Posts Tagged ‘Phyllis Zagano’

‘Excuse me, Your Eminence, she has not finished speaking’

Monday, November 20th, 2023
synod

Without doubt, the best line to emanate from the Synod on Synoldality is “Excuse me, Your Eminence, she has not finished speaking.” That sums up the synod and the state of the Catholic Church’s attitude toward change. In October, hundreds of bishops, joined by lay men and women, priests, deacons, religious sisters and brothers met Read more

State of the Church report cards are in

Thursday, August 4th, 2022
state of the Church

More than a year ago, Pope Francis announced the Synod on Synodality, an initiative to take the pulse of the Catholic Church. The U.S. Catholics have been mostly silent about this effort, but in several countries, including Australia, France, England and Wales, and Germany, things are moving full steam ahead. Two major problems have come Read more

Women’s diaconate: To ordain or not

Thursday, July 28th, 2022

The Catholic Church in Australia voted in favour of the ordination of women to the diaconate and is putting the issue forward to the 2023 Synod of Bishops. Participants at the 1998 Wellington Archdiocesan Synod voted in favour of a lay pastoral leadership model rather than introducing the permanent diaconate, the major motivator reportedly that Read more

Women Cardinals

Thursday, April 28th, 2022
women cardinals

Pope Francis is reorganizing the Vatican Curia — the church’s administrators and his senior staff — and may name new cardinals in June. Francis’ new apostolic constitution, “Praedicate Evangelium” (“Preach the Gospel”), issued last month, noted that the heads of dicasteries and other offices that manage the church need not be ordained. This highlighted Francis’ Read more

Women deacons or deaconesses? East and West

Monday, December 6th, 2021
women deacons

The confluence of two events, one Roman Catholic and the other Orthodox, point to a growing appreciation of the fact that women are indeed made in the image and likeness of God and are suited for altar service. In Catholicism, the argument against ordaining women to any grade of order rests in the intimation that Read more

Virtual reality and the coming Catholic Metaverse

Thursday, August 5th, 2021
women cardinals

The combination of pandemic lockdowns and Zoom have spawned a new way of being Catholic. Or, they have spawned a new way of seeming to be Catholic. We are moving toward a Catholic Metaverse. A metaverse is a virtual world, like those existing in virtual reality games such as Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnight, where individuals Read more

People are hungry for the Bread of Life, and it’s not just the women

Thursday, August 5th, 2021
voice

A couple of weeks ago, I was a visitor celebrating a parish Mass. I was introduced to the congregation by the choir leader who had sung at my diaconate ordination 36 years ago. After mass, she expressed her displeasure that Pope Francis had announced changes to the Code of Canon Law, lumping together the issues Read more

Clericalism solved by women, or not

Monday, July 19th, 2021
women cardinals

Legions of female church workers at every level in parishes and chanceries, at episcopal conferences — and even at the Vatican — welcomed and welcome Pope Francis’ efforts to eliminate clericalism. The general perception that “they” (clerics) do not need “us” (women) seems to be fading. Or is it? The great diversity of the “church Read more

We don’t need women deacons

Monday, May 31st, 2021
Women deacons

Women deacons are in effect working well in the Church, except we do not call them deacons, and they are not ordained. This is the view of Dr Joe Grayland, theologian, author and parish priest of three parishes in Palmerston North, New Zealand. He questions whether we need another form of the clergy. Grayland made Read more

Can the Catholic Church agree to change anything?

Monday, April 19th, 2021
women cardinals

Sometimes you need to catch your breath when a Vatican official’s speaking echoes a theologian’s writings. Which way is this going to go? Not long ago, the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, echoed a 50-year-old passage from a book by … wait for it … Swiss theologian Hans Küng. Speaking on Spain’s church-owned Read more