Synod document sets stage for wide-ranging debate on women, Catholic ministries and structures
Extract from Christopher White, Vatican News, National Catholic Reporter, 20 June 2023
When prelates and lay delegates gather in October for the Synod of Bishops, they will be asked to directly confront a number of pressing questions — including the possibility of women deacons, access to the priesthood for married men, the integration of LGBTQ+ Catholics, and penance for sexual abuse and the abuse of power, conscience and money — in consideration of how the Catholic Church might transform and expand its structures to become more welcoming to all its members. In a much anticipated document released June 20, the Vatican's synod office set the stage for a wide-ranging discussion for the first session of a high-stakes meeting that is attempting to respond with "missionary urgency" to the challenges of church life in the modern world. Known in Latin as an instrumentum laboris, the 60-page document will guide the monthlong Vatican summit on a number of themes and concerns that have emerged during a three-year consultative process, which has focused on how the church could become more focused on greater listening and participation of all of the baptized, not just the Catholic hierarchy. Among the issues and considerations in the document are how a synodal church recognizes and values the central role of the poor; the experience of migrants; victims of sexual abuse, violence and other injustices; the disabled; divorced and remarried Catholics; the need for greater commitment to ecumenism and learning from other faith traditions; and the role of women in the church today. The newly released document is the culmination of worldwide listening sessions through local churches that took place 2021-2022 and seven continental gatherings held in early 2023. 'The radical call is, therefore, to build together, synodally, an attractive and concrete church: an outgoing church, in which all feel welcome.' — Synod of Bishops instrumentum laboris. Over the last decade, synodality has emerged as a key theme of Francis' pontificate and as a vehicle of implementing the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and instilling them into the practices and structures of the church today. Earlier this year, Francis dramatically expanded participation in the synod to include lay men and women, for the first time granting them a right to be appointed as full voting members of the Catholic Church's primary consultative body. The new document — which is framed around three interwoven themes of communion, mission and participation — aims to offer an honest account of the key ideas, difficulties, aspirations and fears of Catholics from every corner of the globe. Those ideas will now be up for discernment and discussion by an estimated 370 synod participants in the synod's first session Oct. 4-29......(More)
Vatican releases Synod document calling for discussion of women, LGBT Catholics, church authority and more
Extract from Gerard O'Connell, 20 June 2023, America, The Jesuit Review, 20 June 2023
The secretariat for the synod has published the working document, known by its Latin title instrumentum laboris, for the first session of the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on synodality that will be held in the Vatican, Oct. 4 to Oct. 29. The second session will be held in October 2024. "A synodal church is founded on the recognition of a common dignity deriving from baptism, which makes all who receive it sons and daughters of God, members of the family of God, and therefore brothers and sisters in Christ, inhabited by the one Spirit and sent to fulfil a common mission,” said the document. However, it said, many Catholics around the world report that too many baptized persons—particularly L.G.B.T. Catholics, the divorced and civilly remarried, the poor, women and people with disabilities—are excluded from active participation in the life of the church and, particularly, from its decision-making structures....... Cardinal Grech described the working document as “the fruit of a synodal process” that started on Oct. 10, 2021, and “involved the whole church” in an exercise of listening to the people of God. The first phase was articulated in three stages: at the local churches with consultation of the people of God (clergy and laity); at the bishops’ conferences, which engaged in a discernment process about the input from the local churches; and at the continental levels, where input from around the world was synthesized. “Where the bishops started and accompanied the consultation, the contribution has been very alive and profound,” the cardinal said, and the bishops were enriched with “a fruitful ministry.” The document brings together “the fruits” of the synodal journey since October 2021. Unlike the working documents for past synods, which were intended to be amended, improved and voted upon, this document is designed as “a practical aid for the conduct” of the October assembly at which there will be more than 350 participants (including laymen and around 45 women, both lay and consecrated), not a text to be amended. The document states that it “is not a document of the Church’s Magisterium, nor is it the report of a sociological survey; it does not offer the formulation of operational indications, goals and objectives, nor a full elaboration of a theological vision.” It is “part of an unfinished process.” It draws on but also goes beyond the insights of the first phase and articulates “some of the priorities that emerged from listening to the People of God, but avoids presenting them as assertions or stances. Instead, it expresses them as questions addressed to the synodal assembly,” which “will have the task of discerning the concrete steps which enable the continued growth of a synodal church, steps that it will then submit to the Holy Father.”.....(More)
