"In the life of the church, just war theories are a secondary element in Catholic teaching; the first is that we should not engage in warfare at all" he said in an interview with Vatican News.

Cardinal McElroy's comments come as global conflicts escalate, prompting fresh debate on the Church's role in conflict resolution.

The cardinal is a key adviser to the Catholic Institute for Nonviolence, which will open in Rome on 29 September. Pax Christi International, a global Catholic peace movement, will launch the new institute.

McElroy's remarks align with the position often voiced by Pope Francis. In 2022, the Pope said it was "time to rethink the concept of a ‘just war'", stressing that resorting to war contradicts constructive dialogue. Francis has repeatedly called for reevaluating traditional Church teachings that historically justified certain wars under the ‘just war' doctrine.

Alternative ways to resolve conflict

In July this year, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin echoed these concerns, noting that the theory is being revised.

"There is a lot of discussion today because this ('just war') is a concept of social doctrine. There is just war, the war of defence but today, with the weapons that are available, this concept becomes very difficult" Parolin said.

Cardinal McElroy reiterated that violence in any form is contrary to the Gospel. He added "it's ever more important that the church be a witness to finding alternative ways to resolve these conflicts as they break out".

McElroy also highlighted that peacebuilding goes beyond merely ending conflicts; it involves promoting human dignity and solidarity.

Drawing from Pope Francis' 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti, McElroy pointed out that the Church must adopt new perspectives, especially regarding marginalised regions.

"We have blinders in our minds about the peripheries, and we think some regions are less important" the cardinal said. "That is a poison and certainly contrary to the Gospel."

Sources

National Catholic Reporter

CathNews New Zealand

CathNews New Zealand

Cardinal Robert McElroy (pictured) of San Diego is championing LGBTQ+ rights within the Catholic Church amidst a growing divide over same-sex blessings.

McElroy's remarks at the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress underscored the importance of supporting LGBTQ+ individuals and those in complex marital situations.

However McIlroy noted the conflicting responses from bishops in other parts of the world.

"We have witnessed the reality that bishops of various parts of the world have made rapidly divergent decisions about the acceptability of such blessings in their countries, based substantially on cultural and pastoral factors as well as neocolonialism" McElroy claimed.

Church unity could be fractured

McElroy's stance stands in contrast to the Nigerian Catholic Bishops' rejection of Pope Francis's position on same-sex blessings.

The bishops argue that such blessings could be interpreted as endorsing same-sex marriage, leading to splits within the Church.

Most Rev. Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji, speaking at the formal opening of the 2024 First Plenary Assembly of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), expressed concern that the Pope's stance could fracture the unity of the Church.

Ugorji highlighted the ambiguity of Fiducia Supplicans.

He noted its prohibition of liturgical blessings for same-sex couples while simultaneously recommending spontaneous pastoral blessings for couples in irregular situations - which might include same-sex couples.

Ugorji referred to the document's mixed reception worldwide, especially in Africa. Many African bishops and devout Catholics have rejected the idea of blessing same-sex unions, considering them contrary to natural law and traditional Church doctrine.

In his remarks at the LA Congress, McIlroy acknowledged that "it is wholly legitimate for a priest to personally decline to perform the blessings outlined in 'Fiducia' because he believes that to do so will undermine the strength of that union".

It is "distressing" the prelate said, that opposition to 'Fiducia' has focused "overwhelmingly on blessing those in same-sex relationships" compared to people in heterosexual relationships that also might be considered sinful.

Sources

National Catholic Reporter

Daily Post

CathNews New Zealand

The pastoral ecclesiology of Pope Francis is the background for McElroy's essay.

Francis envisions a consciously expansive church characterized as a mother that excludes no one. A priority for the church today is to look forward, not backwards.

Francis' pastoral ecclesiology accentuates what people share rather than what divides us.

He preaches mercy, compassion and forgiveness rather than stern admonishments and condemnations.

Charity must prevail in all things.

He echoes Pope St. John XXIII: "In essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; in all things, charity."

Francis insists that we must allow ourselves "to be surprised by God."

