‘It Erases Us’

— Sex Abuse Survivors Troubled By Washington Bill

By Hannah Albarazi

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is expected to sign into law a bill that eliminates time limits for bringing child sex abuse claims in the future, but survivors say they are disappointed by an amendment stripping the bill’s retroactivity, saying the legislation doesn’t go far enough to hold abusers accountable.

The bill’s own author says it no longer expands access to justice for past abuses — only future ones. Fearing that the state itself could be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in liability stemming from decades of negligent supervision, the Legislature struck language from the bill that would have allowed survivors of childhood sexual abuse to bring civil claims against individuals and institutions regardless of when the abuse occurred.

The overhauled bill doesn’t sit well for Seattle attorney Tim Law, who advocates for clergy abuse survivors around the world. The proposed legislation, H.B. 1618, “heavily favors institutions” and is “grossly unfair to survivors,” he told Law360 in an interview.

“There should be a window of opportunity for survivors to make their case, and without that it’s just a total giveaway,” said Law, who co-founded the nonprofit Ending Clergy Abuse.

But the Democrat-controlled state Legislature’s decision to not reopen a lookback window for survivors to bring timed-out claims came amid concerns that it could cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars and an opposition campaign by well-heeled tort reformers.

While at least 27 U.S. states have created temporary or permanent revival windows to allow survivors of child sex abuse to bring otherwise time-barred civil claims, the Washington Legislature has exhibited strong resistance to passing a bill that would allow survivors to bring claims related to past abuse.

No Looking Back

Currently, Washington’s civil statute of limitations on recovering damages from childhood sexual abuse begins tolling once the victim turns 18. The survivor then has three years from the abuse, or three years from when they discovered or reasonably should have discovered an injury caused by the abuse.

As statehouses across the U.S. pass laws allowing previously timed-out child sex abuse claims, State Rep. Darya Farivar, a Democrat, saw a need to bring Washington’s law up to date.

Farivar first introduced H.B. 1618 last year, but it stalled out in the state Senate. After being reintroduced in January, the House overwhelmingly adopted an amendment proposed by State Rep. Peter Abbarno, a Republican, that stripped the bill of its retroactivity. In its amended form, H.B. 1618 will only eliminate the statute of limitations for civil child sex abuse claims going forward.

In comments on the House floor, Abbarno said the amendment “substantively leaves the bill the same.”

Abbarno said the decision to amend the bill stemmed from the fiscal note provided by the state attorney general’s office, which estimated that it could cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars to defend its Department of Children, Youth and Families — which manages the state’s foster care system — against previously time-barred claims resulting from negligent supervision. He added that making the bill prospective-only would meet both policy and fiscal needs.

But speaking on the House floor in January, Farivar said the amendment means this bill is “not going to be able to expand access to justice for current survivors.” Nonetheless, on Jan. 25 she joined her House colleagues in unanimously passing the amended bill.

Survivors Speak Out

While some survivors of childhood sexual abuse offered their support for the bill during a public hearing held by the Washington Senate’s Ways and Means Committee on Feb. 22, many expressed disappointment with the bill being neither retroactive nor containing a lookback window for survivors to bring civil claims.

It’s not hard to find states that have reformed their statutes of limitations regarding child sexual abuse claims.

Civil statutes of limitations for some or all child sex abuse claims have been eliminated in more than a third of all U.S. states, and more than half of all states have passed some form of lookback window to allow survivors of childhood sexual abuse to bring civil claims that would otherwise be time-barred, according to the nonprofit advocacy group Child USA.

Washington resident Christene Hansen told the Senate Ways and Means Committee that her life was derailed at the age of 13 when a teacher began abusing her. She said that while she believes the bill “will inspire change in the establishments that are in place to safeguard our children,” she hoped the law would be applied retroactively.

The Washington State Association for Justice likewise urged the committee to pass the amended legislation, as did the Sexual Violence Law Firm.

But other advocates spoke out in opposition to the bill, saying its lack of retroactivity means those responsible for past abuses won’t be held to account and urged the Legislature to pass a bill that increases past and future survivors’ access to justice.

Sarah Pearson, a survivor of sexual assault and an advocate for survivors, told the Senate Ways and Means Committee in late February that she can’t support the bill as amended, saying that children deserve justice regardless of whether the abuse occurs before or after the bill takes effect.

The bill also lost support from Peter Isely, a survivor of childhood sexual assault and founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests who testified that the bill “must be changed and made retroactive.”

