Julia Oseka with Archbishop Nelson Perez of Philadelphia. Perez and other SCHEAP members selected Oseka as one of three Philadelphia delegates to the Synod on Synodality’s North American Continental Assembly. / Credit: Sarah Webb/Archdiocese of Philadelphia
CNA Staff, Oct 1, 2023 / 08:00 am (CNA).
At first glance, 22-year-old Julia Oseka seems like your average college student. But the junior at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia majoring in physics and theology, a native of Poland, is anything but ordinary. Oseka is one of 10 non-bishop voting members from the United States and Canada who will be at the Synod on Synodality taking place at the Vatican from Oct. 4–28.
In 2022, Oseka became a student leader for Synodality in Catholic Higher Education in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia (SCHEAP), which is a coalition of Catholic universities, colleges, and Newman Centers in the Philadelphia area fostering student voices in the synod.
In April 2022, a large, intercollegiate listening session took place at La Salle University with representatives from all participating colleges and universities and Archbishop Nelson Perez of Philadelphia. Soon after this meeting, Perez and other SCHEAP members selected Oseka as one of three Philadelphia delegates to the synod’s North American Continental Assembly.
In an interview with CNA, Oseka called her participation in the synod “very humbling.”
“I see it as really a sign that the Church is ready and is open to listen to people — and invite people — to be very active in those big decision-making and discernment processes in the Church,” she added.
Julia Oseka is one of 10 non-bishop voting members from the United States and Canada who will be at the Synod on Synodality taking place at the Vatican from Oct. 4–28, 2023. Credit: Photo courtesy of Julia Oseka
The Synod on Synodality will mark the first time a synod includes voting delegates who are not bishops. Nearly a third of the 366 voting delegates were chosen by Pope Francis, including laypeople, priests, consecrated women, and deacons. Fifty-four voting members are women.
Oseka, who calls herself a feminist and has said she dreams of being a physics professor one day, is the only female physics scholar in St. Joseph’s University’s prestigious John P. McNulty Program, which awards scholarships to women in STEM. She told CNA she finds inspiration in her confirmation saint, Thérèse of Lisieux, whom Oseka thinks is “so relatable. She was so young when she passed away and led a heroic life. She’s a doctor of the Church and a great woman.”
Despite preparing for her monthlong trip and taking part in interviews for the media, Oseka has still managed to focus on her schoolwork and spiritual life. “I have been praying before. I am praying still. I’m doing my Ignatian examen daily and trying to pray different forms of prayer as well,” she shared.
Oseka won’t be the only young adult attending the synod from North America. Father Ivan Montelongo, 30, a priest of the Diocese of El Paso, Texas, who was ordained only three years ago, will also participate. So will Wyatt Olivas, an undergraduate at the University of Wyoming and a member of the Diocese of Cheyenne, where he served as a catechist and music minister.
Oseka has said she believes women and LGBTQIA+ people should have greater roles in the Church. She told CNA that during campus-level synodal meetings organized by SCHEAP, she and her peers were touched by the “joys and hardships” that others voiced. And this is when she realized that “there are people in the Church who are underserved.”
“They’re on the ‘peripheries’ as Pope Francis would call that — not a lot of attention or guidance is devoted to those people and young people are part of that group I believe, as many of my peers voiced that, and hope and wish for more spaces for them to be the now of the Church currently,” she explained.
Oseka said she hopes the synod “will facilitate openness to the Spirit.”
“During the discussions lately with other synod participants something that really struck me is that we have to be open to the mystery and immerse ourselves in the mystery that is fundamental for all synod participants,” Oseka continued. “So I really hope that all of us will open our hearts for the surprises of the Spirit and will be brave enough to embrace those surprises.”
“I’m looking forward to what it will bring but I’m sure it will be filled with grace and the Holy Spirit among us,” she said.
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New York City, N.Y., May 31, 2019 / 02:49 pm (CNA).- Marijuana, mushrooms, and now prostitution: decriminalization as a legal tactic for handling previously (or currently) illicit activities is a growing trend, and lawmakers in multiple states are now considering bills that could decriminalize the buying and selling of sex, to varying degrees.
The push to decriminalize prostitution is happening primarily in Democrat-led state legislatures, including in New York, Maine, Massechusets, Washington, D.C., and in Rhode Island, which is considering a proposal that would study the impact of decriminalizing prostitution, according to the New York Times.