In Evangelii Gaudium, Francis calls for a far-reaching "pastoral and missionary conversion of the church in our time," a reexamination of attitudes, structures and church practices in light of their capacity to effectively proclaim the love and mercy of God as shown in the Gospel.

Dialogue (synodality) within the church is an essential component of this examination.

The pope's vision resonates with the opening lines of Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World:

"The joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the people of our time, especially whose who are poor or afflicted, are the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ."

The two synods on the family (2014 and 2015) addressed a wide range of pastoral issues, including pastoral care for the divorced and remarried and those excluded from the sacrament of the Eucharist.

These concerns have been longstanding for Francis. He has no desire to reverse the church's teaching on the indissolubility of marriage.

Rather, his intention is to root the church's teaching more firmly within the scope of Christian mercy.

He would like the church to consider that there are at least some divorced and remarried couples who, in situations where renouncing their second marriage, would only compound the harm caused by the failure of the first marriage by requiring breaking the current familial commitment.

Is it not possible, Francis asks, to find signs of grace and hope in the second marriage and thereby acknowledge the value of the Eucharist for such couples as a "medicine of mercy"?

Francis' hope is to negotiate the tension between the normative claims of church doctrine and the pastoral reality.

He refuses to see doctrine and pastoral practice as mutually exclusive options and simply resolves ecclesiological tensions prematurely.

In his address at the conclusion of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family in October 2014, he warned against "a temptation to hostile inflexibility, that is, wanting to close oneself within the written word … and not allowing oneself to be surprised by God… From the time of Christ, it is the temptation of the zealous, of the scrupulous, of the solicitous and of the so-called - today - 'traditionalists' and also of the intellectuals."

His point is clearly made when he addressed the text of Humanae Vitae:

"The object is not to change the doctrine, but it is a matter of going into the issue in depth and to ensure that the pastoral ministry takes into account the situations of each person and what that person can do."

He desires that the church and confessors "be very generous" in dealing with individual couples' "pastoral situations."

He is not advocating a pastoral compromise regarding church teaching but rather an authentic interpretation of the doctrine relating to real human persons and concrete situations.

His desire might be fulfilled by the church moving beyond a narrow analysis of an act to consider the entirety of the human person and the context.

Pope Francis calls the church to meet people "in the streets," ministering to their concerns and attending to their wounds.

He calls for a "pastoral connaturality," as theologian Richard Gaillardetz terms it, to discern how the church's doctrine can best be employed to exemplify God's solidarity with the poor and suffering and be generous with the mercy of God.

The emphasis on mercy is the hallmark of the Francis papacy. His naming of the church as a "field hospital" is especially addressed to priests who must be men of mercy and compassion, close to his people, and servants of all.

"Whoever is wounded in life, in whatever way, can find in him attention and a sympathetic ear," he told parish priests in Rome in 2014. Continue reading

• Gerald D. Coleman is a retired professor of moral theology, St Patrick's Seminary & University, Menlo Park, California, and Graduate Department of Pastoral Ministries, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California. As long-ago he was the moral theology professor of now-Cardinal Robert McElroy,

In an interview with Spanish magazine Vida Nueva, Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego (pictured), supported Bishop Fernando Prado of San Sebastián, Spain, who banned diocesan television from airing content produced by EWTN.

"I would not have EWTN on diocesan media either," McElroy responded.

"EWTN worries me because it represents a giant of economic and cultural power connected to a religious viewpoint that is fundamentally critical of the pope," the cardinal said.

McElroy claimed that the channel's main anchors constantly minimise the abilities and theological knowledge of Francis and attempt to move the world away from the reforms that he is signalling.

McElroy said that Francis has encountered opposition due to his intention of completing the work of the Second Vatican Council, as well as his constant inclusion of the experiences and spiritual points of view of the Global South at the centre of the life of the church.

The cardinal believes that this opposition is exacerbated by Catholics' worries that the pope is open to exploring pastoral paths that are not prohibited by existing doctrinal formulations.

