Some characters are on a hunting trip in William Faulkner’s novel The Town. Tom Deignan, writing in the April 2022 issue of America, describes an unsettling encounter they have: “A noise in some shrubbery compels one character to speculate that it might only be a ‘rabbit’ or it might be ‘a bigger varmint, one with…
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Another Laywoman” is to emphasize that most, if not all, the women in the Vatican that I have written about are religious sisters. Sisters and nuns are laywomen and we rejoice in their placement in or very near the locus of decision-making in the Church. But they are different from most other laywomen. Pope Francis…
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When we speak of women’s (and non-binary gender’s) roles in the Church and world, we, more often than not, receive quite marvelous reflections like this one from Robancy A. Helen, a member of the Idente Missionaries, in her article “Women Everywhere Live Out Mission of Caring for Others” in the May 10, 2022, Global Sisters…
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David Gibson says all I wanted to say this week. He is better informed than I could ever be because he’s a journalist and I’m a blogger. Nevertheless, I will forge ahead. I still have questions after his excellent article and everything else I have read on the US Bishops’ closing of the Catholic News…
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“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair: Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass…
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I wasn’t, for the leak of a first draft of the Supreme Court decision on the Mississippi abortion case. Late June, early July was a long time away, and I was counting on two panels to be sponsored by Catholic Organizations for Renewal (COR) on May 18 and 25 for more information. But flipping through…
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Since I am so besotted by Avivah Zornberg, Scotch-Israeli master of midrash, and her insights into the Book of Exodus, I decided to expand on last week’s post. (As a quick reminder, midrash is the Jewish practice of deeply reading sacred texts again and again to uncover ever-changing and new sacred and intellectual layers of…
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No sooner had Pope Francis issued his curial reform which opened important Vatican positions to lay women and men, did Phyllis Zagano raise the question of women Cardinals. You probably know Zagano as a member of the first papal commission considering the question of women deacons. I assume that her persistent advocacy helped that commission…
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Tradition, as we know only too well, has been wielded – um, traditionally, actually – throughout the ages as a cudgel to keep us from engendering deep and meaningful change in our Church. I won’t name all who have been harmed, but women and LBGTQI? particularly stand out today. As recently as June 2019, however,…
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What occurs to you in looking at this collage of recently-appointed presidents at Jesuit colleges? Only in the fourth paragraph does author Michael J. O’Loughlin move beyond his characterization of these leaders as “laypeople” by noting Pope Francis’ appointment of more women to top Vatican positions. Far be it from me to do a gender…
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