“It erases us,” testified Isely.

Michael Polenberg, vice president of government affairs at the victims’ services group Safe Horizon, pushed for the passage of New York’s Child Victims Act and Adult Survivors Act, both of which created lookback windows for survivors.

Polenberg told Law360 that while any effort to reform or eliminate the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse is a step in the right direction, he stressed that “bills should allow survivors who are outside of the current statute of limitations to seek justice as well.”

“This is why the Child Victims Act in New York was so impactful. The lookback window allowed over 10,000 lawsuits to be filed on behalf of previously time-barred survivors of childhood sexual abuse,” Polenberg said. “Similar measures to seek relief in court should be put in place for individuals who were sexually abused as adults.”

On Feb. 29, the Senate unanimously voted to pass the amended bill.

“Tip of the Iceberg”

In an interview with Law360 in late February, Farivar said it “was a deeply painful decision” to amend the bill to prospective-only, but she saw it as the only way to get support for the bill in the Legislature.

If the fiscal note is correct and the state would truly face such a steep mountain of liability under a retroactive bill, that is “egregious,” Farivar said.

But even without retroactivity, Farivar says her bill is “a really bold statement that we take recovery seriously, we know it’s not linear, we know that folks need time to come forward.”

“By giving folks that time to come forward and pursue justice on their terms, we’re going to be able to identify folks who are predators and folks who are protecting predators,” Farivar said. “That, in the long run, is going to fundamentally change what the landscape of abuse looks like in Washington and what justice survivors have access to.”

Farivar said H.B. 1618 “is really just the tip of the iceberg,” and that she’s continued to speak with advocates and survivors about how to push for legislation that allows for retroactivity or a lookback window.

“We’re not done,” she said, adding that she believes it’s important for institutions — including the government — to take responsibility for abuse that occurs on their watch.

Abbarno and the chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, State Sen. June Robinson, a Democrat, did not make themselves available for an interview with Law360.

Opposition to Lookbacks

Survivors’ desire to bring previously time-barred claims is at odds with the goals of the American Tort Reform Association, which voiced opposition to the original version of the bill.

Cary Silverman of Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP, speaking on behalf of ATRA, told Law360 in late February that “ATRA’s position is that every civil action should be subject to a finite statute of limitations, which is a key part of a properly functioning civil justice system in which courts can evaluate liability when records and witnesses are available.”

ATRA has been among the most outspoken opponents of efforts to end statutes of limitations on child sex abuse, voicing opposition in legislatures from Maine to Nevada. At least one of the states, North Dakota, has backed away from opening up a lookback window for sex abuse claims.

Silverman said ATRA “is particularly concerned with legislative proposals that retroactively revive any type of time-barred claim.”

“These proposals are especially problematic because businesses cannot go back in time to retain records already discarded, purchase more insurance, or decide not to enter an area with such an extreme liability risk,” he added.

However, Silverman said ATRA has not taken a position on Washington’s H.B. 1618 as it’s been amended.

H.B. 1618 now awaits Inslee’s signature. A spokesperson for the governor did not respond to Law360’s request for comment on the opposition voiced by survivors to the amended bill, and declined to speculate as to if or when the governor might sign the bill.

But survivors and their advocates say holding perpetrators and institutions responsible for past abuse is key to obtaining justice, and warned that rushing a bill into law that lets past abusers off the hook will only make it more difficult to pass stronger bills in the future.

“Once it passes, trying to get momentum next year to get a window becomes harder,” Law, the Seattle attorney and advocate for clergy sex abuse survivors, told Law360.

For survivors, he added, the law “sounds good, but it has no practical effect.”

Complete Article HERE!

‘In the name of the Mother, Daughter and Holy Spirit’

— Catholic women advocate change

Participants at the conference titled “Women Leaders: Towards a Brighter Future,” to mark International Women’s Day 2024, listen to a speech by Cristiane Murray, deputy director, Holy See press office, at the Vatican, March 6, 2024.

Women meeting in Rome this week to promote female leadership in the Catholic Church are challenging the hierarchy’s resistance to change and its theological emphasis on ‘natural’ gender divisions.

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In the week leading up to International Women’s Day, Catholic women gathered near the Vatican and online to promote female leadership in the Catholic Church, demanding equality and visibility while urging the institution to set its fears about change aside.