McElroy calls to open diaconate to women

In the interview, McElroy reiterated his previous call to open the diaconate to women while raising concerns about the ordination of women to the priesthood. He fears that the ordination of women to the priesthood would deeply divide the church, and for this reason, it should not be an objective of the synodal process.

McElroy praised the pope for including women in church structures but said that the church is still looking for a theological framework that reveals the equality of women in its fullness.

McElroy's recent writing about how the church should minister to LGBTQ people and divorced and remarried Catholics has received significant backlash, including an essay where Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, accused McElroy of heresy.

When asked by Vida Nueva if the accusation of heresy hurt him, McElroy acknowledged that it did, but he said it hurt the church more.

"This language endangers the church even more, in breaking down the dialogue that we should maintain these days about the fundamental questions that we are confronting," McElroy said.

McElroy said that Francis's attention is centred on the life of the believer in its complexity and on how the Gospel and the tradition of the church can apply in an effective and compassionate way to the lives of those who struggle ardently to draw close to God and follow his path.

"It is vital that during all of these debates over doctrinal questions we resist the temptation of using negative labels against those who adopt postures that are opposite to ours," said McElroy.

Sources

National Catholic Reporter

CathNews New Zealand

Since that time, the positions I presented have received both substantial support and significant opposition.

The majority of those criticizing my article focused on its treatment of the exclusion of those who are divorced and remarried and members of the L.G.B.T. communities from the Eucharist.

Criticisms included the assertion that my article challenged an ancient teaching of the church, failed to give due attention to the call to holiness, abandoned any sense of sin in the sexual realm and failed to highlight the essential nature of conversion.

Perhaps most consistently, the criticism stated that exclusion from the Eucharist is essentially a doctrinal rather than a pastoral question.

I seek in this article to wrestle with some of these criticisms so that I might contribute to the ongoing dialogue on this sensitive question—which will no doubt continue to be discussed throughout the synodal process.

Specifically, I seek here to develop more fully than I did in my initial article some important related questions, namely on the nature of conversion in the moral life of the disciple, the call to holiness, the role of sin, the sacrament of penance, the history of the categorical doctrine of exclusion for sexual sins and the relationship between moral doctrine and pastoral theology.

The report of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on the synodal dialogues held in our nation last year pointed to the profound sadness of many, if not most of the people of God about the broad exclusion from the Eucharist of so many striving Catholics who are barred from Communion because they are divorced and remarried or L.G.B.T.

In January, I proposed that three foundational principles of Catholic teaching invited a re-examination of the church's practice in this area.

The first is Pope Francis' image of the church as a field hospital, which points to the reality that we are all wounded by sin and all equally in need of God's grace and healing.

The second is the role of conscience in Catholic thought.

For every member of the church, it is conscience to which we have the ultimate responsibility and by which we will be judged.

For that reason, while Catholic teaching has an essential role in moral decision-making, it is conscience that has the privileged place.

As Pope Francis has stated, the church's role is to form consciences, not replace them. Categorical exclusions of the divorced and remarried and L.G.B.T. persons from the Eucharist do not give due respect to the inner conversations of conscience that people have with their God in discerning moral choice in complex circumstances.

Finally, I proposed that the Eucharist is given to us as a profound grace in our conversion to discipleship.

As Pope Francis reminds us, the Eucharist is "not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak."

To bar disciples from that grace blocks one of the principal pathways Christ has given to them to reform their lives and accept the Gospel ever more fully.

For all of these reasons, I proposed that divorced and remarried or L.G.B.T. Catholics who are ardently seeking the grace of God in their lives should not be categorically barred from the Eucharist.

In the weeks since my article was published, some readers have objected that the church cannot accept such a notion of inclusion because the exclusion of remarried women and men or L.G.B.T. persons from the Eucharist flows from the moral tradition in the church that all sexual sins are grave matter.

This means that all sexual sins are so gravely evil that they constitute objectively an action that can sever a believer's relationship with God.

I have attempted to face this objection head-on by drawing attention to both the history and the unique reasoning of the principle that all sexual sins are objectively mortal sins.

For most of the history of the church, various gradations of objective wrong in the evaluation of sexual sins were present in the life of the church.