“This is about the oldest profession, and understanding that we haven’t been able to deter or end it, in millennia,” Senator Jessica Ramos, a Democrat from Queens, told the New York Times. “So I think it’s time to confront reality.”
New York Democrats plan to introduce a proposal that would decriminalize prostitution both for the men, women and children who are prostituted, and for those who buy their services. Other efforts focus on criminally prosecuting pimps and buyers of prostitutes, but offer social services to the prostitutes themselves, rather than criminal charges, which is sometimes called the Nordic Model or the End Demand Model.
Currently, prostitution is only legal in the United States in 10 Nevada counties. A bill pushing to make prostitution illegal throughout the whole state of Nevada died in committee in April.
Critics of total decriminalization say that it would only further facilitate and legitimize criminal activity like sex trafficking and child prostitution.
Ane Mathieson is a program specialist at Sanctuary for Families, a Manhattan-based organization that serves victims of domestic violence and is part of an anti-decriminalization coalition.
“Prostitution is inherently violent,” Mathieson told the New York Times. “Sex buying promotes sex trafficking, promotes pimping and organized crime, and sexual exploitation of children.”
Laura Ramirez, a representative with international feminist group AF3IRM, said at a protest against decriminalization in New York that she was “absolutely appalled at the fact that this is being sold as something that’s progressive.”
“This proposed legislation is the most classist, racist and absolutely obtuse legislation that we have ever seen,” Ramirez said, according to the New York Times. “Women and girls of this state deserve better.”
Decriminalization proponents point to countries in Europe, like Germany and the Netherlands, where prostitution has been decriminalized for years. However, critics of decriminalization say that this ignores the problems that these countries have had as a result of the decriminalization of prostitution.
Tina Frundt, a survivor of child sex trafficking and founder of Courtney’s House, which helps victims of domestic sex trafficking and commercial sex exploitation, told CNA in 2015 that the decriminalization of prostitution would be a “terrible idea.”
“This has been tried and failed – in the Netherlands, in Germany – they’ve closed down over 30 brothels because we are talking about a criminal industry that we are trying to legalize,” Frundt said at the time. She said that women and underage girls from other countries were trafficked to places with legalized markets and given fake IDs, so that they could work in a legitimized market.
“Criminals think like criminals. It’s a die-hard criminal business making millions,” she added.
Frundt spoke with CNA in 2015 after global human rights organization Amnesty International announced that it supported the worldwide decriminalization of prostitution.
Candace Wheeler, a therapist with Restoration Ministries who works with victims of sex trafficking, also spoke with CNA in 2015.
Wheeler said she was skeptical of decriminalization efforts, based on what she’s seen in other countries.
“What they have found (in Amsterdam) is that tolerance is not protecting women who are in prostitution there, because it’s mostly women who are trafficked from other countries, and they are realizing that their tolerance is a huge problem,” Wheeler said.
“If it’s decriminalized, then that just opens up the door for that kind of business. We could have established brothels and red light districts, and then crime comes with that, and drugs – and I am the person that gets to see them afterwards and try and heal them.”
Washington D.C., Jun 26, 2017 / 12:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As the Supreme Court wrapped up its latest term on Monday, it agreed to consider a major religious freedom case, as well as the case of President Donald Trump’s travel ban, this fall.
Both topics have drawn concern from the U.S. bishops, who have urged respect for freedom of conscience and religion in the face of legalized gay marriage, while criticizing the travel ban for abandoning vulnerable refugees in need.
The court agreed to hear two cases next term which could prove to have major impacts – the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s travel ban, and the case of Masterpiece Cake Shop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which involves the rights of a baker to refuse out of conscience to provide a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding.
The latter case was relisted 14 times by the Supreme Court, which finally took it up on Monday, SCOTUSBlog.com reported.
“The issue in this case is a free speech case; whether or not the state of Colorado can coerce a person to write a message through culinary arts that violates his conscience,” said Michael Farris, president and CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the baker Jack Phillips in the case.
Phillips, who owns Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colo. and has run the shop for over 23 years, explained on Monday how he operates his business in accordance with his religious beliefs.
The shop is “not just a bakery, but a place where I can use my artistic vision and talents to create cakes that communicate just the right message for my clients,” he said. “I gladly welcome and serve everyone that comes into my shop.”
His store is closed on Sundays and he refuses to craft cakes with messages that run contrary to his values, such as anti-American, atheist, or racist messages. He added that “my sincerely-held religious belief that marriage is a sacred relationship between a man and a woman.”
“In 2012, I was stunned when I became the target of a lawsuit relying on sexual orientation gender identity law that offers no exemptions for people of faith,” he said.
After he had declined to make a wedding cake for the same-sex wedding of Charlie Craig and David Mullins, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission said he had violated the state’s anti-discrimination law. The couple was able to obtain a rainbow-themed cake at another shop in the vicinity of Masterpiece.
Phillips said he was barred by the commission from serving any weddings and ended up losing 40 percent of his business, “a crushing loss.” He was also ordered by the commission to enter anti-discrimination re-education, and submit quarterly reports on updating the policies of the business.
Furthermore, Phillips said he began receiving “vile and hateful calls at the shop, including one death threat that was so bad, that I hid my daughter and granddaughter in the back until the police arrived.”
On Monday, after the Supreme Court agreed to take Phillips’ case, lawyers for ADF hoped that the Court would ultimately uphold his free speech rights.
“We’re hopeful that the Court will affirm the basic principle that the government cannot punish artists like Jack for refusing to create art that violates his religious convictions,” said senior counsel Kristin Waggoner.
In an unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court also ruled on Monday that a travel ban on visitors from six majority-Muslim countries may go into partial effect, as the ban awaits a hearing and full consideration by the high court in October.
The court blocked full implementation of the executive order originally released by President Donald Trump in January, saying that the ban “may not be enforced against foreign nationals who have a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”
Thus, family members, students and employees from the six designated countries who wish to visit, live or work in the United States will be able to do so. Those who lack such ties to the U.S. will be banned under the executive order.
The order in question bars persons from six majority-Muslim countries – Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – from entering the United States for 90 days, and also requires that refugees wait 120 days before entering the country. The executive order also lowers the number of refugees accepted by the United States in FY 2017 to 50,000 – down from the 110,000 person limit and the 85,000 refugees accepted in actuality during FY 2016.
Initially released January 27, the executive order was then revised on March 6 after judicial challenge. The modified version removed Iraq from the list of countries subject to the ban, and also walked back provisions that would have prioritized refugee admissions for persecuted religious minorities.
The bans were challenged by courts in Maryland and Hawaii, who blocked them from taking effect. Those rulings were later upheld by federal appeals courts in Virginia and California, respectively, on grounds that they violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The federal government appealed those rulings to the Supreme Court, asking that the stay be lifted and the ban go into effect until arguments are heard before the Supreme Court later this year.
The Supreme Court’s decision only removes part of the stay on the administration’s executive order, allowing the travel and refugee bans to continue against those with no existing ties to the United States. Many of the plaintiffs in the original cases brought in Hawaii and Maryland had family members, schools or employers based in the U.S.
The executive order has come under harsh criticism by the U.S. Bishops and Catholic refugee experts. Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin, chair of the U.S. bishops’ committee on migration, stated that the bishops were “deeply troubled by the human consequences of the revised executive order on refugee admissions and the travel ban,” after the ban’s March revision. “The revised Order still leaves many innocent lives at risk,” he said.
“The U.S. Catholic Bishops have long recognized the importance of ensuring public safety and would welcome reasonable and necessary steps to accomplish that goal,” the bishop said.
“However, based on the knowledge that refugees are already subjected to the most vigorous vetting process of anyone who enters the United States, there is no merit to pausing the refugee resettlement program while considering further improvement to that vetting process.”
Bill O’Keefe, vice president for advocacy and government relations at Catholic Relief Services, echoed many of Bishop Vasquez’s sentiments, urging in a March 6 statement that “now is not the time for the world’s leader in refugee resettlement to back down.”
The U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference runs one of the nation’s largest refugee resettlement agencies, helping to resettle more than a quarter of all of the refugees admitted to the United States annually.
The Adoration Chapel at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Beaufort, South Carolina. / Photo Credit: Aaron Miller, Miller Design & Marketing
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 20, 2023 / 05:00 am (CNA).
“Awesome. Awesome.”