“It’s so important that the Catholic Church be engaged in this issue, not just internally, but also externally given the contribution they make in the education sphere and the health care sphere,” Chiara Porro, Australia’s ambassador to the Holy See, told Religion News Service on Wednesday (March 6).

Acknowledging that in her four years in Rome the Vatican has taken significant steps forward, with high-ranking Vatican positions being filled by women, Porro represents a country that “has a very strong agenda in empowering women and women in leadership,” she said, “including in our own foreign service, which like the Catholic Church has been very male dominated for a very long time.”

She said her female colleagues — the number of women ambassadors to the Vatican has risen to 40 — talk about the issue of women’s influence often. “It’s an incredible group, an informal group, and we come from many different areas of the world. We support each other, we share ideas, we network,” she said.

Pope Francis has supported the trend, she said, meeting with the female ambassadors last year on International Women’s Day.

Chiara Porro. (Photo by Penny Bradfield AUSPIC/DPS)
Chiara Porro.

Porro works closely with the International Union of Superiors General, the leaders of the world’s religious orders, to put a spotlight on the work nuns do, especially in the poorest places in the world. But their focus goes beyond Catholicism. This week, the embassies of Australia, France and the Netherlands, all woman-led, sponsored “Women Sowing Seeds of Peace and Cultivating Encounter,” a conference of Christian,  Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu female faith leaders.

“When we talk about interfaith dialogue, when we talk about religious leaders coming together, we find that a lot of the religions around the world are led by men, so it’s really important to bring female faith leaders together,” Porro said.

On Thursday, women theologians, experts and leaders met for a one-day discussion on female leadership, asking the tough questions facing the Catholic Church on the issue. In her presentation, ordained missionary and theologian Maeve Louise Heaney questioned Catholic theology that attempts to “essentialize” women. “They speak of complementarity and name the contribution of women as essentially different to that of men,” she explained, “pitching love, spirituality and nurturing against authority, leadership and intellect.”

Heaney challenged Catholics to reconsider their idea of God and the Holy Spirit as neither male nor female, quoting her “yoga-loving” niece who prays to “the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And the Mother, the Daughter and the Holy Spirit.”

A 2022 survey of 17,200 women in 104 countries by the international forum Catholic Women Speak found that two-thirds of women in the church support “radical reform,” with 29% saying they will consider leaving the church if women aren’t given more prominence.

In her interview with RNS, Heaney recognized that the church, “like any big ship, moves slowly,” adding, “We don’t have a time frame.” She took encouragement, she said, from Francis’ Synod on Synodality, born from a massive consultation of Catholics on hot-button issues including female empowerment and LGBTQ inclusion, which will hold its second session at the Vatican in October.

Pope Francis poses for a picture with participants of the Synod of Bishops’ 16th General Assembly in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Oct. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Pope Francis poses for a picture with participants of the Synod of Bishops’ 16th General Assembly in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Oct. 23, 2023.

She also supports the discussions underway at the Vatican about allowing women to be ordained as deacons, who can preach at Mass but cannot perform some other priestly functions, such as consecrate Communion or hear confessions.

“I think the people have a right to hear women preaching,” Heaney said. “There are spaces in which the best person to speak on a theme would be a woman. And I think a theological, doctrinal and canon law structure could open spaces for that to happen.”

According to Heaney, there are no theological barriers to ordaining women as deacons, nor would women deacons present any difficulty in terms of the church’s organization. What stands in the way, she said, is the fear that allowing women deacons would bring women closer to the altar, the priests’ dominion.

“Fear is a bad adviser,” she said. “What if we gave the church that? What if we allowed spaces for women to preach? Under the authority of the bishop, in collaboration with the parish priest, with the proper formation like all the rest of the ministry. You might find that the issue of priesthood changes in color if we have different kinds of leadership.”

While theologians push the envelope on female leadership, women who have climbed up the Vatican administration have learned to have patience about penetrating the male-dominated bureaucracy.

“It’s a long process that has to be continued,” said Sister Nathalie Becquart, the first female secretary of the Vatican’s Synod office and a leading figure in the pope’s synodal process. “They will need more time,” Becquart said, while teasing that the Vatican might soon announce a new development on this front.

On Thursday, the Catholic charity network Caritas published “Equality, Encounter, Renewal,” a pamphlet urging its 162 affiliated Catholic charities to create spaces for dialogue about women’s leadership. In an introduction, Sister Alessandra Smerilli, the secretary of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, laments that the “systematic social and cultural exclusion of women can also be seen when looking at the face of leadership in the world today.”