Catholic sector welcomes Government's decision to establish Aged Care taskforce
Extract from CathNews, 8 June 2023
Catholic Health Australia has applauded the Albanese Government’s decision to establish a new aged care taskforce, describing it as a vital step towards resolving the great unanswered funding question left by the aged care royal commission. CHA chair John Watkins has been appointed as a contributing member of the taskforce. CHA’s aged care director Jason Kara said Mr Watkins would bring his experience and skill as well as the Catholic sector’s deep knowledge and history in health and aged care to the taskforce’s deliberations and commended the Government for tackling the issue of aged care funding head-on, rather than deferring or avoiding the difficult decisions that need to be made. “Aged care funding is a thorny issue that previous governments have shied away from and we commend the Aged Care Minister [Anika Wells] for showing the courage to face it squarely,” Mr Kara said. “The current model of aged care is clearly unsustainable and it is high time we addressed the elephant in the room. “We also welcome the Minister’s commitment that the taskforce’s work will constitute an open and public conversation driven by experts to find innovative solutions to this challenge. “The royal commission’s work was hugely important but it left unanswered the great question of how to fund the sector in the long term.....(More). Image:Aged Caree photo by Danie Franco on Unsplash
NATSICC launches website on Indigenous Voice to Parliament
Extract from CathNews, 6 June 2023
The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council has launched a new website called “One Journey, Together” for Catholics to learn about the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. The website hosts stories and anecdotes from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and organisations, Catholic figures and organisations. Darwin Bishop Charles Gauci said: “As Australians we are at a very important time reflecting on the Voice to Parliament. I will not tell anyone how to vote, but it is my responsibility as Bishop to encourage you all to be reflective in the light of our faith and Catholic Social Teachings: the common good and the dignity of all people. “We need the ongoing journey of reconciliation and healing. Whatever happens with the Voice will not solve all the issues, we are all on the journey together. Let’s make sure we are informed, and to see which is the best way forward for dignity and respect for all.” The website hosts messages from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and community members, bishops and other religious leaders and statements from Catholic organisations on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament to support the Catholic community to vote in a way that aligns with their Catholic values. It also includes activities and resources for parishes. NATSICC Chairperson John Lochowiak, said: “We are proud to be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and we are proud to be Catholic. Our shared faith calls on us to come together as one to uphold justice, and I encourage Catholics to take a look at the website and learn more about how they can engage in this important referendum.” .....(More). Image: OneJourneyTogetherLogo-NATSICC CathNews 20230606
A nun makes the case for women deacons to Pope Francis
Extract from Casey Stanton, Ameruca, The Jesuit Magazine, 6 June 2023
In early June, Pope Francis received three Indigenous women leaders from the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA), an innovative form of church governance in which the bishops of the Amazon share formal leadership with Indigenous lay women, women religious, lay men, priests and deacons. During the audience, the women invited the pope to consider the full and equal participation of women in the church, including through preaching in parish settings and ordination as deacons. One of the women who attended the audience with Pope Francis was Laura Vicuña Pereira Manso, C.F. Sister Laura is currently serving as the vice president for CEAMA, a historic leadership role within a body that has steadily called upon the pope to more deeply consider the ministerial roles of women in the church since the Synod of Bishops on the Pan-Amazonian Region in 2019. (The final document of that synod called for greater leadership roles for women but stopped short of calling for the ordination of women to the diaconate...........A shortage of priests, resources and skill sets for effective ministry have already burdened many local churches. Many Catholic parishes have had to merge or close in response to these pressures. However, in some places, like the Pan-Amazonian region, it is common for bishops to delegate women to preside at baptisms and marriages. We know that Catholic women around the world are regularly preaching the Word, serving as chaplains in hospitals and prisons, leading parishes and social service organizations and engaging in a variety of works of mercy and justice. For instance, Philomène Péan in Boston serves a collaborative of parishes, working alongside a priest to provide pastoral care in diverse communities from Lithuania and Central and South America and to welcome Haitian refugees. With decades of experience in chaplaincy, retreat leadership, spiritual direction and parish ministry, Philomène radiates with Christ’s presence in every encounter. Whether she is accompanying recent refugee families from Haiti, ministering to the historic Lithuanian Catholic community in South Boston, visiting the elderly, leading liturgies of the Word or praying with families at funeral homes, she is a witness to the Christ who came to serve, not to be served......(More). Photo:Laura Vicuna Pereira Mansom Pope Francis June 1 2023, Vatican Media, America Mag 20230606
