Vox Sentences: The hottest papal treatise of 2016

Pope Francis's treatise on the family; the bill that would force Apple to cooperate with the FBI; a feel-good story about political science methodology.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

Focusing on the family

Alex Wong/Getty Images

• Pope Francis released his treatise on the family, "Amoris Laetitia," on Friday after two years of conferences and deliberation.

  [Vatican / Pope Francis]

• The treatise doesn't radically change Catholic doctrine. But, as has become typical for Pope Francis, its tone is much more liberal and forgiving than previous church documents — causing doctrinal liberals to cheer and doctrinal conservatives to express great concern.

  [The Guardian / Harriet Sherwood]

• In particular, Francis appears to open the door to allowing Catholics who are divorced and remarried to receive Communion. As Ruth Graham writes, this is born out of Francis's view that Communion is an act of grace rather than a way to keep the faithful on the path of righteousness.

  [Slate / Ruth Graham]

• It's also born out of Francis's belief that half of all Catholic marriages are in some way "invalid" because they fail to live up to the church's intent for a marriage. This belief might be forgiving to divorcees (in lumping them in with everyone else), but it's deeply pessimistic.

  [The Week / Michael Brendan Dougherty]

• On the other hand, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry writes that if you look at "Amoris Laetitia" not as a dictum on church policy but as a self-help book for Catholics, it's terrific.

  [The Week / Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry]

• This isn't supposed to be a dig. Some of Francis's thoughts on marriage, while theologically specific, are lyrical enough to be quoted at a wedding.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

An end to end-to-end?

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

• The federal government is officially moving forward with a New York case ordering Apple to extract data from an iPhone belonging to a convicted drug dealer.

  [Re/code / Dawn Chmielewski]

• Yes, the FBI managed to crack into the iPhone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook. But its method doesn't work on the most current iPhone models. So it claims it still needs Apple's help.

  [The Verge / Russell Brandom]

• But this is a harder case: It's about drugs instead of terrorism, and the defendant has already been convicted. Plus, the federal government is trying to recover from a very sharply worded rejection from a magistrate judge in February.

  [Reuters / Julia Harte, Julia Edwards, and Julia Love]

• Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) have been working on a bill that would compel Apple and similar companies to comply with FBI requests. A draft of that was published online Thursday night, thanks to a leak (from either the authors or someone else).

  [Motherboard / Sean Vitka]

• It would effectively ban "end-to-end" encryption — an increasingly popular model, just adopted by messaging service WhatsApp this week, in which data can't be read even by the people making the software.

  [WhatsApp]

• So far, the reception to the bill has not been kind. Privacy experts are horrified by it; tech experts are in disbelief at how technologically illiterate it seems.

  [TechDirt / Mike Masnick]

• The good news for them: Earlier reports have suggested the White House is wary of anti-encryption laws because of the Apple/FBI fight, so the new bill might not even have the Obama administration's support.

  [Reuters / Mark Hosenball and Dustin Volz]

A victory for science

Adapted from igor kisselev / Shutterstock

• You may recall a 2014 study that claimed to prove, using political science, that a short conversation with a gay person could have lasting effects in making someone more pro-same-sex marriage.

  [Vox / Dylan Matthews]

• You might, in particular, recall that that study got totally busted in 2015: Political scientists David Broockman and Joshua Kalla essentially proved that the data had been fabricated.

  [New York / Jesse Singal]

• It was lucky they caught it. They were only looking closely at the data because they were trying to replicate the study — something that happens all too rarely in any scientific field.

  [Vox / Julia Belluz]

• But busting the fraud didn't stop Broockman and Kalla from trying to figure out if its underlying result was legitimate. And in an article in Science, published this week, they confirmed that it was.

  [Vox / Brian Resnick]

• Working with a group in Miami, Broockman and Kalla found that emotionally based conversations about transgender rights — whether had with a transgender or cisgender canvasser — made people feel more favorable toward transgender people, even after several months.

  [New York / Jesse Singal]

• This has tremendous implications for LGBTQ rights — and for political canvassing more generally. It's also a rare feel-good story about political science methodology.

  [New York Times Magazine / Benoit Denizet-Lewis]

MISCELLANEOUS

Trump Vodka's surprising popularity in Israel is based on a lie: It claims to be kosher for Passover, and it isn't. [Jerusalem Post / Niv Elis]

• Want to talk to a random Swede at a moment's notice? There's an app for that.

  [NPR/ Laura Wagner]

• How a college student in Michigan became the world's leading provider of Apple product scoops.

  [Columbia Journalism Review / Michael Rosenwald]

• The gender breakdown of dialogue in 2,000 screenplays, from The Boondock Saints (all men) to The Descent (all women). Hint: There's way more of the former.

  [Polygraph / Hanah Anderson and Matt Daniels]

• In praise of the "promposal," the most unexpectedly sweet of YouTube genres.

  [NYT Mag / Amanda Hess]

VERBATIM

"No less than 100 million users aged under 25 on average spend at least 30 minutes a day on Snapchat — and the fact that it requires the user’s undivided attention makes that number no less than extraordinary." [Huffington Post / Omri Marcus]

• "In 2014, when Emma was fifty-eight, she divorced her husband, so that she’d be free to meet American men; that was the only reliable way to get a green card, which would allow her to visit her daughters without forfeiting the chance to return."

  [New Yorker / Rachel Aviv]

• "I think there is something tragic about Marcia: She was trying to do the right thing, correctly saw the case as a domestic-violence homicide, but she didn’t appreciate the full political and racial context that she was operating in. Neither did I. Neither did most people."

  [Jeffrey Toobin to NY Mag / Rebecca Traister]

• "Our opinions are steaming mounds of garbage fit only to wash up on faraway digital shores. We are worthless meat-slabs, and the ocean will soon swallow us all. Remember that the next time you try to express yourself on Facebook, or elsewhere. In moments like this, silence is the only option."

  [The Stranger / Neal Pollack]

• "Long pepper was the first pepper Europe fell in love with, before black pepper took over."

  [Atlas Obscura / Sarah Laskow]

WATCH THIS

What people get wrong about climate change [YouTube / Joss Fong and Estelle Caswell]

Vox / Joss Fong and Estelle Caswell

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