Francis, meanwhile, continues to use language that reinforces the role of women as mothers and caregivers. Speaking to organizers of the conference “Women in the Church: Builders of humanity,” taking place in Rome this week to recognize the contributions of 10 female saints, the pope said “the church is female” and women have a “unique capacity for compassion” that allows them “to bring love where love is lacking, and humanity where human beings are searching to find their true identity.”

But some women in Rome this week said that Catholic theology can often emphasize too much women’s natural inclinations, which it sees as reflecting the relationship that Christ has with his church. The women asked how this view affects the roles men and women occupy in the church.

Heaney said: “It is not easy to broaden our understanding of the One who brought us to life, as no one image will work. But we owe it to the future generations.”

Complete Article HERE!

‘Rainbow Catholics’

— Mexican church welcomes LGBTQ community

Regina, who identifies as non-binary, speaks at the Sagrada Familia church in Mexico City before a mass that promotes the inclusion of the LGBTQ community

As a teenager, Victor Rodriguez felt excluded from his religion for being gay, but now he’s welcome at inclusive masses in a Mexico City church, where same-sex couples have also begun receiving blessings with the pope’s endorsement.

Speaking during the sermon, the 39-year-old said that when he was younger he was pressured to leave the seminary because of his homosexuality.

Accompanied by his husband, he asked the congregation to pray for people who reject them: “For the priest who took me out of the church for being the way I am.”

The inclusive masses at the majestic Sagrada Familia in Mexico City’s Roma district have taken on added significance following the Catholic Church’s approval in December of blessings for same-sex couples.

The following month, the first two such blessings were given in the Sagrada Familia after the inclusive mass.

“It was a miracle from God. We’re very Catholic. I never thought that a church would accept me with my partner, my sexuality,” said Arturo Manjarrez, accompanied by his husband Carlos Sanchez.

Mexico City approved same-sex marriage in 2010, becoming a pioneer in Latin America.

Twelve years later the Supreme Court legalized it throughout the Catholic-majority country.

Jesuit priest Gonzalo Rosas has worked with the LGBTQ community for more than a decade, officiating a monthly inclusive service at the Sagrada Familia that is now replicated in three churches in the capital.

Victor Rodriguez says he felt excluded from the church as a teenager for being gay, but is now welcomed at inclusive masses in Mexico City
Victor Rodriguez says he felt excluded from the church as a teenager for being gay, but is now welcomed at inclusive masses in Mexico City

When he arrived at the church in 2013, he “found a lot of sexual diversity,” said the 68-year-old priest, who uses inclusive language in his sermons.

“I looked for organizations, young people to talk to. They told me ‘father, the church excludes us’ … I invited them to see what path we could take together and the idea of a mass arose,” he said.

Reconciliation with church

There was already a choir made up of young members of the LGBTQ community who had left the seminary and used to meet to pray in a house, said choir director Eduardo Andrade.

Jesuit priest Gonzalo Rosas holds a regular mass in Mexico City welcoming the LGBTQ community into the Catholic church
Jesuit priest Gonzalo Rosas holds a regular mass in Mexico City welcoming the LGBTQ community into the Catholic church

After the arrival of Father Gonzalo, the choir felt able to be more open about its members’ sexual orientation, said Andrade, an activist with Colectivo Teresa, a theological organization aimed at LGBTQ people.

Wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the word “blessed” in rainbow colors — a symbol of LGBTQ pride — he described the inclusive mass as a “unique” experience in Latin America because of their frequency and openness.

Some parishioners, however, were uncomfortable and distanced themselves, said Andrade, a member of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics, which works for the inclusion of the LGBTQ community in the Roman Catholic Church.

Father Gonzalo recalled that his superiors authorized inclusive events on the condition that they did not become politicized.

The choir’s members include Regina, a teacher who identifies as non-binary and remembers attending the mass for the first time dressed more like a straight person.

“They said to me, ‘where’s the outfit, where’s the makeup?’ And when I entered, I saw that it was totally different. I reconciled with the Church,” Regina said, wearing makeup and holding a fan.

‘All human beings’

But change is now in the air.

In December, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, its department for Roman Catholic doctrine, said priests could bless “irregular” and same-sex couples under certain circumstances.

Wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the word "blessed" in rainbow colors, LGBTQ activist Eduardo Andrade leads a choir practice in Mexico City
Wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the word “blessed” in rainbow colors, LGBTQ activist Eduardo Andrade leads a choir practice in Mexico City

Priests can only perform blessings for same-sex couples, divorcees, or unmarried couples in “non-ritualized” contexts, and never in relation to weddings or civil unions.

A third of Mexico’s 32 states accept adoption by same-sex couples, and Father Gonzalo says he has baptized a couple of babies with two mothers.

Andrade acknowledged that for some members of the LGBTQ community the blessings authorized by Pope Francis did not go far enough.

But “it’s better to take a small but safe step,” he said.

In a neighboring district, Vincent Schwahn, a retired Anglican priest from the United States whose husband is Mexican, welcomed one step “in 2,000 years of homophobia.”

But he criticized the restrictions on same-sex blessings, which he described as “like blessing a car,” and said that “all parishes must be inclusive.”

Although the majority of the attendees at the inclusive mass are members of the LGBTQ community or their friends and family, others were also participating for the first time.

“This is what we have to learn — we’re all human beings. We all have to respect each other,” said 77-year-old Irma Juarez.

Complete Article HERE!

Reckoning

— An NBC Bay Area investigation into a new wave of lawsuits accusing Catholic clergy of sexually abusing children

by Candice Nguyen, Michael Bott and Alex Bozovic

The Catholic church is once again being buried in child sex abuse accusations across California. More than 4,000 people are suing Catholic institutions across the state, enabled by a recent law that opened a window for survivors to sue their alleged abusers, no matter how far back their accusations go. Hundreds of Northern California priests are being accused for the first time, including some still working in churches and schools today. NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit dug through the new claims, which suggest the decades-long scandal could go far deeper than the public previously knew.

This page is the culmination of more than four years of reporting by NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit. You’ll find profiles on abuse victims we’ve interviewed over the years, responses to the new allegations from local bishops, and links to the stories we’ve published along the way.


RESPONSE FROM THE CHURCH

Archdiocese of San Francisco:

Diocese of Oakland:

Diocese of Santa Rosa:

Diocese of San Jose:

THE ACCUSERS

More than 1,500 people have sued the Catholic church in Northern California since 2020. A similar flood of lawsuits hit the church two decades ago. We’ve interviewed more than a dozen alleged victims, some who came forward long ago, and others now speaking out for the very first time. Here are some of their stories.

Resources for victims and survivors

If a child is currently in danger, call 9-1-1 or Child Protective Services.

To report past abuse, call your local police department.

The California Attorney General’s Office is conducting an ongoing investigation into accusations of Catholic clergy abuse. Report to the California Attorney General’s Office: ClergyAbuse@doj.ca.gov.

Reach out to advocates with the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (additional resources).

Feminist theologians express frustration, hopes for October’s synodal assembly

— The four presenters at a February 29th presentation at Santa Clara University include advocates of radical feminism, women deacons and priests, abortion, and “LGBTQ” concerns.

Synod on Synodality delegates seated at discussion tables inside Paul VI Hall at the Vatican in October 2023

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Doubling down on the call from Pope Francis at the opening of the Synod of Bishops last Fall to resist “doctrinal rigidity,” four feminist theologians were invited to the Markey Center at Santa Clara University on February 29th to participate in their own conversation, titled “Women Speak on the Synod: a Conversation on Ministry, History, Culture and Practice”.

Committed to discussing—yet again—the possibility of an expanded role for women in ministry in the Church, the theologians gave presentations to a sparsely attended gathering of fewer than 20 individuals, emphasizing Pope Francis’s invitation to “embrace a vision of the Church that is open and welcoming to all.” All four of the presenters at the Santa Clara Synod were indeed “open and welcoming” to many ideas—including some that are counter to the teachings of the Church.

The first presenter, Elyse Rabey, PhD, an Assistant Professor of Theology at Santa Clara University, set the stage by providing what she described as the history of synodality in the Church, stating that “Pope Francis is reviving an ancient form of governance and reimagining it at the same time…making it quite new.” Lauding the fact that Pope Francis invited lay women and laymen to have full voice and vote in these meetings, Rabey reminded the audience that Pope Francis has stressed that synodality is about more than synods. Rather, synodality is about a “Church that is always reforming.”