General secretary elected provincial, to leave Bishops Conference
Extract from CathNews, ACBC Media Blog, 26 April 2023
Fr Stephen Hackett MSC has been elected provincial superior of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Australia and will conclude his time as general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference in July. Fr Stephen Hackett MSC has been elected provincial superior of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Australia and will conclude his time as general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference in July. Fr Hackett’s ministerial background included appointments within secondary and tertiary education, as a parish priest in several Australian dioceses and as vicar general in the Diocese of Darwin. He took over the role of general secretary, leading the day-to-day operations of the Bishops Conference, in 2016. He chairs the National Liturgical Architecture and Art Council and is a member of the Australian Catholic Council for Pastoral Research – two advisory bodies to the Bishops Conference. He is also a member of the ecumenical Australian Academy of Liturgy........(source). Photo: Fr Stephen Hackett MSC ACBC
Doctors fight states’ push for telehealth euthanasia consultations
Extract from CathNews, 24 April 2023
One thousand health professionals – most of them doctors and including leaders in geriatric and palliative care – have united to oppose a push by the states to allow telehealth appointments for euthanasia. Source: The Weekend Australian. The states, all of which now have voluntary assisted dying laws, are seeking an exemption from the Philip Nitschke-era federal ban on the use of phone or internet to “counsel or incite” suicide or “promote” suicide methods. States and euthanasia advocates argue the federal law frustrates access to VAD for regional patients with limited access to local doctors and specialists. The issue is listed for discussion at the April 28 meeting of the Standing Council of Attorneys-General in Darwin, led by Queensland and supported by other states. However, the 1000 medicos – including past senior figures in key professional bodies – have penned an open letter in The Weekend Australian warning it would create “great hazards and injustice”. “Further relaxation of criminal codes to facilitate telehealth for VAD assisted suicide would remove protections owed those vulnerable to suicide under duress and in need of palliative care, aged care and mental health services, especially so in regional and remote Australia,” their letter says. “It is oversimplistic and in breach of a patient’s rights and owed dignity in healthcare to imagine competence, informed consent, lack of coercion, mental illness and comprehensive health care or palliative care needs can be adequately assessed using telehealth by VAD doctors.”....(More)
Synod organisers say process should lead to greater local control in Church
Extract from CathNews, NCR Online, 21 April 2023
Organisers of Pope Francis’ consultation with Catholics around the world say there is a growing consensus that the ongoing Synod of Bishops process should result in the Vatican giving more deference to local Church authorities. “There is, in fact, more than one way of being the Church,” said Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB, who said that a significant feature of synodality is the understanding that unity does not call for uniformity within the Church. Archbishop Costelloe’s remarks came during a Vatican press conference yesterday to mark the conclusion of the continental phase of the three-year Synod process. During February and March, seven continental meetings took place to reflect on themes that emerged during the first phase of the Synod process, which included tens of thousands of listening sessions with Catholics worldwide. After the second phase of those gatherings, the third phase will include two month-long assemblies in Rome in October 2023 and October 2024. The findings from the initial listening sessions were detailed in the 45-page “Enlarge the space of your tent” document released last October. That report formed the basis of the continental meetings that, according to Archbishop Costelloe, evidenced widespread enthusiasm for this new era of openness and dialogue. “There’s almost universal appreciation of the process and a desire that we not go backwards, that we’ve found something precious in the life of the Church, which has great potential for the future and that we need to continue down this pathway to the future, to be more fully the Church that we’re supposed to be,” Archbishop Costelloe said. Yet Archbishop Costelloe, a member of the seven-person team that will organise the Synod of Bishops meeting in Rome this October, cautioned that the Synod cannot be reduced to just one issue or a handful of concerns. Vatican Synod office undersecretary Sr Nathalie Becquart XMCJ said two of the major questions being reckoned with through the Synod process are what should be decided at each level of the Church and how to maintain the Church’s unity, with room for flexibility and local adaptations.....(More). Photo:Abp Costelloe addresses Vat Media Conf, OSV News Justin McLellan, CathNews 20230421
New report breaks down Australian Catholic population
A new document from the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference profiles a Catholic population which is increasingly culturally diverse.
