Rome sets red lines for talks with German bishops

— The Vatican has told German bishops that women priests and Church teaching on homosexual acts are not up for discussion in talks scheduled for next year.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

By Luke Coppen

Rome set out its red lines in an Oct. 23 note to Beate Gilles, the general secretary of the German bishops’ conference. A conference spokesman confirmed that the bishops had received the message — reportedly sent by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin — during a meeting of their permanent council at the start of this week.

The three-page Vatican document, published Nov. 24 by the weekly Catholic newspaper Die Tagespost, addressed discussions between German bishops and curial officials that are expected to take place in January, April, and June 2024.

The talks — which will focus on resolutions issued by Germany’s contentious “synodal way” — are due to involve the Vatican’s dicasteries for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Promotion of Christian Unity, Bishops, Divine Worship, and Legislative Texts.

The note’s publication follows the release of a Nov. 10 letter in which Pope Francis said he shared concerns that elements in the German Church are taking steps “to steer it increasingly away from the universal Church’s common path.”

The pope was referring to the decisions of the synodal way, an initiative that brought together the country’s bishops and select lay people at five “synodal assemblies” between 2020 and 2023.

Participants endorsed texts calling for women deacons, a re-examination of priestly celibacy, lay preaching at Masses, same-sex blessings, and a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on homosexuality.

The note from the Vatican’s Secretariat of State said that not all of the issues raised by the German initiative could “be placed on the same level.”

“Some of them have aspects that cannot be put up for discussion, but also aspects that can be subjected to joint in-depth discussion,” it explained, according to an English translation published by the website Rorate Caeli.

The note said that two topics where “there is no possibility of arriving at a different assessment” were the teachings that priestly ordination is reserved to men and the Church’s negative judgment on homosexual acts.

The document provided an extensive explanation of the Church’s teaching on priestly ordination, beginning with Pope John Paul II’s 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, which declared that “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”

The note also cited statements by Pope Francis reiterating the teaching and 2021 norms on delicts reserved to the Vatican’s doctrine office, which set out punishments for “attempts to confer sacred ordination on a woman.”

The document said that “although today this issue must be considered closed throughout the Church,” Pope Francis had encouraged Church leaders “to find other ways to favor greater participation of women” in his 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium.

In September 2022, synodal way participants — including bishops — passed a resolution that said: “The doctrine of Ordinatio sacerdotalis is not accepted and understood by the people of God in large parts. Therefore, the question must be addressed to the highest authority in the Church (Pope and Council) whether the teaching of Ordinatio sacerdotalis should be reviewed.”

The Vatican note described homosexual acts as “another issue on which a local Church has no possibility of taking a different view.”

“For even if one recognizes that from a subjective point of view there may be various factors that call us not to judge people, this in no way changes the evaluation of the objective morality of these acts,” the note said.

It cited a 2001 notification by the Vatican doctrine office, which said that in Catholic doctrine, “there is a precise and well-founded evaluation of the objective morality of sexual relations between persons of the same sex” and “the degree of subjective moral culpability in individual cases is not the issue here.”

Synodal way participants endorsed a resolution in September 2022 calling on the pope to engage in “a re-evaluation of homosexuality in the Magisterium.” It said that sexual acts between people of the same sex should not be considered “a sin that separates a person from God” or “be judged as bad in itself.”

The resolution also called for the revision of passages in the Catechism of the Catholic Church addressing homosexuality, including paragraph 2357, which says that “under no circumstances” can homosexual acts be approved.

This is not the first time that the Vatican has stressed the Church’s teaching on women priests in its interactions with the German bishops.

The topic was raised at a Nov. 18, 2022, meeting between the bishops and three senior Vatican cardinals during the bishops’ ad limina visit to Rome.

Quoting from Ordinatio sacerdotalis, the Vatican’s then doctrinal prefect Cardinal Luis Ladaria said: “The decisive point in this regard is not that women in the Catholic Church cannot access priestly ordination; the point is that one must accept the truth that ‘the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women.’”