But in the 17th century, with the inclusion in Catholic teaching of the declaration that for all sexual sins there is no parvity of matter (i.e., no circumstances can mitigate the grave evil of a sexual sin), we relegated the sins of sexuality to an ambit in which no other broad type of sin is so absolutely categorized.

In principle, all sexual sins are objective mortal sins within the Catholic moral tradition.

This means that all sins that violate the sixth and the ninth commandments are categorically objective mortal sins.

There is no such comprehensive classification of mortal sin for any of the other commandments.

In understanding the application of this principle to the reception of Communion, it is vital to recognize that it is the level of objective sinfulness that forms the foundation for the present categorical exclusion of sexually active divorced and remarried or L.G.B.T. Catholics from the Eucharist.

So, it is precisely this change in Catholic doctrine—made in the 17th century—that is the foundation for categorically barring L.G.B.T. and divorced/remarried Catholics from the Eucharist.

• Does the tradition that all sexual sins are objectively mortal make sense within the universe of Catholic moral teaching?
• It is automatically an objective mortal sin for a husband and wife to engage in a single act of sexual intercourse utilizing artificial contraception. This means the level of evil present in such an act is objectively sufficient to sever one's relationship with God.
• It is not automatically an objective mortal sin to physically or psychologically abuse your spouse.
• It is not automatically an objective mortal sin to exploit your employees.
• It is not automatically an objective mortal sin to discriminate against a person because of her gender or ethnicity or religion.
• It is not automatically an objective mortal sin to abandon your children.

The moral tradition that all sexual sins are grave matter springs from an abstract, deductivist and truncated notion of the Christian moral life that yields a definition of sin jarringly inconsistent with the larger universe of Catholic moral teaching.

This is because it proceeds from the intellect alone.

The great French philosopher Henri Bergson pointed to the inadequacy of any such approach to the richness of Catholic faith: "We see that the intellect, so skilful in dealing with the inert, is awkward the moment it touches the living.

Whether it wants to treat the life of the body or the life of the mind, it proceeds with the rigour, the stiffness and the brutality of an instrument not designed for such use…. Intuition, on the contrary, is moulded on the very form of life."

The call to holiness requires both a conceptual and an intuitive approach leading to an understanding of what discipleship in Jesus Christ means.

Discipleship means striving to deepen our faith and our relationship to God, to enflesh the Beatitudes, to build up the kingdom in God's grace, to be the good Samaritan.

The call to holiness is all-encompassing in our lives, embracing our efforts to come closer to God, our sexual lives, our familial lives and our societal lives.

It also entails recognising sin where it lurks in our lives and seeking to root it out.

And it means recognizing that each of us in our lives commits profound sins of omission or commission.

At such moments we should seek the grace of the sacrament of penance. But such failures should not be the basis for categorical ongoing exclusion from the Eucharist.

It is important to note that the criticisms of my article did not seek to demonstrate that the tradition classifying all sexual sins as objective mortal sin is in fact correct, or that it yields a moral teaching that is consonant with the wider universe of Catholic moral teaching.

Instead, critics focused upon the repeated assertion that the exclusion of divorced/remarried and L.G.B.T. Catholics from the Eucharist is a doctrinal, not a pastoral question.

I would answer that Pope Francis is precisely calling us to appreciate the vital interplay between the pastoral and doctrinal aspects of church teaching on questions just such as these. Continue reading

In his 'First Things' magazine article, conservative prelate and canon lawyer Thomas Paprocki (pictured) cites an unnamed cardinal's views on how the Church should minister to LGBTQ people and divorced and remarried Catholics.

While he doesn't name Cardinal Robert McElroy, Paprocki quotes directly from a 24 January article the cardinal wrote for America magazine.

In it, McElroy called for a Church that favours "radical inclusion" of everyone, regardless of circumstances and conformance with Church doctrine.

To back his views, Paprocki's essay cites several passages in the Code of Canon Law and draws on the Catechism of the Catholic Church and St Pope John Paul II's Ad Tuendam Fidem ("To Protect the Faith").

