The Diocese of Madison says media have misrepresented its decision to not host onsite COVID-19 vaccination clinics at parishes and other diocesan entities.
“Despite how it is being characterized in some news reports and social media posts, the decision for parishes and other diocesan entities within the Diocese of Madison not to host onsite COVID-19 vaccination clinics is not about condemning or discouraging vaccination,” the diocese said in a Nov. 12 statement.
“Apart from the moral and medical dimensions of this decision, the issue has become bitterly divisive. Since there are already ample vaccination sites within the eleven counties of the diocese, Bishop [Donald] Hying has decided that it would be best for parishes and other diocesan entities not to host vaccine clinics.”
The Diocese of Madison instructed its 102 parishes not to host COVID-19 vaccination clinics, following the approval of the vaccine for children ages 5-11.
At the time, a spokesperson said the diocese wished to maintain “neutrality” on the issue of COVID-19 vaccination for children and adults.
The decision drew the condemnation of many, most notably Father James Martin S.J. who tweeted that the decision was “anti-life.” Fr. Martin has equated on several occasions wearing a mask with saving unborn babies.
The Diocese of Madison said Fr. Martin mischaracterized the decision.
“When there are more than enough facilities to offer vaccinations throughout the diocese, choosing not to host vaccination clinics does not equate to being “Anti life”,” the diocese said. “Rather, it avoids the appearance of unequivocal moral endorsement while also respecting individuals’ and parents’ ability to make a decision based on their legitimate weighing of the medical and moral concerns involved.”
The original announcement regarding COVID-19 vaccination clinics explicitly states the decision “should not be in any way interpreted as the local Catholic Church or her leadership discouraging vaccinations.”
Bishop Hyland has joined the other bishops of Wisconsin in encouraging Catholics to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
“However, this is not a decision that involves either an absolute moral imperative or an intrinsic moral evil,” the diocese said. “As such it should be made by individuals and parents with a well-formed conscience as to what is appropriate for their own circumstances, weighing carefully the medical and moral facts and the potential risks versus the hoped-for benefits.”
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
La Crosse, Wis., Jul 9, 2021 / 12:11 pm (CNA).
Fr. James Altman has been removed from ministry after Bishop William Callahan of La Crosse sought privately to correct the priest for his inflammatory, though i… […]
Bishops process into St. Peter’s Basilica for the closing Mass of the first assembly of the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 29, 2023. / Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Jul 9, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
The guiding document for the final part of the Synod on Synodality, published Tuesday, focuses on how to implement certain of the synod’s aims, while laying aside some of the more controversial topics from last year’s gathering, like women’s admission to the diaconate.
“Without tangible changes, the vision of a synodal Church will not be credible,” the Instrumentum Laboris, or “working tool,” says.
The six sections of the roughly 30-page document will be the subject of prayer, conversation, and discernment by participants in the second session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, to be held throughout the month of October in Rome.
Instead of focusing on questions and “convergences,” as in last year’s Instrumentum Laboris, “it is now necessary that … a consensus can be reached,” said a FAQ page from synod organizers, also released July 9, answering a question about why the structure was different from last year’s Instrumentum Laboris.
The guiding document for the first session of the Synod on Synodality in 2023 covered such hot-button topics as women deacons, priestly celibacy, and LGBTQ outreach.
By contrast, this year’s text mostly avoids these subjects, while offering concrete proposals for instituting a listening and accompaniment ministry, greater lay involvement in parish economics and finances, and more powerful parish councils.
“It is difficult to imagine a more effective way to promote a synodal Church than the participation of all in decision-making and taking processes,” it states.
The working tool also refers to the 10 study groups formed late last year to tackle different themes deemed “matters of great relevance” by the Synod’s first session in October 2023. These groups will continue to meet through June 2025 but will provide an update on their progress at the second session in October.
The possibility of the admission of women to the diaconate will not be a topic during the upcoming assembly, the Instrumentum Laboris said.
The new document was presented at a July 9 press conference by Cardinals Mario Grech and Jean-Claude Hollerich, together with the special secretaries of the synodal assembly: Jesuit Father Giacomo Costa and Father Riccardo Battocchio.
