One year ago today, white smoke rose over St. Peter’s Square and Cardinal Robert Prevost became the first American pope. Little did I know that moment would also be the birthplace of this community.
I thought that during my retirement years I might work to reform the criminal justice system that gifted me with great opportunity for learning from folks who were affected by that system. I never dreamed I would be fighting fascism.... but here we are. I am filled with JOY and HOPE as we have both Pope Leo and Mr. Hale to help guide us through these trying times. Thank you for reflecting the LOVE of God consistently. This is A MOMENT for LOVE... now and forever.
Thanks Christoper for sharing your story here of how you came to be in this position and it sounds like it was just meant to be which is great fortune for your readers. I am not a member of the Catholic Church but I am so glad to see someone (thank you, Pope Leo) step forward to rekindle a moral compass that clearly defines good vs evil in real time. We may all find our way yet?
This non-Catholic follower of Jesus watches regularly for your posts. Bringing news of what Pope Leo is doing in the world brings peace to my 72 year old heart. Thank you so much for what you are doing. I will lift Pope Leo, you and this project up in prayer as you asked. May his pontificate be the era of peace and love in our broken world.
If we ever questioned the Holy Spirit guiding the church we see it in the election of Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV. Your witness to his work and its implications is invaluable. Thank you
Someone, somewhere said recently, "this is our Dietrich Bonhofer moment." Hopefully it won't come to that, but Pope Leo breaks through with that kind of clarity. Be unafraid. Let love be our ordnance.
I know the Holy Spirit guided the cardinals to choose Cardinal Prevost to guide us. I don’t know about the rest of the world but here in the U.S. we have lost our moral compass. Pope Leo will guide us all and help us to find our moral compass again.
Never, everspeak for me or include me in your untruthful srntence,"I don't know about the rest of the world but here in the US,we have lost our moral compass," Speak ONLY FOR YOU! I'M VERY CATHOLIC AND MORAL.
Have you ever heard the word generalization? It means to make a statement about a group of people without specifying individuals. That’s what I was doing. If you cannot see that in this country there are bad morals overall then you need to start reading more. Start reading more about our country. I’m not sure what you mean by you’re very Catholic. I’m Catholic and go to mass Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. I go to confession once a month. I say a rosary daily and have prayers that I say daily.
One year ago my husband, my sister and I were driving from Cincinnati to Chicago to celebrate my son’s graduation from college - Loyola University, a Jesuit school. As we were heading into the outskirts of the city we began to see reports that there was white smoke. Truly as we drove past White Sox stadium they were announcing that it was Chicagoan, Robert Prevost and reports were that he was choosing the name Leo. It was an unbelievably special day and we felt such a surge of hope and love. I’ve been so grateful for your Substack this year, Christopher and I pray Pope Leo and all us believers will turn this tide of hatred, selfishness and corruption in our political and governmental leadership- and with those fellow citizens who somehow have chosen this false idol of a president.
Jürgen Moltmann (1926–2024) reshaped postwar Protestant theology by making hope the decisive category for thinking about God, Christ, and the world. For Moltmann, hope is not a comforting addendum to faith but the engine that drives theology itself: the future promised by God breaks into the present, reconfigures our understanding of history, and summons the faithful to transformative action.
Moltmann’s theological vocation emerged from the crucible of history. A near-death experience in World War II, years as a prisoner of war, and the ruined landscape of postwar Europe left him convinced that theology must reckon honestly with suffering and with history’s fragility. That context, together with conversations with thinkers such as Ernst Bloch and the existential and neoorthodox traditions, led Moltmann to insist that Christian doctrine only acquires meaning when it is rooted in a future that promises redemption.
The central move of Theology of Hope (1964), Moltmann’s foundational work, is programmatic: theology must begin eschatologically. Rather than treating the future as an afterthought or a private consolation, Moltmann reads Scripture as a series of promises and prophetic announcements that orient human life toward God’s coming. The resurrection of Jesus is pivotal in this scheme—not merely an isolated miracle to be explained, but the historical inauguration of God’s future presence, the first sign that the promised new creation is on its way. Because the future has entered history in Christ, believers live in the tension between “already” and “not yet,” called to anticipate the coming reign while working for its realization.
This future-oriented theology reconfigures how Moltmann understands God. He rejects any theology that collapses the divine into an “eternal present” that simply validates the status quo. Instead, God is a promise-maker whose coming from the future toward the present shapes history. Trinitarian and pneumatological emphases follow: the Father’s promise, the Son’s inaugurated future, and the Spirit’s vivifying power together make hope active and palpable in the Church and the world. The Spirit is the agent who actualizes the hope the promises announce, empowering communities to live toward the future God intends.