Pointing to these, he said anyone who denies "settled Catholic teaching" on issues like homosexuality and "embraces heresy" is automatically excommunicated from the Church.

The pope has the authority and the obligation to remove a heretical cardinal from office, or dismiss outright from the clerical state, Paprocki wrote.

Referencing McElroy's critique of "a theology of eucharistic coherence that multiplies barriers to the grace and gift of the eucharist," Paprocki claimed: "Unfortunately, it is not uncommon today to hear Catholic leaders affirm unorthodox views that, not too long ago, would have been espoused only by heretics."

Although McElroy and Paprocki were both available for comment, in a 28 February interview Paprocki said he did not intend to single out a particular cardinal for criticism. Rather, he "intended the discussion to be more rhetorical.

"I think the reason I did this is because this debate has become so public at this point that it seems to have passed beyond the point of just some private conversations between bishops."

The bishop's explanation struck some observers as disingenuous.

Jesuit Fr Tom Reese, a journalist who has covered the US bishops for decades, says Paprocki's essay reflects deep divisions in the US Catholic hierarchy, plus a level of public animosity, open disagreement and strident rhetoric among bishops.

Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI would not have tolerated it, he says.

"On the other hand, there wouldn't have been this kind of discussion under John Paul II because the Vatican would have shut it down.

"Francis has opened the Church up for discussion again and [conservative bishops] just don't like it. They're trying to shut it down by using this kind of inflammatory rhetoric, even against cardinals," Reese said.

Cathleen Kaveny, a law and theology professor, says Paprocki "should know better as a canon lawyer" than to accuse someone of heresy - which is a formal charge.

Paprocki is running together statements and teachings of different levels of authority in the Church and claiming any disagreement amounts to heresy. "And that's just false," Kaveny says.

"The underlying question ... is whether development in church doctrine can take place.

"I would recommend people read John Henry Newman on that, and look at the history of the church's teaching on usury while they're at it."

Source

• NCR Online

Though Cardinal McElroy's essay touched on a number of issues about the future vitality of the church, much of the criticism focused on his call for the church to be more welcoming to L.G.B.T. Catholics and boils down to the belief that the way for the church to welcome and include gay and lesbian people is by inviting them to conversion and a life of chastity, while forthrightly teaching the sinfulness of homosexual acts.

These kinds of essays tend to pop up whenever a high-profile church leader, including Pope Francis, preach a message of welcome to L.G.B.T. people and their families.

But in addition to the critique of Cardinal McElroy's focus on welcome and inclusion, critics are also reacting to the process through which that could happen: the ongoing synod of bishops on the topic on synodality.

While Cardinal McElroy started off by noting that synodal conversations revealed significant concern about alienation from the church, much of the criticism in response to his essay is animated by the worry in some Catholic circles that the ongoing global consultation process initiated by Pope Francis in October 2021, and set to conclude in October 2024, could usher in changes to church teaching regarding human sexuality.

JD Flynn, a canon lawyer and the co-founder and editor in chief of The Pillar, wrote in a recent essay, "While the pope and other synod organisers have insisted the global synod process does not aim to focus on doctrinal changes, McElroy has suggested that it will—just as many Catholics have insisted it might since the process was announced two years ago."

If it feels like we have been here before—a debate over controversial issues linked to a global synod of bishops—that is because we have.

In the run-up to the Synod on the Family, held in 2014 and 2015, bishops from around the world were asked to consult the laity ahead of a gathering in Rome in which they would discuss the church's outreach to and support of families.

Francis declared that nothing was off the table.

Given that family life includes a host of joys and challenges, on the agenda was everything from economic opportunities to child care at Mass.

But in reality, at least in much of the Western media, two topics came to dominate the conversation: Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics and, as now, how the church ought to interact with its L.G.B.T. members and their families.

Ultimately, the bishops meeting to discuss family life in 2015 did not recommend any explicit changes to church teaching, though a footnote in the pope's apostolic exhortation responding to the synod, "Amoris Laetitia," appeared to have opened the door to divorced and remarried Catholics being welcome at Communion.

