"Racism is a sin and has no place in our world. As followers of Christ, it is our duty to welcome all people, regardless of race or background, into our Church and show them there is a place for them" said Canon Victor Darlington.

Darlington is the chair of the Archdiocese of Southark's Commission for Promoting Racial and Cultural Inclusion, which governs the London boroughs south of the River Thames.

It is the first Catholic diocese in England and Wales to establish such a Commission.

Welcoming diversity

One parish in particular "leads the way" in the archdiocese as to how it promotes racial and cultural inclusion.

The pastor of that parish (St. Margaret of Scotland) is Father Anthony Uche, originally from Nigeria.

Uche (pictured greeting a young parishioner) has established a Racial and Cultural Inclusion group in the community, saying "the face of the Church must be seen in all we do".

The parish's efforts to extend an inclusive welcome to all has seen a change in the imagery chosen to decorate the church. These include images and statues of saints from different cultural and racial backgrounds. There are several of the Virgin Mary from different parts of the world.

Darlington said that's why the work of St Margaret's Parish is so important - "because when people go to a parish, they should not only see white images but also people who look like them.

"Jesus loves us all and we in turn must love and welcome all" the priest said.

Diversity in the parish is increasing, says Uche. The impact has been extraordinary, with a previously predominantly white parish now including others from various cultures.

"You know how it can feel busy in London but we always feel at home and okay here. We are welcome to Mass, we are welcome to the church and the parish" a parishioner says

The parish's welcome is a welcome influence on his family which includes six children.

As his wife says "... the impact of the parish on each of them makes a huge difference in the community and we hope that can impact their friends".

Equality includes all

A member of St Margaret's Racial and Cultural Diversity group says racial equality means fairness to everybody regardless of what race they're from.

"When you think of what we're meant to be as Christians, we're called to love everybody, regardless of race."

Another parishioner - also a group member - says promoting racial and cultural diversity does not happen by accident.

"It needs a group which looks systemically at all the worship, the activities, the different ministries in the parish and making sure we're promoting racial and cultural diversity across everything we do.

"We have to show God loves everyone equally - in our activities and in our worship. If we don't show that, we are failing" he adds.

Source

• Crux Now

Instead of cataloguing and discussing his past decade's wins and losses, Francis has been speaking of his hopes for the future.

"It's not for me to decide what I've achieved", he told media when questioned.

"The Lord will do the appraisal when he sees fit."

He says certain the criteria for judgment will be drawn from the Gospel of Matthew 25: feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick and visiting prisoners.

His eye isn't on death anyway. Yes, he thinks of it often, but "very peacefully" because "it is necessary to remember" that no one lives forever.

A more lively future-focused view is what he's concentrating on right now, he tells media.

It's one involving three hopes: fraternity, tears and smiles

These hopes are encapsulated in a short 10th anniversary "popecast" Vatican News has released about his dreams for the Church, the world and humanity.

"We are all brothers and sisters," he says. We need to make more effort to live like brothers and sisters.

"And to learn not to be afraid to weep and to smile," he said.

"When a person knows how to cry and how to smile, he or she has their feet on the ground and their gaze on the horizon of the future.

"If a person has forgotten how to cry, something is wrong," Francis said.

"And if that person has forgotten how to smile, it's even worse."

The pope's upbeat take on the future continues in other media reports.

The current Synod of Bishops on synodality is important, he tells journalists. He has tried to revitalise the synods, including more voices is an ongoing process.

That includes ensuring women's voices are included.

In past synods, while the input of many was essential, it was for bishops to discern and vote. Ten priests — and occasionally a religious brother — traditionally were elected as full voting members of the synod.

Francis altered this in 2021 when he appointed Xavière Missionary Sister Nathalie Becquart as one of the undersecretaries of the synod general secretariat.

This means she is an automatic voting member of the assembly.

"Everyone who participates in the synod will vote," Francis says.

Each participant member "has the right to vote. Whether male or female. Everyone, everyone. That word everyone for me is key."

