Category: catholic news

Christopher Lamb in The Tablet brings a certain British irony to his observations of the synod on youth: “It seems like going on retreat, with a generous helping of church politics thrown in, and a complicated Roman structure.” Yes to all of it. I sense that the lay people and reporters in Rome experienced the…
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Has a certain ring to it, does it not? After All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, observe All Survivor’s Day. Begun by the Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), these nationwide and international witnesses will take place on Saturday, November 3. Most will be from 3 to 5 pm at cathedrals, but…
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CNN is not a station I normally watch except on election nights when MSNBC has a commercial. But I was intrigued when Stephen Colbert had Brooke Baldwin as a guest and she explained the special series she is hosting this fall. I knew there were many women running for office in the midterm elections, but…
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The question for this post is whether the image of nuns in popular culture prevents imagining women as priests. Or, is the image of priest so male that women cannot find a place in it? In our small faith community last week I was commenting on my experience of Rome a few years ago: nuns…
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On the Sunday after the report came out about the egregious sexual abuse perpetrated by the clergy on youth in Pennsylvania, our priest began Mass by lighting ten circles of ten candles for the victims, praying for them, and apologizing on behalf of the Church. In the days preceding that Sunday, he had sent a…
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Rebecca Traister has a new book that could describe us perfectly: Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger. We are good. Are we mad? Traister spoke this evening – Thursday – at the Free Library of Philadelphia, and I encourage you to go hear her on the book tour. I hope she has the…
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First of all, I want you to support the effort by WOC to have women participants at the Synod on Youth have a vote. Does it surprise you that two lay religious congregation leaders of men will have a vote in the synod, but those of all the women will not? Sisters are laypeople, but…
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I was struck by two questions about the political process in the above article by Kai Wright in The Nation (September 24/October 1, 2018): Are we prepared to end the minority rule that white men have wielded over the United States for hundreds of years? Are we ready to tear down the foundation upon which…
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I need a break from the head-spinning chaos of the sex abuse scandal, so I’ve decided to write about something in the church that works: the Catholic Relief Services (CRS). It – and I – were born in the same year, 1943, so we are celebrating 75 years together. The odd name “Relief” relates to…
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September 11: Another anniversary of horror, of incomprehensible destruction and inconsolable loss felt around the world that day – and this day. Horror and destruction and loss which are still happening, as they did that day, and on this day. Somewhere. And then there are personal losses and griefs piled on: to remember, to suffer…
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