That’s how Anna Sudomerski, the communications coordinator at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Beaufort, South Carolina, describes the parish’s eucharistic adoration program.
St. Peter’s is among the parishes in the United States that are hosting perpetual eucharistic adoration with the Blessed Sacrament exposed 24 hours a day.
Since Church law dictates that exposition of the Blessed Sacrament requires at least one adorer present at all times, this means the parishes that opt for this extraordinary form of worship must coordinate a major year-round effort to ensure at least one volunteer is present before the Eucharist every hour of the day.
Eucharistic adoration, whether exposed or reserved in the tabernacle, is an ancient custom of the Church dating back to its earliest centuries. Yet its practice today occurs among flagging faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, with U.S. Catholics signaling a growing reluctance to believe that Jesus is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament.
Yet multiple parishes around the country in recent years have maintained vibrant adoration initiatives, including St. Peter’s, which began its perpetual adoration in the early 1990s.
Sudomerski said the St. Peter’s adoration program started at the parish’s original historic church in downtown Beaufort. With the construction of a new church building in 2006, adoration moved to a purpose-built chapel there.
For years, Sudomerski said, the adoration program was run by team captains who each supervised a specific stretch of hours within a given 24-hour period.
“They were in charge of certain times, like from midnight to 6 a.m., in case the adorer could not make it, so the captain would have to find a substitute or cover the hour themselves,” she told CNA. “We had four team captains covering midnight to 6, 6 to noon, noon to 6, and 6 to midnight.”
She said the church’s adoption of the sign-up software Adoration Pro “made it a lot easier for people to sign up.”
“From there, ever since, we’ve done several campaigns,” she said. “One to pass out interest forms to see who would be interested in what hour. We just finished another campaign because Father thought the Eucharist is the most important thing that we have. We’ve done callouts, mailings.”
Light of the World Catholic Church in Littleton, Colorado
Kathryn Nygaard, the communications director at Light of the World Catholic Church in Littleton, Colorado, outside of Denver, said the parish has maintained an adoration program since 2007.
“There are two parishioners who are the main adoration chapel coordinators and they do an incredible job,” she said. “In addition, there are 24 ‘hourly coordinators’ to assist with making sure substitutes fill in during open hours and communicating with the adorers in their specific hour.”
“There are approximately 270 people involved in adoration, as either regularly scheduled adorers or as substitutes,” she said. The church hosts two “renewal weekends” in February for adorers to re-up for the coming year; regular announcements are also made at weekend Masses to attract more interest.
Adorers at Light of the World use the church software Flocknote to communicate with one another, Nygaard said. “Most requests for substitutes are filled within 1-2 days,” she noted.
Bishops aim to ‘start a fire’ of eucharistic renewal
The U.S. bishops last year launched the National Eucharistic Revival, meant to “start a fire” of eucharistic devotion among Catholics in the United States. The initiative was first conceived following the 2019 Pew poll showing low numbers of Catholics with a belief in the Real Presence.
As part of the three-year program, parishes around the country have been encouraged to launch Eucharist-focused programs and events to draw parishioners into a deeper relationship with Jesus through the Blessed Sacrament.
Next year, the bishops will host a National Eucharistic Congress featuring multiple high-profile Catholic speakers along with what is expected to be a crowd of about 80,000 Catholics. Pope Francis in June called next year’s national congress “a significant moment in the life of the Church in the United States.”
St. Bonaventure Catholic Church in Columbus, Nebraska
At St. Bonaventure Catholic Church in Columbus, Nebraska, worshippers have been keeping perpetual adoration there for more than 62 years — since Feb. 14, 1961, according to a live clock on the parish’s website.
The exposed Blessed Sacrament at St. Bonaventure Catholic Church in Columbus, Nebraska. Credit: Tim Cumberland
The parish on its website says the roots of its adoration program go back to 1949 and expanded thereafter. The program now includes worshippers from other nearby parishes who come to participate in adoration.
Parishioner Tim Cumberland told CNA the church is “blessed to have about 550 people in the program.”
“A few years ago, we went to an automated process of managing our perpetual adoration program, using the Adoration Pro software,” Cumberland said. “This has greatly improved our ability for our adorers to find subs online when necessary. A request for a substitute is usually filled within minutes.”
Kim Waller said the 25-year-old adoration program at Holy Infant Catholic Church in Ballwin, Missouri, still uses a coordinator-led sign-up program instead of an online sign-up. Like many programs, Holy Infant breaks down management of the adoration schedule into hourly segments.
“The 24 hourly coordinators form the backbone of perpetual adoration,” she said. “They ensure that there is at least one adorer present in the chapel at all times. The hourly coordinator reviews the sign-up list weekly to ensure that their committed hourly adorer fulfills his/her commitment and contacts the adorer if she/he has not been to adoration as committed for two consecutive weeks.”
A new team of coordinators just took over in January, Waller said. “The last several years, the ministry was administered by a couple who since have passed within six months of each other,” she said.
St. Mary Help of Christians in Aiken, South Carolina
Donna Pierce told CNA she helped launch the 24/7 adoration program at St. Mary Help of Christians in Aiken, South Carolina, roughly 30 years ago.
“I think we have about 10-15 people who have maintained their Holy Hour since it began, and currently we have 318 weekly adorers and about 60 substitutes, not counting the many people that pop in the chapel when they can,” she said.
Pierce said a priest from a perpetual adoration apostolate helped the parish launch the program. “He told us that having perpetual adoration is actually much easier to run than a 40-hours or other time frame,” she said. “Adorers incorporate their hour into their schedule, so you don’t have to keep signing up from scratch.”
The exposed Blessed Sacrament in the St. Claire Chapel at St. Mary Help of Christians in Aiken, South Carolina. Credit: Lori Rainchuso
She said the parish maintains participation in the program by way of biannual talks at Masses (which Pierce described as “our fall and Lent blitzes”). These efforts usually result in upwards of a few dozen sign-ups.
On the website for the National Eucharistic Revival, the bishops say that the current year of the program is focused on “fostering eucharistic devotion at the parish level, strengthening our liturgical life through the faithful celebration of the Mass, eucharistic adoration, missions, resources, preaching, and organic movements of the Holy Spirit.”
Catholic evangelist Tim Glemkowski in a video for the revival urged parish leaders to “prioritize personal encounters with Jesus in the Eucharist” over the course of the year.
“The heart of this invitation … is to create space in our parish calendar this year for people to come and encounter Jesus in the Eucharist personally,” he said. “This could mean parishes that don’t have perpetual adoration start that opportunity, or opportunities for eucharistic processions, or different devotional experiences.”
Pierce said that starting the St. Mary program decades ago was a daunting prospect, but she went ahead with it by putting her trust in God.
“It was terrifying when Msgr. [Thomas] Evatt asked me to be head coordinator to start it so long ago — I was 30 years old with a toddler and working part time,” Pierce said. “So I made a deal with God. He would have to be responsible for sustaining it, and we would just be his instruments.”
“How many, many times he made it obvious he was running it!” she said.
Graces for eternity
St. Bonaventure’s website, meanwhile, predicts that the graces of perpetual adoration will redound not just in the present but for eternity.
“Someday far, far from now, there will be a magnificent heavenly banquet where all of the adorers in the St. Bonaventure adoration program will be reunited,” the parish’s website says.
“Won’t it be wonderful,” the website continues, “for all of us who have been in the program to share stories of how many of our lives, and the lives of those we touched as a result, were radically changed by this personal and enduring encounter with Our Lord!”
What amazes me about these prophets of doom about the Synod on Synodality with their pessimistic voices, prebuttals, and mischaraterization of the synod is that mostly they go against their stake in the Church as of the 99% Catholics consisting of the non-ordained laity, women, and other minorities. By spreading fear and despair about the synod they inadvertently preserve and even promote the continued hierarchicalism and clericalism of the 1% ordained whose powers have been abused and misused for a long time to the detriment of the 99%. Alleluia for this 22 year old female student Synod delegate.
This “‘female student’ Synodal delegate”?
Some have wondered about a parrot for the ideological party line. In any event, Archbishop Perez is a rare bird of the the residually-sacramental Church and certainly old school! He apparently didn’t get the Dallas 2002 memo!…
This is the age of feeling-excluded ecclesiology and microaggression!
Yo, archbishop (top photo), get your hand of the shoulder of this female advocate for the under-served “women and LGBTQIA+ people [who] should have greater roles in the [sociological] Church.”
I have often wondered why these people did not just leave and joined the Church they “feel” they belong to.
List all their gripes and they are being practiced in the Anglican/Episcopalian, Lutheran, etc. So why not just join them and quit whining. It is clear they do not want the Catholic faith.
It is like living in a house you dislike and there’s a house across the road that fits your likes to a T and will welcome you with open arms and yet what you want to do is to ransack your house, smash the windows, remove the toilet and take a hammer to the plaster board so that it will be like the house across the road.
Dear Julia Oseka clearly understands ‘the Spirit’ in the same careless & presumptuous way that the PF mafia speak, unwittingly misidentifying what philosophers refer to as ‘zeitgeist’ = the motivating energy of secular culture.
This ‘spirit of the world’, drastically contrasts with The Holy Spirit of God:
“What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.” 1 Corinthians 2:12
That is, The Holy Spirit helps us understand Christ’s New Testament teachings & revelations and their explication in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
As opposed to ‘the world spirit’, The Holy Spirit imparts true wisdom and loving obedience to us believers. The Holy Spirit enables us to receive and understand “the secret and hidden wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 2:7). Only God’s Spirit can reveal spiritual truth because only His Spirit knows “the deep things of God” (verse 10).
NB PF & acolytes – that’s NOT the deep things of this material world.
The spirit that Jorge & Julia lay claim to is well known to authentic Catholic thinkers. As for example: a demonic spirit or perhaps Satan in particular, who in Scripture is called: “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11); and “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Satan is: “the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient” (Ephesians 2:2).
‘Those who are now disobedient’ is an indisputably appropriate descriptor for many of the favorites of Pope Francis.
So, they can definitely claim to be ‘spiritual’ . . !
Many of Pope Francis’ favorites have expressed a mindset that’s foreign to and opposed to the Spirit of God. They are cossetting our human sinful disposition in an anti-Apostolic spirit of rebellion, immorality, hubris, smart tricks, & even mockery.
They seem ignorant of the demonic spirit inherent of the world of human wisdom, that corrupts basic human understanding as expressed in secular philosophy and worldly wisdom.
Lack of faithfulness, humility, & self-control indicates that the PF factions’ spirit is not The Holy Spirit. May The Passion of Jesus Christ set them free.
Always under The Master, King Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty
But also give her credit for being a young person of prayer. I only wonder if many of the very vocal critics are also people of prayer or only critics. Just saying🤗
There are billions of pagans, occultists, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, New Agers, freemasons, and whathaveyou who’re ‘young persons of prayer’.
This synod (same road) of our Catholic Church is for genuine, baptized, Holy Spirit-anointed Catholics – old, middle-aged, & young – not for any-odd-one who gets your non-Catholic, unitarian, ‘young person of prayer’ tick.
The ‘same road’ refers to such as desire to know, love, & follow King Jesus Christ.
Let’s pray that Julia & all the synodalists meet THAT criterion.
Today we celebrate St Francis of Assisi. The Holy Mass first reading is from Galatians 6:14-18; the Holy Gospel reading from Matthew 11:25-30. Both illuminate who should be at this synod & what their priorities must be.
Always in the grace & mercy of Christ; love & blessings from marty
She talks the same parroted rubbish that we’ve heard ever since this was first dreamt up. Yeah invite all Julia just not the trad Latin types and the alphabet soup mafia must give up their sinful ways first before becoming welcomed!
“Oseka has said she believes women and LGBTQIA+ people should have greater roles in the Church.” But they are not Catholic because they do not believe or live what the Church teaches.
I am not in any way supporting this synod idea or the idea that the Church should function as a voting democracy, but I do feel that we must deal with these people who identify with the Church and who openly practice lifestyles contrary to Church morality. We need to educate with compassion. Our many years of poor teaching is coming to roost and we are now paying the price. Perhaps their sins are more apparent than ours, but that does not mean that we are better than they are, or that we should be casting stones at them. We must learn to know them and try to find out why they are who they are. We must teach them the Gospel and help them to want to follow it. But most of all we must pray for them.
Dear James Connor: “But most of all we must pray for them.”
Catholics in general would thoroughly agree with you. We would also agree that there’s no point in self-righteous criticisms of people who’ve chosen to live their lives in breach of Christ’s commands, made clear by His Apostles in The New Testament & in the magisterial Catechism of the Catholic Church.