The call for a re-evaluation of Church teaching on homosexuality was also mentioned at the meeting, by the then bishops’ dicastery prefect Cardinal Marc Ouellet. He included it in a list of items that he described as “the agenda of a limited group of theologians from a few decades ago” that had “suddenly became the majority proposal of the German episcopate.”

During the ad limina visit, Vatican officials and German bishops agreed to continue their dialogue over the synodal way’s resolutions.

In January this year, Ladaria, Ouellet, and Parolin informed the German bishops that they had no authority to enact a resolution calling for a permanent “synodal council” of lay people and bishops with governing powers over the Church in Germany.

Representatives of the German bishops met with the heads of Vatican dicasteries in July, shortly after the synodal way formally ended.

In October, German delegates at the synod on synodality met with curial officials, along with bishops’ conference general secretary Beate Gilles.

A committee of lay people and bishops designed to implement the synodal way’s decisions held its inaugural meeting Nov. 10-11. The “synodal committee” will pave the way for the creation of the synodal council in 2026, despite the Vatican’s veto.

Archbishop Nikola Eterović, the apostolic nuncio to Germany, had a private audience Pope Francis Nov. 13. It is not known what they discussed.

Thomas Söding, the vice-president of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), which co-sponsored the synodal way with Germany’s bishops, questioned the designation of issues as non-negotiable.

“It’s not about negotiating. It’s about the question of whether you face up to the problems that exist in the Catholic Church,” he said Nov. 24.

He suggested that women priests should be discussed, “and we will then see the result.”

Regarding homosexuality, he noted that the synthesis report endorsed by the synod on synodality’s delegates in October said that sometimes the “anthropological categories” developed within the Church “are not able to grasp the complexity of the elements emerging from experience or knowledge in the sciences and require greater precision and further study.”

The Vatican’s note also referred to the synod on synodality, which will continue in Rome in October 2024.

“In view of the course of the German synodal journey so far, it must first be borne in mind that a universal synodal journey is currently taking place, convened by the Holy Father,” it said.

“It is therefore necessary to respect this path of the universal Church and to avoid the impression that parallel initiatives are underway that are indifferent to the endeavor to ‘journey together.’”

Complete Article HERE!

‘Excuse me, Your Eminence, she has not finished speaking’

— Francis’ opening to women in church management is promising. Getting women into the sacristy is trickier.

Participants of the 16th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops attend a daily session with Pope Francis, not shown, in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Oct. 16, 2023.

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Without doubt, the best line to emanate from the Synod on Synoldality is “Excuse me, Your Eminence, she has not finished speaking.”

That sums up the synod and the state of the Catholic Church’s attitude toward change.

In October, hundreds of bishops, joined by lay men and women, priests, deacons, religious sisters and brothers met for nearly a month in Rome for the Synod on Synodality. At its end, the synod released a synthesis report brimming with the hope and the promise that the church would be a more listening church.

Some 54 women voted at the synod. Back home, women are still ignored.

Why?

It is not because women quote the Second Vatican Council at parish council meetings. It is because too many bishops and pastors ignore parish councils.

It is not because women of the world do not write to their pastors and bishops. It is because without large checks, their letters are ignored.

The Synod on Synodality was groundbreaking in part because it was more about learning to listen. It was more about the process than about results. Its aim was to get the whole church on board with a new way of relating, of having “conversations in the Spirit,” where listening and prayer feed discernment and decision-making.

Even now, the project faces roadblocks. At their November meeting this week in Baltimore, U.S. bishops heard presentations by Brownsville, Texas, Bishop Daniel Flores, who has led the two-year national synod process so far. His brother bishops did not look interested.

To be fair, some bishops in some dioceses, in the U.S. and other parts of the world, are on board with Pope Francis’ attempt to encourage the church to accept the reforms of Vatican II, to listen to the people of God.

But too many bishops are having none of it.

An individual takes a photo of the 16th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Oct. 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
An individual takes a photo of the 16th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Oct. 9, 2023.