Extract from Joseph Tulloch, Vatican News, 17 April 2023
The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has released a new report examining the Catholic community in the country, using data from the 2021 national census. The document, released by the bishops’ National Centre for Pastoral Research, profiles a community which is shrinking and aging, but also becoming more culturally, linguistically, and ritually diverse. Numbers and age
The report puts the number of Catholics in Australia at 5,075,910, almost exactly 20% of the total population of 25,422,788. This is a decrease of around 2.5 percentage points in five years – in 2016, 22.6% of respondents identified as Catholic. Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, President of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said that these figures “were not a surprise” given the “broad shift away from religious identification in Australian society”, although he admitted they were disappointing. The Catholic population in Australia, moreover, is increasingly elderly: the median age for Catholics is 43, compared to 33 in 1996. The median age for all Australians is 38. 493,225 Australian Catholics (9.7%) live alone, while 342,034 (6.7%) require assistance with core activities. Cultural and linguistic diversity......(MORE) Photo: Worshipper at Easter Mass Melbourne, ANSA, Vat News 20230417
Pope Francis has opened the door for real church reform, but hasn't stepped through
Limited Extract from BY RICHARD GAILLARDETZ America, The Jesuit Review, 28 February 2023
Editor's Note: Some elements of this commentary are drawn from a lecture the author gave in Rome to the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences on Oct. 21, 2022. The full text of that lecture will appear in the March issue of Theological Studies.
The 10th anniversary of the election of Pope Francis offers an opportunity to consider the contributions and missteps of this remarkable pontificate. As a comprehensive assessment is impossible, I will consider the related contributions of this pontificate to the theology, structure, and exercise of ministry and authority. The theology, structure, and exercise of ministry From the beginning of his pontificate Francis has emphasized the priority of Christian baptism. In a little noted 2016 letter to Cardinal Marc Ouellet in the cardinal's role as president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, the pope contended that "looking at the People of God is remembering that we all enter the Church as lay people." For the pope, "laicity" is not a negative term, identifying the non-ordained; rather it identifies the fundamental missionary calling conferred upon all of us in baptism: Our first and fundamental consecration is rooted in our Baptism. No one has been baptized a priest or a bishop. They baptized us as lay people and it is the indelible sign that no one can ever erase. It does us good to remember that the Church is not an elite of priests, of consecrated men, of bishops, but that everyone forms the faithful Holy People of God. Francis has argued for the priority of baptism as an antidote to the association of holy orders with the conferral of power, a contributing factor to the evils of clericalism. In much of his writing the pope has moved away from the rigid lay-clergy binary encouraged by his predecessors and toward a more expansive and relational understanding of public ministry in the church. This shift in theology has been matched by a few tentative institutional adjustments. Francis has opened the instituted ministries of lector and acolyte to both men and women while also establishing a new instituted ministry of catechist. These overlooked papal initiatives have provided a more formal status and ritual expression to a range of ministries open to the laity. The pope has also determined that non-ordained religious brothers could be appointed to positions of leadership, including those of provincial and even superior general, in communities that include priests. Were these papal initiatives to be fully and creatively implemented, as they have yet to be, they could go a long way toward deconstructing the strict lay-clergy binary that has hobbled the church for centuries.....(Source) Photo: Pope Francis baptizes at Sistine Chapel, CNS Vatican Media, NCR Online, 202302228
Pope tightens restrictions on Tridentine Mass
New rescript ordered by Pope Francis requires bishops around the world to obtain Vatican approval before allowing celebrations of pre-Vatican II liturgy
Limited Extract from Loup Besmond de Senneville, Vatican City, Subscription journal La Croix International 22 February 2023
After several weeks of rumors that Pope Francis was to further restrict using the Tridentine Mass, the Vatican has now issued a new text clarifying that diocesan bishops must get its approval before granting permission for liturgical celebrations in the pre-Vatican II form. The Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (DDWDS) published a rescript on Tuesday that clarifies the Holy See's strict control over those who wish to celebrate Mass as it existed before the 1969 reform that was mandated by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). The rescript – which was ordered to be published by Pope Francis and signed by DDWDS prefect Cardinal Arthur Roche – stipulates that any bishop wishing to authorize a priest ordained after July 2021 to celebrate according to the so-called Old Rite must now.......(Source) Image:Tridentine Rite in Chartres, 2022, Frederic Petry, Hans Lucas via Reuters, La Croix 20230224
A parting salvo raises questions for the Australian Church
Will
the Catholic hierarchy embrace the legacy of the late Cardinal George
Pell or work more determinedly for a collaborative and co-responsible
Church?
