The 14 Most Popular CWR Stories of 2014 | Carl E. Olson | CWR blog
Articles and posts about the Pope, the Synod, the Reign of Gay, "Noah", the Rapture, the LCWR, and Satan make the list
Last year, the most read article on the CWR site—by a notable margin—was a September 2013 blog post by Italian journalist Alessandra Nucci about Trappist nuns in Syria. This year, the most read article on the CWR site—by a notable margin—was Catherine Harmon's August 20th post about the beheading of journalist James Foley, who had been kidnapped in Syria in 2012 and then murdered by radical Islamists.
Most surprising, I think, is that only one of these articles was about Francis—and that piece (#2), was about a satirical piece about the pope. Go figure. The Synod drew quite a bit of attention (#4 and #5), as did controversial topics such as homosexuality (#3 and #14), the LCWR (# 9), and Satan (#13). Pop culture also got some attention (#8 and #10).
Without further ado, here are the 14 most read CWR articles of the past twelve months.
1. "Slain journalist James Foley on praying the rosary in captivity" (Aug. 20, 2014), by Catherine Harmon. An excerpt from a piece that Foley had written for the alumni magazine of Marquette University, his alma mater, as well as news about the phone call made by Pope Francis to Foley's family.
2. "Pope Francis just concluded Vatican III and declared 'all religions are true'!" (Jan. 5, 2014), by Carl E. Olson. My mildly acerbic remarks on a satirical "news" piece about Francis, followed by some thoughts on the New York Times' attempt to portray the Holy Father as "the Radical Pope".
3. "Welcome To the Reign of 'Gay'" (Apr. 8, 2014), by Carl E. Olson. My editorial for the month of April got some attention and cemented my status as "a hater" and a "homophobe." Yawn. "Make no mistake," I wrote, the Reign of Gay "has nothing to do with fun and games, and everything to do with the forced rationalization of grave depravity."
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