Fall River, Mass., Jul 20, 2021 / 18:19 pm A seminarian and former graphic designer has created the Auspice Maria website as an initiative of the new evangelization. John Garabedian, a seminarian of the Diocese […]
Denver Newsroom, Jul 20, 2021 / 17:30 pm The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter issued a statement on Tuesday reaffirming their fidelity to Pope Francis, and expressing their disappointment with his recent motu proprio restricting […]
Archbishop Dennis Schnurr celebrates Mass at the tomb of St. Peter along with other bishops from the United States’ Region VI during their ad limina visit to the Holy See. / David Kerr/CNA
Denver Newsroom, Jul 20, 2021 / 17:01 pm (CNA).
The Archbishop of Cincinnati on Tuesday said he was not informed of President Biden’s upcoming visit to a Catholic university in his archdiocese. He did not approve the university hosting the event.
On Wednesday, July 21, President Joe Biden will appear at a townhall event broadcast by CNN and hosted by Mount Saint Joseph University in Cincinnati. The university is sponsored by the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati.
News of the event’s location was reported on Tuesday. Archbishop Dennis Schnurr then issued a statement saying that he “has not been contacted by any involved party” regarding Biden’s appearance at the university.
“Archbishop Schnurr has therefore not been asked for, nor would he have granted, his approval for any such event to occur on Catholic premises,” the archdiocese stated.
The archdiocese did not immediately respond to CNA’s request for clarification as to why Archbishop Schnurr would have refused approval of the event. Mount Saint Joseph University did not immediately respond to a request for comment by CNA on Tuesday afternoon.
Regarding the July 21 townhall, CNN.com reported that CNN anchor Don Lemon will moderate the one-hour event, which will cover “a wide range of issues facing the nation ranging from Covid-19 to the economy.”
President Biden is the second Catholic president in U.S. history. While the U.S. bishops’ conference has praised some of his administration’s policies on immigration and fighting poverty, conference president Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles stated in January his concern about Biden’s policies on abortion, gender issues, and religious freedom.
“I must point out that our new President has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender,” Gomez stated. “Of deep concern is the liberty of the Church and the freedom of believers to live according to their consciences.”
In January, Biden stated his support for Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, on the 48th anniversary of the ruling.
Biden’s budget request for the 2022 fiscal year included taxpayer-funded abortion by excluding the Hyde Amendment. The amendment has been federal policy since 1976, and prohibits federal funding of abortions in Medicaid. Biden once supported the policy as a U.S. senator, but reversed his support in 2019 as a presidential candidate.
He also supports the Equality Act, legislation which recognizes sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in federal law; the U.S. bishops’ conference has opposed the legislation, saying it would codify transgender ideology in law and would “punish” religious groups that object to the LGBT agenda.
Biden’s administration is also seeking to reinstate the “transgender mandate,” policy which would force doctors and insurance companies to perform or cover gender-transitioning procedures upon the referral from a mental health professional.
The Sisters of Charity in Cincinnati are members of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).
The remains of St. George Coptic Orthodox Church, Surrey, BC / St. George Coptic Orthodox Church
Washington D.C., Jul 20, 2021 / 16:30 pm (CNA).
A Coptic Orthodox church in British Columbia was destroyed in a fire on Monday, July 19, just days a… […]
Eucharistic adoration at the SLS18 conference in Chicago. / FOCUS.
Denver, Colo., Jul 20, 2021 / 16:19 pm (CNA).
The Fellowship of Catholic University Students is sending nearly 800 missionaries to eight additional locations this academic year i… […]
Pope Francis, pictured on Oct. 4, 2014. / Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk.
Vatican City, Jul 20, 2021 / 15:00 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis is “deeply saddened” by a bombing at a market in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, that killed at least 30 people.In a teleg… […]
The Metropolitan Cathedral in San Jose, Costa Rica. / Bas van den Heuvel/Shutterstock.
San José, Costa Rica, Jul 20, 2021 / 14:01 pm (CNA).
The Costa Rican bishops’ conference on Monday declared that no expression of the liturgy prior to that of… […]
Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai, head of the Maronite Church. Credit: Aid to the Church in Need.
