Pope Francis made a splash in the months after he was elected pontiff in March of last year, and the ripples keep coming: the Argentine pontiff is featured on the cover of Rolling Stone’s February 2014 issue, which announces that “the times they are a-changin." In doing so, the magazine follows Time -- which put him on their cover twice, most notably at the end of last year, when it branded him its Man of the Year -- as well as LGBT-interest mag the Advocate, which lauded him for July remarks in which he said he wouldn’t judge gay people for their sexuality.
Buzzfeed notes that the 7,700-word article from contributing editor Mark Binelli heads to the Vatican to profile the pope and explore the changes made within the Catholic church since he became pontiff -- a series of changes which the magazine dubs his “gentle revolution.” “What he learned,” Rolling Stone writes in a summary of Binelli’s article, “was that Pope Francis is making a noticeable break from Vatican tradition, facing political issues head on and presenting a more all-inclusive attitude toward human rights -- and that Catholics are appreciative.”
Rolling Stone acknowledges in its recap that the pope has gotten some less-than-adulatory attention from some sectors of the right, largely for his denouncements of “free-market economics.” Francis hasn’t gotten all entirely scot-free from the left, either. As some have noted, the pope has never been a friend of gay marriage even if he won’t judge gays and recently called abortion a “horrific” symptom of a “throwaway culture.”
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