Current News

By eBlog on 8/23/2010 5:31 AM

The unmitigated gall along with the exasperating temerity of the Vatican and the pope is nowhere more evident than in the slap in the face that the pope has just delivered to the global survivor community. Just when you thought they couldn’t sink any lower than equating the ordination of women with the raping, sodomizing and molesting children; they do this. The mentality that pulled Cardinal Law out of harm’s way and rewarded him for covering up criminal acts and the criminals who committed them is ...

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By eBlog on 8/9/2010 5:40 AM

Something is astir in the American Catholic church that has the potential to be significant.

Lay Catholics are getting together to plan how to make the church more engaging and to live up to its potential. They are not meeting in protest, but in conversation. They call their gatherings lay synods.

Catholics in the southern Illinois diocese of Belleville held a diocesan-wide lay synod in 2002 and over the next two years took the process to six regions of the diocese. A synod for five dioceses in upstate New York was organized a year ago, and synods were held in McAllen, Texas, and Dallas-Forth Worth in March.

Catholics in northern California convened in June. They met at the San Francisco cathedral and San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer joined the discussions. He later wrote about the day in his column in the archdiocesan newspaper.

In the next few months, synods are planned for Minnesota, Florida, Michigan and two in Wisconsin.

Organizers of the lay synod movement are...

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By eBlog on 8/9/2010 5:38 AM

More than 1,500 men and women took part at the National Church Demonstration in Luzern/Switzerland on March 8, 2009. Delegates of the "Petition Vaticanum2" were between those who supported the call for more participation in the church and for an open minded church.

For more information go to: www.petition-vaticanum2.org

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By eBlog on 8/6/2010 6:27 AM

Women religious are under investigation. Again.

St. Theresa of Avila, whose feast day we celebrate this month, knew what it was like to be under investigation. Because of her focus on reform, she was denounced to the inquisition and at another point fellow nuns were excommunicated for democratically electing her as prioress.

Of course she is now heralded as a saint and Doctor of the Church.

This year's announcement of an investigation of women religious is not the first time women have been unjustly under investigation but let's make it the last.

It's time to put an end to the medieval hierarchical model of church--that supports top-down investigations--and usher in the collaborative vision of ministry modeled by Jesus himself. For more information, go to:

http://www.uscatholic.org/nunsurvey

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By eBlog on 8/2/2010 5:33 AM

Cutis Biggar provides a comparison between a 1906 encyclical by Pope Pius 10 in response to the French law on separation of Church & state and the Dogmatic Constitution on the church promulgated by Pope Paul 4 in 1964.

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By eBlog on 7/27/2010 5:06 AM

Curtis Biggar shares some thoughts documented by Bartholomew, the archbishop of Constantinople.

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