Tag: Vatican Spring

Posted on

It shouldn’t seem so surprising when the pope says being gay ‘isn’t a crime’

— A Catholic theologian explains

Pope Francis leads the second vespers service at St. Paul’s Basilica on Jan. 25, 2023, in Rome.

By

Once again, Pope Francis has called on Catholics to welcome and accept LGBTQ people.

“Being homosexual isn’t a crime,” the pope said in an interview with The Associated Press on Jan. 24, 2023, adding, “let’s distinguish between a sin and a crime.” He also called for the relaxation of laws around the world that target LGBTQ people.

Francis’ long history of making similar comments in support of LGBTQ people’s dignity, despite the church’s rejection of homosexuality, has provoked plenty of criticism from some Catholics. But I am a public theologian, and part of what interests me about this debate is that Francis’ inclusiveness is not actually radical. His remarks generally correspond to what the church teaches and calls on Catholics to do.

‘Who am I to judge?’

During the first year of Francis’ papacy, when asked about LGBTQ people, he famously replied, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” – setting the tone for what has become a pattern of inclusiveness.

He has given public support more than once to James Martin, a Jesuit priest whose efforts to build bridges between LGBTQ people and the Catholic Church have been a lightning rod for criticism. In remarks captured for a 2020 documentary, Francis expressed support for the legal protections that civil unions can provide for LGBTQ people.

And now come the newest remarks. In his recent interview, the pope said the church should oppose laws that criminalize homosexuality. “We are all children of God, and God loves us as we are and for the strength that each of us fights for our dignity,” he said, though he differentiated between “crimes” and actions that go against church teachings.

Compassion, not doctrinal change

The pope’s support for LGBTQ people’s civil rights does not change Catholic doctrine about marriage or sexuality. The church still teaches – and will certainly go on teaching – that any sexual relationship outside a marriage is wrong, and that marriage is between a man and a woman. It would be a mistake to conclude that Francis is suggesting any change in doctrine.

A crowd of people in jackets look up at a tall cross in front of them.
A rosary march in Warsaw in 2019 ended with a prayer apologizing to God for pride parades in Poland.

Rather, the pattern of his comments has been a way to express what the Catholic Church says about human dignity in response to rapidly changing attitudes toward the LGBTQ community across the past two decades. Francis is calling on Catholics to take note that they should be concerned about justice for all people.

The Catholic Church has condemned discrimination against LGBTQ people for many years, even while it describes homosexual acts as “intrinsically disordered” in its catechism. Nevertheless, some bishops around the world support laws that criminalize homosexuality – which Francis acknowledged, saying they “have to have a process of conversion.”

The “law of love embraces the entire human family and knows no limits,” the Vatican office concerned with social issues said in a 2005 compilation of the church’s social thought.

In 2006, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recognized that LGBTQ people “have been, and often continue to be, objects of scorn, hatred, and even violence.” And expressing care for other human persons – “especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted” by the indifference or oppression of others – represents obligations for all Catholics to embrace.

As the Francis papacy now nears the end of its 10th year, it is becoming more and more common to hear Catholic leaders attempting to make LGBTQ people feel included in the church. Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich has called on pastors to “redouble our efforts to be creative and resilient in finding ways to welcome and encourage all LGBTQ people.” New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan has welcomed LGBTQ groups in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, against the wishes of many New York Catholics.

In this most recent interview, Francis emphasized that being LGBTQ is “a human condition,” calling Catholics to see other people less through the eyes of doctrine and more through the eyes of mercy.

A new ‘political reality’

The rapid change that has happened in prevailing social attitudes about the LGBTQ community in recent decades has been difficult to process for a church that has never reacted quickly. This is especially because the questions those developments raise touch on a gray area where moral teaching intersects with social realities outside the church.

For decades, church leaders have been working to reconcile the church with the modern world, and Francis is stepping in places where other Catholic bishops have already trodden.

In 2018, for example, German bishops reacting to the legalization of gay marriage acknowledged that acceptance of LGBTQ relationships is a new “political reality.”

Two same-sex couples stand in a church.
An LGBTQ couple embraces after a pastoral worker blesses them at a Catholic church in Germany, in defiance of practices approved by Rome.

There are signs that parts of the church are moving even more quickly. Catholics in Germany, in particular, have called for changes to church teaching, including permission for priests to bless same-sex couples and the ordination of married men.

The next chapter

But those actions are outliers. Francis has criticized the German calls for reform as “elitist” and ideological. When it comes to the civil rights of LGBTQ people, the pope is not changing church teaching, but describing it.