Everyone, including LGBTQ Catholics "is a child of God and each one seeks and finds God by whatever path he or she can."

He supports the legal rights guaranteed by civil unions for gay couples and others who share a life. Nor should homosexuality be criminalised, he says.

It's sinful like any sexual activity outside of marriage; Francis doesn't think those sins will see a person in hell.

But pastoral outreach to LGBTQ Catholics and accepting "gender ideology," are different, he stresses. Gender ideology is one of the most dangerous ideological colonisations.

Francis also has a horror or war and is deeply concerned for Ukraine.

If he could have anything for his anniversary it would be: "Peace. We need peace".

Source

• OSV News

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

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

The diocesan documents were synthesised at a national meeting held in Wellington in June.

The introduction to the national document says participants throughout the country "spoke positively and with love about the place the Church has in their lives.

"They want the Church to be a life-giving and active presence in the world, an outward-looking servant Church; a welcoming, inclusive and transformative presence for individuals and communities.

"They see the synodal process itself being as important as the outcome, because in listening to one another the Holy Spirit is present," the introduction says.

However, this experience was not universal.

"For some people, especially those participating as individuals rather than in groups, the process provided an opportunity to express anger, cynicism, hurt and rejection of the Church due to past experiences.

"The Church was named as a place of alienation and irrelevant, especially in its teaching on human sexuality.

"The responses from those who feel ignored, excluded or who have been deeply hurt made painful reading, but their desire to be part of a welcoming Catholic community was clear.

"Their responses are valued and we are learning from them," say the bishops.

New Zealand's Catholic Bishops Conference (NZCBC) says six themes have emerged from the diocesan phase of the 2023 Synod on Synodality.

These are: inclusion, gathering, leadership, education and formation, mission, and synodality and change.

Points from the six main Aotearoa New Zealand themes:

• Inclusion: We want the Church to be a non-judgmental and safe place of welcome and belonging. Church teaching which excludes some people from the Eucharist is causing pain and hurt. Awareness of those who feel marginalised or excluded can lead to new attitudes and action. Action on inclusion must be part of our synodal journey.
• Gathering: There is great love for the Mass, but also concerns about inclusion and lay participation. A new English translation of the Roman Missal is needed. Homilies must help people to encounter Jesus in the reality of their lives. If lay people are allowed to give homilies, they must have good formation. Small groups for prayer, formation, scripture study and mission to build community are needed.
• Leadership: Collaborative ministry should become the norm, with greater sacramental involvement for lay people. Co-responsible leadership with barriers to lay participation in decision-making removed. Women participate equally in decision-making and have greater participation in liturgical roles.
• Mission: Formation is needed for mission, and help with engaging in mission collectively. Ecumenical activity and interfaith dialogue need to be embraced as part of mission. Shame related to abuse in the Church makes evangelisation difficult. Prophetic leadership is needed in the community on social justice, ecological and bicultural issues. The only public voice of the Church for many is on euthanasia and human sexuality.
• Education and Formation: Further formation is needed for both lay people and clergy in discernment and synodality. There is a need for catechesis in Church teaching. Education and formation in safeguarding is essential for both lay people and clergy. Seminarians' formation should involve more community engagement and include biculturalism and cultural sensitivity. Both clergy and laity need formation in collaborative ministry and co-responsible leadership.
• Synodality and Change: The Synod process is exciting and transformative. We want to bring back those who are missing. Synodality and discernment can help us change while holding on to what is central to our faith. We want to learn to journey together in a synodal way.

The national document has been sent to Rome as part of the Pope's synodal path to the Church's future, which will culminate in the Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome in October next year.

Similar national documents have been compiled by bishops' conferences around the world.

They will be used by the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops to draft a working document in preparation for the October 2023 synod.

Bishops' conferences will also take part in "continental" gatherings, in New Zealand's case a gathering of Oceania conferences which will include Australia and Pacific island states.

Source

• NZ Catholic Bishops Conference
• National Synod Synthesis

The majority want change. It is just that they were split about what the change should be.

