A busy week for three potential future popes
(Christopher White. National Catholic Reporter)
Since the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis has refused to take a proper summer vacation — forgoing the tradition of popes escaping the Roman heat at the holiday villa of Castel Gandolfo outside of the city.
Abortion, immigration set to be key issues in presidential campaign
(Heidi Schlumpf. National Ctholic Reporter)
Wisconsin billionaire Diane Hendricks took to the stage on the last night of the Republican National Convention to tell her rags-to-riches story that began with her growing up on a dairy farm and ended with her as one of America’s richest self-made women.
In consideration of a female diaconate, look to Mary Magdalene
(Elizabeth Schrader Polczer. National Catholic Reporter).
This week the church celebrates the feast of Mary Magdalene, at a time when Catholicism finds itself in a definitive moment concerning the roles of women. In May, the first-ever deaconess was ordained in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Cardinal Cupich connects Eucharist to synodality at National Eucharistic Congress
(Brian Fraga. National Reporter).
The Eucharist can be thought of as a school for becoming a more synodal church, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich said during a July 18 presentation at the National Eucharistic Congress.
The Radcliffe resurrection: Meet Pope Francis’ synod preacher
(Christopher White. National Catholic Reporter).
Tensions were high inside the Vatican press room in October as Pope Francis’ high-stakes summit on the future of the church barreled toward its close, when a correspondent representing a right-wing website that had spent the month warning that the gathering was about to abandon long-standing church teaching took to the microphone.
Kenyan bishops urge protesting youth to accept dialogue amid another peak of violence
(Fredrick Nzwili. National Catholic Reporter).
Catholic bishops in Kenya are urging protesting youth to accept dialogue, while reminding them that remaining intolerant could push the country into anarchy.
Vatican approval of apparitions would now be ‘exceptional,’ doctrine chief says
(Justin McLellan. National Catholic Reporter).
Vatican rulings on allegedly supernatural phenomena, such as Marian apparitions, will continue to be released publicly, but official validation of an event’s supernatural status — as has happened at Lourdes, Fatima and Guadalupe — would be “exceptional,” the Vatican’s doctrine chief said. Speaking to Alfa y Omega, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Madrid, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that a Vatican ruling of whether an event was truly supernatural “does not seem necessary, because it has long been clear that not even a declaration of supernaturality obliges believers to accept such phenomena as of divine origin.”
Church needs communion, harmony, moderation to be missionary, pope says
(Carol Glatz. National Catholic Reporter)
Envy is poison, and when envy and individualism prevail over communion, life becomes difficult, Pope Francis said. “When we are content with what is necessary, even with little, with God’s help we are able to go forward and get along, sharing what there is, everyone renouncing something and supporting each other,” he said before praying the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square July 14. The pope reflected on the day’s Gospel reading from St. Mark (6:7-13) about the mission of the twelve disciples in which Jesus sent them out “two by two” and told them “to take nothing for the journey” but only what was necessary.
Parishioners rally behind priest put on leave for alleged sexual misconduct
(Jenn Morson. National Catholic Reporter).
On the weekend of June 22-23, parishioners at St. Michael and St. Joseph parishes in Fall River, Massachusetts, were informed via a letter from Bishop Edgar da Cunha that their pastor, Fr. Jay Mello, was being put on leave for sexual misconduct allegations. The letter specified that no minors were involved and assured parishioners that he understood the gravity of the situation, writing, “This situation is distressing for all of us. Please know that my prayers are with all the faithful people of St. Michael and St. Joseph Parishes during this challenging time.”
(National Catholic Reporter. John Leo Algo).
The United Nations Bonn climate change conference (SB60) in Germany June 3-13 was expected by many to lay the groundwork for critical negotiations to accelerate the mobilization of finance and climate action at the U.N. climate change conference, COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November. Instead, the midyear meetings ended with familiar tones of disappointment, mistrust and frustration that quickly overshadowed any progress attained in Dubai at COP28 last year. Calls for transformative change continue, including for a just transition away from fossil fuels and for an overhaul of the global finance architecture. However, many negotiators refuse to acknowledge an obvious truth: The conduct of climate negotiations itself needs to change. While climate action is not limited to what happens within the COP process, these negotiations produce the single most impactful outcomes at the global level. It will not be easy, but climate multilateralism under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) must change. This change can be ushered by an unlikely entity: the Holy See.
