The psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung famously claimed to have seen almost no practicing Catholics in decades of clinical practice.

Others have failed to replicate this result, but the idea that religious practice has some meaningful impact on mental health persists.

For Jung, speaking in 1939, the world could be divided into two categories: those who practiced a religion (which for Europeans of Jung's era primarily included Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism) and those who did not. Any serious contemporary consideration of this question, however, would need to introduce a third category.

Many people today reject "organized religion," but do not quite identify as secular either.

They report having a spiritual life while disavowing any particular religious practice. They are, in a phrase, "spiritual but not religious."

This fact introduces a new question for psychology: What are the mental health benefits of this spiritual attitude?

One might reasonably suppose that they are positive.

After all, many people who take this attitude engage in practices that are widely held to be beneficial to mental health, such as meditation, even if they do not accept the background theology of Buddhism or other major religions that encourage meditative practices.

This spiritual orientation is also a part of 12-step programs that encourage individuals to find their own "higher power," outside the bounds of traditional religious belief.

So, one might think that this kind of spiritual orientation to the world is associated with positive mental health.

Mixed research results

The empirical literature on this question, however, is decidedly more mixed.

Consider an important 2013 study in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

The authors consider data from approximately 7,400 individuals in England.

Of these, most identify as either religious or as non-religious and non-spiritual, but about a fifth (19 percent) identify as spiritual but not religious.

The prevalence of mental disorders in the first two groups (the religious and the non-religious non-spiritual) is roughly the same, but the spiritual but not religious are different: Among other things, they are significantly more likely to have phobias, anxiety, and neurotic disorders generally.

In short, being spiritual but not religious is a significant predictor of mental distress, compared to the general population.

This correlation between spirituality without religiosity ought to give us pause, in part because it is confirmed by subsequent studies.

For example, one more recent study (Vittengl, 2018) finds that people who are more spiritual than they are religious are at greater risk for the development of depressive disorders.

As I said, all this is very puzzling.

What explains these somewhat dispiriting findings?

And what lessons should we draw from it?

Three caveats

To begin with, we should note three caveats or complications.

First, as the authors emphasize, these findings say nothing about cause and effect.

It could be that spiritual practices outside of traditional religion are a cause of mental distress.

Or it equally well could be that people in mental distress seek out spiritual but non-religious practices.

Or it could be that these two phenomena—being spiritual but not religious and experiencing mental distress—are common effects of some shared cause.

Second, many people do not seek their spiritual orientation, in the first place, because of its mental health benefits.

People who are drawn to spirituality while rejecting traditional religious frameworks are in the first place pursuing their own spiritual values, rather than seeking mental health.

So these correlations should not, on their own, lead anyone to doubt their own spiritual convictions.

Third, as all of the authors discussed above acknowledge, these correlations remain very poorly understood.

This is partly because we are stuck in a dichotomous way of thinking about spirituality—on which people are religious or not religious—that the introduction of a third category remains something of a novelty.

Furthermore, this third category remains poorly understood, in part because "spirituality" itself admits so many different understandings. Continue reading

• John T. Maier, Ph.D., MSW, received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Princeton and his MSW from Simmons University. He is a psychotherapist in private practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The panel discussion, held during the 74th session of the U.N. General Assembly, was co-hosted by the permanent missions of Hungary and Brazil.

The event, "Rebuilding Lives, Rebuilding Communities: Ensuring a Future for Persecuted Christians," addressed both recent episodes of violence against Christians and continuing efforts to ensure religious freedom internationally.

In his opening statement before the panel, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade for Hungary, stated, "This is a fact that Christianity is the most persecuted religion all over the world," a sentiment echoed in 2012 by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.

An independent review completed in 2019 of Christian persecution, spearheaded by Anglican Bishop Philip Mounstephen of Truro, England, supported that claim and found that "evidence shows not only the geographic spread of anti-Christian persecution but also its increasing severity."

In June 2017, the Pew Research Center reported that in 2015, Christians endured harassment in 128 countries but faced the most instances of harassment in Christian-majority countries.

Mr. Szijjártó said he believes that political correctness contributes to a lack of discussion on this topic. "In global politics, the fact that the Christians are persecuted is kind of being ignored," he said.

He also highlighted the efforts undertaken by Hungary to combat anti-Christian violence, which included providing aid to 1,000 Christians displaced by ISIS attacks in Teleskof, a northern Iraqi town on the Nineveh Plains.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, recalled his visit last December to Mosul, the Iraqi city ravaged and then captured by ISIS militants, who were driven out in 2017.

"As I walked through the city of Mosul, there was still rubble everywhere, making it difficult to traverse," the cardinal said.

He saw the recent movement of exiled Iraqi Christians back to their homeland as "a sign that evil does not have the last word."

The Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the United Kingdom's minister of state for the Commonwealth, the United Nations and South Asia, broadened the scope of the discussion beyond the persecution of Christians.

"Individuals all around the globe are persecuted and discriminated against because of their religious beliefs," he said.

The Lord Ahmad also said that it is because of his Muslim faith, not in spite of it, that he supports religious freedom for all people. He said that Islam is a peaceful religion and that he does not view attacks by ISIS as acts of faith. He called perpetrators of such violence "evil" and "demonic." Continue reading

• Image: GodTV

Last week 72 bishops, priests, nuns and laypeople attended a "Mission planning for nation building" workshop to find a common platform so they could "effectively contribute to the building of the nation". Read more

Those were exciting years. In February 1968, aged 19, I entered an Irish Cistercian monastery. It was just three years after the Council ended and a few months after the Cistercian general chapter met to implement the decisions of the Council.

I left six years later, in 1974, just before I would have made my solemn profession. But I still regard the community as friends and brothers.

By the time I left some major changes had taken place: the adoption of English in the liturgy, the end of the very strict silence (we had communicated by sign language), the move from sleeping in dormitories to our own rooms, and a more relaxed attitude towards trips outside the monastery.

Then there was the introduction of newspapers and even the radio (later television and the internet were also allowed).

Those were the years of "dialogue" (encouraged by Pope Paul VI): with each other, with the superior, with the outside world.

The question was: how to be monks, true to the original charism of our order, in the 20th century?

Undoubtedly some of the changes were necessary (eg the rule of silence); others were adopted too hastily and carelessly (the loss of the Latin liturgy and Gregorian chant - the Council had asked monks especially to preserve this).

As the Church's Year of Consecrated Life has just ended, it is worth reflecting on what has happened to religious life in general in Western countries over the past 50 years and whether it has a future.

At first sight it is a rather grim picture. Most religious orders in the West are declining numerically and ageing. This makes them less attractive to young people.

Since most of the active orders no longer wear the habit, they have become almost invisible to wider society. Continue reading

• Professor John Loughlin is a Research Fellow at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford. This article was first published in The Catholic Herald.

The document, entitled Identity and Mission of the Religious Brother in the Church, focuses on the role non-ordained men play in various religious orders around the world, Vatican Insider reports. Commonly referred to as brothers, such men do not receive priestly ordination but are normally consecrated or anointed into a life of service with their order.

It notes that the first title Jesus assumed for himself and for his disciples was that of brother.

"Jesus Christ first of all became brother, shared our flesh and blood and was in solidarity with the sufferings of his brothers and sisters," the document says. "This is the title Jesus gives his disciples after his Resurrection."

"The Religious Brother, living his lay state through a special consecration, is witness to the value of the common priesthood received in Baptism and Confirmation," the 54-page document says. "His religious consecration is in itself an exercise in the fullness of the priesthood of all the baptized."

"Rooting his life deeply in God, the Brother consecrates all creation, recognizing the presence of God and the Spirit's action in creation, in cultures and in daily events," the document continues.

"The Brother develops his baptismal priesthood through brotherhood," the document continues. "Through it he becomes a bridge between God and his brothers, anointed and sent by the Spirit to bring the Good News of the love and mercy of God to all, especially to the least of his brothers, the weakest members of humanity."

The document describes brothers' communities "a prime manifestation of the baptismal priesthood."

According to CruxNow, there are about 55,000 brothers in the Catholic Church worldwide today.

Sources

• Global Pulse, an article by Stefan Gigacz, who is working on his Ph.D. at MCD University of Divinity, Melbourne.
• Image: Catholic Diocese of Umzimkulu

"This (waking up the world) is a priority needed right now," the Jesuit Pope wrote in his letter to mark the November 30 start of the year.