As with all sins, it’s not the wrong choice itself that is a soul-killer, it’s the defiance of God’s right to command our loving obedience that sends a soul to Hell.
Human beings can be amazingly creative & appealing; but we are never our own God.
You’re right, I think, in recognizing that effete & erroneous faith education has given us a generation immunized against The GLORY of God & ignorant of God’s LOVE in giving us commandments to steer us safely through this deceptive & deadly world.
Let’s keep watching & praying; with the love of Jesus & blessings from marty
” try to find out why they are who they are. We must teach them the Gospel and help them to want to follow it.”
I think that is easily answered. The church has been inutile in the transmission of the faith. The church has sold out to the spirit of the zeitgeist. That is why they think voices and opinions like her has a place in how the church moves forward.
In any case, for a church hurtling towards the ravine, the way forward is actually to step on the break and reverse gear instead of going leadfooted on the accelerator
She was chosen for this extended vacation so that Cardinal Müller (and Bishops like him) will have to listen for a month, twice, to spectacularly unqualified people before they outvote him.
“She believes women and LGBTQIA+ people should have greater roles in the Church”. Women aside, why should one’s sexual orientation warrant a greater role? Doesn’t seem thought out. Sounds like an unserious social experiment.
What amazes me about these prophets of doom about the Synod on Synodality with their pessimistic voices, prebuttals, and mischaraterization of the synod is that mostly they go against their stake in the Church as of the 99% Catholics consisting of the non-ordained laity, women, and other minorities. By spreading fear and despair about the synod they inadvertently preserve and even promote the continued hierarchicalism and clericalism of the 1% ordained whose powers have been abused and misused for a long time to the detriment of the 99%. Alleluia for this 22 year old female student Synod delegate.
Let me condense you word salad for you: “I am not a Catholic. I am a modernist.”
Succinct and to the point!
This “‘female student’ Synodal delegate”?
Some have wondered about a parrot for the ideological party line. In any event, Archbishop Perez is a rare bird of the the residually-sacramental Church and certainly old school! He apparently didn’t get the Dallas 2002 memo!…
This is the age of feeling-excluded ecclesiology and microaggression!
Yo, archbishop (top photo), get your hand of the shoulder of this female advocate for the under-served “women and LGBTQIA+ people [who] should have greater roles in the [sociological] Church.”
I have often wondered why these people did not just leave and joined the Church they “feel” they belong to.
List all their gripes and they are being practiced in the Anglican/Episcopalian, Lutheran, etc. So why not just join them and quit whining. It is clear they do not want the Catholic faith.
It is like living in a house you dislike and there’s a house across the road that fits your likes to a T and will welcome you with open arms and yet what you want to do is to ransack your house, smash the windows, remove the toilet and take a hammer to the plaster board so that it will be like the house across the road.
Yes. That’s the equity they aim to achieve
Pope Francis the greater what?
The greater obfuscator?
The greater wrecker?
No wonder she was chosen. She parrots all the vacuous talking points of Francis and his cohorts.
Assuredly, Timothy. She knows exactly what the Holy Spirit is going to say before He says it.
Which will be especially useful in the event He decides to sit this one out.
Even worse, beloved ‘brineyman’.
Dear Julia Oseka clearly understands ‘the Spirit’ in the same careless & presumptuous way that the PF mafia speak, unwittingly misidentifying what philosophers refer to as ‘zeitgeist’ = the motivating energy of secular culture.
This ‘spirit of the world’, drastically contrasts with The Holy Spirit of God:
“What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.” 1 Corinthians 2:12
That is, The Holy Spirit helps us understand Christ’s New Testament teachings & revelations and their explication in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
As opposed to ‘the world spirit’, The Holy Spirit imparts true wisdom and loving obedience to us believers. The Holy Spirit enables us to receive and understand “the secret and hidden wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 2:7). Only God’s Spirit can reveal spiritual truth because only His Spirit knows “the deep things of God” (verse 10).
NB PF & acolytes – that’s NOT the deep things of this material world.
The spirit that Jorge & Julia lay claim to is well known to authentic Catholic thinkers. As for example: a demonic spirit or perhaps Satan in particular, who in Scripture is called: “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11); and “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Satan is: “the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient” (Ephesians 2:2).
‘Those who are now disobedient’ is an indisputably appropriate descriptor for many of the favorites of Pope Francis.