I believe the challenge the Vatican faces is to imagine the space that the church can occupy in this new reality, as it has had to do in the face of numerous social and political changes across centuries. But the imperative, as Francis suggests, is to serve justice and to seek justice for all people with mercy above all.

Catholics – including bishops, and even the pope – can think, and are thinking, imaginatively about that challenge.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

LGBTQ voices emerging in Vatican’s synod

by Terry Mattingly

The “Chain of Discipleship” image showed five Catholics celebrating at a church, including a woman in priest’s vestments and a person in a rainbow-letters lettered “pride” shirt who is shouting “We are the young people of the future and the future is now.”

This art from the Philadelphia Catholic Higher Education Synod rocked Catholic social media — especially when it appeared on the Synod of Bishops Facebook page, linked to the ongoing Synod on Synodality that began in 2021.

Catholics at the local, regional and national levels are sending the Vatican input about the church’s future. A North Carolina parish submitted testimony from “Matthew (not his real name),” who had been recognized as his Catholic high school’s most popular teacher. While “hiding his homosexuality,” he married “his partner elsewhere.”

“As a couple, they decide(d) to foster, love and adopt young children internationally,” said this report. “Matthew’s greatest sadness is that he has to hide his sexuality in order to keep his job in a church institution and that he does not feel welcome in the Catholic Church precisely because of his sexuality which he considers God-given, and this despite his attempt to love the poor and destitute through his pro-life decision to adopt.”

Case studies of this kind recently led Belgian bishops to approve a document — “On Pastoral Closeness to Homosexual People” — containing a rite for priests blessing same-sex couples. The bishops appointed a gay layman as inter-diocesan coordinator for LGBTQ care in a land in which 3.6 percent of baptized Catholics attend Mass on an average Sunday.

Meanwhile, it’s important that a Vatican working document includes the term LGBTQ and even LGBTQIA in discussions of topics once considered forbidden, said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, a Catholic gay-rights network pushed aside during the Pope St. John Paul II era.

“The fact that LGBTQ inclusion was raised in this document indicates that this is a topic of global concern, not just the hobby-horse of some Western nations,” he told the press. During New Ways Ministry synod meetings, LGBTQ Catholics showed “their willingness to participate in the life of the church they love so much. … They trusted that Pope Francis truly wanted to hear from them.”

While Catholic progressives have hailed synodality as part of the “Spirit of Vatican II,” Cardinal Gerhard Mueller of Germany, a powerful voice from the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, believes some elements of this process resemble an “occupation of the Catholic Church,” or a “hostile takeover of the Church of Jesus Christ.”

Some synod leaders believe “doctrine is only like a program of a political party” and they can “change it according to their votes,” said the former leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The result is a process resembling the “hermeneutic of the old cultural Protestantism and of the modernism” in which “individual experience” has the same level of authority as the “objective revelation of God,” he told EWTN.

It’s crucial that, under Pope Francis, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2021 said church authorities do not have the power to bless same-sex unions, said Cardinal Francis Arinze, former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

“This is what the Flemish Bishops, and indeed all bishops and priests, should be teaching. They should be blessing, not homosexual couples, but properly married unions of one man and one woman,” said the Nigerian cardinal. “Human beings have no power to change the order established by God the Creator. … This includes calling people to repentance, sacrifice, chastity and perfection.”

The word from Belgian bishops is different — that Catholicism is learning and evolving through contact with modern believers seeking change on marriage, sexuality, divorce and the ordination of women, argued Father Jos Moons, a Jesuit professor at University of Louvain.

“The Flemish Church is repositioning itself,” he argued, writing in La Croix, an independent Catholic newspaper in France. “The bishops opt for warm, pastoral closeness, without judgments, warnings and prohibitions.”

The synod document, he stressed, is “fully Roman Catholic” built on Amoris Laetitia (“the joy of love”), a 256-page document by Pope Francis. “The Flemish bishops emphasize conscience. By this they mean the personal dialogue with God, which forms itself in dialogue with Church teaching, fellow believers, society and one’s own inner self.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

Pope Francis tells LGBTQ+ Catholics to build a church ‘that excludes no one’

— Pope Francis reportedly encouraged an LGBTQ+ Catholic group to build a church “that excludes no one.”

Pope Francis leaves Assisi at the end of Economy of Francis, an international movement of young economists.

