The synodal process and the Final Document suggest that Catholicism is moving in the direction of a more participatory and missionary Church—if slowly.
‘Fiducia supplicans’ seems written to reinforce very stubborn ideas: that there is a proper place for liturgy and that married gay people do not belong there.
If the Church really believes in the indelible dignity of LGBTQ+ persons, it can’t just express sorrow for past abuses or offer words of welcome. It has to actually do something.
In the early decades of the twenty-first century, historians will say, the Church sought a new way of operating that would allow it to travel into a new era.
Can the eucharistic assembly really be foundational to our understanding of the Church if bishops are seen as branch managers of a multinational corporation?
The Synod needs every bit of constructive help it can get. But mischaracterizing the Instrumentum is not helpful. Nor is raising the specter of Joachim of Fiore.
The false argument against restoring women to the ordained diaconate—that women cannot image Christ—is the cause of the disrespect for women on every continent.
Vatican II was a time of rising expectations for theology, for how much it could transform the Church and the world. Have those expectations been betrayed?
If the Church wants women to be its allies, it will need to recognize them as protagonists—full subjects with the agency to respond to the call of the Gospel.
This month, the U.S. bishops met to elect new leadership. The gathering came at a time when the Church may be on its way to becoming a post-episcopal institution.
A synodal report from the American bishops reflects fears that the Church has become too “judgmental.” But a Church that does not judge cannot bear moral witness.
Faith-rooted community organizing, with its emphasis on building relationships and developing practical strategies, can help us think about synodality.
In the United States, there is a growing gap between Catholic academia and the institutional Church, one that hinders our ability to understand the sex-abuse crisis.
“Authentic collaboration in the Church is possible only when women are seen as whole and necessary, not as challenges or threats to the ‘purity’ of clergy.”
If the institutional Church takes seriously the call to synodality, then its clergy must be willing to humbly consider the Spirit that moves its people.
The German synod expresses a different Catholic culture, one rooted in Vatican II, but without the qualms about the compatibility between modernity and faith.
The challenge of engagement facing the synod is real. But these readers point to the progress at their own institutions as a model of how we can move forward.
