Category: General

Sometimes I am at a loss about what to write. Either I’m at that emptied out phase or too full to even process everything storming at us and through us. So many others I’ve talked with seem to feel the same. What is there to say? About our world?  About our lives?  Even about women’s…
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I took this picture from inside the ruins of a dwelling in Qumran where they discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls. It haunts me because it is like the caves we are in today, staying in but staring out.  It also haunts me because the outer world in the picture looks the same as the inner:…
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Those of us around this TABLE are united in our belief that women should be ordained priests in the Roman Catholic Church. We probably have many different ideas about what that actually means, how and when that should happen, whether it already has happened. I started thinking about fundamental issues when I heard the Rector…
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First, anger. This is ridiculous. Cancellations and closings. Then resignation, depression, indecision, boredom.  Whatever it looks like for you. Then finding a purpose. This was the sequence for me. How about you? Wednesday a group of florists around Philadelphia took the flowers they were not going to use and decorated Rittenhouse Square. What a boon…
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The following book review originally appeared in the Fall 2019 issue of New Women, New Church. Forty years ago, Theresa Kane stood up in the Basilica Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, to greet Pope John Paul II on behalf of the sisters of the United States and spoke the truth in love,…
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You have probably heard of Brian D. McLaren, especially if you follow Richard Rohr’s postings.  I had not. But as I started to read more of his writings and consider his ideas as a resource for envisioning a renewed, inclusive, vibrant Church, I found many (although not all) of his overall concepts intriguing and invigorating.…
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Often when I read the newspapers, magazines, even books, I see the most interesting connections to our own struggle for equality and inclusion of all genders in our Church. I’m a lover of analogies at the best of times and sometimes go into full connection mode when I feel as if I – and perhaps…
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In his comment about last Saturday’s blog, Luis Gutierrez provided the perfect segue to my discussion of the second La Croix International series – and a new term for me: “equivalence.” He quotes Kari Elisabeth Borrensen: “In fact, no actualisation of gender equivalence is documented in any society before the twentieth-century European welfare states.” There’s…
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Today, December 17, we begin the O Antiphons that lead us for the next seven days to the brink of the nativity.  Seven days contemplating different aspects of the Redeemer soon to be celebrated.  Seven different titles, beginning with perhaps the most ancient of all:  Wisdom, Sophia, Sapientia. The traditional Advent hymn, O Come O…
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Last week I wrote about the German synod and women. This week I want to write about synods more generally, inspired by Massimo Faggioli’s article in La Croix International, “Synodality and the abuse crisis: The Church is still stuck in Trent.” But he begins by writing about the First Vatican Council convened in 1869, which…
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