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Francis,
cardinals urge Amazon synod to consider new ideas, including married
priests unsplash.com photo
Joshua J. McElwee, ncronline.org | Oct 7, 2019 Openness to new ways of thinking emerged as the primary theme of the Vatican's Synod of Bishops for the Amazon region on its first day of business, with Pope Francis and the cardinals leading the three-week event telling the participating prelates not to be resistant to new ideas. Clearly enunciated among those new ideas: the possibility of ordaining married men to address the severe lack of Catholic ministers across the nine-nation region, and finding a way for the church to offer women there some kind of official ministerial work. This article appears in the Synod for the Amazon feature series. View the full series: 
Vatican photo
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Living gratitude As I write this we are about to celebrate Thanksgiving here in Canada. We are definitely in the Autumn Season with harvesting of the fruits of the earth well underway – except perhaps where fields of grain still stand due to recent heavy rains and even snow. As the days shorten and nights lengthen, the monarch butterflies, the geese and other migratory birds are gathering in preparation for their long journeys south. Families will gather to feast in gratitude for the blessings of the past year and be prompted to share of their abundance with those who do not have adequate food, clothing or shelter. Poet, Mary Oliver offers us a simple way to live gratefully. She invites us to be attentive to our experiences and what goes on around us, to find something every day for which to be grateful, to tell about it – sharing it deepens gratitude in us and offers it to another, and finally, to live with the recognition that all is gift. As I seek to be attentive to what is going on around me in the Church and our country at this time, I experience a sense of gratitude for my place of privilege in both societies. Am I happy about what is going on in each of them? Not really. But the fact that I have the opportunity to express my feelings and ideas for making things better for others is something for which I am truly grateful. I am watching the Synod on the Amazonian region and its people, being held in Rome this month. The Synod flows from the concerns of Pope Francis expressed in his 2015 Encyclical Letter, Laudato Si, on care of our common home. Key issues before the synod are care for creation, upholding the rights of indigenous peoples, and the pastoral response of the Church to local needs. You can read the working document for the synod here. Among the 222 participants, there are 35 women consultants at the Synod. I am encouraged and grateful to hear their voices. Sr. Teresa Cediel Castillo, M.ML is cited: “Women develop their own projects for education, healthcare, and other issues. They know that they are baptized, and therefore, prophets and priests. Women baptize children. If there is a marriage, women witness the marriage. If someone has need of confession, we listen to the bottom of our hearts. We may not be able to absolve [according to the Church], but we listen with humbleness.” These women are sacramental ministers responding from the heart of love – the heart of God -- to the needs of the people. Would that the Church consider the ordination of such women to gather the community and celebrate Eucharist to nourish their faith rather than have to wait for a male priest to come around – maybe once a year. When the final documents of the Synod are presented for voting, 187 men participating in the Synod will be allowed to vote; none of the women participating in the Synod will be allowed to vote. Efforts to change that, as a matter of justice, are ongoing. This is one action I can take for which I am grateful. So can you, if you wish. In Canada, all citizens have the opportunity to vote in the upcoming federal election. Along with this privilege is the responsibility to discern our choice by careful reading of party platforms, news reports and the like, having healthy dialogue with our candidates and their representatives and critically holding what we learn up to the light of the Gospel. How does what our politicians propose reflect the light of truth and justice Jesus proclaimed to bring healing and hope to a broken world? Vatican II said (using an inclusive language translation of the Latin text) in its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World: “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men and women of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs, and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts….” That we can voice by our vote this mission of Jesus is truly something for which I am grateful. I want to express my gratitude to each of you for your interest in and support of Roman Catholic Women Priests. We are called to witness to the truth that God can and does call women as well as men to full and equal partnership in sacramental ministry to God's people. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Now, with a heart full of gratitude, I will go and prepare for our family Thanksgiving feast. + Jane [Jane Kryzanowski, Regina, SK is bishop for RCWP Canada]  I found all of the articles in this issue of The Review (October 1, 2019) to be informative, deeply thought provoking and most worthwhile on many levels. Thank you. [Judith Pellerin, Regina, SK] I just watched a typically thought-provoking edition of Amanpour and Company on PBS (late here but almost always worthwhile) interviewing James Carroll about his article in The Atlantic on abolishing the priesthood. I have been a fan of James Carroll for many years. He has been a voice of sober second thought, and critical of Vatican policy since, I think, even before he left the active ministry but remained a staunch, married Catholic. Certainly an excellent author, I might add, a loyal supporter of Pope Francis. Anyway, I recommend