The Church’s Memory Problems
Trying to reckon with the past—and the present
Limited extract from By Massimo Faggioli, Commonweal, 30 January 2023
One month into 2023, it seems there are fewer comforting pages of Church history to balance out the increasing number of shameful ones. The past five years of Francis’s decade-long pontificate have presented no shortage of difficulties tied to the abuse crisis—from his disastrous trip to Chile in January 2018 to last month’s revelations about Jesuit artist and alleged serial abuser Marko Rupnik. The recent deaths of Benedict XVI and Cardinal George Pell have brought to light further reminders of the unpleasant past; their records on the abuse crisis and Vatican governance are, in different ways, problematic, controversial, and unlikely to be settled anytime soon. In the United States, a paradigmatic example of the difficulty of reckoning with the past—at both the individual and collective level—was the case of disgraced archbishop and one-time icon of Vatican II Catholicism Rembert Weakland, who died in August 2022. What seems like a never-ending state of crisis has also paralyzed the Church’s ability to reckon with the troubling parts of its past. It’s a good thing we’ve moved beyond the cavalier attitudes at Vatican II, when, for example, the council fathers approved this passage in Nostra Aetate, urging all “to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.” Now, there is no way to forget the past, since it’s always right here in front of us. Of course, the personal behavior of today’s Church leaders isn’t less holy than that of those who came before—especially those from relatively long ago. There have been worse times: the early turn of Christians from persecuted to persecutors; the age of the papal “pornocracy” at the end of the first millennium (see especially Pope John XII); the epidemic of both petty and heinous crimes committed by clergy in the early modern period; the collusion of bishops and cardinals with dictators and war criminals. But the public perception of the Church today is that it is more corrupt than in the past. The sex-abuse scandal has much to do with that, but ironically, the scandal is also another attempt by the post–Vatican II Church to grapple with the troubling things that came before—beginning with efforts by the council and then Paul VI to re-examine the past in order to advance in ecumenical and interreligious relations. An important, if incomplete and somehow apologetical attempt, was also made during the preparation and celebration of the Great Jubilee of 2000. In his own way, John Paul II tried to shape the Jubilee as a moment of conversion and examination of conscience for the Church with the speech he gave to the cardinals gathered for the extraordinary consistory of June 13, 1994: “A metanoia, that is, a discernment about the historical shortcomings and negligence of the members of the church with regard to the demands of the Gospel.” This theme was further expanded in the apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente of November 10, 1994, and led to the penitential celebration in St. Peter’s Basilica of March 12, 2000. What seems like a never-ending state of crisis has also paralyzed the Church’s ability to reckon with the troubling parts of its past. In a sense, however, that attempt at metanoia has failed—and we should remember this now that the preparation of the Jubilee of 2025 is underway..........(Source) Photo: Cardinals Bernard Law and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Rome, CNS, Vincenzo Pinto, Reuters, Commomweal 20230130