As cardinals prepare to elect a new pope, Emeritus Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco has urged major reforms in Church governance, including how the papacy is exercised. Calling for major decentralisation of Vatican and papal authority, he said this could be achieved through the creation of regional bishops’ conferences and synods of bishops with Read more
People, society and the healthcare systems themselves would benefit from a return to a values-based approach to healthcare argues New Zealand Marist, Gerald Arbuckle in his new book, “Humanizing Healthcare Reforms“. In his book Arbuckle argues that a values-based approach would change healthcare and systems and be a much better approach to healthcare than the Read more
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini believed the Catholic Church 200 years behind the times. The former archbishop of Milan and papal candidate said this in the final interview he gave before his death last Friday at the age of 85. In the interview Martini gave a scathing portrayal of a pompous and bureaucratic church failing to move with Read more
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the United States has begun talks with the archbishop appointed to supervise its reform, but says it will not make fundamental changes to its expression of consecrated religious life. The LCWR national assembly had instructed its board to approach the discussion with Archbishop Peter Sartain “from a stance Read more
Avoiding a direct confrontation with the Vatican, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the United States has opted for dialogue with the archbishop appointed to supervise a reform of the group. The decision to enter into a “conversation” with Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle was announced at the end of the LCWR’s annual assembly Read more
The Legion of Christ has been told it must undergo a “brief but intense” period of reflection in conjunction with its associated lay movement, Regnum Christi, before its reform can proceed. Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, the pontifical delegate supervising the reform, said it is not possible to consider the government, apostolate and administration of the Read more
Austrian media are making the dissident priests’ call to reform something more than it is according to Michael Pruller, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Vienna. Cardinal Schonborn is however interested in working with the dissenting Austrian priests to help bring new life to Viennese parishes, Pruller said. Pruller confirmed that despite media reports to the Read more
There is only one thing missing in the movement to reform the reforms says Eugene Kennedy: “the fuel of neurotic guilt” needed to make people feel bad even about being good. Catholicism has always made room for forgiveness and offered comfort to sinners. There are “reformers of the reform” who present a distortion of the church’s humane Read more
Iain Duncan Smith, British Prime Minister’s Work and Pensions Secretary, is in New Zealand to give a lecture for the Maxim Institute. His reforms are a trial run for what a local welfare working group chaired by economist Paula Rebstock has recommended here. Rebstock had a rather narrower assignment – to “reduce long-term benefit dependency”. Read more
At the American Catholic Council an estimated 2,000 reform-minded Catholics stood en masse to endorse a 10-point Catholic Bill of Rights and Responsibilities that asserts primacy of conscience and the right of every Catholic to have a voice in the way the church is run, as well as an obligation to advance the proclamation of Read more