Two more hot topics would emerge a couple of years later, when bishops and lay Catholics in the Amazon region debated whether allowing married men to join the priesthood and women to be ordained as deacons could help alleviate the extreme priest shortage affecting many churches in many South American nations.

Today, the synod is again serving, in part, as a proxy for the ongoing debate over how the church maintains its traditional teaching at a time when women and L.G.B.T. people are more assertive in demanding equal treatment in society and the church.

In the context of the United States, Cardinal McElroy's argument that women and L.G.B.T. people are deserving of a more pastoral welcome in the church may feel like an outlier, but that is not necessarily the case.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a report last year in which they summarised the 10-month consultation process for the synod on synodality that took place in 2021.

The place of L.G.B.T. people in the church was highlighted in the report, including in a section about groups of Catholics who feel marginalised.

"In order to become a more welcoming Church there is a deep need for ongoing discernment of the whole Church on how best to accompany our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters," the report states.

In other countries, the calls to make the church more welcoming for L.G.B.T. people have been even stronger.

Last year, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg called the church's teaching on homosexuality "no longer correct," and stated, "I think it is time for a fundamental revision of the doctrine."

Cardinal Hollerich is also the relator general of the upcoming synod, which means he will lay out the synod's theme at the start of the gathering and synthesise the speeches and reports before work begins on proposals.

Those proposals will then be delivered to the pope for his further discernment.

In short, Cardinal Hollerich will help shape the synod, which helps explain why some Catholics are fearful that the meeting could lead to changes in church teaching. Continue reading

• Michael J. O'Loughlin is national correspondent at America and author of Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear.

It was an era of civil unrest, race riots, anti-war protests, and the sexual revolution.

One of the popular bumper stickers at the time stated: Question Everything.

These societal events coincided with the sessions of the Second Vatican Council and its early implementation.

The council brought beautiful and much-needed renewal to many aspects of Catholic life.

Sadly, there was also a serious misinterpretation of the council that fostered moral confusion. The poisonous ideas of the sexual revolution crept into the Church.

A great cultural myth was propagated that one could not be happy or fulfilled unless you were sexually active.

The rate of divorce rose dramatically within society and the Church.

Traditional sexual morals were considered antiquated.

The virtue of chastity was mocked. Influential voices within the Church sought to use the "spirit of the council" to change Catholic sexual moral teaching and practice.

With the availability and cultural embrace of oral contraceptives, Pope Paul VI warned that sexual intimacy outside of the marriage covenant would become commonplace, and the harm inflicted on children, women, men, and society would be catastrophic.

The Holy Father was prophetic.

• Out-of-wedlock births, abortion, and pornography became common.
• Sexually transmitted diseases reached epidemic levels.
• Contrary to the predictions of advocates for contraception and abortion, child abuse and child trafficking hit record levels.
• The unparalleled happiness that proponents of so-called sexual freedom promised never materialized.
• Instead, we find among young adults alarmingly high levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.
• Pornography and other forms of sexual addiction have become rampant and enslave many at a young age.

The unravelling of sexual morals has continued for decades.

Among the cultural fallacies is a prevalent notion that homosexual activity is healthy and normal, just another lifestyle choice.

In recent years, our cultural confusion has now spawned gender ideology, asserting that human beings can deny their biological gender.

Tragically, many young people have been pressured to undergo gender-transitioning hormonal regimens and to mutilate their bodies by "gender reassignment" surgeries.

Gratefully, St. John Paul II, with his landmark teaching on the theology of the body, gave us new language to articulate the beauty of human sexuality and to help restore moral sanity.

Pope Benedict also provided clear teaching in these important areas.

Pope Francis has spoken plainly and strongly about the evil of abortion and the danger of gender theory.

I have been saddened that in the preparation for the Synod on Synodality, there has been a renewed effort by some in Church leadership to resuscitate moral confusion on human sexuality.

The German Synodal Way is a striking example.

The leadership of the German bishops' conference has rejected correction from Pope Francis.

Most troubling has been statements by Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, who asserts that Church teaching related to homosexuality is false because he believes the sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching is no longer correct.