the article, along with all his writings. He has kept his finger on the pulse of the Church for sure. Just a f.y.i. for an outstanding advocate. [Roberta Fuller, Bethany, ON] Some excellent articles! Thank you. [Catherine Walther, Toronto, ON] Despite moments of welcome, LGBTQ Catholics still on the margins Editorial Staff, ncronline.org | October 2, 2019 Popes, even the comparatively freewheeling Francis, don't cram into an already jammed calendar a half-hour, announced, private meeting in a formal setting with a U.S. priest who has been the cause of ecclesial apoplexy in some church quarters, unless the papal intent is to send a very clear message. And at least one unmistakable message in the September 30th meeting between Francis and Jesuit Fr. James Martin was, if not in so many words: "This priest is okay, so stop messing with him." Read More Liberation theology is reflection on the following of Christ from the viewpoint of the world’s poor and oppressed  unsplash.com
photo
Mike
Rivage-Seul, wordpress.com |
September 29, 2019The liturgy of the word of the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time provides us with a virtual catechism of liberation theology – Christianity’s most important theological development in the last 1500 years, and the West’s most important social movement of the last 150 years. Read More New Canadian cardinal seen as key to Pope Francis's reform vision Megan Williams, cbc.ca | October 5, 2019 Michael Czerny, who is a Czech-born, Montreal-raised social justice advocate, will be Canada's fourth cardinal. Among the 13 Catholic cardinals Pope Francis will create this Saturday at St. Peter's Square is a Canadian few expected would become a "prince of the church." Yet his elevation to the high-ranking all-male group is also a resounding confirmation of the direction the pope is steering the Catholic Church in. Read More |
Mother of Jesus, powerful leader, teacher, presbyter and bishop in early church Book Review: Mary and Early Christian Women: Hidden Leadership by Ally Kateusz
Image from Kateusz, Ally, Mary and Early Christian Women,
Springer International Publishing, Kindle Edition. Used under Creative
Commons licence.
Roberta Fuller, Special to The Review
| October 15, 2019
'It's our church, too': Conference to focus on need for women's leadership Heidi Schlumpf, ncronline.org | September 23, 2019 Women's inroads as leaders in the church and society is to be celebrated, but there is still much work to do so that churches, businesses and governments can benefit from the gifts and talents of half the human race. So say speakers tapped to share their wisdom on the topic of women's leadership at the second Women of the Church conference, scheduled for October 18-20 at St. Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana. Read More Women in church leadership: 40 years after Sr. Theresa Kane's request to pope, Sisters see some signs of hope  YouTube video photo
Elizabeth
Eisenstadt Evans, globalsistersreport.org
| October 3, 2019On an October day four decades ago, Sr. Theresa Kane, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and head of the Sisters of Mercy in the U.S., stood before 5,000 other sisters gathered to greet Pope John Paul II at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. She spoke of the sisters' "profound respect, esteem and affection" for the pontiff. Then Kane uttered these memorable words: "Our contemplation leads us to state that the church in its struggle to be faithful to its call for reverence and dignity for all persons must respond by providing the possibility of women as persons being included in all ministries of our church. Read More and/or View historic video of Sr. Teresa Kane Voices of Faith conference and campaign to overcome the silence Voices of Faith, facebook.com/voicesoffaithwomen | April 7, 2019 Of the 185 voting members attending the Synod on Amazonia to decide the future of the Catholic Church, not a single one is a woman.  Voices of
Faith photo
Women continue to be excluded from voting in the Catholic Church. Women continue to be treated as guests in their own home. Watch some or all of four hours of video of the October 3rd Voices of Faith conference in Rome, and/or join the campaign to call for change at #OvercomingSilence Women walking together, away from the church Phyllis Zagano, ncronline.org | September 23, 2019 The Vatican released the participants' list for the upcoming Synod for the Pan-Amazon Region the other day. All 185 synod votes belong to men. . . . It was not always like this. Years ago, the abilities, intellects and legal authority of women were respected. Until the late 19th century, there were abbesses who held absolute ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the people and lands of their territorial abbeys. These abbesses had the same authority as bishops. They gave priests faculties to hear confessions, to celebrate Mass, and to preach. They appointed chaplains and parish priests; they oversaw church legal proceedings; they ensured proper elections of religious superiors. You name it, these abbesses oversaw whatever is on your bishop's legal plate today. For 700 years, successive popes recognized, even increased, their authority, especially in France, Italy, Spain and Sweden. Read More Mass with Swahili hymns brings new vibrancy to Edmonton parish Kyle Greenham, ncronline.org | August 29, 2019 As the sound of drums, tambourines and Swahili hymns reverberated through St. Andrew's Church, Edmonton, AB, Elizabeth Muturi and fellow parishioners swayed their arms and hips, dancing down the aisle with the Book of Gospels raised behind them. For Muturi, who grew up attending Mass in Kenya, the sight and sounds were a dream come true. "It's so touching to see this come to fruition," she said. "Even to see our priest willing to learn to some Swahili — it is exciting. I have to thank God, because it's all by the power of the Holy Spirit." Read More  |
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