Mallard appeared before the governance and administration select committee at Parliament on Wednesday morning to speak to the petition, from John Trezise, to remove religion from the parliamentary prayer, oaths, and national anthem.

He told committee members that it would be impossible to get consensus on the matter.

"There were submissions to me from both sides, people saying 'how dare you in a secular country have God in the opening of Parliament?' and people who wanted to revert to something that was strictly a Christian prayer.

"We won't satisfy everyone but I am satisfied that the balance is about right."

Mallard said he thought Parliament should be an inclusive place, "and we have people of different religious beliefs who were not comfortable as MPs with the prayer as it was."

He said replacing the word "Jesus" with "god" would allow people to "respect the particular god in which they believed but without an Anglican prayer which excluded groups of Christians and all non-Christians."

After the meeting, Mallard said feedback:

• largely fell into three groups: supporting the former Christian prayer, the current one with a reference to God but not Jesus Christ, and those wanting no reference to God.
• About 40 per cent of MP in favour of the Christian prayer, 30 per cent supporting the new prayer, and 30 per cent who wanted no religious references.
• Email feedback strongly favoured keeping the former Christian prayer
• Religious leaders were much more supportive of the new prayer because it was more inclusive.

Source

• nzherald.co.nz
• newshub.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

It can be heard at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund.

Bankers sprinkle it into the presentations; politicians use it leave an impression on discussion panels.

The buzzword is "inclusion" and it refers to a trait that Western industrialized nations seem to be on the verge of losing: the ability to allow as many layers of society as possible to benefit from economic advancement and participate in political life.

The term is now even being used at meetings of a more exclusive character, as was the case in London in May.

Some 250 wealthy and extremely wealthy individuals, from Google Chairman Eric Schmidt to Unilever CEO Paul Polman, gathered in a venerable castle on the Thames River to lament the fact that in today's capitalism, there is too little left over for the lower income classes.

Former US President Bill Clinton found fault with the "uneven distribution of opportunity," while IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde was critical of the numerous financial scandals.

The hostess of the meeting, investor and bank heir Lynn Forester de Rothschild, said she was concerned about social cohesion, noting that citizens had "lost confidence in their governments."

It isn't necessary, of course, to attend the London conference on "inclusive capitalism" to realize that industrialized countries have a problem.

When the Berlin Wall came down 25 years ago, the West's liberal economic and social order seemed on the verge of an unstoppable march of triumph.

Communism had failed, politicians worldwide were singing the praises of deregulated markets and US political scientist Francis Fukuyama was invoking the "end of history." Continue reading

Source and Image:

• Spiegel Online

The Congregation for Divine Worship issued the decree calling for the inclusion of St Joseph in Eucharistic Prayers II, III, and IV. St Joseph is already mentioned in Eucharistic Prayer I, as mandated by Blessed John XXIII.

The decree from the Congregation for Divine Worship, formally dated May 1 (the feast of St. Joseph the Worker), provides that the name of the Virgin Mary will be immediately followed by the words "with blessed Joseph, her spouse".

The decree notes that after John XXIII added the name of St Joseph to the Roman Canon, there were petitions from the faithful asking that St Joseph also be named in the other Eucharistic Prayers. These petitions, the decree said, had the support of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, and the latter approved the new mandate.

An official of the congregation told Catholic News Service that national bishops' conferences could set a date for the changes to begin if they believe that is necessary, "but because it is a matter of only adding five words, priests can begin immediately".

The decree described St Joseph as "an exemplary model of the kindness and humility that the Christian faith raises to a great destiny, and demonstrates the ordinary and simple virtues necessary for men to be good and genuine followers of Christ".

Pope Francis, who has a flower used as a symbol of St. Joseph on his coat-of-arms, chose the March 19 feast of St Joseph as the date for his inaugural Mass.

Pope Benedict, who was born Joseph Ratzinger and celebrated the March 19 feast of St Joseph as his name day, told a crowd in Cameroon in 2009 that he had "received the grace of bearing this beautiful name".

Sources:

Catholic News Service

Vatican Information Service

Image: Wikimedia