By Amelia Hansford

According to L’Avvenire, the pope met with Italian LGBTQ+ Catholic group The Tent of Jonathon in a Wednesday (21 September) conference to discuss the organisation’s plan to build a hospitable church that would cater to LGBTQ+ people.

The group, which was founded in 2018, works with various religious organisations to provide “sanctuaries of welcome and support for LGBT people and for every person affected by discrimination.”

In an effort to convince Pope Francis, organisation members gave him a collection of letters from the parents of LGBTQ+ children who have faced “isolation and suspicious within the Christian community.”

Having urged religious parents to “never condemn your children” in a 26 January address, adding that parents should “not hide behind an attitude of condemnation,” the conferences appeared to convince him as he told the organisation to continue with the church’s construction.

Despite upholding traditional church teachings that claim homosexuality is “intrinsically disordered,” the pontiff has been surprisingly forthcoming about introducing LGBTQ+ members into Catholic proceedings.

In 2013, he famously said: “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?”

But there is still a long way to go for LGBTQ+ acceptance in the Vatican. During the same address, he condemned what was cryptically described as lobbying by the LGBTQ+ community.

“The problem is not having this orientation,” he claimed. “We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worse problem.”

Pope Francis has also repeatedly shut down any hope of same-sex marriage in the Catholic Church, most recently in 2021 when he said he “doesn’t have the power to change sacraments.”

“I have spoken clearly about this, no? Marriage is a sacrament. Marriage is a sacrament. The church doesn’t have the power to change sacraments. It’s as our Lord established.”

Excommunications for LGBTQ+ positive paraphenalia is still incredibly common in local Catholic communities. In June, a middle school was kicked out of the Catholic fold after officials refused to remove Pride and Black Lives Matter flags from school grounds.

In a statement, Massachusetts bishop Robert J. McManus, who chose to excommunicate the Nativity School of Worcester, said: “I publicly stated in an open letter…that ‘these symbols (flags) embody specific agendas or ideologies (that) contradict Catholic social and moral teaching

“It is my contention that the ‘Gay Pride’ flag represents support of gay marriage and actively living a LGBTQ+ lifestyle.”

In response, school president Thomas McKenney said that the flags “represent the inclusion and respect of all people” and that they simply state “that all are welcome at Nativity and this value of inclusion is rooted in Catholic teaching.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

The Catholic Church is increasingly diverse – and so are its controversies

By

There is a lot of talk about “synodality” in the Catholic church these days. Synodality refers to a process in which bishops and priests consult with lay Catholics about issues in the church.

In 2021, Pope Francis called for the “Synod on Synodality,” a worldwide discussion of issues that impact the church, which will culminate with a bishops’ meeting in Rome. A final report is scheduled for October 2023.

The Catholic Church in Germany has also moved forward with a national “synodal path” to restore trust after its own sexual abuse scandal.

The German synodal path has been controversial. On Sept. 8, 2022, a minority of German bishops blocked a motion to redefine Catholic teaching on homosexuality, bisexuality, gender identity and masturbation. In response, some proponents of these liberalizations warned they would “take it to Rome.”

Church leaders around the world and in the Vatican have closely watched the German meetings. There has been sharp debate over calls by German Catholics for priests to ordain women and bless same-sex unions. These proposals have been embraced by some German church bishops, but criticized by the Vatican as well as by an international group of 74 bishops.

As a scholar of global Catholicism, I believe this controversy reflects much wider tensions within Catholicism. In 1910, two-thirds of the world’s Catholics lived in Europe. Today, just one in four do. The church’s numbers have grown most quickly in Africa and Asia. As more power shifts to the global south, the church sometimes struggles to chart a path forward for all regions, each of which has its own distinct perspectives.

The German meeting spotlights particularly difficult topics about sexuality and women’s roles, where some Catholics in Europe, North America and Australia clash with Catholics elsewhere.

Continental divides

The Catholic Church is often assumed to look and feel the same everywhere. But Catholicism is culturally quite diverse.

The most public disagreement involves African Catholics and those in the United States and Europe. For example, Ghanaian Catholic bishops have criticized advocates for LGBTQ rights for imposing “their so-called values and beliefs.” Other African bishops have said they feel betrayed by liberal sentiments in European Catholicism, such as the push to allow Holy Communion for divorced church members.

People in white robes kneel near the altar in a brightly colored church with a teal and orange wall.
A bishop blesses worshippers during an early morning mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Yamumbi, Kenya.