Rome Newsroom, Jul 20, 2021 / 13:00 pm (CNA).
Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai has implored Lebanon’s patron saint to help save the country from “total col… […]
The opening of the Amazon synod at the Vatican’s Synod Hall, Oct. 7, 2019. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.
Vatican City, Jul 20, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
The general secretariat of the Synod of Bishops on Tuesday named the members of three groups helping to prepare the 2023 synod on synodality.
It listed the names on July 20, just three months before the start of a two-year preparatory phase involving Catholic dioceses worldwide.
A synod is a meeting of bishops gathered to discuss a topic of theological or pastoral significance, to prepare a document of advice or counsel to the pope.
The theme for the upcoming assembly is “For a synodal Church: communion, participation, and mission.”
The general secretariat listed the members of a steering committee, a commission for theology, and a commission for methodology.
The steering committee has five members: Archbishop Erio Castellucci, who leads the Italian dioceses of Modena-Nonantola and Carpi; Fr. Giacomo Costa, S.J., president of the San Fedele Cultural Foundation of Milan and director of the magazine Aggiornamenti Sociali; Mgsr. Pierangelo Sequeri, president of the Pontifical Theological Institute John Paul II for the Sciences of Marriage and the Family; Fr. Dario Vitali, full professor in the Faculty of Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University; and Myriam Wijlens, professor of canon law at the University of Erfurt, Germany.
In preparation for the forthcoming #Synod, we are publishing the names of the members of the Theology and Methodology Commissions, and of the Steering Committee.https://t.co/UKd8YOa8hw pic.twitter.com/Ao5DCtAODY
— Synod.va (@Synod_va) July 20, 2021
The commission for theology has 25 members from around the world. The commission, which is coordinated by Bishop Luis Marín de San Martín, one of two under-secretaries of the Synod of Bishops, assists the synod secretariat by reviewing texts, presenting theological proposals “for the development of synodality,” and creating and sharing “materials for theological deepening,” according to the synod’s website.
The commission’s members include three Jesuits: Fr. Paul Béré, from Burkina Faso, the first African to win the prestigious Ratzinger Prize for theology; Fr. Santiago Madrigal Terrazas, a professor at the Comillas Pontifical University in Spain; and Fr. Christoph Theobald, a Franco-German theologian based at the Centre Sèvres in Paris.
The commission for methodology, coordinated by Sr. Nathalie Becquart, under-secretary of the Synod of Bishops, has nine members, including four women: Cristina Inogés Sanz, from Spain, Christina Kheng Li Lin, from Singapore, Sr. Hermenegild Makoro, C.P.S., from South Africa, and Susan Pascoe from Australia.
Also among the commission’s members is Fr. David McCallum, S.J., executive director of the Discerning Leadership Program, a collaboration between Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, and other institutions.
The commission’s tasks include collecting “best practices for synodal processes at all levels,” proposing “methodologies for the synodal process in all its phases,” creating a “a brochure/website on best practices,” and working on “the methodology/process for the celebration of the Synod of Bishops in October 2023.”
Earlier this month, Pope Francis named the Jesuit Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich as the relator general of the synod on synodality.
Hollerich, the president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE), will help to oversee the gathering of the world’s bishops in Rome.
The synod on synodality will open with a “diocesan phase” in October 2021 and conclude with the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican in October 2023.
Pope Francis will “inaugurate the synodal path” over the weekend of Oct. 9-10 with an opening session and a Mass. All dioceses are invited also to offer an opening Mass on Sunday, Oct. 17.
During the diocesan phase, each bishop is asked to undertake a consultation process with the local Church from Oct. 17, 2021, to April 2022.
The Vatican will then release an instrumentum laboris (working document) in September 2022 for a period of “pre-synodal discernment in continental assemblies,” which will influence a second draft of the working document to be published before June 2023.
The process will culminate in a meeting of bishops at the Vatican in October 2023.
Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill / U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Washington D.C., Jul 20, 2021 / 10:44 am (CNA).
The general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops resigned from his post on Tuesday, ahead of media reports detailing poss… […]
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