The synod recognized the church’s global infection with narcissistic clericalism. It said fine things about women in leadership and the care of other marginalized people. Yet the synod remains a secret in many places. Its good words don’t reach the people in the pews.

Ask about synodality in any parish, and you might hear “Oh, we don’t do that here.” You are equally likely to hear “When I” sermons (“When I was in seminary,” “When I was in another parish”), and not about the Gospel.

Folks who were excited by Francis’ openness and pastoral message just shake their heads.

The women who want to contribute, who want to belong, are more than dispirited. They have had it. And they are no longer walking toward the door — they are running, bringing their husbands, children and checkbooks with them.

In the Diocese of Brooklyn, it was recently discovered that Mass attendance had dropped 40% since 2017. It is the same in too many places. The reason the church is wobbling is not a lack of piety. It is because women are ignored. Their complaints only reach as far as the storied circular file.

What do women complain about? Bad sermons, as discussed. Autocratic pastors. And the big one: pederasty. If truth be told, women do not trust unmarried men with their children. Worldwide, in diocese after diocese, new revelations continue. Still.

Many bishops and pastors understand this. Francis certainly does, but he is constrained by clerics who dig their heels into a past many of them never knew. More and more young (and older) priests pine for the 1950s, when priests wore lace and women knew their place. That imagining does not include synodality.

Will the synod effort work? Francis’ opening to women in church management is promising. Where women are in the chancery, there is more opportunity for women’s voices to be heard. No doubt, a few more women there could help.

Getting women into the sacristy is trickier.

While it seems most synod members agreed about restoring women to the ordained diaconate as a recognition of the baptismal equality of all, some stalwarts argued it was against Tradition. Still others saw the specter of a “Western gender ideology” seeking to confuse the roles of men and women.

So, they asked for a review of the research. Again.

Women know the obvious: Women were ordained as deacons. There will never be complete agreement on the facts of history, anthropology and theology. Women have said this over and over.

If there is absolute evidence that women cannot be restored to the ordained diaconate, it should be presented, and a decision made.

The women have finished speaking about it.

Complete Article HERE!

Church of England backs plans for trial blessings of same-sex weddings

— General Synod’s narrow vote in favour means services to celebrate gay marriages could be held within weeks

Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, backed the amendment to offer blessings to same-sex weddings on a trial period.

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Dedicated church services to bless the weddings of same-sex couples could be held within weeks, after a narrow vote at the Church of England ruling body.

The General Synod backed a plan to hold standalone services of blessings for same-sex couples on a trial basis.

It means that gay Christians will be able to invite family and friends to a special service, which could be held on Saturdays, to bless and celebrate their weddings. Music, readings, confetti and other features would mean such services could look very similar to a standard church wedding.

The proposal for standalone services on a trial basis came in an amendment to a motion that noted progress made by bishops on the divisive issues of sexuality, known within the C of E as Living in Love and Faith. The amendment scraped through by one vote; the amended motion passed by 227 votes to 203.

Steven Croft, the bishop of Oxford, who proposed the amendment, said the “experimental” standalone services would be voluntary and no member of the clergy would be obliged to offer such services.

Last month, bishops agreed to commend special prayers of blessing for same-sex couples for use in existing church services. These are likely to begin before Christmas.

Bishops also agreed last month to begin a two-year process of authorising special standalone services under canon law.

The proposal for trial standalone services means they can begin at the same time as the process of permanent authorisation is under way.

In a joint statement, Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, and Stephen Cottrell, the archbishop of York – who backed the amendment, said: “We have heard loud and clear, through an extensive debate over two days, the depth of feeling across the church on these hugely important questions.

“While this motion was passed, narrowly, we do not underestimate the depth of feeling and will reflect on all that we have heard as we seek to move forward together.”

Sarah Mullally, the bishop of London and co-chair of the Living in Love and Faith steering group, said: “The truth is – and as we have seen again today – that the Church of England is not of one mind on questions of sexuality and marriage.”

Bishops would now “consider how best to implement” the synod’s decision, she added.

