NAPOLITANO: The Worst Pope in History

Now, mercifully, Francis is gone. I pray for his soul and I pray for his successor. Please Lord, may the next Pope be a Catholic Pope.

A little over a year ago, I spent a week living and studying at the Vatican as a guest lecturer at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, a university-like organization of scholars that explores ideas of interest to the Vatican. Last year, the Academy addressed the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas on the 750th anniversary of his death.

This is not an esoteric subject.

Aquinas taught that all rational persons are capable of discerning right from wrong and good from evil by the exercise of free will and human reason, and they do not need the government to aid them in this endeavor.