David Gibson

“I did not come to Rome to try to be more Catholic than the pope, but I did hope, even as a Protestant, to be more Catholic than the average Catholic,” Thiel says. In which I dissect Thiel's theological argle-bargle: The Gospel according to Peter (Thiel) www.theverge.com/tech/1014252...

“There’s also an opportunity for him in this vulnerability to be as great a comfort to many people as he was in the first year and a half of his papacy,” Mr. Gibson said. Leo XIV’s Cancer Diagnosis Tests the Assumption of a Long Papacy www.nytimes.com/2026/10/13/w...

If the Pope’s baseball team clinches playoff series tonight and he wins the Nobel Peace Prize tomorrow morning I think Leo should kick back and take the weekend off.

The Trump era, in a perfect nutshell.👇

One thing that’s interesting about this is that it shows that despite insisting the wokes overinterpet everything, conservatives are actually aware of and agree with their critics about how coded racist appeals work, they just like them bsky.app/profile/newr...

FYI for folks here in the BlueSkylo—the American pope has been in France saying all the things you wish an American president would say. It’s good to get out sometimes.

The national media is not the “human-resources department” for Democratic staffers who “seem to believe that their role is to serve as a kind of moral check on their boss,” @jonathanbchait.bsky.social argues:

Jack Hanson and Matthew Clemente will take Hanson's recent Harper's cover story as a jumping off point for this Sheen Center event on 9/30, co-sponsored by the CRC. Attendees will receive a complimentary one-year subscription to Harper’s Magazine.

PSA for journalists: National Catholic Reporter is hiring a News Editor to help lead all facets of news coverage. It's a great opportunity given downward trends in media but a great place to work no matter the times. True pros, no A.I... www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=b...

I'm not the kind to say it all points back to a single historical episode, but so much of what Trump is doing with ballroom & Kennedy Center—the wanton destruction, the callous indifference to the past—was evident when he destroyed Bonwit Teller's irreplaceable sculptures nearly a half-century ago

Maybe the most important political story of our time. People just want the bullshit to stop.

Britain's first Catholic prime minister as a role model for American Catholic pols? "Mr. Burnham’s approach is one avenue out of a zero-sum politics and toward the kind of policymaking and society-building that Catholic politicians in America used to be known for." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/o...

Kara Swisher: “I think this idea that AI is going to kill us, it’s not AI, it’s the people making AI who are killing us. Let’s stop blaming the machines. Let’s blame the people who are making these things and the administration that refuses to put any guardrails”

God upon hearing this:

In which I dissect the myth of an ego-less pope, and the sudden conservative discomfort with the mediagenic papacy -- until, of course, they get a pope they agree with. There is a better approach, I believe ... "Papalization or Personalization?" gorebuildmyhouse.substack.com/p/papalizati...

perfect synopsis of modern Republicanism

For a sense of what the Catholic Church can be, and how synodality (the word that shall not be named!) in action works, check out this short doc on the "Way Forward" project that we help organize each year:

Read David's thread. Bottom line: there are nihilists hiding among liberals.

Yes, this---> I’m Native American. Land Acknowledgments Are Infuriating. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/o...

Thank you! Great essay. I loved your discussion of Woolf.

“Entirely aware of their own standing in the shadow, and yet alive to every tremor and gleam of existence, there they endure, and it is to the Greeks that we turn when we are sick of the vagueness, of the confusion, of the Christianity and its consolations, of our own age” – Virginia Woolf.

Italian. American.

excellent episode of @weratedogs.com dogcast this week featuring extended interview with @blairbraverman.bsky.social who once again communicates beautifully what it's like to experience life on the runners and with sleddogs in your life and heart. put it in your eyes and ears #uglydogs

The United States government is occupied by an ignorant, bigoted, anti-American ideology of white nationalism. It will need to be scoured.

More justification for my emerging localist identity. Beautifully done, poignant story: "The last glove makers of Naples" A historic family business is fighting against global manufacturing . . . and smartphones www.ft.com/content/1b8e...

Michael Fanone on the papal encyclical Magnifica Humanitas: "What Leo XIV put out yesterday isn’t a sermon. It’s a diagnosis of something this country is actively failing at right now." BAM: Paging all Demcorats who care about winning. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayx_...

BREAKING: The Trapp Family has withdrawn from Donald Trump's Freedom 250 concert, citing previous unpleasant experiences with fascists.

Mamdani: "Govt efficiency — these are words that somehow have been understood as if they are R priorities, when in fact they're priorities of anyone who believes in the public sector. Any yet, Elon Musk used it to cut as many jobs that were as critical as possible for so many of the neediest people"

"We’re in a different era. And Leo is the common denominator. Not the lowest common denominator — the highest, who speaks about our humanity and dignity and creativity."

The Hollywood Reporter is a terrific outlet for religion writing you can really enjoy -- thanks to Steven Zeitchik for the interview: www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general...

An excerpt from Pope Leo XIV's encyclical this morning. The full text can be read here: www.vatican.va/content/leo-...

A capitalist take (from this Wharton grad) on "Magnifica Humanitas." Pope Leo XIV’s superb new encyclical is the most cogent Catholic critique of capitalism that I have ever read. www.americamagazine.org/faith-and-re...

THIS --->

I outline the Catholic Church's "sexual devolution" in an @nytopinion.nytimes.com essay today: Pope Leo's encyclical on A.I. (et al) signals an epochal return to the traditional moral hierarchy that places justice ahead of the fixation on "pelvic theology": www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/o...

Rep. Maria Salazar: "It's in the hands of two entities. God the Father, and Donald Trump. The Lord saved him. The Lord wanted him back in the Oval Office."

On this first anniversary of the election of Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV, the outro of my essay for the Journal of American Catholic Studies last Fall: "The question that Leo's election ought to prompt is not how American he is, but how American we are."

A 19th century "phantom" heresy under Pope Leo XIII becomes a real one in the 21st century under Pope Leo XIV. Me in @commonwealmagazine.org on the new Americanism:

@gibsonwrites.bsky.social takes aim at the "MAGA, si. Magistra, no!" version of Catholicism in @commonwealmagazine.org . Good read! www.commonwealmagazine.org/leo-gibson-d...

A 19th century "phantom" heresy under Pope Leo XIII becomes a real one in the 21st century under Pope Leo XIV. Me in @commonwealmagazine.org on the new Americanism: