US Catholic bishops offered an apology to Native Americans on Friday for the church’s role in inflicting trauma on their communities and adopted new guidelines for ministering to indigenous Catholics. The new policies, approved by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, call on church leaders to set up listening sessions with local Native leaders, incorporate Read more
Posts Tagged ‘US Conference of Catholic Bishops’
Brain death dispute endangers organ donations
Thursday, April 18th, 2024
Catholic bioethicists are raising concerns over the absence of a unified understanding of brain death. They say the impact on organ donation is profound. The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) issued a statement on April 11 titled “Integrity in the Determination of Brain Death: Recent Challenges and Next Steps”. The NCBC highlighted a breakdown in Read more
Bishops begin process that could ban gender-affirming care in Catholic hospitals
Monday, June 19th, 2023The US Conference of Catholic Bishops voted on Friday (June 16) to amend its directives for US Catholic health care organisations, setting in motion a process that could bar Catholic hospitals and other church-affiliated institutions from providing gender-affirming treatment to transgender people. The vote occurred during the USCCB’s spring meeting in Orlando. It passed via Read more
US synod concerned by division between laity and bishops
Thursday, September 22nd, 2022
A report on the 10-month US synod process has highlighted that Catholics are hurting from clergy abuse cases, and seek a church focused on lifelong spiritual, pastoral and catechetical formation as disciples. Participants were also concerned about the division between US Catholics and their bishops. They voiced a need for a welcoming church of “lived Read more
Head bishop called to apologise for labelling social justice ‘pseudo-religion’
Monday, November 15th, 2021
Nearly 10,000 Catholics, including theologians, academics and activists, have signed a petition calling for Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez to apologise for denigrating social justice movements as “pseudo-religions.” In the Nov 4 speech to the Congress of Catholics and Public Life in Madrid, Gomez framed today’s social justice activism, including the anti-racist movement in the Read more
Plot thickens: Tracking the Grindr habits of US Bishops Conference official
Monday, July 26th, 2021
A Catholic publication that outed a high-ranking Catholic priest as gay and a regular user of the app Grindr and led to his resignation as the secretary-general of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has not revealed where it obtained the data used in its report. But some experts say the level of detail included Read more
Priest’s cellphone activity costs him his job
Thursday, July 22nd, 2021
A top official within the US Catholic church resigned (Tuesday) after cellphone data obtained through a broker appeared to show he was a frequent user of the gay dating app Grindr. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a memo that Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill had resigned as its general secretary. This came after staff Read more
US Bishops at odds over Communion to Biden
Monday, May 31st, 2021
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) plans to devote part of its national meeting next month to the sensitive issue of which Catholics are worthy of receiving Communion, and President Joe Biden will be a key subject. Dozens of bishops had written to the USCCB president, Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez, requesting to postpone Read more
US Catholic bishops to vote on pressuring Joe Biden to stop taking Communion over abortion views
Monday, May 3rd, 2021When US Catholic bishops hold their next national meeting in June, they’ll be deciding whether to send a tougher-than-ever message to President Joe Biden and other Catholic politicians: Don’t receive Communion if you persist in public advocacy of abortion rights. At issue is a document that will be prepared for the US Conference of Catholic Read more