Posts Tagged church reform
Part 1: In new interview, Francis pushes for a church big on mercy, tough on law / National Catholic Reporter
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Pope Francis, Voice of the Faithful on January 11, 2016
Pope Francis has offered his most detailed outline yet for the role of the Catholic church in the modern era, saying in a new book-length interview (published in three parts) the church needs to follow Jesus’ example more closely and seek to ‘enter the darkness’ in which many of today’s people live.
“The pontiff has also responded sharply to church leaders who have criticized his focus on the boundless nature of God’s mercy and who suggest that the focus obscures church teachings.
“Francis compares such criticisms to ‘angry mutterings’ that Jesus also heard ‘from those who are only ever used to having things fit into their preconceived notions and ritual purity instead of letting themselves be surprised by reality, by a greater love or a higher standard.’
“In the new book, titled ‘The Name of God is Mercy‘ and to be released Tuesday (Nov. 12), the pope states: ‘Jesus goes and heals and integrates the marginalized, the ones who are outside the city, the ones outside the encampment. In so doing, he shows us the way.'”
By Joshua J. McElwee, National Catholic Reporter — Click here to read the rest of this story. Also by Joshua J. McElwee, “Part 2: The Pope’s personal encounters with mercy” and “Part 3: Francis explains ‘who am I to judge?'”
Francis exhorts Vatican prelates to be more mature, recognizes ‘smallness’ of work / National Catholic Reporter
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Future of the Church, Pope Francis, Vatican, Voice of the Faithful on December 21, 2015
Pope Francis has strongly urged the bishops and cardinals who head the various Vatican offices to act with more respect, honesty and maturity — and has told them that reform of the church’s central bureaucracy will go forward ‘with determination, clarity, and firm resolve.’
“In an annual pre-Christmas meeting with the leaders of what is called the Roman Curia, the pontiff also quoted a prayer long attributed to slain Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero to emphasize the ‘smallness’ of their work in the context of ‘God’s great project of salvation.’
“Referencing a similar speech he gave at this time last year — when the pope outlined 15 diseases he said were affecting the Vatican’s work — Francis said some of those diseases had manifested themselves in 2015, ‘causing not a little pain to the entire body [of the church] and wounding many souls.’”
By Joshua J. McElwee, National Catholic Reporter — Click here to read the rest of this story.
Editorial: U.s. church leadership is in transition / National Catholic Reporter
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Catholic Bishops, church reform, Future of the Church, Pope Francis, Voice of the Faithful on December 2, 2015
In Florence, Italy, last month, Pope Francis addressed the Italian church and gave a bracing, 50-minute exhortation on how integral change is to a healthy life of the church.
“‘Before the problems of the church, it is not useful to search for solutions in conservatism or fundamentalism, in the restoration of obsolete conduct and forms that no longer have the capacity of being significant culturally,’ he told the gathered clerics and laypeople.
“At another point, he said, ‘Christian doctrine is not a closed system incapable of generating questions, doubts, interrogatives — but is alive, knows being unsettled, enlivened. 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 National Catholic Reporter Editorial Staff — Click here to read the rest of this editorial.
Association of Catholic Priests voices ‘disquiet’ over Vatican’s selection of Irish bishops / National Catholic Reporter
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Catholic Bishops, church reform, Vatican, Voice of the Faithful on December 2, 2015
The Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland is to write to the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops expressing its 1,000 members’ ‘grave disquiet’ over the current selection process for bishops in the Irish church.
“A resolution was carried unanimously at the association’s annual meeting in Athlone Nov. 24 which criticized the ‘lack of any credible process of consultation’ with priests and people in recent years and the Vatican’s ‘preference for candidates drawn from a particular mindset.’
“Over 100 members of the ACP who attended the meeting backed the statement which said the choice of candidates is ‘out of sync with the realities of life in Ireland today’ and with the openness of Pope Francis to change and reform in the church.”
By Sarah Mac Donald, National Catholic Reporter — Click here to read the rest of this story.
Major changes coming for Roman Curia / National Catholic Reporter
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Future of the Church, Pope Francis, Vatican, Voice of the Faithful on November 24, 2015
Pope Francis goes to Africa tomorrow (Nov. 25) for a six-day, three-nation apostolic journey that is supposed to culminate next Monday in Central African Republic, a country still in the throes of a brutal civil war.
“It is a real possibility that security concerns could force the Pope and his entourage to return home after visiting only the first two destinations — Kenya and Uganda — or at least limit the last leg to just a brief stopover for a Mass at the tightly guarded Bangui airport.
“No matter how the trip unfolds, Francis will not be coming back to anything remotely considered “peace and quiet” in Rome.
“Among other things, in the coming days and weeks he is set to announce some major personnel and structural changes in the Roman Curia and other Vatican-related departments.