However to be so bold, Francis is urging religious communities to "step more courageously from the confines of their institutes," to put aside pettiness, gossip and jealousy and to work together, and along with 'other vocations' in the Church.

The Holy Father says he is expecting religious orders to examine their presence in the Church and respond to the new demands constantly being made on them, and in particular the cry of the poor.

Francis stressed that looking to recreate the past will not provide answers for present, and he is calling on religious communities to see the signs of today and modify their structures and routines in order to respond to what God is asking now.

In his speech he said the church must be bold in recognising and changing "the structures that give us a false sense of protection and that condition the dynamism of charity," as well as "the routines that distance us from the flock we are sent to and prevent us from hearing the cry of those awaiting the good news of Jesus Christ."

"In that portion of the Lord's vineyard represented by those who have chosen to imitate Christ most closely... new grapes have matured and new wine has been pressed."

Pope Francis said religious are called "to discern the quality and the vintage of the 'new wine' that was produced in this long period of renewal (since Vatican II) and, at the same time, to evaluate if the wineskins that contain it - represented by the institutional forms present in consecrated life today - are adequate to hold this 'new wine' and promote its full maturation."

The pope met congregation members on November 27, three days before the opening of the Year of Consecrated Life.

Sources

• Vatican Radio (incl Official translation of his message)
• CNS
• Image: Congregation the sisters of St Joseph of Peace

I don't know why; I'm about as religious as a satsuma.

But given that Mum's an Anglican preacher, my Dad's an atheist, my brother a Catholic, and my Aunt and Uncle devout Jews, I've probably picked up second-hand religious interest somewhere.

Anyway, I like him.

He seems friendly and humble.

And I bet he'd be able to wear a white top for a day without dribbling spaghetti on it. Mad skills.

Perhaps his most surprising skill is that he knows how to get good PR.

PR-savvy and the Church are fish and raccoons: unlikely bedmates.

But today, as one article sniffed, Pope Francis gave another one of his snappy soundbites. He announced that creationism and evolution are compatible.

Now for any modern Christian, this is a, "well, obviously" moment.

Only the most extreme believers think that God waved a wand, and out popped the human, the hippo and the hummingbird.

Every other modern Christian knows that Darwin was right.

Furthermore, that the Old Testament should not be taken literally.

The reason I find it interesting is that this announcement will have a bigger effect on atheists than Catholics.

They will be the ones going what? Really? Religious people think that?

See, every time I have a conversation with an average atheist, I realise that they have this idea that anyone religious believes in creationism.

I've lost count of the times I've heard, "but the Bible's been proved scientifically wrong!"

There are a lot of assumptions that we make about young religious people these days.

We don't really judge old religious people; they were raised in a time when churchgoing was normal.

Or middle-aged religious people, because they were raised in a time when feeling guilty for not going was normal.

But young religious people? We think that's weird. We think they're a bit ignorant, prudish, and more than a bit intolerant. Continue reading

Source:

• Verity Johnson in The New Zealand Herald

Verity Johnson is a writer who is passionate about giving young people a voice.

And after trying Superman, Batman and Spider-Man, we may have found the best superheroes yet: Nuns.

‘‘I may not believe in God, but I do believe in nuns,'' writes Jo Piazza, in her forthcoming book, If Nuns Ruled the World.

Piazza is an agnostic living in New York City who began interviewing nuns and found herself utterly charmed and inspired.

‘‘They eschew the spotlight by their very nature, and yet they're out there in the world every day, living the Gospel and caring for the poor,'' Piazza writes.

‘‘They don't hide behind fancy and expensive vestments, a pulpit, or a sermon.

I have never met a nun who rides a Mercedes-Benz or a Cadillac.

They walk a lot; they ride bikes.''

One of the most erroneous caricatures of nuns is that they are prim, Victorian figures cloistered in convents.

On the contrary, I've become a huge fan of nuns because I see them so often risking their lives around the world, confronting warlords, pimps and thugs, while speaking the local languages fluently.

In a selfish world, they epitomise selflessness and compassion.

There are also plenty of formidable nuns whom even warlords don't want to mess with, who combine reverence with ferocity, who defy the Roman Catholic Church by handing out condoms to prostitutes to protect them from HIV.