Polygamy continues to be a pressing issue in some regions of Africa. While Catholic doctrine prohibits polygamy, polygamous unions are still common in many countries with significant Catholic communities.

A crucial question is how to welcome polygamous families into the church. Some African bishops have suggested that the church’s most important rites, called sacraments, should be available for at least some polygamous Catholics.

Tribalism also remains a challenge. For example, a Nigerian priest published a social media video asserting the superiority of the Igbo tribe. In rejecting such attitudes, other African priests have emphasized that African Catholics should draw on the philosophy of “ubuntu” that affirms collective belonging to humanity.

Looking East

Issues in Asia, home to 12% of Catholics, are diverse.

In Japan, for example, where Catholics make up less than 1% of the population, the main dilemma is how Catholics can maintain their community identity. In the Catholic-majority Philippines, recent meetings for the Synod on Synodality have focused on how poverty and corruption impact the Catholic community and the nation as a whole.

In India, where 20 million Catholics live, the Dalit Catholic community is especially important. Dalit means “oppressed” or “crushed” and refers to the marginalized groups once known as India’s “untouchables.” It was only recently that a Dalit, Anthony Poola of Hyderabad, was named a cardinal, even though Dalits have long made up a majority of India’s Catholics. Caste discrimination in the church is a reality that Dalit Catholics have joined together to protest.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church in East Timor, where Catholics are 95% of the population, has experienced its own divisive sex abuse crisis connected with a highly regarded American priest.

A woman in a pink shirt and green sari touches a statue of the Virgin Mary covered with garlands of flowers.
Catholics offer prayers in front of a statue of Virgin Mary in Hyderabad, India.

Catholic churches in China face unresolved disputes over who has final say in the appointment of bishops – the Vatican, or the Chinese government. Also, there are continuing issues about the status of the underground Catholic churches, which worship outside the purview of the state-sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.

In parts of Oceania, climate change is an existential concern. The spread of HIV/AIDS in Papua New Guinea remains an important issue as well.

Stronghold no longer?

Latin America is home to almost 40% of the world’s Catholics. But the rise of Protestantism has concerned many priests and laity. Many new Protestants in Latin America believe that evangelical and Pentecostal communities are more sensitive to their needs, prompting soul-searching for Catholics.

Another crucial question in Latin America is whether to ordain married men in regions where priests are scarce, like the Amazon. The Catholic church in Latin America still struggles with its colonial past and calls to apologize for that violent history. This legacy makes it particularly important to hear the voices of Indigenous peoples.

A global conversation

The worldwide Synod on Synodality is focused, in Pope Francis’ words, on creating a church that “walks together on the same road.”

It would be a mistake to see this “walking together” from an exclusively Western perspective. The debate in Germany reflects how ideologically divided Catholicism has become in the Western world alone. And it is not as though churches elsewhere are simply areas of potential problems or disagreements; their faith and rich theological traditions are an important resource for Catholics worldwide.

Still, given the cultural diversity of Catholicism, there are many potential flash points as the Synod on Synodality moves forward: poverty, adapting to local culture, sexuality and gender, church governance and the continuing sexual abuse crisis – just to name a few.

This has left some commentators wondering if anything meaningful can be discussed or achieved. In my view, whether Synod conversations turn into controversies will ultimately depend on how Catholics see themselves as part of a church that is truly global.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

Robert McElroy Becomes San Diego’s First Cardinal, With Vision Akin to Pope

Pope Francis speaks with Cardinal Robert McElroy at the consistory in St. Peter’s Basilica.

by Chris Stone

Robert W. McElroy became the first cardinal of San Diego Saturday, receiving his scarlet skullcap, ring and silk hat as he knelt before Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

McElroy, 68, was inducted along with 19 cardinals from around the world in a ceremony, known as a consistory, that was live streamed from 7-8 a.m. San Diego time (4-6 p.m. Rome time).

Among those in attendance was Bishop John Dolan, former auxiliary bishop of San Diego until he assumed duties of bishop of Phoenix this month.

After the consistory, the new cardinals met with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Afterwards, the cardinals were scheduled to greet the faithful of Rome and those visiting from their home countries for the customary post-Consistory congratulatory visits, according to Vatican News.

On Sunday, McElroy will celebrate his first Mass (live streamed) as a cardinal. On Monday and Tuesday, he will join the College of Cardinals for an in-depth study of Praedicate Evangelium regarding on the Roman Curia, and Tuesday evening they will celebrate Mass together with Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica (live streamed).