Cardinal Hollerich's statements are particularly concerning because of the leadership role that he has been assigned as relator general for the Synod on Synodality.

Most recently, Cardinal Robert McElroy's article in the Jesuit journal America Magazine has charged that the Catholic Church "contains structures and cultures of exclusion that alienate all too many from the Church or make their journey in the Catholic faith tremendously burdensome."

Cardinal McElroy champions what he terms radical inclusion that embraces everyone into full communion with the Church on their terms.

The mandate of Jesus given to the apostles to make disciples of all nations is construed to mean to enlarge the tent of the Church by accommodating behaviours contrary to Our Lord's own teaching.

Cardinal McElroy appears to believe that the Church for 2,000 years has exaggerated the importance of her sexual moral teaching and that radical inclusion supersedes doctrinal fidelity, especially in the area of the Church's moral teaching regarding human sexuality.

In my opinion, this is a most serious and dangerous error.

Our understanding of sexual morals significantly impacts marriage and family life.

The importance of marriage and family to society, culture, the nation, and the Church cannot be overestimated.

Proponents of radical inclusion cite Our Lord's association with sinners.

In the face of harsh criticism of religious leaders, it is true that Jesus manifested great concern, compassion, and mercy to sinners. Continue reading

• Joseph F. Naumann is Archbishop of Kansas City, Kansas
• He is writing in response to recent statements by Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego

While the synodal process already underway has just begun to reveal some of these paths, the dialogues that have taken place identify a series of challenges that the people of God must face if we are to reflect the identity of a church that is rooted in the call of Christ, the apostolic tradition and the Second Vatican Council.

Many of these challenges arise from the reality that a church that is calling all women and men to find a home in the Catholic community contains structures and cultures of exclusion that alienate all too many from the church or make their journey in the Catholic faith tremendously burdensome.

Reforming our own structures of exclusion will require a long pilgrimage of sustained prayer, reflection, dialogue and action—all of which should begin now.

It is important at this stage in the synodal process for the Catholic community in the United States to deepen our dialogue about these structures and cultures of exclusion for two reasons.

The first is to continue to contribute to the universal discernment on these issues, recognising that these same questions have surfaced in many nations of the world.

The second reason is the recognition that since the call to synodality is a call to continuing conversion, reforming our own structures of exclusion will require a long pilgrimage of sustained prayer, reflection, dialogue and action—all of which should begin now.

Such a pilgrimage must be infused with an overpowering dedication to listen attentively to the Holy Spirit in a process of discernment, not political action.

It must reflect the reality that we are part of a universal and hierarchical church that is bound together on a journey of faith and communion.

It must always point to the missionary nature of the church, which looks outward in hope.

Our efforts must find direction and consolation in the Eucharist and the Word of God.

And they must reflect the understanding that in a church that seeks unity, renewal and reform are frequently gradual processes.

"Enlarge the Space of Your Tent," the document issued last year by the Holy See to capture the voices of men and women from around the world who have participated in the synodal process, concluded that "the vision of a church capable of radical inclusion, shared belonging and deep hospitality according to the teachings of Jesus is at the heart of the synodal process."

We must examine the contradictions in a church of inclusion and shared belonging that have been identified by the voices of the people of God in our nation and discern in synodality a pathway for moving beyond them.

We must examine the contradictions in a church of inclusion and shared belonging and discern in synodality a pathway for moving beyond them.

Polarisation Within the Life of the Church

An increasingly strong contradiction to the vision of a church of inclusion and shared belonging lies in the growth of polarisation within the life of the church in the United States and the structures of exclusion that it breeds.

In the words of "Enlarge the Space of Your Tent," "the wounds of the church are intimately connected to those of the world." Our political society has been poisoned by a tribalism that is sapping our energy as a people and endangering our democracy. And that poison has entered destructively into the life of the church.

This polarisation is reflected in the schism so often present between the pro-life communities and justice-and-peace communities in our parishes and dioceses.

It is found in the false divide between "Pope Francis Catholics" and "St John Paul II Catholics."

It is found in the friction between Catholics who emphasise inclusion and others who perceive doctrinal infidelity in that inclusion.