One of the nuns whom Piazza profiles is Sister Megan Rice.

She earned a graduate degree and then moved to Nigeria in 1962 to run a school for girls she had helped establish in a remote area with no electricity or running water.

After returning to the US, she began campaigning against nuclear weapons.

In 2012, at the age of 82, she masterminded the break-in of a nuclear complex in Tennessee, to call attention to the nuclear threat.

As she was handcuffed by armed security guards, she sang This Little Light of Mine.

She is now serving a prison sentence of almost three years. Continue reading

Source

• Nicholas Kristof in The Sydney Morning Herald

Nicholas Kristof is a New York Times journalist.

Rapped knuckles belonged to LCWR, to Fordham theologian Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, and to any other American woman walking around with letters after her name.

Even Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, charged with keeping LCWR in order, took a hit for not controlling those uppity females.

To be sure, the main target of CDF's latest document is Barbara Marx Hubbard and her "conscious evolution," which admittedly has spread its bubbles across the websites and newsletters of many institutes of women religious.

Hubbard, a Jewish agnostic, is the 84-year-old "futurist" who was the featured speaker at LCWR's 2012 assembly. She was, to put it kindly, rather different. (She told me at the assembly she did not like all that sin and redemption business in Christianity.)

However, to lump the serious theological work of Elizabeth Johnson in with obviously gnostic claptrap is not only intellectually dishonest — it is a huge public relations mistake.

That is what CDF did. Has CDF ever heard of the Internet? How about television? Statements like this always backfire.

Score: LCWR 2, CDF 0. When will they ever learn? Continue reading.

Phyllis Zagano is a Catholic scholar and lecturer on contemporary spirituality and women's issues in the church.

Source: National Catholic Reporter

Image: Hofstra University

Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo said that the majority of cases occur at a "relatively young age".

The causes, he said, include "absence of spiritual life", "loss of a sense of community", and a "loss of sense of belonging to the Church" — a loss manifest in dissent from Catholic teaching on "women priests and sexual morality".

Continue reading

The Irish government has previously denied direct involvement in the system, which was run by four religious congregations: the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, the Good Shepherd Sisters, the Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters of Charity.

The report's lead author, former Irish Senator Martin McAleese — husband of former Irish president Mary McAleese — said until now the facts and figures of the workhouses had been shrouded in "secrecy, silence and shame."

The investigation found that 10,012 women were committed to the workhouses from 1922, the first year of Ireland's independence from Britain, to the closure of the last two laundries in 1996.

It found that the average length of stay was just seven months, not the lifetime imprisonment commonly depicted in fictional works.

Though Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny held back from a formal apology, he expressed regret that the residents of the Magdalene laundries were stigmatised as "fallen women," a euphemism for prostitutes.

The investigators "found no evidence to support the perception that unmarried girls had babies there, or that many of the women of the Magdalene Laundries since 1922 were prostitutes. The reality is much more complex."

About 27 per cent of the women were ordered into the facilities by an array of state employees: judges, probation officers, school truancy officials, social workers, doctors at psychiatric hospitals, or officials at state-funded shelters for unwed mothers and their babies.

Some 16 per cent entered laundries voluntarily, 11 per cent were consigned there by other family members, and 9 per cent were sent there on the recommendation of a priest.

The report disputed depictions in popular culture of physical beatings in the institutions, noting that many Magdalene residents had transferred there as teenagers from other Catholic-run industrial schools where such violence was common, and some survivors failed to distinguish between the two.

It found no evidence of such attacks in the nuns' care and, specifically, no complaints of sexual abuse by the nuns.

Sources:

Associated Press

The Journal

Image: RTE News

"The love of God sometimes follows paths one could never have imagined," he says, "but it always reaches those who are willing to be found."

Continue reading

At the end of their twice-yearly conference in Sydney, the bishops said they had formed a supervisory group of representatives from the bishops' conference and Catholic Religious Australia.

They said this group would establish and oversee the 10-member Council for the Royal Commission.

The conference president, Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, said the new council would help the Church engage closely with the commission and the community.

He said expert lay people, including those with expertise in the care of sex abuse victims, would be on the council but he did not give any names.