(National Catholic Reporter. David Bonior).
In the architecturally gorgeous city of Lviv in western Ukraine sits Ukrainian Catholic University. After several name and affiliation changes, in 2002 it became the first Catholic university to open on the land of the former Soviet Union. The university is small, but its reputation is large. Visiting in April, I repeatedly heard it called “one of our best universities.” War forces those in power to rethink the future. UCU has adjusted its strategic plan to the reality of the war and the role it is now playing in the war effort and the aftermath as the nation begins to slowly prepare for rebuilding. The university will continue to help veterans and civilians deal with physical trauma and mental health issues, and provide services to the country’s many war veterans. The Ukrainian Catholic University was reconstituted after the fall of communism in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Bishop Borys Gudziak — American-born, from Syracuse New York — was a leader in establishing UCU, serving as its first rector and now as president. But his long-term plans for the university shifted when Russia invaded Ukraine Feb. 24, 2022, and the entire UCU community quickly became engaged in the war effort.
(National Catholic Reporter. Christopher White).
When Pope Francis tapped Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández to head the Vatican’s doctrinal office on July 1, 2023, he wasn’t just naming his longtime Argentine theological adviser to one of the church’s most powerful roles. He was also reenvisioning how that department would operate in the modern world and attempting to ensure that his reforms might outlast his own papacy. Accompanying the announcement of Fernández’s appointment in the Vatican’s daily bulletin was a letter articulating that as prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, he should actively promote the work of theology and new ways of evangelization rather than replicating past “immoral methods” that sought to control or punish theologians. “The text of the letter that the pope wrote to the new prefect is in some ways an epoch-making event,” Italian theologian Andrea Grillo told the National Catholic Reporter. “It marked the official beginning of a new understanding of the function of the dicastery, moving away from the inquisitorial and censorious styles of the past.”
(National Catholic Reporter. Christopher White).
The antiquated and often secret inner workings of the Vatican’s bureaucracy have been compared to the government of North Korea in its difficulty to make sense of and understand. That challenge, however, is a bit easier now thanks to a new book penned by a true Vatican insider that has made the complicated web of Vatican operations much more accessible to outsiders. In The Roman Curia: History, Theology, and Organization, just out by Georgetown University Press, Msgr. Anthony Ekpo admits that for centuries, the work of the Vatican’s governance has often perplexed Catholics and non-Catholics alike, leaving some to ask: “Can anything good come from the Roman Curia?”
(National Catholic Reporter. Emma Cieslik).
Sid High wants Beloved Arise — the five-year-old organization dedicated to empowering queer youth of faith — to be available in every school, therapist’s office, mental health website and worship space across the country. With Queer Youth of Faith Day and National Day of Prayer for LGBTQ+ Youth right around the corner on June 30, it seems like a lofty goal, but trans Christian and Beloved Arise youth ambassador High, who organized the first day of prayer with fellow ambassador Sabrina Hodak, argues that this organization is essential suicide prevention for queer young people across the United States. According to a 2009 Statista research study, 47.1% of gay men and 46.5% of lesbian women report growing up in a moderately or somewhat religious environment, and many of these religious spaces and values their families attend and hold influence the queerphobia they encountered at home.
(National Catholic Reporter. Mark Rondeau).
It’s time for the Catholic bishops of the United States to begin regaining their lost credibility by taking a courageous stand for democracy before the 2024 election. As former NCR editor Tom Roberts writes in the March 29 issue, “Here in the US, Catholicism is for sale.” The bishops have ceded their teaching authority to a host of well-funded right-wing political groups who have embraced the “Catholic” brand to advance their economic and partisan goals. “Mirroring the civic reality of the moment, extremists have taken over much of the public square in the name of Catholicism,” Roberts writes. “They preach a crimped and narrow church, one that is retributive and rule-bound, willing to contort teachings and tradition in the interest of money and political power.” Let’s take a step back. The bishops last fall again issued their quadrennial election guide, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.” The document closely follows those that have gone before, especially since the guide was last approved in 2015. Abortion remains the bishops “preeminent” concern, though this was not always the case in these documents. Democracy is mentioned once in the text, in passing.
