We tend to consider the summer as “downtime”—school is out, everyone’s occurring vacation. Heck, in Rome they principally close town down for the month of August.
But in truth quite quite a bit went on over the summer. People thought the pope might retire! The U.S. got a latest cardinal! Kate Bush wrote a song in 1985 that became the soundtrack for our summer lives!
Listed below are a few of the big Catholic stories you would possibly have missed from the last three months.
1. Pope Francis declared the invasion of Ukraine the beginning of World War III.
In response to questions on the situation in Ukraine, Pope Francis told the editors of European Jesuit publications that “World War III has been declared.” At the identical time, he pushed the editors to withstand the straightforward binaries of heroes and villains: “Here there aren’t any metaphysical good guys and bad guys, in an abstract sense,” he said. “Something global is emerging, with elements which might be very much intertwined.” Noting the brutality of the mercenaries getting used by Russia, the pope said, “The danger is that we only see this, which is monstrous, and we don’t see the entire drama unfolding behind this war, which was perhaps someway either provoked or not prevented.” On America’s “Contained in the Vatican” podcast, Colleen Dulle and Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell dug into the pope’s comments.
Quite quite a bit went on over the summer. People thought the pope might retire! The U.S. got a latest cardinal! Kate Bush wrote a song in 1985 that became the soundtrack for our summer lives!
2. The Diocese of Worcester announced that Jesuit-run Nativity Middle School can not call itself Catholic.
Bishop Robert J. McManus of Worcester announced in June that he’s stripping Jesuit-run Nativity Middle School of its identification as a Catholic school, stopping it from having Mass on campus or engaging with diocesan fundraising organizations. The move stems from the varsity’s decision to proceed flying flags supporting Black Lives Matter and L.G.B.T. pride. The college had raised the flags in 2021 on the request of the varsity’s 63 students, 95 percent of whom are people of color; a 12 months later the bishop asked the varsity to take them down. “The flying of those flags in front of a Catholic school sends a mixed, confusing and scandalous message to the general public in regards to the Church’s stance on these vital moral and social issues,” Bishop McManus wrote in his decree on June tenth. School president Thomas McKenney has indicated the varsity will proceed to fly the flags as the varsity appeals the bishop’s decision to Rome.
3. Two Jesuits were murdered in a church in Mexico.
On June 20, Jesuit priests Javier Campos Morales, 79, and Joaquín César Mora Salazar, 80,were killed inside a church in an Indigenous community of the Mexican state of Chihuahua, after they gave sanctuary to a tour guide who was fleeing an attempted kidnapping. Their murders are the most recent in a protracted series of executions of clergy and spiritual in Mexico. America’sKevin Clarke spoke to individuals who knew the much- beloved priests. The Mexican bishops subsequently issued an announcement demanding change in Mexico, writing that criminals “have taken over the streets, neighborhoods, and full towns, in addition to roads and highways.”
In response to questions on the situation in Ukraine, Pope Francis told the editors of European Jesuit publications that “World War III has been declared.”
4. Kate Bush drove the world crazy.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Kate Bush’s 1985 hit “Running Up the Hill” vaulted to the highest of the pop charts this summer after its use within the fourth season of Netflix ’80s teen horror TV show “Stranger Things.” Ms. Bush herself, who was raised Catholic, originally wanted the song to be named “A Cope with God.” Her religious upbringing affected not only that song but many others. Meanwhile, Lionel Richie reportedly has his fingers crossed for “Stranger Things” season five. (“Say You, Say Me” was an enormous hit in 1986.)
5. Australian delegates disrupted synod plenary meeting.
Nearly 25 percent of the delegates on the Australian Catholic Church’s second plenary council assembly staged a protest after motions to think about women for ministry as deacons “should Pope Francis authorize such ministry” and to supply women opportunities for greater participation of their local church were rejected by the bishops. Said delegate Francis Sullivan, “There was plenty of anger and frustration….There may be a deep grief I believe that all of us feel about where the church is at, not only for ourselves personally but collectively.” In the times that followed a four-person committee appointed by the bishops revised the section of the document that had been produced on the equal dignity of men and women, to general approbation. “I feel like I can go home to my daughter now and say yes, the Catholic Church values men and women, and it’s an excellent day in that respect,” one female attendee said afterward at a news briefing.
6. Pope Francis appointed three women to the Vatican committee that picks bishops.
For the primary time within the history of the church, there can be women on the committee that screens candidates for bishops. In July, Rafaella Petrini, F.S.E., the secretary general of the governorate of the Vatican City State; Yvonne Reungoat, F.M.A., the previous superior general of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians; and Dr. Maria Lia Zervino, the president of the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations, were appointed by Pope Francis to the Dicastery for Bishops. In comments to Spanish publication Vida Nueva after her appointment,Sister Reungoat spoke in regards to the need for bishops who’re “near the people entrusted to him.” “The perfect bishop doesn’t exist,” she told Vida Nueva, “but he has to know find out how to involve priests, laity and spiritual, and folks of various generations.”
For the primary time within the history of the church, there can be women on the committee that screens candidates for bishops.
7. Pope Francis went to Canada to apologize to Indigenous People.
Pope Francis visited Canada in what he described beforehand as a “penitential pilgrimage” to the Indigenous Peoples of Canada, a visit he promised to undertake in April after apologizing for the “deplorable” abuses Indigenous Peoples suffered in Catholic residential schools. While in Canada the pope asked forgiveness “for the ways through which many members of the church and of non secular communities cooperated, not least through their indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and compelled assimilation promoted by the governments of that point.”Indigenous people reacted positively to the speech; “Each time he said the word sorry, people would start applauding,” said Phil Fontaine, an Ojibwe of the Sagkeeng First Nation and survivor of two residential schools. But some would really like him to go farther and publicly revoke the “Doctrine of Discovery,” the papal decrees written centuries ago that granted Spain and Portugal the suitable to colonize Indigenous lands and enslave the non-Christians they found there.
