In addition to the critique of Cardinal McElroy’s focus on welcome and inclusion, critics are also reacting to the process through which that could happen: the ongoing synod of bishops.

After President Biden said that U.S. bishops are not demanding that federal dollars not fund abortions, the U.S.C.C.B. stated that they are “united” in commitment to life.

The decision comes at a time when Cardinal Ouellet is pursuing a defamation case against a Canadian woman church worker, who had accused him of unwanted sexual touching.

The pope and Cardinal McElroy both made statements this week on L.G.B.T. issues, which have until recently not been discussed by church officials.

Dolores R. Leckey, who was founding director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for the Laity in 1977 and at the time one of the highest ranking women in the U.S. Catholic Church, died peacefully of natural causes Jan. 17 in her home in Arlington.

In his many articles for America over the years (his first appeared in 1968), Archbishop John Quinn tackled issues ranging from synodality to sex abuse to the priest shortage to abortion. Do those sound familiar today?