Author: Regina Bannan

I am writing this on Thursday, as the focus of the impeachment hearings seems to have shifted from the Ukraine to Russia. La Croix International is shifting the focus, too. Instead of continuing the media frenzy about married priests after the Amazon synod, they are publishing two series: “Female figures in religions” and “Women, the…
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A retreat is an odd mental space. The Core Committee of Southeastern Pennsylvania WOC met all day on September 24 and decided it would be a good idea to attend a presentation by the Director of the Office for the New Evangelization for Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Meghan Cokeley. “What Can We Do? The Role of…
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On October 26, the day of the vote, I posted a blog predicting what the final document that the Synod on the Amazon would say. Ellie Harty, my fellow blogger and editor of SEPA WOC’s Equal wRites, suggested that I write what actually was done “in the room where it happens.” Sorry. That’s my trite…
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This afternoon in Rome, just as this blog is published at 10 am Eastern, 185 men will vote. There are 184 bishop and priest voting members of the gathering, and one member who is a religious brother. There are 80 non-voting participants, of whom 35 are women. For most of the Oct. 6-27 event, there…
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If you were at “Radicals and The Rule,” you may know what I am going to write about. And no, it’s not Joan Chittister’s challenge to confront “the wholly owned subsidiary of pious males” about inclusive language, for God and for people. The most trenchant comment I heard after the session was “Forty years later…
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Why not? If you’ve been following the news about the Synod on the Amazon, you know that one major topic of discussion is ordaining viri probati, married men who could celebrate the Eucharist in the scattered small settlements in this enormous region. Of course, when it comes to women, we’re one step behind. Do you…
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Take a short break from thinking about the synod on the Amazon to reflect on what it means that Pope Francis begins his Apostolic Letter on the Word of God with the thought that the Scriptures should open minds. Not to be confined in a narrow literalness (#9), but to be the source of the…
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I seem to be compiling a daisy chain of blogs. “Last week I wrote about” was the way I began the last one, and the way I am going to begin today. That’s because I want to focus again on the Amazon Synod. Last week I wrote about the implications for all women of the…
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Last week I wrote about the Pope’s comments on the plane about schism. I imagine he’s wishing he hadn’t opened that can of worms – because everybody’s talking about it. The latest to reach in is Villanova’s Massimo Faggioli, dealing with what a schism actually is and when they’ve actually happened. I had the feeling…
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I expect more from the Jesuits. I admit that I idealize the intellectual tradition I have always believed they embody. So I cannot understand why America magazine has begun publishing Pia de Solenni, who recently ended her tenure as Chancellor of the Diocese of Orange in California. Her first article in May is “What the…
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