Posts Tagged ‘Church reform’

Church must “shape the transition” not “manage the downfall”

Thursday, October 10th, 2024
Viennese theologian

Viennese theologian Paul Zulehner (pictured) is convinced that even though churches are increasingly less relevant in today’s world, they still have the ability to help society with today’s problems. Carrying on in the same old way won’t achieve this, he points out. But churches can be “sparring partners for those seeking meaning” or “midwives of Read more

How Pope Francis has threaded dissent from right and left to avoid schism

Thursday, July 18th, 2024
pope

In September 2019, returning from a visit to Africa, Pope Francis reflected on the flight home to Rome on the tensions that were tearing at the unity of the Church. Threat of schism “I pray that there will be no schism,” the Pope told the Vatican press corps, “but I am not afraid.” Since then, Read more

Church leadership for women under Vatican consideration

Thursday, July 11th, 2024

The Vatican doctrine office is preparing a document on the subject of women in leadership roles in the Catholic Church. The initiative seeks to respond to women’s longstanding demands to have a greater say in Church life. Church reform The Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith says the new document will form its contribution Read more

Painful times for Church reformers

Thursday, June 6th, 2024

Two recent events frame the many discussions within the Church reform movement, while many of its constituent groups continue to engage with the international Synod on Synodality. Pope Francis suddenly announced in a major interview with an American television network that ordaining women deacons, a long-held aspiration of the movement for women’s equality in the Read more

The synod restarts a process that will take decades

Monday, September 25th, 2023
synod

Conventional wisdom holds that it takes a century for an ecumenical council to flower and bear fruit. Altering customs and thought habits, especially when linked to faith, takes a long time. Simply getting the word out of a council’s teaching and its implications can take decades. Then, there are people and institutions for which new Read more

Catholic Church open to all – but has rules

Thursday, August 10th, 2023
Catholic Church

The Catholic Church is open to everyone, including the LGBTQ+ community, Pope Francis affirms. The Church has a duty to accompany gay people on a personal path of spirituality, providing that accompaniment is within the framework of the Catholic Church rules, he told reporters on the plane returning to Rome from World Youth Day (WYD) Read more

The Church needs profound reform

Thursday, March 9th, 2023
Church needs profound reform

Thomas Halik, the Czech Catholic priest and former Soviet dissident, has told Europe’s bishops and lay leaders not to fear that “some forms of the Church are dying”, encouraging them to courageously undertake a synodal journey marked by “openness to the future, and receptivity to God’s challenges in the signs of the times”. The 74-year-old Read more

Church must undergo profound reform to survive

Thursday, September 1st, 2022

The Catholic Church may be at a turning point in its history, believes Danièle Hervieu-Léger, a leading French sociologist on religion. To survive in secularized Western societies, the institution will have to reform itself, she says. In a new book with fellow sociologist Jean-Louis Schlegel that came out this past spring, “Vers l’implosion? Entretiens sur Read more

You’re not listening! – say young Catholics in Ireland about synod

Thursday, August 11th, 2022
Young Catholics in Ireland

A group of 500 young Catholics in Ireland have sent a jointly signed letter to the Synod Steering Committee. The Committee is responsible for gathering and summarising responses to questionnaires for the Irish Synodal Pathway. The young Catholics wrote that they love the Church’s teaching, but their voices have not been heard. The process leading Read more

Vatican warns German Catholic Church of potential for schism

Monday, July 25th, 2022
German Catholic Church schism

The Vatican has warned the German Catholic Church of the potential for a schism if it pursues new moral or doctrinal norms during its Synodal Way process. Members of the Synodal Way, a group made up of equal numbers of German bishops and lay Catholics, meet regularly. In February, they called on the Catholic Church Read more