church teachings by first modeling a change in its practices.

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which, among other offerings, has a daily blog of news, opinion and spirituality at http://www.newwaysministry.org/blog