"We need broad-based expertise so that the church together can face the truth, can provide a better response to the care of victims and also make Australia a safer place for our children," he said.

The bishops' statement welcomed the establishment of the royal commission.

"It is an opportunity for those who have suffered to obtain a compassionate hearing, justice and further healing," the bishops said.

"It is also an opportunity for the Church's processes to be scrutinised with greater objectivity. This will allow further refinements that seek justice and pastoral care.

"However imperfectly, this work has been going on in the Catholic Church for the last two decades. It will continue.

"Once again, we renew our heartfelt apology to those whose lives have been so grievously harmed by the evil perpetrated upon them by some priests, religious and church personnel . . . .

"Our hope is that, in its search for truth, the royal commission will present recommendations ensuring the best possible standards of child protection in our country," the bishops said.

"Painful and difficult as this might be for the Church, it is nothing compared to the hurt of those who have suffered sexual abuse, particularly by clergy and religious."

Sources:

Catholic Church in Australia

SBS

Sydney Morning Herald

Image: Press TV

Msgr. Charles Scicluna, the Vatican's top prosecutor on abuse cases, was named an auxiliary bishop in his native Malta on Oct. 8. On Thursday, the pope was also set to name American Archbishop Joseph Tobin, the Vatican's leading voice for reconciliation with women religious, as the new archbishop of Indianapolis.

The question now is whether the positions these two figures represent are also on the way out. Some are reading their departures as classic cases of promoveatur ut amoveatur, meaning promoting someone to get rid of them and, by extension, their ideas. Vatican officials say it's not so, insisting there are more effective ways of muzzling someone than the new gigs both men are getting.

Especially with Tobin, it's hard not to see office politics at work. He's only served as secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (popularly known as the Congregation for Religious) since August 2010, while Vatican officials normally have at least a five-year term. When rumors of his move to Indianapolis heated up in October, several commentators speculated it was related to his "soft" line on religious women in the United States.

Italian commentator Marco Tosatti wrote Oct. 1 that some in the U.S. church "did not appreciate Tobin's role in clearing up misunderstandings with 'rebel' nuns. American bishops did not find his conciliatory statements very helpful as they were hard at work trying to resolve a difficult problem."

"They saw his attitude as a break with the position taken by the previous prefect [of the Congregation for Religious], Cardinal Franc Rode, who was concerned about the 'new age' drift of many U.S. nuns," Tosatti wrote. Continue reading

Image: Indiana Public Media

Last April the Vatican announced a major reform of the 1500-strong association, under which it will be supervised by three bishops.

The national assembly (under the theme of "Mystery Unfolding: Leading in the Evolutionary Now") will be in St Louis, Missouri, from August 7 to 11.

Interviewed by National Public Radio, the LCWR president, Sister Pat Farrell, said the options include fully complying with the Vatican mandate, not complying with the mandate and seeing if the Vatican will negotiate, or "to remove ourselves [and] form a separate organisation".

"In my mind, [I want] to see if we can somehow, in a spirited, nonviolent strategising, look for maybe a third way that refuses to define the mandate and the issues in such black and white terms," she said.

In the interview, Sister Farrell defended the LCWR against Vatican criticisms and said these centred on the group's unwillingness to follow the policy directions of the hierarchy, rather than active resistance.

On the issue of ordaining women, the LCWR president said the group had not advocated that since the Vatican's definitive statement that women cannot be ordained.

She defended LCWR members' periodic letters to the Vatican on issues of sexuality, including gay/lesbian issues, saying, "We have been in good faith raising concerns about some of the Church's teaching on sexuality. The teaching and interpretation of the faith can't remain static and really needs to be reformulated, rethought in light of the world we live in and new questions, new realities as they arise."

On abortion, she described the work of women religious as "very much pro-life". But she added: "We would question, however, any policy that is more pro-fetus than actually pro-life. You know, if the rights of the unborn trump all the rights of all those who are already born, that is a distortion, too."

Sources:

National Public Radio

National Catholic Reporter

Image: National Pubic Radio

But, says John L Allen Jr in his National Catholic Reporter column, "At least part of the original momentum for the overhaul actually came from America, not Rome".

• Read John L Allen Jr's column.
• Image: The Catholic World Report