Moltmann’s eschatology carries concrete political and ethical weight. Hope, in his hands, is never naïve optimism; it is a critical force that exposes injustice and mobilizes solidarity with the oppressed. If God’s future is toward liberation and renewal, then theology must issue in actions that embody that future—care for the marginalized, resistance to dehumanizing structures, and responsible stewardship of creation. This conviction leads Moltmann to broaden eschatology into ecological and political dimensions: the promise of redemption is not limited to human souls but extends to the whole of creation, which longs to be set free (Romans 8 becomes for him a manifesto for creation’s hope).
Methodologically, Moltmann reads Scripture eschatologically. Prophetic promise, apocalyptic imagination, and New Testament proclamation disclose a future that both judges and heals history. Against theological currents that domesticate God by making divine presence merely an affirmation of the present, Moltmann insists on a historified theology—one that takes suffering, contingency, and hope seriously. The crucified God, a theme he develops powerfully in The Crucified God (1972), expresses the paradox of a suffering deity who nonetheless promises and inaugurates future life. God is not aloof from pain; instead, God’s identity is disclosed in the cross, which opens a path from suffering to vindication.
Moltmann’s major writings—Theology of Hope; The Crucified God; The Spirit of Life; The Coming of God—trace an intellectual arc that moves from eschatological hermeneutic to a full-bodied theology of the triune God engaged in history. His autobiography, A Broad Place, helps readers see how personal experience and historical catastrophe shaped his theological priorities. Across these works his voice remains distinct: prophetic, imaginative, and insistently practical.
Critics have charged Moltmann with programmatic optimism or asked for sharper delineation between promise and present ambiguity. Yet many others have applauded his prophetic stance and the way hope becomes a corrective to complacency and despair. His insistence that Christian hope grounds ethical responsibility and public engagement has inspired liberation theologians, ecological theologians, and pastors seeking a credible gospel in a suffering world.
Practically, Moltmann’s theology of hope reframes the church’s mission. The church must be a foretaste of God’s coming reign—an embodied sign of the future that serves the poor, pursues justice, and cultivates an imagination capable of sustaining patient endurance amid suffering while actively transforming social realities. Hope, then, becomes a discipline: practiced in worship, sustained in community, and expressed in acts that anticipate and hasten the healing God promises.
Moltmann’s lasting contribution is this: he rescued eschatology from the margins and made it the horizon that illuminates doctrine, ethics, and ecclesial life. By placing the future at the heart of theology, he offered a theology that takes suffering seriously without capitulating to despair, that demands political engagement without losing a transcendent orientation, and that extends God’s promise to the whole creation. His work continues to shape theological reflection across confessional and disciplinary lines, reminding communities that to hope rightly is to live toward the future God has promised.
I can't say I'm hopeful, because, most honestly, I don’t know what to hope for and have any hope that said hope will be fulfilled. That there may be peace on earth, that all women and men may celebrate, defend, and promote the truth that all members of our human family are created equal, that we may share our abundance so that no child of God goes hungry, unsheltered, or uncared for: these are in my bin of hopes that I honestly wait to see being fulfilled. But I am curious. How will our human family experience peace? When will we realize that there can be no "women's liberation" until there has been a "men's liberation". And when we will we admit a fault we all share with Donald Trump: too much, and never enough. Sadly, this shared trait quells my hope. Thank God, or thank goodness, or just thank life, I am still and ever curious. My Tex-Mex alma Latina can't help but say, "Hasta mañana, si Diós quiere:.
"His courage is calling out something better in all of us." This is so true -- and it's calling attention to how essential this is, and how scarce it's been in recent decades. And talk about surprises: If you'd told me a year ago that I'd be subscribing to and avidly reading a Substack by a progressive Catholic about the first American pope, I would have said "You're kidding, right?" But then I would have paused, remembering how inspired I was as a younger person by progressive Catholic antiwar and civil rights activists . . . So here we all are, and it's not that surprising after all.
Thank you for the newsletter, Chris. I am glad we have Pope Leo and that college of cardinals elected him for this job. We truly need his leadership now as America is in crisis. I will continue to pray for Pope Leo and I know he prays for all of us especially now in America. I will indeed pray for those serving in the gulf. I will pray for the Independent Media platform.