Jayne Ozanne, a campaigner for equal marriage within the C of E, said the decision offered “tiny scraps of hope to LGBT+ people”.

She added: “The C of E remains deeply homophobic, whatever bishops and archbishops may say. I fear that much of the nation will judge the C of E as being abusive, hypocritical and unloving – they are, sadly, correct.”

Daniel Matovu, a barrister and a lay member of the synod, told members that the proposal was “contrary to and wholly inconsistent with God’s word”. He said the Bible made it clear that a male who sleeps with another male cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.

The synod voted against a series of amendments seen by pro-LGBTQ+ campaigners as seeking further delay on the C of E’s glacial moves towards marriage equality. The church has been trying to avoid a split between progressives and traditionalists on the issues for more than 20 years.

Complete Article HERE!

The Catholic Synod Offers Little Hope for Real Change in the Church

The synod session included some laypeople, including women, but all final decision-making is in the hands of Pope Francis.

By Mary E. Hunt

The Roman Catholic Church made history this year by allowing women to vote in a synod for the first time in 2,000 years. This “victory” was dubious, as the voting was on a consensus document that did not advance anything and even managed to backburner several important issues, like LGBTIQ+ inclusion, that figured in the reports leading up to the meeting.

At a conference of progressive Catholics held in Rome at the same time, former president of Ireland Mary McAleese observed: “Equality is a right, not a favor. The women attending the Synod on Synodality are there as a favor, not as a right.” From a feminist perspective, this synod portends little change in the near term, which in Catholic years is a century or more. Given the Roman Catholic Church’s track record on women in my 50 years of paying attention, high expectations were naïve at best. It is hard to think of another global institution that still prohibits by law qualified women from certain jobs, as in the case of Roman Catholic priesthood.

The synod, a Greek-inspired word for “walking together,” has roots in early Christian church practices that were revived by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). A synod refers to the gathering, until now, of bishops who develop proposals for the pope to consider. Adding lay people who can vote is the novelty here, but it does not change the advisory nature of the outcome and the hierarchical, pope-topped structure. Pope Francis initiated the current synod in 2021 with local, regional, and continental gatherings culminating in two international sessions in Rome, this year and next.

Blowback against the process was swift and stern by conservatives, who rightly discern that widespread demands by progressives for change are in the air. Some local bishops ignored the expectation that they lead their dioceses in participating in the synodal process. Nonetheless, the unquestioned assumption that a tiny cohort of bishops (there are more than 1.3 billion Catholics in the world and only 5,500 bishops) could or should make decisions for an institution with global reach will be hard to enforce now that a more inclusive model has been tried.

Catholic market share is dropping like a stone in the West, especially in Europe, though it is growing in Africa. Catholicism remains the largest single denomination in the US, but former Catholics now comprise the second largest group.

The Vatican had to do something. A synod with a small percentage of non-bishops gave the appearance of change without changing any structures, teachings, or laws. A future pope can act as if it never happened. Those who attended had a powerful experience. Some reported new friendships, the obligation to talk with people with whom they disagree, an experience of listening as much as talking, some spiritual deepening. But the rest of the Catholic community is largely uninformed about and unmoved by the synodal effort.

Catholic problems are due in large part to the worldwide scandal of clergy sexual abuse that many bishops have covered up for decades. The credibility of the church continues to tank as the institution refuses to recognize the equality of women. Failure to share decision-making, to ordain women to the priesthood from which the right to jurisdiction stems, and the rejection of women’s right to reproductive justice chase people out the doors. Theological teaching against LGBTIQ+ persons (same-sex activity is considered “morally disordered”) and pastoral rejection of queer people (the sacrament of marriage is limited to heterosexual couples) are integral parts of traditional patriarchal Catholicism despite (or perhaps also because of) a large number of closeted gay clergy.

