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Catholic Church Reform International is a global network of committed Catholic organizations and individuals seeking a deeply-rooted reform of our Church. It is crucial that we all stay involved in the synodal process!
News and Updates
Stop shaming women for seeking equal power in the church
On 17 August 2016 Jamie Manson wrote an article in the National Catholic Reporter on the subject “Stop shaming women for seeking equal power in the church” There were many comments. Here Clyde, one of the CCRI Strategy Team, responds:
20160622 – Strategy Team Meeting June 22-23, 2016
Present: Kirit Macwan, Mary Beth Stein, Clyde Christofferson, and Rene Reid Here is the summary of our Strategy Team meeting today: Opening prayer (Mary Beth) Following our newsletter of last week, it was agreed to send a personalized group email to organizational...
LIGHT YEARS FROM 1984: WHERE ARE WE GOING FROM HERE?
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Thomas P. Doyle, J.C.D., C.A.D.C. ANNUAL SNAP CONFERENCE CHICAGO, ILLINOIS June 24 to 26, 2016 |
In the original presentation I followed the basic format suggested for speakers at Alcoholics Anonymous and other Twelve Step meetings: What is was like before. What Happened. What it is like now. I have revised the original and expanded it to article length and have retained to this format.
WHAT IT WAS LIKE BEFORE
The present era of awareness of sexual violation by Catholic clerics began in 1983 in two Catholic dioceses: the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Lafayette in Louisiana. This was not the start date of the problem of sexual violation but the beginning of widespread public awareness.
The reality of sexually dysfunctional clerics preying on minors and adults goes back through the centuries. In our lifetime it had been covered with a thick blanket of secrecy. It was unknown to the vast majority of lay persons and clerics as well. Many bishops knew about it but when they had to confront real cases they did so in secret with only a very small number of their closest advisors, all clerics, involved. Although they knew about sexual violation of minors in general, they were incapable of comprehending both its deeply pathological nature and its disastrous effects on victims.
Few knew about such abuse in the Church and even fewer believed it existed and this was due to the nature of the Catholic Church at the time. Back in the forties and fifties there was only one Catholic Church and it was the visible monarchical structure, a stratified society with a clerical aristocracy that was made up of celibate men and the vast ocean of lay commoners. The wall between the clerical caste and the “faithful” as the commoners are known, was steep and almost totally impenetrable.
Michael speaks out (Canada)
Newsletter – 13 August 2016
To all interested in seeing the Church evolve into the values of Vatican II:
There are many things we can do together to continue to call for the reform of our Church
Join us in making a selfie video
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Using your cellphones or computers, we invite you to create a simple, homemade video beginning with these words”: I call for the reform of the Catholic Church because …..” We encourage you to keep it short and simple making it balanced, courteous, and clear. If you have more to say, feel free to make a second video. Send in your clip to us. We will put all of these into a YouTube video and post them on Facebook encouraging others to join with us. Mary Beth (USA) has made a model video to help you. |
Call a gathering in your community
You may already be holding meetings in your area. Now we invite you to share the outcomes of these meetings on www.ThePeopleSpeakOut.org.
If you’re interested in gathering a few people together and would appreciate some help in getting this started, click here. Following on the two Synods attended almost entirely by bishops, there is discussion among reform groups about holding a People’s Synod sometime in the future. Your local gatherings could well be a lead up to this and become part of a growing global movement: Act Local – Think Global.
Virginia Saldanha (India) said this about local gatherings: “If we don’t act, positive changes will not happen. Local and smaller communities have a greater sense of participation. It is an opportune moment in history. Francis wants a thorough going synodality that listens to the grass roots. Our focus on local gatherings is apt, because local communities model a style of participation that needs to be adapted to the larger communities that build on the local church.”
A voice speaks out
Pope institutes commission to study the diaconate of women
(Vatican Radio) In the course of a dialogue during a meeting with the participants in the Plenary Assembly of Superiors General, which took place in May, Pope Francis expressed his intention to “establish an official commission that could study the question” of the diaconate of women, “especially with regard to the first ages of the Church.”
After intense prayer and mature reflection, Pope Francis has decided to institute the Commission for the Study of the Diaconate of Women. As president of the Commission, Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, SJ. In addition to Archbishop Ladaria, the commission is composed of six women and six men from academic institutions around the world.
Below, please find the complete list of the members of the Commission for the Study of the Diaconate of Women:
We need to continue the conversation – Brian Coyne
Dear Rene and other co-signatories,
These are important questions you raise (Newsletter, 12 July 2016) that I’ve been trying to get my head around for perhaps a decade or more, even discussing them quite a number of times with Bob Kaiser. In our country (Australia), and in new statistics released today for Germany [LINK], 90% of the adult baptized have ceased participating and listening. They don’t write letters of protest to bishops, or the pope, as they see that exercise as a complete waste of time, energy, even the cost of a postage stamp. It is seen as absolutely futile as they appear to have learned a long time ago that the hierarchy are only listening to a small “remnant element” who want to undo completely the insights of Vatican II. The recent Life-Site video which you may have seen which has been sent to Pope Francis and the 218 active cardinals in the world are the sort of people the rest of us are competing against. If you haven’t seen the video we’ve uploaded a copy of it on catholica
Newsletter – 12 July 2016
To representatives of Church Reform Organizations:
We’d like to explore ways that we might work together to bring about the reform that we are all striving to create. Even though each of our groups have differing missions focused on specific issues, there are certain basic principles that are universal to all of us:
- The People of God should have a deliberative voice in the governance of our Church;
- Too many Catholics simply go along with the institutional Church unaware that their voice could make a difference;
- These people could be guided and taught that they have the right and the duty to speak up for the good of the Church.
Is there something we could all do to move the People who are the Church out of their pews and into a place where they would begin to speak up?
A Response to Pope Francis’s Commission on Women Deacons
by Ann Gilroy RSJ Women Religious welcome any development in Church that responds to women’s repeated call to have an equal share in the decision-making. Pope Francis’s proposal to set up a Commission to study the possibility of having women deacons, while not yet a...
Choosing the next Archbishop of Melbourne:
how it should occur, and why this is important by Peter Wilkinson The Diocese of Melbourne was established in 1847. It became an archdiocese in 1874. To date, it has had 8 archbishops. The first three were Irish: James Goold (1848-1886), Thomas Carr (1886-1917),...
Why the delays in appointing Australia’s Bishops?
Bishops for the Australian mission
From 1788, when the First Fleet sailed into Botany Bay, until 31 March 2016, seventeen popes have entrusted the pastoral care of Australia’s Catholics to 214 bishops. Until 1976 the popes had also designated Australia a ‘mission’ territory and placed it under the jurisdiction of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide which largely determined the selection of its bishops.
The first five bishops never set foot on Australian soil. All English, they shepherded from afar, three from London, and two from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa where, from 1820 to 1832, they tendered their flock in distant New Holland and Van Diemen’s Land via priest delegates.
The selection and appointment in 1832 of Australia’s first resident bishop, English Benedictine John Bede Polding, as Vicar Apostolic of New Holland and Van Diemen’s Land, was the result of long and delicate political and ecclesiastical negotiations between Propaganda, the British Home Secretary, the Vicars Apostolic of the London District and Cape of Good Hope, the English Benedictines, and the senior Catholic clerics in NSW. The process was repeated until English candidates were no longer available and the majority Irish Catholic laity in Australia had made it clear that they wanted Irish bishops.
The Synod on Synodality
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Reforms We Are Seeking
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Young Adult Seekers Articles
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