“Top-down” ecumenism has not reduced the distance between the Catholic church and other churches. We need grassroots ecumenical relationships now.
Synod on Synodality
Posted inFaith, Faith and Reason
Cardinal McElroy responds to his critics on sexual sin, the Eucharist, and LGBT and divorced/remarried Catholics
Pope Francis is calling us to appreciate the vital interplay between the pastoral and doctrinal aspects of church teaching when it comes to sexual sin and the reception of the Eucharist.
Posted inNews, Politics & Society
Vatican draws new red lines in dispute over church reforms in Germany
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Germany wants to create a Synodal Council out of both clerics and lay people, but the Vatican has declared its rejection of this plan.
Posted inFaith, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Francis says Vatican II was ‘a visit of God to his church’ in new interview
“The [Second Vatican] Council was a visit of God to his church. It was one of those things that God produces in history through holy people,” Pope Francis said in an interview published in Belgium on Feb. 28.
Posted inDispatches, Faith
Taking the pulse of Latino Catholics on LGBT issues, young people and women’s leadership
The changing demographics of the Catholic Church in the United States raises the question: How well do Cardinal Robert McElroy’s views reflect the various perspectives present in the growing Latino community?
Posted inFaith, Speeches
Pope Francis: Lent (and the synod) must lead us to transformation
In his Lenten message for 2023, Pope Francis compares the ongoing synodal process to the strenuous mountain trek embarked in the Gospel of Transfiguration, with what awaits us at the end better revealing God’s will and our mission to the church.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
How teaching sex ed taught me how to approach the synod
I’ve realized that the approach we take in sex ed offers some guidelines that could be useful for the church as a whole as we seek to engage in honest conversations as part of the Synod on Synodality.
Posted inNews Analysis, Politics & Society
Analysis: What’s really driving criticism of Cardinal McElroy’s call for LGBT inclusion
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.
Posted inFaith, Podcasts
Cardinal McElroy: Sex and sin need a new framework in the church
“Our sexual lives have many areas of sinfulness and I’m not challenging that,” Cardinal McElroy says this week on the Jesuitical podcast. “All I’m saying is that in the Christian moral life, they don’t automatically represent mortal sin.”
Posted inFaith, News
Pope Francis warns of elitist German synod process
The pope warned there’s a risk that a reform process in the German Catholic Church over calls for married priests and other possible liberalizing reforms might become harmfully “ideological.”