8. Tribal leaders in South Dakota temporarily suspended all Christian evangelization.
On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council approved a latest ordinance banning any Christian missionary activity on the reservation until all service groups and missionaries can pass background checks. The move got here in response to pamphlets being handed out to young people depicting historical figures and traditions of the Lakota people as demonic. After hearing from local residents that this ordinance threatened weddings, funerals and other planned religious activities, the tribal council rescinded the order but upheld the ban prohibiting the missionary who had distributed the pamphlets from returning to tribal lands. Shortly thereafter, Arturo Sosa, S.J., the superior general of the Society of Jesus, traveled to the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations to take heed to Native peoples speak of their experience and offer his own apology for harm done by the Jesuits of their work with Native peoples. “We Jesuits made grave mistakes in our participation in the federal government’s educational system that took children from their families, from their language, from their culture,” Father Sosa said.
9. Recent York Cardinal Timothy Dolan welcomed 1000’s of migrants bussed from Texas.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has begun busing migrants who crossed into the US through the Texas border to Recent York, Chicago and Washington, D.C. While Recent York City Mayor Eric Adams has slammed Mr. Abbott for using people as “political pawns,” Recent York City Cardinal Timothy Dolan has welcomed the 6,000 migrants who’ve up to now come to town. “Our perspective is to assist them,”he said at a news briefing in mid-August, “[with] a way of honor that we’re in a position to help these people in whom we see the face of God.”
Recent York City Cardinal Timothy Dolan has welcomed the 6,000 migrants who’ve up to now come to town. “Our perspective is to assist them.”
10. An in depth advisor to Pope Francis was accused of sexual assault.
Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Bishops, was accused of sexual assault as a part of a category motion lawsuit by a girl within the Archdiocese of Quebec, where Cardinal Ouellet served as archbishop from 2003 to 2010. The Vatican, which was made aware of the lawsuit against Cardinal Ouellet in 2021,has since concluded that there’s insufficient evidence to open church proceedings against the cardinal. But some are questioning the Vatican’s process, noting that the Belgian Jesuit tasked with making the initial assessment was himself a longtime associate of Cardinal Ouellet’s.
11. Descendants of slaves criticized the Jesuits for slow progress on raising funds.
In 2021, the Society of Jesus in the US and Canada announced that it will begin a campaign to boost $100 million dollars over five years to support the racial justice work of the Descendants Truth and Reconciliation Foundation, a combined effort of the Jesuits and the descendants of the 272 Black people owned and sold as slaves by Jesuits at Georgetown University. But this summer, the top of that foundation, Joseph M. Stewart, wrote a public letter to the Jesuit Superior General Arturo Sosa, S.J., laying out his concerns in regards to the way the method is currently going. “We’ve been meeting for hours every week for 2 years now, and we still just have $15 million,” all of which was donated initially of the method by the Jesuits,he told America in an interview. “That’s not a judgment of the lads’s commitment. It’s a judgment on the outcomes.”
12. The church lost some vital people.
Amongst those that died over the summer were Catholics Vin Scully, a legend of the Los Angeles Dodgers organization;Archbishop Rembert Weakland, O.S.B., long a voice for social justice within the church who resigned in scandal after admitting he had had an affair with a person whose silence he paid off with archdiocesan funds (which he later repaid); theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether, a foundational figure in feminist theology; and Presbyterian creator Frederick Buechner, whose novels and essays persistently called people to see the sacramentality of odd life.
Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego was one among 20 prelates world wide chosen by Pope Francis to be elevated to the cardinalate.
13. San Diego Bishop Robert W. McElroy was made a cardinal.
Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego was one among 20 prelates world wide chosen by Pope Francis to be elevated to the cardinalate. Cardinal McElroy did a two-part interview with America after his installation in regards to the experience of the consistory, the meeting of the world’s cardinals which followed and pressing issues within the church today. His appointment is an enormous deal: He was the one latest cardinal elevated in North America, and the primary latest cardinal actively working within the Western half of the US since Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony was made a cardinal way back in 1991.
Rumors have since begun that Cardinal McElroy will leave San Diego for an even bigger diocese, but America’s J.D. Long-García argues it makes far more sense for him to remain.
14. Pope Francis didn’t retire.
After a postponed trip to Africa and chronic knee problems which have left Pope Francis in a wheelchair, there was growing speculation over the summer whether he may be on the verge of retiring. The incontrovertible fact that the pope also called upon the world’s cardinals to fulfill in August, which is often only done to elect a pope, and recently made a visit to the tomb of Celestine V, the primary pope to voluntarily resign,only increased some people’s expectations. But Francis has up to now quashed such rumors, telling a Brazilian archbishop that resigning “doesn’t cross his mind.” Sometimes a visit to wish on the tomb of a deceased pope is just a visit to wish on the tomb of a deceased pope.
15. Pope Francis beatified Pope John Paul I.
On Sept. 4,Pope Francis announced that Pope John Paul I is now a blessed of the church. Though he was pope for just 33 days, John Paul I used to be known for the happiness with which he communicated. “How beautiful is a church with a completely satisfied, serene and smiling face,”Pope Francis said in his homily, “that never closes doors, never hardens hearts, never complains or harbors resentment, doesn’t grow indignant or impatient, doesn’t look dour or suffer nostalgia for the past.” America’s own James T. Keane gives the 411 on Pope John Paul I and his short but remarkable profession as pope (including how he got here to be the primary pope with two names).