Pope Francis is perceived as relatively open to and even welcoming of LGBTIQ+ people. His recent tentative consideration of maybe, someday far away, blessing same-sex couples was lauded by people who took it at face value. But on closer inspection, it was mired in hopelessly heterosexist norms which could be deviated from only in the most limited of circumstances for reasons of pastoral “prudence” and “charity.” Many self-respecting queer Catholics would sooner line up with the gerbils and cats for a blessing on the feast of St. Francis than beg such an offensive blessing.

Some Catholic-identified but not churchgoing Catholics claim and reshape their spiritual heritage while distancing from the institution. Groups like Catholics for Choice, the LGBTIQ+ organization DignityUSA, and the various Roman Catholic women priest groups are people who, despite many being officially considered excommunicated, claim that their Catholic faith inspires their social activism, which includes calling the institutional church to account. Women voting in a synod is quite a tame little step given the expectations such movements engender. When progressive Catholics work with secular groups and other religious movements for justice, they function as a powerful counterwitness to the institution’s damaging antiwomen, antisex stands, and they take many people with them.

The first synodal vote by women took place at an oddly titled event: “XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops First Session” in October 4-9, 2023, in Rome. Odd but telling. Instead of the usual gathering of bishops (only men can be ordained in the Roman Catholic Church, hence all Catholic bishops are men), this time the group of 464 people included about 20% lay women and men. Nuns, sometimes mistakenly considered to be clergy, are in fact all lay because they are women. Of the participants, 365 were eligible to vote, including about three dozen women. The rest were theological consultants, facilitators, and staff. Still, the Vatican could not concede the obvious and drop the word ‘bishops’ from the title, a sign that not much would change—and it didn’t.

The monthlong synod session in Rome displayed the symbolic and liturgical trappings of Catholicism with clergy dressed up in vestments and cassocks to reinforce clerical hegemony. The synodal process, for all its claims to inclusion, dialogue, and discernment, had the fatal flaw of still leaving all final decision-making in the hands of the pope. Francis made abundantly clear that a synod is not intended to resemble, even remotely, a democratic or parliamentary model of governance. It is not meant to make rules or change teachings. It is advisory at best.

The pope put a lid on the meeting. He insisted that the doors be closed, that discussion and debates not be shared beyond the walls. Periodic press conferences were tightly scripted. Even seasoned members of the press complained bitterly about the lack of transparency, though they understood that the safety and well-being of some participants would be in jeopardy in their home settings if they were known to have held controversial views. The biggest innovation of this meeting was that participants sat at round tables and used computers. That was touted, pitifully, as if the whole crowd had just left the 19th century in their dust. Otherwise, this synod was like previous ones but with a smattering of lay people included.

Efforts to claim the pure, sacred, even mystical nature of this all too human meeting were in vain. People leaked information strategically on background, as is common. The Vatican played politics and the media with the best of them. Just as the gathering got underway, Pope Francis published Laudate Deum (2023), a short update to his popular encyclical Laudato Si’(2015) on the environmental crisis. Would that issues of women and queer people were discussed with the same level of scientific rigor as climate change.

At the same time, he published his responses to his harshest critics, five cardinals who expressed their “doubts” about his willingness and/or ability to avoid giving away the store when lay people were at the table. They worried about how solid he was on keeping bishops in charge, keeping women out of the priesthood, keeping queer people from receiving blessings, and other such gatekeeping functions that they expected him to fulfill. His jesuitical responses seemed to satisfy no one, but served as a reminder of who is in charge.

The “Synthesis Report,” which was voted on by the assembled, fulfilled the low expectations of synod skeptics like me. While it claimed to convey the major issues discussed, there is no mention of LGBTIQ+ anything. Leaked reports from the floor made clear that homosexuality was the subject of much, not always friendly, discussion. Apparently, a story was told of a young queer woman who killed herself because of church teaching, moving many participants to tears. Yet not even the initials LGBTIQ+ merited a mention in the report despite their prominence in the preparatory materials and many synod reports from around the world. Backsliding in the face of opposition is not surprising, but complete ghosting (other than two cryptic mentions of sexuality) suggests the pathological fear that grips some church officials at the mere mention of the truth of many lives, including some of their own.

