It’s fashionable among some conservatives to rail that there’s insufficient respect for religion in America and that religious people are marginalized, even vilified.“That’s bunk. In more places and instances than not, they get special accommodation and the benefit of the doubt. Because they talk of God, they’re assumed to be good. There’s a reluctance to besmirch them, an unwillingness to cross them.
“The new movie “Spotlight,” based on real events, illuminates this brilliantly.”
By Frank Bruni, The New York Times — Click here to read the rest of this commentary. Click here for links to “Spotlight” reviews and list of movie theaters nationwide debuting the film Nov. 6.
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Archive for November, 2015
The long, resistant road to reformation: the Church today and “Spotlight” / America magazine
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Clergy Sexual Abuse, Future of the Church, Voice of the Faithful on November 12, 2015
On Saturday I saw “Spotlight,” the powerful new Tom McCarthy film about the Boston Globe’s work to break the Boston sexual abuse story in 2002 … It’s a surprisingly restrained, quietly devastating drama that well captures the unfolding horror of that moment. To my mind “Spotlight” is also a film that pushes the church to consider where it is today, and where it needs to go.” (boldface added)
By Jim McDermott, America magazine — Click here to read the rest of this article and click here to read “Watching ‘Spotlight’ as a young priest” by Sam Sawyer, S.J., for a similar take on the movie and the Church’s scandal.
Catholicism can and must change, Francis forcefully tells Italian church gathering / National Catholic Reporter
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in church reform, Future of the Church, Pope Francis, Voice of the Faithful on November 11, 2015
Pope Francis has strongly outlined a new, comprehensive vision for the future of the Catholic church, forcefully telling an emblematic meeting of the entire Italian church community here that our times require a deeply merciful Catholicism that is unafraid of change.
In a 49-minute speech to a decennial national conference of the Italian church — which is bringing together some 2,200 people from 220 dioceses to this historic renaissance city for five days — Francis said Catholics must realize: ‘We are not living an era of change but a change of era.’
“‘Christian doctrine is not a closed system incapable of generating questions, doubts, interrogatives — but is alive, knows being unsettled, enlivened,’ said the pope. ‘It has a face that is not rigid, it has a body that moves and grows, it has a soft flesh: it is called Jesus Christ.'”
By Joshua J. McElwee, National Catholic Reporter — Click here to read the rest of this story.
‘Spotlight’ portrayal of sex abuse scandal is making the Catholic Church uncomfortable all over again / The Washington Post
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Clergy Sexual Abuse, Voice of the Faithful on November 10, 2015
“‘Spotlight,’ a new film about the Catholic clergy abuse scandal’s explosion in 2002, begs the question: How are things different in 2015?
“Dozens of U.S. church leaders have in the past few days been offering answers in the form of public statements, with some primarily focusing on the survivors and others casting the scandal as fully in the past and framing the church as the leader today in a society that hasn’t fully dealt with the problem.
“‘Spotlight,’ which began playing in U.S. cities Nov. 6, tells the story of Boston Globe investigative journalists who broke the story. (The Globe’s editor at the time was Marty Baron, now executive editor of The Washington Post)
“The range of views in the new statements – which follow a memo of talking points the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ sent to its dioceses in September — show the way the church still wrestles with how to tell its own story.”
By Michelle Boorstein, The Washington Post — Click here to read the rest of this story.
Ordination of married men would cause other major changes within the church / National Catholic Reporter
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Celibacy, church reform, Future of the Church, Voice of the Faithful on November 9, 2015
The question of the theology of ordination to the priesthood just isn’t going to go away.
“First, in a meeting with Italian priests in Rome in February, the pope, they tell us, said that he is going to put the topic of the ordination of married men ‘into his diary.’ Meaning on his list of subjects to be — what? Addressed? Discussed? Opened to consideration? Promised? The possibilities are tantalizing.
“In countries where some Catholic communities never see a priest more than once a year, the implications of a new and developing clergy — a married clergy as well as a celibate clergy — conjure up images of a church choosing to be vital and viable again.
“In the United States itself, as well as in far off rural outposts, parishes are closing at a great rate. In fact, the very superstructure of the church of the ’50s — its community-building impact, its services and ministries, its vibrant witness — is dimming. People drive miles to go to Mass now or don’t go at all. They volunteer in civic agencies now rather than in parish ministries because there are few or no church projects impactful enough to demand their commitment. Instead, the church, where there is one, has become a private devotion.
“But if Pope Francis takes the question of married men seriously, that could, for a change, lead to real change.”
By Joan Chittister, National Catholic Reporter — Click here to read the rest of this column.