Rabey, whose curriculum vita states that she has published “on the possibility of women deacons in the Catholic Church”, has also published on “also published on intersex embodiment and theology of creation in Theology and Sexuality and on Marian symbols and kyriarchal ideology in Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s book Congress of Wo/Men: Religion, Gender, and Kyriarchal Power.” Fiorenza is a noted radical feminist theologian who has argued that St. Paul was misogynistic, supported the ordination of women to the priesthood, and worked to change the Church’s teaching on abortion.

The second presenter, Rachel Bundang, PhD, expressed her disappointment with the Synod: “I expected more from the process…I felt left behind…as a working theologian, educator and minister. I hoped it would feel more personal. But the process was exclusionary, opaque, and disappointing. I feel left behind…it has left me at a distance.” Sharing her sadness that a neighboring parish was “phasing out female altar servers,” Bundang, who describes herself on the Catholic Women Preach website as a “feminist ethicist,” “preaches” regularly at her home parish in the Bay Area.

Part of the explanation for the disappointment expressed in various ways by the four theologians is that their expectations for change through the Synod were so high. Believing that the Synod would move the Church to change her teachings on women’s role in ordained ministry, on reproductive rights, and “GLBTQ” issues, it is not surprising that these women would be disappointed with the outcome of the Synod so far. Each of these women had their own goals for the Synod and all seemed to be disappointed that these goals were not met.

For example, the third speaker, Elsie Miranda, D. Min, describes herself as a Cuban-American Practical theologian whose academic interests lie at the intersection of Catholic Ethics, Pastoral Formation for Ministry, and Liberative Theologies, particularly among U.S. Hispanic/Latinx and LGBTQ Catholic communities. Miranda is affiliated with New Ways Ministry, the Catholic LGBTQ outreach ministry that the late Pope Benedict XVI described as holding positions “regarding the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts and the objective disorder of the homosexual inclination are doctrinally unacceptable because they do not faithfully covey the clear and constant teaching of the Catholic Church.” Founded in 1977, by Sister Jeannine Gramick and Fr. Robert Nugent, who were both the subject of a notification by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1999, New Ways Ministry appears to have found new acceptance under the current papal regime. On October 17th, Pope Francis received Gramick at his residence in Rome, in a meeting that was described by James Martin, SJ, as a “significant step forward in the church’s outreach to LGBTQ Catholics.”

Beyond support for views contrary to Church teachings on GLBTQ issues, Miranda has spoken out in favor of a woman’s right to choose abortion. Railing against the Dobbs decision in an essay published recently, Miranda made the preposterous claim that “the implications of denying women access to medical procedures that would terminate a pregnancy in the case of rape or incest or in order to save a mother’s life in the case of ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage are inconsistent with a right to life ethic.”

Miranda is not alone on the Santa Clara panel in her views supporting access to abortion. She was joined by self-described “womanist” theologian C. Vanessa White, who told the audience that she “has spent two-thirds of my life engaged in ministry in the Church.” Like Miranda, White has been a public supporter of “reproductive justice” for women. One of several signers of the Faith in Public Life open statement on “reclaiming public debate about abortion and reproductive justice,” White has played an important role in the conversations leading up to the Vatican Synod.

Chosen to participate in the Continental Stage of the Synod by Chicago’s Cardinal Cupich—despite her public support for abortion—White also participated in the theologians’ section of the Synod through the Catholic Theological Society of America. White, who currently serves as an Associate Professor of Spirituality and Ministry at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and Director of the Certificate in Black Theology and Ministry, has also supported New Ways Ministry’s public statements on GLBTQ rights within the Church by signing an LGBTQ non-discrimination statement which decried Catholic Church’s opposition to the Equality Act—an Act that would force Catholic institutions to adhere to government mandates on non-discrimination against LGBTQ teachers, priests, and other employees in Church-related schools and parishes.

While the feminist panel lamented the lack of progress in the Church in implementing their desired outcomes surrounding women in ministry, “reproductive rights,” and LGBTQ issues, all were looking forward to the upcoming Synod in October, 2024, claiming that their voices will finally be heard and validated.

Whether that is true remains to be seen. On one hand, their views are quite common in numerous Catholic colleges and universities across the country. On the other hand, those views are quite consistent with those expressed in Germany via the “Synodal Way,” which has been publicly rebuked by Pope Francis. But they are certainly representative of the ongoing, progressive lobbying for dramatic change in the Church, which will continue to exert influence on the Synod on Synodality assembly, meeting in Rome in October.

Complete Article HERE!