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Synodality and the Catholic Church

Synodality in the Catholic Church Gerry OShea The clearest divergence between Pope Francis and his predecessor, Benedict, lies in their different expectations from church members. The last pope emphasized traditional beliefs and rules that Catholics are expected to follow. To maintain these high standards, Benedict would accept fewer church members favoring a kind of ecclesial purity. Francis certainly carries a different banner. His pronouncements are always cognizant of people who are struggling, and his first priority is to extend a helping hand to them. He shows no interest in inquiring about their belief system or their religious observance; instead, he follows the biblical injunction: “Go into the highways and byways and invite everyone you meet to the wedding feast.” This focus on the human dimension by Francis spills over into the Synodal Path which he announced for the universal church on October 10 th last. In this hist

The Climate Crisis

The Climate Crisis Gerry OShea A major row erupted in 2019 between Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, and the French leader, Emmanuel Macron, as thousands of fires engulfed the Amazon rainforest. Macron angrily accused his Brazilian counterpart of “ecoside” for allowing the world’s largest forest to be despoiled. He accused Bolsonaro of a despicable crime against the planet. Needless to say, the Brazilian strongman was enraged and he countered by asserting that Macron “was treating Brazil as a colony or no man’s land.” “Our sovereignty is non-negotiable,” he exclaimed. Sovereignty is indeed the issue. Is Brazil the rainforest’s guardian or owner? Must the world just grin and bear it while Bolsonaro demolishes this indispensable carbon sink and vital repository of plant and animal life? Most people would agree that the Brazilian leader’s behavior is completely unacceptable, but what about Australia, a highly-developed country, still expanding its coal produ

Takeaways from the November Elections

Takeaways from the November Elections Gerry OShea James Carville, President Clinton’s top advisor, believes that economic issues determine the outcome of elections. Recent price increases in supermarkets and the big jump in gas prices surely help to explain the Democrats’ poor results in the governorship races in Virginia and New Jersey, the two big November contests. The Biden administration knew that their performance was on the line in both states. They hoped to get credit for dealing much better with the COVID crisis, ending the pathogen chaos that prevailed under Donald Trump. And, they wished that families would recall at the hustings that they received large support checks from Washington to help defray the extra costs of the medical crisis. On the other hand, the Democrats, with admittedly small majorities in the House and Senate, could not pass the two big infrastructure bills which would have provided a major boost, especially for families in the areas of ch

The Unionist Dimension

The Unionist Dimension Gerry OShea A hundred years ago, the unionists in Northern Ireland saw themselves in a very hostile environment. They felt hemmed in, surrounded by a clear majority of nationalists on the island, all of whom aspired to some kind of united country ruled from Dublin. So, their top leader, Edward Carson, made no bones about the reasoning behind the sectarian partitioning of the country which involved lopping off six counties from the thirty-two in the whole island “in order to achieve a decisive Protestant majority in which unionist power would be guaranteed in perpetuity.” They feared Catholic domination at a time when the Catholic- Protestant divide still impacted political divisions in Europe, hearkening back to the religious wars of previous centuries. The Roman church was in its pomp, passing a decree of infallibility in 1870 that claimed the pope could never be wrong in matters of faith and morals because he alone was unerringly guided by

The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church

Ordination of Women In May 1994 Pope John Paul 11 issued an apostolic letter whose goal was to end for all time any discussion in the Catholic church about ordaining women to the priesthood. The solemn declaration has a ponderous Latin title Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, which marks it as a pronouncement of the highest order. The papal message deals with “the reservation of priestly ordination for men only.” John Paul leaves no doubt about his message: “In order that all doubt be removed about a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution, I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgement is to be held definitively by all the Church’s faithful.” So, that is it – the matter is now verboten. The highest authority has spoken categorically on the subject. The many women who feel called by the Spirit to serve as priests must be delusional because Rome has spoken in unambiguous

Perspectives on Immigration

Perspectives on Immigration The Know-Nothings were a powerful, semi-secret nativist movement in mid-19 th century America. Their members were instructed that if questioned about their beliefs their standard reply should be “I know nothing” – an early version of what Seamus Heaney wrote in his poem about the numbing secrecy in his home place during the Troubles “Whatever you Say, Say Nothing.” The movement condemned the arrival in America of hundreds of thousands of Irish Catholics, fleeing the awful famines in Ireland in the middle of the century. Many came to America hungry and with no possessions, the detritus of a beaten people. The Know-Nothings believed that this mass exodus of refugees from Ireland joined by a fair number of German Catholics indicated that Rome had designs on their homeland. They demanded new laws to keep the Catholics out and to mandate that new arrivals should wait twenty-five years before being eligible for citizenship and the right to vote. Texas