Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options

Most recent
Most relevant
Clear filter
News
Signs of the Times
Catholic Health System, Union Set Expedited Election RulesCatholic Healthcare West and the Service Employees International Union have signed a landmark agreement on procedures and conduct for expedited union representation elections. The 15-page accord between the nation’s largest health care
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Sometimes it seems that it takes a layperson to understand religious life. Recently I had the chance to read a superb new book entitled For the Love of God: The Faith and Future of the American Nun, written by, of all people, a senior writer at GQ magazine, who was raised with no religious training
Letters
Letters

Reasonable Expectations

While I found Bernard M. Daly’s article The Coming Synod of Bishops (4/2) interesting and challenging, it occurred to me that the synod of bishops he describes is not that set forth in Canons 342-48 of the Code of Canon Law. It is important, I think, that the synod of bishops, a sort of new institute since the Second Vatican Council, be clearly described so that its true functions can be understood and reasonable expectations be entertained for its work.

It seems to me that Bernard Daly might perhaps miss the mark when he appears to describe the synod of bishops as a mini-council. That it clearly is not. And it should be noted that it is a synod only by analogy with the synod as that institute has existed in church law.

The synod of bishops is to promote the close relationship between the Roman Pontiff and the bishops. These bishops, by their counsel, assist the Roman Pontiff in the defense and development of faith and morals and of the preservation and strengthening of ecclesiastical discipline. They also consider questions concerning the mission of the church in the world (No. 342). The function of the synod of bishops is to discuss the matters proposed to it and set forth recommendations. (No. 343).

(Most Rev.) Thomas G. Doran

Faith-Based Community Development
The media have given considerable attention in recent weeks to the engagement of the religious community in partnership with government in dealing with the ongoing effects of poverty in our country. Clearly, the announcement by President George W. Bush of a new White House Office of Faith-Based and
Columns
Rewriting the Old Rules
Women are about to outnumber men in the nation’s law schools, a development heralding yet another milestone for women and a foreshadowing of great cultural change in the way law is practiced in this country. There can be no doubt about the former. The latter may not be so easy.Women have been
Editorials
Revisiting the Drug War
The increasing number of drug offenders in prisons around the country is a major reason why our incarcerated population has reached the two million mark. Passed in the 1970’s, New York State’s so-called Rockefeller laws call for a penalty of 15 years for the sale of two ounces of a contr
News
Signs of the Times
Jesuit Holocaust MartyrThe Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem has formally recognized Adam Sztark, S.J., (1907-42) as Righteous Among Gentiles, a title awarded to those who risked their lives to save Jews during World War II. Father Sztark was rector of a Marian s
Columns
Writing Blindly
From the daily barrage of news, certain stories stick with me. When my daughters were small, the reports of children abducted from campgrounds or snatched on their way to school haunted me. As they grow older, accounts of teenage drivers wrapped around trees or spread on freeways resonate. But for s
A Matter of Justice
The trial (yes, trial in the full legal sense) of Jacques Dupuis, S.J., has been concluded, and the author of a pioneering work, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, has been cleared of the suspicion (or was it a charge?) of having deviated from the Catholic faith. He is free to have
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
If ever there was a city of parades, it is New York. Working at America House, just a block from Fifth Avenuethe parade route par excellenceI occasionally walk over to watch. The biggest and oldest Fifth Avenue parade of all takes place on St. Patrick’s Day. March 17 this year fell on a Saturd