So, they can definitely claim to be ‘spiritual’ . . !
Many of Pope Francis’ favorites have expressed a mindset that’s foreign to and opposed to the Spirit of God. They are cossetting our human sinful disposition in an anti-Apostolic spirit of rebellion, immorality, hubris, smart tricks, & even mockery.
They seem ignorant of the demonic spirit inherent of the world of human wisdom, that corrupts basic human understanding as expressed in secular philosophy and worldly wisdom.
Lack of faithfulness, humility, & self-control indicates that the PF factions’ spirit is not The Holy Spirit. May The Passion of Jesus Christ set them free.
Always under The Master, King Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty
But also give her credit for being a young person of prayer. I only wonder if many of the very vocal critics are also people of prayer or only critics. Just saying🤗
Come on, dear James, for goodness’ sake!
There are billions of pagans, occultists, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, New Agers, freemasons, and whathaveyou who’re ‘young persons of prayer’.
This synod (same road) of our Catholic Church is for genuine, baptized, Holy Spirit-anointed Catholics – old, middle-aged, & young – not for any-odd-one who gets your non-Catholic, unitarian, ‘young person of prayer’ tick.
The ‘same road’ refers to such as desire to know, love, & follow King Jesus Christ.
Let’s pray that Julia & all the synodalists meet THAT criterion.
Today we celebrate St Francis of Assisi. The Holy Mass first reading is from Galatians 6:14-18; the Holy Gospel reading from Matthew 11:25-30. Both illuminate who should be at this synod & what their priorities must be.
Always in the grace & mercy of Christ; love & blessings from marty
I was wondering about that. She did mention practicing other forms.
Not Yoga I hope. Or is it Hindu Meditation. Or Centering Prayer.
She talks the same parroted rubbish that we’ve heard ever since this was first dreamt up. Yeah invite all Julia just not the trad Latin types and the alphabet soup mafia must give up their sinful ways first before becoming welcomed!
“Oseka has said she believes women and LGBTQIA+ people should have greater roles in the Church.” But they are not Catholic because they do not believe or live what the Church teaches.
I am not in any way supporting this synod idea or the idea that the Church should function as a voting democracy, but I do feel that we must deal with these people who identify with the Church and who openly practice lifestyles contrary to Church morality. We need to educate with compassion. Our many years of poor teaching is coming to roost and we are now paying the price. Perhaps their sins are more apparent than ours, but that does not mean that we are better than they are, or that we should be casting stones at them. We must learn to know them and try to find out why they are who they are. We must teach them the Gospel and help them to want to follow it. But most of all we must pray for them.
Dear James Connor: “But most of all we must pray for them.”
Catholics in general would thoroughly agree with you. We would also agree that there’s no point in self-righteous criticisms of people who’ve chosen to live their lives in breach of Christ’s commands, made clear by His Apostles in The New Testament & in the magisterial Catechism of the Catholic Church.
As with all sins, it’s not the wrong choice itself that is a soul-killer, it’s the defiance of God’s right to command our loving obedience that sends a soul to Hell.
Human beings can be amazingly creative & appealing; but we are never our own God.
You’re right, I think, in recognizing that effete & erroneous faith education has given us a generation immunized against The GLORY of God & ignorant of God’s LOVE in giving us commandments to steer us safely through this deceptive & deadly world.
Let’s keep watching & praying; with the love of Jesus & blessings from marty
” try to find out why they are who they are. We must teach them the Gospel and help them to want to follow it.”
I think that is easily answered. The church has been inutile in the transmission of the faith. The church has sold out to the spirit of the zeitgeist. That is why they think voices and opinions like her has a place in how the church moves forward.
In any case, for a church hurtling towards the ravine, the way forward is actually to step on the break and reverse gear instead of going leadfooted on the accelerator
Amen.
Assuming that peak stupid is early twenties, this is peak Synodaling.
She was chosen for this extended vacation so that Cardinal Müller (and Bishops like him) will have to listen for a month, twice, to spectacularly unqualified people before they outvote him.
“She believes women and LGBTQIA+ people should have greater roles in the Church”. Women aside, why should one’s sexual orientation warrant a greater role? Doesn’t seem thought out. Sounds like an unserious social experiment.
Boldly shameless. Simply astonishing. Mindless.