I thought that during my retirement years I might work to reform the criminal justice system that gifted me with great opportunity for learning from folks who were affected by that system. I never dreamed I would be fighting fascism.... but here we are. I am filled with JOY and HOPE as we have both Pope Leo and Mr. Hale to help guide us through these trying times. Thank you for reflecting the LOVE of God consistently. This is A MOMENT for LOVE... now and forever.
Thanks Christoper for sharing your story here of how you came to be in this position and it sounds like it was just meant to be which is great fortune for your readers. I am not a member of the Catholic Church but I am so glad to see someone (thank you, Pope Leo) step forward to rekindle a moral compass that clearly defines good vs evil in real time. We may all find our way yet?
This non-Catholic follower of Jesus watches regularly for your posts. Bringing news of what Pope Leo is doing in the world brings peace to my 72 year old heart. Thank you so much for what you are doing. I will lift Pope Leo, you and this project up in prayer as you asked. May his pontificate be the era of peace and love in our broken world.
If we ever questioned the Holy Spirit guiding the church we see it in the election of Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV. Your witness to his work and its implications is invaluable. Thank you
Someone, somewhere said recently, "this is our Dietrich Bonhofer moment." Hopefully it won't come to that, but Pope Leo breaks through with that kind of clarity. Be unafraid. Let love be our ordnance.
Thank you, Christopher!
I know the Holy Spirit guided the cardinals to choose Cardinal Prevost to guide us. I don’t know about the rest of the world but here in the U.S. we have lost our moral compass. Pope Leo will guide us all and help us to find our moral compass again.
Never, everspeak for me or include me in your untruthful srntence,"I don't know about the rest of the world but here in the US,we have lost our moral compass," Speak ONLY FOR YOU! I'M VERY CATHOLIC AND MORAL.
Have you ever heard the word generalization? It means to make a statement about a group of people without specifying individuals. That’s what I was doing. If you cannot see that in this country there are bad morals overall then you need to start reading more. Start reading more about our country. I’m not sure what you mean by you’re very Catholic. I’m Catholic and go to mass Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. I go to confession once a month. I say a rosary daily and have prayers that I say daily.
One year ago my husband, my sister and I were driving from Cincinnati to Chicago to celebrate my son’s graduation from college - Loyola University, a Jesuit school. As we were heading into the outskirts of the city we began to see reports that there was white smoke. Truly as we drove past White Sox stadium they were announcing that it was Chicagoan, Robert Prevost and reports were that he was choosing the name Leo. It was an unbelievably special day and we felt such a surge of hope and love. I’ve been so grateful for your Substack this year, Christopher and I pray Pope Leo and all us believers will turn this tide of hatred, selfishness and corruption in our political and governmental leadership- and with those fellow citizens who somehow have chosen this false idol of a president.
Hope.
Blessed hope.
Jürgen Moltmann and the Theology of Hope
Jürgen Moltmann (1926–2024) reshaped postwar Protestant theology by making hope the decisive category for thinking about God, Christ, and the world. For Moltmann, hope is not a comforting addendum to faith but the engine that drives theology itself: the future promised by God breaks into the present, reconfigures our understanding of history, and summons the faithful to transformative action.
Moltmann’s theological vocation emerged from the crucible of history. A near-death experience in World War II, years as a prisoner of war, and the ruined landscape of postwar Europe left him convinced that theology must reckon honestly with suffering and with history’s fragility. That context, together with conversations with thinkers such as Ernst Bloch and the existential and neoorthodox traditions, led Moltmann to insist that Christian doctrine only acquires meaning when it is rooted in a future that promises redemption.
The central move of Theology of Hope (1964), Moltmann’s foundational work, is programmatic: theology must begin eschatologically. Rather than treating the future as an afterthought or a private consolation, Moltmann reads Scripture as a series of promises and prophetic announcements that orient human life toward God’s coming. The resurrection of Jesus is pivotal in this scheme—not merely an isolated miracle to be explained, but the historical inauguration of God’s future presence, the first sign that the promised new creation is on its way. Because the future has entered history in Christ, believers live in the tension between “already” and “not yet,” called to anticipate the coming reign while working for its realization.
This future-oriented theology reconfigures how Moltmann understands God. He rejects any theology that collapses the divine into an “eternal present” that simply validates the status quo. Instead, God is a promise-maker whose coming from the future toward the present shapes history. Trinitarian and pneumatological emphases follow: the Father’s promise, the Son’s inaugurated future, and the Spirit’s vivifying power together make hope active and palpable in the Church and the world. The Spirit is the agent who actualizes the hope the promises announce, empowering communities to live toward the future God intends.
