Category: Vatican

Perhaps with a side of reproductive rights? What a week for causes dear to us! Suddenly the things we talk about in our impassioned conversations are on the front pages, one in The Atlantic, no less. So I’ll go there first. Are we working so hard to get ordained into something that ought to be…
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At the first Roman Catholic Women Priests ordinations on the St. Lawrence River in Gananoque, Quebec, I was so happy. But when the big moment came, all the news photographers there stood up and got their pictures, totally blocking my view. I thought of the irony of it all – I had been working for…
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Why is it that only the “no” votes matter? That change can be put off because not everybody agrees? Not to decide is to decide, the mantra of Pope Francis when it comes to us. Once again, women are revealed as the third rail of the church. You’ll be executed if you touch it, so…
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Perhaps you’ve heard that Joseph Ratzinger (formerly known as Pope Benedict XVI) published a letter last week about the causes of sex abuse and other problems in the church. He does not once mention the evils of feminism! He makes glancing references to women, like the danger when a “girlfriend” of a lay pastoral worker,…
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THIS IS HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN!HOLY THURSDAY WITNESSAPRIL 18, 2019 at 11:00AM Sister Cities Park, 18th & JFK Parkway(Across from Sts. Peter & Paul Basilica)Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Remember that song from the Sixties, “Stop, in the name of Love!”? Don’t you sometimes want to sing it, shout it, pray it, from the rafters of your…
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Is “a difficult woman” a cliché? It’s been used in an Australian television series and a biography of Lillian Hellman, not to mention a book by Roxane Gay and an anthology about twenty-nine contemporary women. Would Lucetta Scaraffia be an Italian version? Having written about her resignation letter and now having read several articles published…
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“Blasted” is how Nicole Winfield of the Associated Press characterizes the response of the Women’s Ordination Conference to Pope Francis’s new apostolic exhortation, “Christus Vivit.” Winfield does not quote WOC’s best blast: that the Pope is “suggesting no concrete actions to further his own bishops’ call for the inclusion of women in decision-making and leadership…
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What do you think of when you hear the word, “Vatican”?  An imposing basilica dome? A white cloaked man in a funny car?  A sea of red-capped heads? A plaza of milling people and towering pillars?  As I have been finding out these past months, it’s hard to decipher just exactly what “the Vatican” or…
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Well, it’s Lent. Is that good news or bad news? My mother always had cottage cheese for lunch and lost weight doing it. The rules have changed and I have passed the age when such virtue and/or sacrifice was necessary, anyway. But I think about it. I wind up asking about whether there’s good news…
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This is the insight of Margaret McLaughlin, looking at the photos of the last day of the summit on sex abuse. All those pink hats on the bishops! We are reminded, of course, of all the pink hats worn around the world as women lift their voices and hearts during the now-annual marches in January.…
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