“The Synod is already changing our way of being and living the Church regardless of the October assembly,” Hollerich said, pointing to testimonies shared in the most recent reports sent by bishops’ conferences.
The Oct. 2-27 gathering of the Synod on Synodality will mark the end of the discernment phase of the Church’s synodal process, which Pope Francis opened in 2021.
Participants in the fall meeting, including Catholic bishops, priests, religious, and laypeople from around the world, will use the Instrumentum Laboris as a guide for their “conversations in the Spirit,” the method of discussion introduced at the 2023 assembly. They will also prepare and vote on the Synod on Synodality’s advisory final document, which will then be given to the pope, who decides the Church’s next steps and if he wishes to adopt the text as a papal document or to write his own.
The third phase of the synod — after “the consultation of the people of God” and “the discernment of the pastors” — will be “implementation,” according to organizers.
Prominent topics
The 2024 Instrumentum Laboris also addresses the need for transparency to restore the Church’s credibility in the face of sexual abuse of adults and minors and financial scandals.
“If the synodal Church wants to be welcoming,” the document reads, “then accountability and transparency must be at the core of its action at all levels, not only at the level of authority.”
It recommends effective lay involvement in pastoral and economic planning, the publication of annual financial statements certified by external auditors, annual summaries of safeguarding initiatives, the promotion of women to positions of authority, and periodic performance evaluations on those exercising a ministry or holding a position in the Church.
“These are points of great importance and urgency for the credibility of the synodal process and its implementation,” the document says.
The greater participation of women in all levels of the Church, a reform of the education of priests, and greater formation for all Catholics are also included in the text.
Bishops’ conferences, it says, noticed an untapped potential for women’s participation in many areas of Church life. “They also call for further exploration of ministerial and pastoral modalities that better express the charisms and gifts the Spirit pours out on women in response to the pastoral needs of our time,” the document states.
Formation in listening is identified as “an essential initial requirement” for Catholics, as well as how to engage in the practice of “conversation in the Spirit,” which was employed in the first session of the Synod on Synodality.
Pope Francis and delegates at the Synod on Synodality at the conclusion of the assembly on Oct. 28, 2023. Credit: Vatican Media
The document says the need for formation has been one of the most universal and strong themes throughout the synodal process. Interreligious dialogue also is identified as an important aspect of the synodal journey.
On the topic of the liturgy, the Instrumentum Laboris says there was “a call for adequately trained lay men and women to contribute to preaching the Word of God, including during the celebration of the Eucharist.”
“It is necessary that the pastoral proposals and liturgical practices preserve and make ever more evident the link between the journey of Christian initiation and the synodal and missionary life of the Church,” the document says. “The appropriate pastoral and liturgical arrangements must be developed in the plurality of situations and cultures in which the local Churches are immersed …”
How it was drafted
Dubbed the “Instrumentum Laboris 2,” the document released Tuesday has been in preparation since early June when approximately 20 experts in theology, ecclesiology, and canon law held a closed-door meeting to analyze around 200 synod reports from bishops’ conferences and religious communities responding to what the Instrumentum Laboris called “the guiding question” of the next stage of the Synod on Synodality: “How to be a synodal Church in mission?”
After the 10-day gathering, “an initial version” of the text was drafted based on those reports and sent to around 70 people — priests, religious, and laypeople — “from all over the world, of various ecclesial sensitivities and from different theological ‘schools,’” for consultation, according to the synod website.
The XVI Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod, together with consultants of the synod secretariat, finalized the document.
According to the working tool, soliciting new reports and feedback after the consultation phase ended is “consistent with the circularity characterizing the whole synodal process.”
“In preparation for the Second Session, and during its work, we continue to address this question: how can the identity of the synodal People of God in mission take concrete form in the relationships, paths and places where the everyday life of the Church takes place?” it says.
The document says “other questions that emerged during the journey are the subject of work that continues in other ways, at the level of the local Churches as well as in the ten Study Groups.”