Moltmann’s eschatology carries concrete political and ethical weight. Hope, in his hands, is never naïve optimism; it is a critical force that exposes injustice and mobilizes solidarity with the oppressed. If God’s future is toward liberation and renewal, then theology must issue in actions that embody that future—care for the marginalized, resistance to dehumanizing structures, and responsible stewardship of creation. This conviction leads Moltmann to broaden eschatology into ecological and political dimensions: the promise of redemption is not limited to human souls but extends to the whole of creation, which longs to be set free (Romans 8 becomes for him a manifesto for creation’s hope).
Methodologically, Moltmann reads Scripture eschatologically. Prophetic promise, apocalyptic imagination, and New Testament proclamation disclose a future that both judges and heals history. Against theological currents that domesticate God by making divine presence merely an affirmation of the present, Moltmann insists on a historified theology—one that takes suffering, contingency, and hope seriously. The crucified God, a theme he develops powerfully in The Crucified God (1972), expresses the paradox of a suffering deity who nonetheless promises and inaugurates future life. God is not aloof from pain; instead, God’s identity is disclosed in the cross, which opens a path from suffering to vindication.
Moltmann’s major writings—Theology of Hope; The Crucified God; The Spirit of Life; The Coming of God—trace an intellectual arc that moves from eschatological hermeneutic to a full-bodied theology of the triune God engaged in history. His autobiography, A Broad Place, helps readers see how personal experience and historical catastrophe shaped his theological priorities. Across these works his voice remains distinct: prophetic, imaginative, and insistently practical.
Critics have charged Moltmann with programmatic optimism or asked for sharper delineation between promise and present ambiguity. Yet many others have applauded his prophetic stance and the way hope becomes a corrective to complacency and despair. His insistence that Christian hope grounds ethical responsibility and public engagement has inspired liberation theologians, ecological theologians, and pastors seeking a credible gospel in a suffering world.
Practically, Moltmann’s theology of hope reframes the church’s mission. The church must be a foretaste of God’s coming reign—an embodied sign of the future that serves the poor, pursues justice, and cultivates an imagination capable of sustaining patient endurance amid suffering while actively transforming social realities. Hope, then, becomes a discipline: practiced in worship, sustained in community, and expressed in acts that anticipate and hasten the healing God promises.
Moltmann’s lasting contribution is this: he rescued eschatology from the margins and made it the horizon that illuminates doctrine, ethics, and ecclesial life. By placing the future at the heart of theology, he offered a theology that takes suffering seriously without capitulating to despair, that demands political engagement without losing a transcendent orientation, and that extends God’s promise to the whole creation. His work continues to shape theological reflection across confessional and disciplinary lines, reminding communities that to hope rightly is to live toward the future God has promised.
I can't say I'm hopeful, because, most honestly, I don’t know what to hope for and have any hope that said hope will be fulfilled. That there may be peace on earth, that all women and men may celebrate, defend, and promote the truth that all members of our human family are created equal, that we may share our abundance so that no child of God goes hungry, unsheltered, or uncared for: these are in my bin of hopes that I honestly wait to see being fulfilled. But I am curious. How will our human family experience peace? When will we realize that there can be no "women's liberation" until there has been a "men's liberation". And when we will we admit a fault we all share with Donald Trump: too much, and never enough. Sadly, this shared trait quells my hope. Thank God, or thank goodness, or just thank life, I am still and ever curious. My Tex-Mex alma Latina can't help but say, "Hasta mañana, si Diós quiere:.
I’m so proud to support your work. We need these stories of hope. Sending love from Chicago 💕🙏
"His courage is calling out something better in all of us." This is so true -- and it's calling attention to how essential this is, and how scarce it's been in recent decades. And talk about surprises: If you'd told me a year ago that I'd be subscribing to and avidly reading a Substack by a progressive Catholic about the first American pope, I would have said "You're kidding, right?" But then I would have paused, remembering how inspired I was as a younger person by progressive Catholic antiwar and civil rights activists . . . So here we all are, and it's not that surprising after all.
We need the Catholic anti-war and civil rights activists out protesting.
Thank you for the newsletter, Chris. I am glad we have Pope Leo and that college of cardinals elected him for this job. We truly need his leadership now as America is in crisis. I will continue to pray for Pope Leo and I know he prays for all of us especially now in America. I will indeed pray for those serving in the gulf. I will pray for the Independent Media platform.
May God bless You, Holy Father, Papa Leo. May He guide You as You guide us . You are our Enlightenment. Wisdom. Courage. Thank you.
💜
It's about time.