NEWS NOTES: Synod Week in Review

News NotesSynod news, particularly in regard to lesbian and gay issues, has been fast and furious this week.  Here are some articles that you might find of interest:

1. The International Business Times captured reactions to the synod’s working paper which affirms lesbian and gay people.  The report focuses on comments from Nicholas Coppola, who was dismissed from his parish’s volunteer ministries because he legally married a man in New York state.

2. New Ways Ministry’s Sister Jeannine Gramick is interviewed by Al-Jazeera about the Church’s new approach to lesbian and gay people.

3. The Daily Beast’s Barbie Latza Nadeau notes that this synod may have included voices of lay Catholics, but the real question is whether the “men of the cloth are listening.” She comments on several LGBT-related synod events.

4. While the synod was happening in Rome, LGBT Catholics met in Portugal to start the first World Organization of Homosexual Catholic Associations, and they planned to send a message to the synod to be more open to their groups and their people.

5. Jesuit Father Thomas Reese noted this little gem in a National Catholic Reporter synod analysis: “Meanwhile, during the press conference the Italian-to-English translator translated “intrinsically disordered’ as ‘intrinsically messy,’ which will undoubtedly lead to a new line of T-shirts.”

5. Charisma News asks if Pope Francis’ famous “Who am I to judge statement?” will sway the bishops in the synod to a more favorable approach to LGBT and other issues.

6. “A Small Step for the Vatican, a Giant Leap for Gays” is the title of New Ways Ministry’s Executive Director Francis DeBernardo’s op-ed on Advocate.com. 

7. “Vatican mystery: Where did ‘welcoming gays’ language come from?”  That’s the question Associated Press reporter Nicole Winfield tries to answer.

8. London’s Daily Mail sees the synod’s mid-term statement as offering a “massive shift” in the Church’s approach to LGBT issues.

9. The Huffington Post reported on how various Catholics of different stripes reacted to the relatio’s release this week.

10.  The National Catholic Reporter’s  Michael Sean Winters reviews the synod so far, and asks the question: “Why is it so important to hold on to the two words ‘intrinsically disordered’? Isn’t there something juvenile in this need to put ourselves above others, those intrinsically disordered people.”

11. “Pope Francis won’t be officiating same sex marriages any time soon,” writes veteran Catholic observer Tom Roberts in The New Republic, but he still is changing the Church by taking “the weapons out of the hands of the hierarchical culture warriors.”

12. The family of DignityUSA’s Marianne Duddy-Burke is profiled in a Crux.com article about LGBT hopes for the synod.

13. The Associated Press offered a wide-range of opinions from Catholics and others on how the synod has been discussing LGBT issues.

14. The Washington Post notes that Catholics and gay rights organizations are welcoming the new tone in the Vatican on LGBT issues.

15.  New Ways Ministry’s Francis DeBernardo is profiled in an article about the synod in The Global Post

16. “The Catholic church still needs to move on several fundamental human rights issues, including the full participation of women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in church and society. Those of us who are working and waiting for these changes are not going to be jumping up and down with glee over moderate pastoral suggestions that, quite frankly, should have been implemented years ago,” observed Heidi Schlumpf in a National Catholic Reporter commentary on what the synod is not doing.

17. Conservative Catholics are strongly opposed to the approach that the synod is taking on many family issues.  Religion News Service  offers a review of their opinions.

18. New Ways Ministry’s presence in Rome for the synod was noted by Crux.com in an article describing some of the details of the meeting.

19. Gay issues are front and center in the synod on the family, and everyone has an opinion about them, notes a Religion News Service article.

20. The synod’s report, in other words, is an invitation to reform the likes of which we have not seen for half a century,” notes Charles Reid in a Huffington Post op-ed.

21. In The Tablet, gay Catholic journalist Mark Dowd discusses his own coming out process, and makes this observation about the synod and change in the Church:  “What’s at stake is nothing less than the truth. And at last, I think the Magisterium is now curious and less fearful to learn that truth.”

22.  Gay Catholic writer Andrew Sullivan commented on the synod’s interim report, saying “Yes, This Is A Pastoral Revolution,” and noting that it was ” a thorough repudiation of the last two papacies.” He ended his Daily Beast blog post with the words: “It is like a long, dark night suddenly seeing a crack of daylight. Or rather it is like the final breaking of bread within me, a sacrament of love being released within, of a faith made more whole, of a home finally found. Know hope. Know joy.”

–Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry

 

2 replies
  1. ellefersan
    ellefersan says:

    Reblogged this on Eliane Fersan and commented:
    I said it a few months ago that it will happen soon. The Catholic Church is walking on steady tracks to an inclusive approach toward all its followers and believers. Brave but shy, yet commendable! Keep it up!

    Reply
  2. Mark Clark
    Mark Clark says:

    Given blowback from Cardinal Dolan and other vocal worriers against early reports of the synod’s inclusive attitude about LGBT people, should gays start plucking petals off a daisy: “… they welcome me, they welcome me not, they welcome me…”??

    Reply

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