Recognizing the doctrinal authority of bishops’ conferences does not mean allowing them to reject the teaching authority of the pope, said the head of the Vatican Dicastery for Bishops.

In a world that was coming to understand the structural underpinnings of poverty and violence, Father Gutiérrez was a prophet who saw clearly how the Christian proclamation of salvation involved not merely the afterlife but included human liberation in this life as well.

The Synod on Synodality has raised the question of the role and authority of bishops’ conferences. In 1998, another moment when the question gained prominence, a leading authority on ecclesiology weighed in.

The time is short: two weeks until this election. Can we change these candidates’ minds? I don’t know. Can faithful Catholics get their attention? Yes.

Helene’s devastation is offering a hard lesson: No community or U.S. region can consider itself safe from the extreme weather events that global warming is seeding and supercharging.

Perhaps it seems foolish to put so much stock in one mother’s cry for help. But then again, the cries of our forefathers and foremothers have been central to our faith for centuries.

“We know that the Holy Father has expressed that at this time the issue of the female diaconate is not mature and has asked that we not entertain this possibility for now,” Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández told the synod Oct. 21.

Father Marcelo Pérez, an Indigenous Tzotzil priest and peace activist, was murdered after celebrating Sunday Mass in Mexico's southern Chiapas state.

Even if some members of the Synod of Bishops end up feeling disappointed by the results of the synod, “God’s providence is at work in this assembly,” Cardinal-designate Timothy Radcliffe said.

Around 100 synod delegates filed into the Vatican’s old synod hall yesterday afternoon seeking answers about the secretive Vatican-instituted study group that had, among other issues, been tasked with looking into the possibility of ordaining women deacons.