The lightning rod that is the priestly ordination of Catholic women was studiously avoided in the document. Ordination of women to the diaconate seems to be gaining traction. This makes a perverse kind of sense in that the model of diaconate is basically service-oriented and without decision-making power, a recipe for a woman’s job in patriarchy. The Vatican succeeded in having women participate fully in a process that was not, finally, in their best interest. No wonder the Catholic Church has endured for two millennia.

Many progressive groups went to Rome to meet outside the walls to make their cases for women’s ordination, queer rights, reproductive justice, justice for abuse survivors, and more. They presented another face of Catholicism, and gained great momentum from being together and clarifying the contradictions of the institution. But even they were swept up in the centripetal force that is 2,000 patriarchal years old and not about to yield much. The synod process managed to recenter Rome as the place of pyramidal power. Very clever.

The Synod Assembly will meet in Rome again next year. Barring a miracle, it will be more of the same slow-walking, spiritualized, status quo tolerating of teachings and practices that emanate from a structure that has long outlived its usefulness and that degrades its own message of love and justice. Let the buyers beware.

Complete Article HERE!

Two Illinois Parishes Live on Either Side of a Catholic Divide

— As the pope and church leaders meet in Rome to discuss the Roman Catholic Church’s future, they face a chasm between conservatives and progressives in the pews.

An exterior statue of Jesus Christ, right, reflected in glass near a prayer niche, left, at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Libertyville, Ill.

By Ruth Graham< When the Rev. John Trout heard that Pope Francis wanted feedback from parishes before a major Vatican gathering this month on the church’s future, he decided that his suburban Chicago congregation would go all in.

St. Joseph Catholic Church hung banners about the meeting, distributed surveys, and invited an expert from Loyola University Chicago to speak to parishioners. The parish hosted sessions in person and on Zoom to discuss questions offered as prompts by the Vatican: What are your hopes and dreams for the Roman Catholic Church? What about the church breaks your heart?

Less than an hour south of St. Joe’s, the Rev. Anthony Buś of St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish in Chicago said he viewed the gathering in Rome not as an opportunity but as a potential threat, or at the very least an irrelevance.

“Our voices are not going to be heard in the halls of the Vatican,” he said. “It’s ‘dialogue,’ but only if you toe the party line.”

Father Buś has barely mentioned the synod to his parishioners, and he said that few people at St. Stan’s filled out the archdiocese’s open survey about the meeting.

The Synod on Synodality, the sprawling meeting in Rome, has become a flashpoint among different factions of the church’s leadership. Women and laypeople are participating in the meeting for the first time. Attendees have a broad mandate to discuss the future of the church, including ordaining women as deacons and outreach to L.G.B.T.Q. people.

Relatively progressive leaders, including those appointed by Pope Francis, see the synod as a hopeful moment that could lead to much-needed changes. Conservatives fear that the meeting will decay church standards and unleash chaos. They have compared it to Pandora’s box, and warn that it could cause a schism.

Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago, a close ally of Pope Francis, is among the 14 American bishops attending the meeting. He strongly encouraged his parishes to contribute their thoughts. But in a moment when the American church is especially polarized at the top, the synod is also laying bare the divide in the pews, and the scale of the challenge facing the pope.

Men and women standing and kneeling in wooden pews.
Some women at St. Stan’s wear veils during Mass

A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Chicago said in a statement that the archdiocese’s synod process “was a meticulous and impartial effort to collect and report on the thoughts of its clergy, religious and faithful.” She said the archdiocese’s report to the Vatican was “an honest reflection of their contributions.”

St. Stan’s and St. Joe’s both belong to the archdiocese, the nation’s third-largest. But their spiritual emphases and even their aesthetic sensibilities are worlds apart: St. Stan’s adheres strictly to tradition, with an emphasis on confession; St. Joe’s has embraced Francis’ emphasis on environmental causes and adapting to the changing world.