Expectations for final session
According to the guiding document, the second session of the Synod on Synodality can “expect a further deepening of the shared understanding of synodality, a better focus on the practices of a synodal Church, and the proposal of some changes in canon law (there may be yet more significant and profound developments as the basic proposal is further assimilated and lived.)”
“Nonetheless,” it continues, “we cannot expect the answer to every question. In addition, other proposals will emerge along the way, on the path of conversion and reform that the Second Session will invite the whole Church to undertake.”
The Instrumentum Laboris says, “Synodality is not an end in itself … If the Second Session is to focus on certain aspects of synodal life, it does so with a view to greater effectiveness in mission.”
In its brief conclusion, the text states: “The questions that the Instrumentum Laboris asks are: how to be a synodal Church in mission; how to engage in deep listening and dialogue; how to be co-responsible in the light of the dynamism of our personal and communal baptismal vocation; how to transform structures and processes so that all may participate and share the charisms that the Spirit pours out on each for the common good; how to exercise power and authority as service. Each of these questions is a service to the Church and, through its action, to the possibility of healing the deepest wounds of our time.”
Our Church’s “apology tour,” long past being boring, has descended into a sort debasing masochistic exhibition of self-contempt.
Let’s abandon it.
Does anyone really not understand why we are evaporating? Above even the corruption in the theological academy we need look no further than our faithless impotent leadership.
I recently read Samuel Gregg’s foreword to Fr. Dwight Longenecker’s new book, *Beheading Hydra*. Gregg notes Longenecker’s view that radical discipleship “eschews dialogue for the sake of dialogue and pretending that those preaching errors are always people of goodwill.” This is the point to which I’ve finally gotten with respect to James Martin, SJ.
Despite Bishop Hying’s thoughtful and reasonable explanation for not sponsoring vaccination clinics at his parishes, Martin jumps in with an outrageously materialistic and divisive comment. There is no way to understand Martin’s intention as other than evil. He constantly shames holy and faithful bishops and brings scandal. His activities and the acclaim he receives are more and more demoralizing to the faithful, especially seminarians and those discerning vocations in service of the Church.
At times like this when I feel antagonized by some in the Church hierarchy, I remind myself that Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church of which I am a member. Pope Francis, who enables Martin and countless others like him, occupies the Chair of Peter but is not the Head of the Church. Heaven and earth will pass away, but Christ’s words will never pass away.
The diocese probably saved itself from being named in numerous lawsuits in the future by its prudent decision! Martin probably has a grudge he is trying to inflict for some perceived offense against sodomy.
God help us all,
tom
Our Church’s “apology tour,” long past being boring, has descended into a sort debasing masochistic exhibition of self-contempt.
Let’s abandon it.
Does anyone really not understand why we are evaporating? Above even the corruption in the theological academy we need look no further than our faithless impotent leadership.
Hear hear a thousand times. The RCC is beginning to sound more and more like a political party or lobbying group (leadership is anyway)
I recently read Samuel Gregg’s foreword to Fr. Dwight Longenecker’s new book, *Beheading Hydra*. Gregg notes Longenecker’s view that radical discipleship “eschews dialogue for the sake of dialogue and pretending that those preaching errors are always people of goodwill.” This is the point to which I’ve finally gotten with respect to James Martin, SJ.
Despite Bishop Hying’s thoughtful and reasonable explanation for not sponsoring vaccination clinics at his parishes, Martin jumps in with an outrageously materialistic and divisive comment. There is no way to understand Martin’s intention as other than evil. He constantly shames holy and faithful bishops and brings scandal. His activities and the acclaim he receives are more and more demoralizing to the faithful, especially seminarians and those discerning vocations in service of the Church.
At times like this when I feel antagonized by some in the Church hierarchy, I remind myself that Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church of which I am a member. Pope Francis, who enables Martin and countless others like him, occupies the Chair of Peter but is not the Head of the Church. Heaven and earth will pass away, but Christ’s words will never pass away.
The diocese probably saved itself from being named in numerous lawsuits in the future by its prudent decision! Martin probably has a grudge he is trying to inflict for some perceived offense against sodomy.
God help us all,
tom
Somebody needs to point out to Fr. James Martin that his support of homosexual unions is anti-life.
or pro an evil life