By Robert Mickens, National Catholic Reporter — Click here to read the rest of this story.
Re-Jesusing the Catholic Church / Garry Wills in The Boston Globe
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Catholic Church Finances, church reform, Future of the Church, Pope Francis, Vatican, Voice of the Faithful on November 20, 2015
Voice of the Faithful has long championed financial transparency and accountability in the Catholic Church, a never-ending, always necessary task. Take the commentary below. Garry Wills wonders once again, like many others before him and in light of Pope Francis’ agenda, how the Church can claim God and mammon. And how can it justify keeping its questionable financial dealings secret. For example, “In what is called Peter’s Pence, Catholics from around the world send money to be spent on the poor,” he says, “But four-fifths of that money is spent on maintenance of the bloated Vatican itself.”
Re-Jesusing the Catholic Church
by Garry Wills in The Boston Globe
How can a church whose officialdom is worldly and corrupt present Jesus to the world? Pope Francis thinks it cannot. He once told people at the morning mass in his small chapel, ‘To be believable, the Church has to be poor.’ He has spoken of personal revulsion at seeing a priest drive an expensive car. When he spoke of money as ‘the devil’s dung’ (he was quoting a church father, Saint Basil), some took this as an attack on Western capitalism. But it was a more general message, part of his apology in Bolivia for the church’s role in colonialism. And when Francis looks around the Vatican, he finds the same devil-stench. In one of his earlier interviews as pope, he said, ‘The Curia is Vatican-centric. It sees and looks after the interests of the Vatican, which are still, for the most part, temporal interests.’ He said to assembled Cardinals that some approach the Vatican as if it were a royal court, with all the marks of such courts — ‘intrigue, gossip, cliques, favoritism, and partiality.’”
Voice of the Faithful picks up where ‘Spotlight’ movie ends
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Clergy Sexual Abuse, Future of the Church, Voice of the Faithful on November 16, 2015
Shortly after events in the just released feature film “Spotlight” end, Voice of the Faithful was born of out of the anger and frustration of faithful Catholics at what had happened in their Church: the clergy sexual abuse of children and its coverup. Determined to remain faithful, but to address the wrongs, the movement supported abuse survivors and worked to reform Church structures that enabled the scandal.
As Boston Globe Spotlight investigative team member Sacha Pfeiffer said on ABC’s “The View,” “Certainly some Catholics felt that they couldn’t go back to the church. Others tried to change it from within. There’s a group called Voice of the Faithful. They decided to do that.”
VOTF is what happened next in the Church’s life after the movie ends in 2002, shortly after The Boston Globe published its first stories detailing abuse and coverup in the Archdiocese of Boston. VOTF’s efforts changed how the Roman Catholic Church addresses problems, as described in sociologist Tricia Bruce’s in-depth study of VOTF as an intra-institutional social movement, Faithful Revolution: How Voice of the Faithful Is Changing the Church (Oxford University Press 2011).
Several points paraphrased from Bruce’s book show how VOTF:
- Refused to let the issue of abuse and the secrecy surrounding it go unspoken.
- Spoke out through national media and publicized stories of those victimized by clergy abuse.
- Attended meetings of lay Catholic leaders to focus attention on the scandal.
- Introduced discussions about sexual abuse, power, authority, and the rights and offerings of the laity into the conversation within the Catholic Church.
- Reawakened long-dormant conversations about Vatican II.
- Helped tell the history of the scandal and influenced the Catholic Church’s responses after 2002.
- Broadened the Catholic “we” to include not just the ordained and the silent majority obedient to existing structures, but also new communities within parishes emphasizing the leadership and abilities of lay Catholics.
- Expanded the meaning of Catholic identity to contain both faithfulness and challenge to the institution, suggesting it is possible and preferable to keep the faith, but change the Church.
VOTF continues to address the problems of clerically hardened institutional structures, aiming for greater lay input into governance and for healing wounds the scandal has inflicted. Some in the Church’s hierarchy echo this message, especially in light of “Spotlight’s” story.
As one example, Archbishop Michael Jackels of Dubuque, Iowa, was recently quoted in The Boston Globe as saying that, “though failing to report or remove an offender is rare compared with the past, ‘it too still happens, and when it does, a shadow is cast on the church’s efforts to restore trust and to provide a safe environment. And so I suppose the story told by the movie (‘Spotlight’) bears repeating until all of us get all of it right.’”
Voice of the Faithful®: Voice of the Faithful® is a worldwide movement of faithful Roman Catholics working to support survivors of clergy sexual abuse, support priests of integrity and increase the laity’s role in the governance and guidance of the Church. More information is at www.votf.org.
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.
Voice of the Faithful
A lay movement for governance reform in the Roman Catholic Church, responding to the clergy sexual abuse scandal and supporting survivors.
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