(National Catholic Reporter. Rhina Guidos).
Not far from a plaque marking it as a place where the nation’s first Catholic president worshiped, there’s now a less auspicious marker outside Holy Trinity Catholic Church, in Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood, recalling its past in the dark history of the country. “Hundreds of Black parishioners left Holy Trinity,” one of its four painful paragraphs explains, “because of the ongoing segregation and discrimination they found here.” On June 19, a descendant of one of those families helped unveil the marker, which also asks for forgiveness “for these sins of racism and the pain they have caused.” “This truth is ugly and painful,” said Linda Gray, whose ancestors were among those who became part of Epiphany Catholic Church, the new parish Black families founded, also in Georgetown, after they left Trinity in the 1920s because of the racism they experienced there. “The truth hurts, it does, but the truth also has the power to heal.” On the steps of Trinity, Gray talked about how those who left did so “with no place to go,” but with the promise that God would help.
(National Catholic Reporter. Joryán Hernández).
What does it mean to be a premier Catholic university? One that cultivates “a disciplined sensibility to the poverty, injustice, and oppression that burden the lives of so many” and aims “to create a sense of human solidarity and concern for the common good that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice”? One that contains one of the leading peace studies programs in the world? And what does it mean when that university refuses to discuss whether its investments support the killing of nearly 38,000 people in Gaza? To an unaware outsider, it may have appeared like a splendid picnic on the campus lawn. On May 2, several students hunched over laptops, class notes spread out on fuzzy blankets, everyone preparing for finals. To the side of the lawn, a custom-made banner depicted two women, with lettering below that read “Nahida & Samar Lawn,” in honor of a Catholic Palestinian mother and daughter killed in Gaza.
(National Catholic Register. Andrea M. Picciotti-Bayer).
The Catholic Church in the United States has always had a knack for responding not just to the needs of the faithful but of society at large. Consider, for example, the U.S. bishops’ Religious Freedom Week, running from June 22-29. By asking Catholics across the country to promote and protect religious freedom here at home and abroad, the Church is championing individual freedom and the common good. And never more so than now. The focus of this year’s Religious Freedom Week is a subject that desperately needs addressing. Catholics are being asked to consider the importance of sacred spaces. Why? Because they are under threat.
(National Catholic Reporter. Christopher White).
A leading religious sister in the Amazon region believes Pope Francis’ recent interview that seemed to close the door to women deacons isn’t the final word on the much-discussed topic that has repeatedly been raised during the ongoing synodal process. “Francis’ speech caused some perplexity, but an interview is not the magisterium of the church,” Franciscan Catechist Sr. Laura Vicuña Pereira Manso told NCR via email. Her remarks come just weeks after an interview with CBS News where Francis said he was opposed to women deacons, if it’s connected to the sacrament of holy orders. “We’re living through the second stage of a synod on synodality, and I know that it won’t resolve all the necessary issues of change in the church,” Pereira Manso added. “But it will open up ways for us to continue the conversation and for all of us.”
(DAVID AGREN. ncronline).
A Spanish Jesuit has been discovered to have documented his abuse of hundreds of Indigenous girls while serving as a missionary in rural Bolivia — atrocities which the Society of Jesus has known about since at least 2019 and did not immediately report to the civil authorities.
Jesuit Father Luis María Roma wrote in a diary of abusing girls, whom he often lured to a river and photographed inappropriately, according to the Spanish newspaper El País. The Jesuit province in Bolivia compiled a report on Roma’s acts in 2019, but withheld it from prosecutors, according to El País, which obtained a copy of the priest’s diary and the Jesuit’s investigation.
Roma died in August 2019, shortly before the report’s completion. El País published a notarized confession by the priest signed in May 2019, which read, “I got carried away, in some situations, by libidinous acts, inappropriate for a religious person, with girls from eight to 11 years old.”