The door is still open on married priests and women deacons. Although Pope Francis’s exhortation on the Amazon bypasses making decisions about women deacons and married priests, there is still room to move, say number of the pope’s close advisors. In the post-synodal apostolic exhortation, Querida Amazonia (Beloved Amazon), Pope Francis released last week , Read more
Three issues coming out of the Amazon synod’s final document include ordaining married men to the priesthood, the female diaconate and creating an Amazonian Rite. Two-thirds of the 180 bishops at the synod approved all the 140-paragraph document’s findings, which they voted on paragraph by paragraph. One of the document’s main focuses further including laity Read more
Pope Francis is urging media to be cautious in their reports about the Amazon synod final report. They should not pay “undue attention to aspects of the assembly’s final report addressing Church discipline while ignoring the assembly’s “diagnoses” of four major aspects of life in the Pan-Amazonian region. These concern the region’s cultural, social, pastoral Read more
The need to recognize the ministry of Catholic women deacons has become a key topic at the Amazon synod. Many of the 185 prelates at the synod approve of ordaining women as deacons to address a lack of ministers in the region. Bishop Derek Byrne, who is from a Brazilian diocese, says the support is Read more
Forty bishops at the Amazon synod pledged to work for a prophetic Church dedicated to serving the poor during a ceremony on the burial site of some of Rome’s early Christian martyrs. Last Sunday, the prelates, including two cardinals, went to the Catacombs of Domitilla, on the outskirts of the Eternal City, to sign the Read more
A letter purporting to be from disgraced Australian cardinal George Pell to his supporters has been posted on Twitter. The full text of the letter dated 1 August was posted last Friday evening by the ‘Cardinal George Pell Supporters’ Twitter account. Prison authorities are investigating whether Pell broke Melbourne Assessment Prison rules by posting the Read more
Much has been made in Catholic circles about the working document for the synod of bishops scheduled for this fall, currently titled “The Amazon: New Paths for the Church and for Integral Ecology.” One of the most important critics of the agenda set out in the instrumentum laboris is German Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, who has Read more
German Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, widely seen as a key opponent of Pope Francis, has penned a rare essay openly criticizing the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, saying the official preparatory document breaks with Catholic teaching. According to Brandmüller’s essay, the synod’s recently-published preparatory document “burdens the Synod of Bishops, and finally the Pope, Read more
Pope Francis’s eco-agenda – as expressed in Laudato Si’ – will put care of our common home at the center of the Church’s concern, and that of the world, says Brazilian Bishop Vilson Basso. “We need the care of the whole world, that it be a place where everyone can live. “This is integral ecology. Read more