Synodal Breaking News

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

How our Church needs to be fixed

by George Rippon

Article originally published in Catholica

As I sit down to write I am often not quite sure where I will end up. This time I know. Having seen most of my recommendations ignored over the years I will in faith and hope give them another run, with some variations.

Starting at the top I wish Francis in Rome progress in sorting out the entrenched Curia. Maybe he should sack the lot and start again. At this time I do not propose to give direct advice to His Holiness.

We need to have a say in the appointment of bishops…

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Petition to reinstate Rev Professor Hans Küng as an official Catholic theologian

Nessan, from Ireland, Ed, from The Netherlands, and CCRI invite you to join them in sending the letter below to Pope Francis. Please use the form below the letter to sign it.

From Professor Leonard Swidler

Friends,

I urge all of you to sign AND forward this petition to all of your networks, urging them to likewise sign and share widely.

Actually, over a year ago I had an email conversation with Hans’ and my former colleague Cardinal Kasper (not Joseph Ratzinger—I don’t have his email address), urging him to use his influence with Pope Francis to name Hans a Cardinal (as happened to John Henry Newman while he was still alive by Pope Leo XIII).

Pax!
Len

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World Day of Prayer – 4 April 2016

Celebrate the 22nd Annual World Day of Prayer for Women’s Ordination The World Day of Prayer is a concerted global action held annually on the feast of the Annunciation, to draw attention to women’s ordination into an inclusive and accountable Catholic Church. Every...

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Please support our work

 We are very grateful to the many colleagues who donate their time and expenses to our cause but inevitably there are expenses which need to be paid. Your donation - however much you can afford - will be deeply appreciated. Please support our work.

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Newsletter – 28 March 2016

March 28. 2016

To church reform organizational leaders:

At this time when Christians are being persecuted all around the world – in France, Belgium, the U.S., and now Pakistan, it is time for Christians to unite and stand together. If the Roman Catholic Church is to join in such an effort, it must set aside its superior attitude and recognize the genuineness of other Christian denominations and other world religions.

How can Church Reform ever come about?

 Pope Francis has made it clear. He does not want to be a monarchical leader of the Church handing down orders from the top. Rather, he sees the Church structure as an upside down pyramid with the Faithful at the top feeding Spirit-guided reflections down to their bishops and pastors, who in turn, bring their concerns to the pope to request what is needed in their diocese. The challenge is that far too many bishops are not ready to relinquish their power and, consequently, are not inviting the Faithful into dialogue. If this process is to happen, it is up to the People of God to make it happen.

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But the Resurrection is different.

I think that hope is more significant than faith and love. Hope is rooted in imagination, in the ability to grasp other possibilities, to conceive of other options. It helps us escape a monochrome, paranoid world. While we all have imagination, we need the artist to...

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Jesus & ourselves, compare! He emptied himself, we peacock!

by Dr James Kottoor

Murder most foul on the cross. It made Friday good for the world and is called “Good Friday”
Murder most foul on the cross. It made Friday good for the world and is called “Good Friday”

Jesus is supposed to be the fulcrum on which everyone who calls him/herself to be a Christian must swing around all throughout his/her life, twenty-four hours a day. He is the role model. He is the leader, we the followers; he is the master, we the servants whom he has raised to the status of his friends. He became a slave, we in contrast become “Peacocks!”

Holy week is the time when Christians around the globe focus their attention solely, so to say, on the person of Jesus on the cross, especially his passion and death. How do we compare ourselves to him?  “On bended knees!” could be the best pictorial description of that relationship of the generality of Christians towards Jesus, that is, the relationship  of a creature to its  creator for everything. When that relationship grows and matures, it may become specific and different for different people from the way they look upon him

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From Peripheries he comes as outcast

The Homeless Jesus comes to the Vatican  By ANDREA TORNIELLI in Vatican Insider, 3/03/2016 A life-size sculpture of the Nazarene, depicted as a homeless person lying down on a bench, has been placed at the entrance of the Office of Papal Charities. It was created by...

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A prayer for women’s priesthood

From Iglesia Descalza, by Rebel Girl   This prayer for women priests and the sketch to the right, were produced by a Benedictine nun at the Monasterio de Sant Benet in Catalonia, Spain, Sr. Montserrat Unterlöhner (photo), and were originally published in Catalan on...

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Pope Francis restores the good sense of Jesus

by Leonardo Boff, Theologian-Philosopher, Earthcharter Commission

Pope Francis’ speeches are not framed either by the doctrines or dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. It is not that he does not appreciate them, but that he understands that they are theological works created during different historical times. Those doctrines and dogmas provoked religious wars, schisms, excommunications, the burning of theologians and women (such as Joan of Arc and the women considered witches) at the stake of the Holy Inquisition. That lasted for several centuries and the author of these lines had a bitter experience in the cubicle where the accused were interrogated in the forbidding building of the former Inquisition, located to the left of the Basilica of Saint Peter.

Pope Francis has engendered a revolution in the thinking of the Church, returning to the praxis of the historical Jesus. He is restoring what is now called “The Tradition of Jesus”, that precedes the present Gospels, written 30-40 years after His execution on the cross. The Tradition of Jesus, or as it is also called in The Acts of the Apostles, “the path of Jesus”, is grounded more on values and ideals than on doctrine. The essentials are  unconditional love, mercy, forgiveness, justice and preference for the poor and the outcast, and a total openness to God the Father. Jesus, to put it bluntly, did not intend to found a new religion. He wanted to teach us how to live. To live with fraternity, solidarity and caring for each other.

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The Synod on Synodality

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Young Adult Seekers Articles

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