Spotlight: Award-Winning Movie Shines a Light On Current Problem
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Voice of the Faithful on November 6, 2015
“Spotlight” opens in limited-release today. This movie may finally raise awareness to the level of outrage needed to create real change, if not in the Church, in our laws regarding statute of limitations law reforms.
Because I’m not a victim, many have wondered about my passion for this cause. While being a Catholic and a mother is certainly enough of a reason, it’s also because I began my career as a journalist. I worked as an editor with the Catholic Standard and Times – the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Cardinal Bevilacqua was the publisher during my six years there. I worked with talented, dedicated, loving people of deep faith who sacrificed better pay and work hours to spread the news and the truth of the Church.
Years later, I know the absolute evil that was taking place just floors above us. It is enraging and sickening. That’s…
View original post 160 more words
Elections at USCCB’s annual fall meeting could presage how successful Pope Francis’ Church reforms may be
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Catholic Bishops, church reform, Future of the Church, Pope Francis, Voice of the Faithful on November 6, 2015
USCCB elections present clear choices
The upcoming election of committee chairs by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will present the American bishops with clear choices that will indicate the direction of the conference for the next few years.
“The elections will take place at the bishops’ annual fall meeting in Baltimore, Nov. 16-19.
“Four of the candidates are clearly ‘Francis bishops,’ because they were chosen by him for their dioceses or for a special assignment.
“I am not saying that only bishops appointed by Pope Francis can be considered ‘Francis bishops,’ but it is interesting that the USCCB elections will have four Francis appointees on the ballot. Will the bishops like these candidates as much as Pope Francis does?”
By Thomas Reese, National Catholic Reporter — Click here to read the rest of this story.
Secret ‘Catacombs Pact’ emerges after 50 years, and Pope Francis gives it new life / Religion News Service
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Catholic Bishops, church reform, Future of the Church, Pope Francis, Vatican, Voice of the Faithful on November 5, 2015
Sounding like a document from a Dan Brown novel, the secret Pact of the Catacombs has re-emerged after 50 years, echoing the “poor Church for the poor” of Pope Francis.
The signatories (of what was to become known as the Pact of the Catacombs) vowed (shortly before the end of Vatican II) to renounce personal possessions, fancy vestments and ‘names and titles that express prominence and power,’ and they said they would make advocating for the poor and powerless the focus of their ministry.
“In all this, they said, ‘we will seek collaborators in ministry so that we can be animators according to the Spirit rather than dominators according to the world; we will try to make ourselves as humanly present and welcoming as possible; and we will show ourselves to be open to all, no matter what their beliefs.’
The document would become known as the Pact of the Catacombs, and the signers hoped it would mark a turning point in church history.”
By David Gibson, Religion News Service — Click here to read the rest of this story.
The longtime advocates behind ‘Spotlight’ / WBUR-FM National Public Radio
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Clergy Sexual Abuse, Voice of the Faithful on November 5, 2015
Part two of our (WBUR-FM) ‘Spotlight’ series, in advance of the film’s release Friday (Nov. 6). The film ‘Spotlight’ tells a story that broke in 2002, but started years earlier. Before the Spotlight team investigated allegations of clergy sexual abuse, others — like attorney Mitchell Garabedian and Father Thomas Doyle — were already trying to get justice for the victims.” (Website story features photo of Doyle addressing the audience at the 2002 national Voice of the Faithful conference in Boston.)
By Radio Boston WBUR-FM, National Public Radio, Boston — Click here to listen to this story; click here for part one of this series; and click here to purchase Voice of the Faithful advance sale discount tickets to see “Spotlight” at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St., Brookline, Massachusetts, on Friday, Nov. 13.
Don’t put priests on a pedestal / U.S. Catholic
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Clericalism, Voice of the Faithful on November 4, 2015
“declaring a pox on clericalism” and how we can end it —
Finally there appears an issue that our divided church can agree on. Catholics of all stripes—conservatives and liberals and in-betweens—are declaring a pox on clericalism. From Pope Francis to the back pew widow, from seminary rectors to lay ecclesial ministers, we agree that clericalism is crippling the pastoral mission of the church.”
“At the same time it is strengthening the secularists’ claim that Catholic clergy are nothing more than papal agents bent on enforcing rigid moral controls that smother our human instinct for pleasure and freedom. So let’s end clericalism in the church.”
By Father Donald Cozzens, U.S. Catholic — Click here to read the rest of this column.
The Catholic Church’s sins are ours / The New York Times
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Clergy Sexual Abuse, Voice of the Faithful on November 4, 2015