Ten years on, many thousands of articles have been written about Francis’ papacy across a variety of global media. Fortunately for Tablet readers, our digital archive contains some of the most insightful, incisive, authoritative and well-informed writing on our current pope. Isabel de Bertodano wrote that on the eve of his inauguration, Francis called a friend in Buenos Aires to say “Hello, it’s Bergoglio. They trapped me here in Rome and they won’t let me come home.”

“As bishop it is my job to preserve [Church] unity. This can be exceedingly challenging and I cannot and don’t want to deny that in recent months it has caused me sleepless nights,” Wilmer wrote in his resumée of the synodal path initiative’s meetings which he sent out to all the members of his diocese.

Despite once being declared 'a national embarrassment', Matera's ancient stone dwellings and water systems are now renowned as a model for sustainable living. I was having coffee with Antonio Nicoletti in the Piazza Vittorio Veneto in the southern Italian city of Matera, when he recalled how the piazza was abuzz with anticipation in 1991.

In today’s passage, John is inspired by an episode in the life of Jesus. He uses it to develop the central theme of the Christian message: the salvation given by Christ. He uses a biblical language: the dark–light contrast. In the Bible, darkness always has a negative connotation. It is the symbol of the dark power of evil, death, and destruction. Light represents an orientation towards God, the choice of good and life.