Even the Eucharist has been marred by this ideological polarisation in both the debates about the pre-conciliar liturgy and the conflicts over masking that roiled many parishes during the pandemic of the past several years.

As "Enlarge the Space of Your Tent" observes, we find ourselves "trapped in conflict, such that our horizons shrink and we lose our sense of the whole, and fracture into sub-identities. It is an experience of Babel, not Pentecost."

Our political society has been poisoned by a tribalism that is endangering our democracy. And that poison has entered destructively into the life of the church.

A culture of synodality is the most promising pathway available today to lead us out of this polarisation in our church.

Such a culture can help to relativise these divisions and ideological prisms by emphasising the call of God to seek first and foremost the pathway that we are being called to in unity and grace.

A synodal culture demands listening, a listening that seeks not to convince but to understand the experiences and values of others that have led them to this moment.

A synodal culture of true encounter demands that we see in our sisters and brothers common pilgrims on the journey of life, not opponents. We must move from Babel to Pentecost.

Bringing the peripheries to the centre

"Closely related to the wound of polarisation," the U.S. report on the synod concludes, "is the wound of marginalisation.

Not only do those who experience this wound suffer, but their marginalisation has become a source of scandal for others."

The continuing sin of racism in our society and our church has created prisons of exclusion that have endured for generations, especially among our African American and Native American communities.

Synod participants have testified eloquently to the sustained ways in which patterns of racism are embedded in ecclesial practices and culture.

These same patterns infect the treatment of many ethnic and cultural communities within the life of the church, leaving them stranded on the periphery of ecclesial life at critical moments. Piercingly, the church at times marginalises victims of clergy sexual abuse in a series of destructive and enduring ways.

The poorest among us, the homeless, the undocumented, the incarcerated and refugees often are not invited with the same energy and effectiveness as others into the fullness of church life and leadership. And the voice of the church is at times muted in advocating for their rights.

Faced with such patterns of exclusion in our church and our world, we must take to heart the message of Pope Benedict speaking to the people of Latin America on the wounds that marginalisation inflicts: "the church must relive and become what Jesus was; the Good Samaritan who came from afar, entered into human history, lifted us up and sought to heal us."

Pope Benedict XVI: "The church must relive and become what Jesus was; the Good Samaritan who came from afar, entered into human history, lifted us up and sought to heal us."

One avenue for lifting us up and healing the patterns and structures of marginalization in our church and our world is to systematically bring the peripheries into the centre of life in the church.

This means attending to the marginalisation of African Americans and Native Americans, victims of clergy sexual abuse, the undocumented and the poor, the homeless and the imprisoned, not as a secondary element of mission in every church community, but as a primary goal.

Bringing the peripheries to the centre means constantly endeavouring to support the disempowered as protagonists in the life of the church.

It means giving a privileged place in the priorities and budgets and energies of every ecclesial community to those who are most victimised and ignored.

It means advocating forcefully against racism and economic exploitation. In short, it means creating genuine solidarity within our ecclesial communities and our world, as St John Paul repeatedly urged us.

Women in the Life of the Church

The synodal dialogues in every region of our world have given sustained attention to the structures and cultures that exclude or diminish women within the life of the church.

Participants have powerfully pointed out that women represent both the majority of the church and an even larger majority of those who contribute their time and talents to the advancement of the church's mission.

The report of the Holy Land on its synodal dialogues captured this reality: "In a church where almost all decision-makers are men, there are few spaces where women can make their voices heard. Yet they are the backbone of church communities."

The synodal dialogues have reflected widespread support for changing these patterns of exclusion in the global church, as well as for altering structures, laws and customs that effectively limit the presence of the rich diversity of women's gifts in the life of the Catholic community.

There are calls for eliminating rules and arbitrary actions that preclude women from many roles of ministry, administration and pastoral leadership, as well as for admitting women to the permanent diaconate and ordaining women to the priesthood.

One productive pathway for the church's response to these fruits of the synodal dialogues would be to adopt the stance that we should admit, invite and actively engage women in every element of the life of the church that is not doctrinally precluded. Continue reading