Category: catholic news

Of course, you know what I mean. The Synod. I have been collecting articles but not writing about them, so today you get a smorgasbord of summaries that might set you searching for one or two that sparks your interest. Claire Giangrave for Religion News Service in NCR summarizes the state of the women’s ordination question by effectively…
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Last week, I wrote about five – and ultimately, six – “non-bishop” delegates from the United States to the Synod. All were delegates to the North American Continental Assembly, as were four other non-bishops chosen from Canada. You probably remember that Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean Islands were made part of the Latin American…
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World Youth Day did not interest me until I thought about events that inspired me as a young person. I’ve been asked to comment elsewhere on the March on Washington, sixty years ago on August 28, 1963. I marched on Minneapolis with the National Federation of Catholic College Students, NFCCS. Does that organization even exist…
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The big question: Does the tool work, or do we still have work to do? I’ve spent an intense few days reading the sixty pages of the Instrumentum Laboris, the “working tool” prepared for the 370 people who will be attending the Synod in October. My brief summary: Some of it, like the foreword, is…
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The panic was premature. They are talking about the Synod. Especially papal envoy Archbishop Christophe Pierre. Even USCCB President Broglio mentioned it. Bishop Cozzens, in explaining the Eucharistic Revival process in detail—2,400 parish point persons already! 25,000 registrants!—said it was kind of structured like a synod. (It’s actually structured like the corporation it is.) They’ve…
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Whenever Pope Francis goes into the hospital, the Catholic world goes on edge. I know exactly what’s happening to him because I had the same test a couple of months ago; fortunately, no surgery for me this time, unlike the Pope. Gerald O’Connell has the most complete examination of the Pope’s medical history, and Christopher…
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“Mother’s Day at a migrant shelter?” My attention is drawn to this story by its author, Rhina Guidos, Global Sisters Report’s Latin American correspondent, in an NCR Forward letter. “We know that you’re whole as you are?” Ariell Watson Simon writes for New Ways Ministry about the message a group of women religious wanted to…
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Most people in the US reading this headline this week might think of a certain jury verdict in New York City. I think of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul of New York. They announced April 27 that their congregation is on a “path to completion.”  I am shocked. Everybody knows that…
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Oh, our dear, impulsive Pope. I have long felt that if women could get Francis’ ear, we would see change. I wonder who got to him about women voting at the Synod. Maybe he saw the photo of the German Benedictines from 2018, and was reminded of the scandal of sisters who lead religious orders…
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Kate McElwee’s letter to WOC members commenting on the North American Final Document for the Continental Stage of the 2021-2024 Synod emphasizes that the use of the word “ordination” is in the context of the co-responsibility of all the faithful because of our baptism. Part of paragraph 19 says: While clarity is still needed around exactly what…
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