St. Joe’s 1960s-era sanctuary, with curved pews arranged around a simple altar, was inspired by the Second Vatican Council’s emphasis on the church as the “people of God.” “You don’t have a church if you don’t have people,” Father Trout likes to say. He has celebrated Mass in parishioners’ backyards, at a local park, and at drive-in services in the church parking lot. The parish is active on social media and has been experimenting lately with contemporary music and podcasting. One of its four confessionals was recently turned into a snug production studio for streaming services online.

A priest faces a parking lot of cars.
The Rev. Martin Luboyera celebrated a drive-in Mass at St. Joe’s in mid-October. The parish started offering drive-in Masses during the Covid pandemic.

St. Joe’s fall parish calendar includes a solar-panel workshop and a screening of a documentary about the pope’s environmental encyclical, as well as an anti-abortion prayer event and community volunteer opportunities. “We’re a big tent, and the sides are open,” Father Trout said.

Kathleen O’Connor, who was raised in the parish and has served on its leadership council, said, “Our role is just to love each other where we’re at.”

In the city, St. Stan’s, built in the 1880s, features an imposing gilded altar and a spectacular monstrance — a vessel that holds a consecrated eucharistic host for veneration — that the parish says is the largest in the world. The church is open 24 hours a day.

The Kennedy Expressway, one of the major highways connecting Chicago with its suburbs, was originally planned to cut through St. Stan’s church property. Construction would have required the demolition of the sanctuary. But the parish’s large Polish population protested until the planners relented, and curved the road to barely miss the church complex, with cars speeding by just a few feet from some of the windows. St. Stan’s calls itself “the parish that moved an expressway.”

The highway clash illustrates something deeper about the character of St. Stan’s: It asks the world to bend to it, not the other way around.

“The notion in the popular culture is that we’re going to accommodate the spirit of the world and then they’re going to come in droves,” said Father Buś, who describes himself as a traditional orthodox Catholic. “But it’s just the opposite.”

Young people in particular often turn to the church because they are disturbed or disillusioned by secular culture, he said. The church should stand firm in its doctrines on matters like sexuality and the sacredness of the eucharist, rather than watering down its dogma in hopes of fitting in with the outside world’s values.

A large catholic church with large paintings.
St. Stanislaus Kostka, a 19th-century church in a historically Polish neighborhood of Chicago, offers masses in English, Polish and Spanish.

“When you start compromising on doctrine, you run the risk of pushing people who really believe in the doctrine away,” said Zach Morris, 29, who attended a recent Mass at St. Stan’s and described himself as someone who approaches change with caution.

Father Buś has clashed privately and publicly with Cardinal Cupich, who has reined in traditionalist parishes, especially those that continued to celebrate the traditional Latin Mass that was standard in the church before the Second Vatican Council. Some traditionalists in the archdiocese are wary of speaking publicly about Cardinal Cupich’s leadership, for fear of attracting his attention. When Father Buś requested special permission in 2021 to celebrate the Mass facing East, toward the altar — rather than facing the congregation, which is the style of the newer form — he was denied permission and then disciplined for his public statements on the matter. (The archdiocese did not respond to a request for comment on Father Buś’s characterization of these events.)

Father Buś described his congregation as “the little people” — the faithful who work and worship in near-anonymity, far from the elites in Rome. “The church will survive through these people,” he said, “not through the people that are in the synod, but through the people who are on their knees praying and trying to just navigate through life and take care of their families.”

St. Stan’s is in an historically Polish neighborhood that has gone through several transitions. Father Buś now offers 11 Masses each week, in Polish, Spanish and English. St. Stan’s offers seven hours of open confession time a week, in contrast to many more progressive parishes like St. Joe’s, which typically offers one hour on Saturday mornings and by appointment.

At a Mass on a recent Tuesday evening, Father Buś acknowledged the presence of a reporter from the pulpit, and led a prayer for the participants in the synod in Rome, “that they be deeply infused with the spirit of God, and that the spirit of the world or any Luciferian spirit be eradicated from the halls of the Vatican.”

A large cross near an expressway.
The busy Kennedy Expressway passes close by the grounds of St. Stan’s.

Complete Article HERE!