The pope chose men from five continents who mostly agree with his vision of a more progressive and inclusive Roman Catholic Church and influencing their choice of his eventual successor.

Francis, 85, presided , telling the new cardinals to show concern for ordinary people despite the high rank that will bring them into contact with the powerful of the earth.

The ceremony marked the eight time Francis has put his stamp on the Church’s future with a new intake of cardinals who will serve as his top advisors and administrators at the Vatican and around the globe.

Pope Francis speaks during a consistory ceremony to elevate Roman Catholic prelates to the rank of cardinal, at Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, August 27, 2022.
Cardinal Robert McElroy (left) at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Screenshot of Vatican Media
Cardinal Robert McElroy (left) at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

The College of Cardinals now consists of 226 cardinals, including 132 electors and 94 non-electors. 52 cardinals were created by John Paul II of whom 11 are electors; 64 created by Benedict XVI of whom 38 are electors; and 112 created by Francis of whom 83 are electors, according to Vatican News.

Across the world they are distributed as: 106 in Europe, of whom 54 are electors; 60 in the Americas, of whom 38 are electors; 30 in Asia, of whom 20 are electors; 27 in Africa, of whom 17 are electors; and 5 cardinals in Oceania, of whom 3 are electors, according to Vatican News.

Those under 80 — 16 among the 20 newcomers — can enter a conclave to elect a new pope from among themselves after he dies or resigns. Cardinals over the age of 80 are not electors.

Among the significant appointment from the richer countries is that of McElroy, who is seen as a progressive. By giving San Diego its first cardinal, Francis bypassed conservative archbishops in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

McElroy has been an outspoken ally of Francis’ pastoral approach to social issues, such as protection of the environment and a more welcoming approach to gay Catholics.

He also has opposed conservative U.S. clergymen who want to ban Catholic politicians, including President Joe Biden and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, from receiving communion because of their support of abortion rights.

Four new countries will be granted a new cardinal: Mongolia, Paraguay, Singapore and East Timor.

Besides the United States, the the new cardinals come from Britain, South Korea, Spain, France, Nigeria, Brazil, Italy, Ghana and Colombia.

Cardinal Robert McElroy receives his skullcap and biretta from Pope Francis. Screenshot from EWTN.
Cardinal Robert McElroy receives his skullcap and biretta from Pope Francis.

One bishop to be named cardinal, Bishop Richard Kuuia Baawobr, 62, of Wa, Ghana, became ill after arriving in Rome and was unable to attend the ceremony.

“A Cardinal loves the Church, always with that same spiritual fire, whether dealing with great questions or handling everyday problems, with the powerful of this world or those ordinary people who are great in God’s eyes,” Francis said.

Sitting before the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica, Francis asked them to remember “poor families, migrant and homeless persons.”

He read his homily in a strong voice, often going off script, even to joke about a Rome priest who was so close to his parishioners that he knew not only all their names, but also the names of their dogs.

Francis, elected as pope in 2013, has now chosen 83 of the 132 cardinal electors, or about 63%.

With each consistory, Francis has continued what one diplomat has called a “tilt towards Asia,” increasing the likelihood that the next pope could be from the region that is a growing economic and political powerhouse.

Resignation not at Hand

The 85-year-old pontiff told Reuters in an interview last month that if he does resign in the future for health reasons — instead of dying in office — he has no plans to do so anytime soon. This means he could name even more cardinals as soon as next year.

After reading his homily, Francis gave them each their ring and red hat, the color of which, along with their vestments, is to remind them that they should be willing to shed their blood for the faith.

Since his election as the first Latin American pope, Francis’ has often broken the mould used by his predecessors in picking cardinals. Often he has preferred men from developing nations and smaller cities, rather than from major capitals where having a cardinal used to be considered automatic.

Archbishop Leonardo Steiner of Manaus, Brazil, becomes the first cardinal from the Amazon region, underscoring Francis’ concern for indigenous people and the environment.

Rings to be given to the new cardinals at the consistory in Rome. Screenshot of Vatican Media

Another unexpected new cardinal elector is Archbishop Giorgio Marengo, an Italian who is the Catholic Church’s administrator in Mongolia. At 48, he is the youngest of the new cardinal electors.

Mongolia has fewer than 1,500 Catholics but is strategically significant because it borders with China, where the Vatican is trying to improve the situation for Catholics.

“The Holy Father cares for the Church wherever it is in the world. (We) feel that a tiny community is as important as a large community,” he told Reuters before the ceremony.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!