Features

The Church in Europe has yet to be stirred from its fatalistic slumber, but there is still a way that it can recapture the will of the people and that’s by not discounting the role of the local Church in synodal decision-making, writes Fr Eamonn Conway.

“In wider society, power abuse takes many forms. Perhaps, in this context however, clericalism means those clergy who ignore, mislead, bully, restrict, frighten, silence, exclude, judge, damn – and, many years ago, burn at the stake,” writes Penelope Middelboe.

“The Synthesis Report is clear, the people are calling for ACTION. It’s 40 years overdue! Appoint change managers with serious qualifications and expertise in organisational change. Let’s have new blood, new wine in new wine skins,” writes Garry O’Sullivan.

The Catholic teaching on a male-only priesthood is not a matter of theological speculation but of the Church’s reliance on Apostolic tradition, writes Michael Kelly.

The historical opportunity for Irish bishops to act with vision.

Five private individuals have filed criminal complaints against the former archbishop of Freiburg, Robert Zollitsch, following the publication of a study on abuse in the archdiocese.

In an indication that patience is wearing thin among many women in the Catholic Church, several Catholic women’s associations and the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) have vocally demanded that women be granted access to ordained ministries.

The German theologian Thomas Soeding has called for changes to Catholic canon law to allow more laypeople to participate in internal Church decisions.

Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich has criticised the separation of powers in the Catholic Church sought by the Synodal Path reform initiative of the Catholic Church in Germany.

The Vatican announced Wednesday that there will be laypeople participating as voting members in the Synod on Synodality’s October assembly, a break with past custom, which allowed laypeople to participate without the right to vote.