French ‘backpack hero’ will be special guest at reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral

The opening of the Amazon synod at the Vatican’s Synod Hall, Oct. 7, 2019. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.

Vatican City, Dec 7, 2021 / 12:40 pm (CNA).

Officials at the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops have removed a link to New Ways Ministry from a resource page after they became aware that the U.S. bishops’ conference expressed its disapproval of the LGBT outreach ministry in 2010.

Thierry Bonaventura, communication manager of the General Secretariat, told CNA on Dec. 7 that the link on the website synodresources.org had been taken down.

Writing on his Twitter account on Dec. 6, Father James Martin, S.J., had hailed the link as “a small but historic step forward for #LGBTQ Catholics.”

Martin, the author of “Building a Bridge,” a book advocating stronger ties between the Catholic Church and the LGBT community, wrote: “As Pope Francis has said, all voices must be heard at the Synod…”

New Ways Ministry was founded in 1977 in the Archdiocese of Washington by Sr. Jeannine Gramick and Fr. Robert Nugent, who were the subject of a notification by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1999.

The notification, signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Benedict XVI, said that their positions “regarding the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts and the objective disorder of the homosexual inclination are doctrinally unacceptable because they do not faithfully convey the clear and constant teaching of the Catholic Church in this area.”

In 2010, Cardinal Francis George, then president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement emphasizing that New Ways Ministry “has no approval or recognition from the Catholic Church and that they cannot speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful in the United States.”

Bonaventura told CNA that synodresources.org is an initiative of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops for sharing resources among dioceses, bishops’ conferences, and official Catholic organizations.

But he noted that the website’s address does not end in “.va,” the internet country code top-level domain for Vatican City.

“It means that the content published doesn’t express the view of the General Secretary of the Synod or of the Vatican,” he explained.

“At the same time, even if we are open to receiving any useful resources without a particular censoring of the material, it is our desire to welcome inputs from officially recognized organizations by the Catholic Church.”

“In this case, my team was not aware of the situation of the New Ways organization and of the clarification given by the USCCB President in 2010.”

The General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops is currently overseeing what has been described as one of the largest consultation exercises in human history, ahead of the 2023 Synod on Synodality.

A handbook released by the Vatican in September urged dioceses to include “all the baptized” in the process, including those on the margins of Church life.

It said: “Special care should be taken to involve those persons who may risk being excluded: women, the handicapped, refugees, migrants, the elderly, people who live in poverty, Catholics who rarely or never practice their faith, etc.”.

The Vatican announced in May that the Synod on Synodality would open with a diocesan phase starting in October 2021.

A second, continental phase will take place from September 2022 to March 2023.

The third, universal phase will begin with the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, dedicated to the theme “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission,” at the Vatican in October 2023.

The “About” section of synodresources.org says that the website is “a platform for sharing resources, stories, and experiences in the journey of the Synod 2021-2023.”

Bonaventura said: “At the same time, you have to be aware that we are studying the way to listen to all the faithful and also those organizations who are not officially in communion with the Catholic Church as it is a question of consistency of the message we want to spread out, but synodresources.org is not that place.”

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Austin, Texas, Jul 16, 2018 / 01:45 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A federal court of appeals sided with the Texas Catholic bishops in a July 15 ruling blocking a request from abortion groups to access the bishops’ private communications regarding abortion.

“Hitting churches with subpoenas to win the culture wars was a bad idea from the start,” said Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, which represents the Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“We are glad that the Fifth Circuit recognized the deep problems with allowing lawyers to use the power of the court system to probe the private religious discussions of religious groups,” he continued. “That is especially so here, where the plaintiffs oppose the Texas Catholic bishops’ right to participate equally in public discourse.”

Whole Woman’s Health, a chain of Texas abortion facilities, filed suit against the State of Texas two years ago over a law that requires aborted fetal remains to be either buried or cremated. Previously, the remains were treated as medical waste and thrown into a landfill.

Although the bishops are not party to the lawsuit, Whole Woman’s Health attempted to acquire various communications from the Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops concerning abortion. These included private email and internal communications between bishops.

The bishops had previously offered to bury aborted fetal remains for free in Catholic cemeteries in Texas.

A trial court initially ruled that the bishops must hand over the emails and other documents. The bishops then requested emergency protection from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which last month granted temporary protection and ordered additional briefs to be submitted by June 25.

The July 15 decision permanently blocks the order for the bishops to hand over the documents.

In his concurring opinion, Circuit Judge James Ho stressed the importance of religious liberty.

“The First Amendment expressly guarantees the free exercise of religion—including the right of the Bishops to express their profound objection to the moral tragedy of abortion, by offering free burial services for fetal remains,” he said. “By contrast, nothing in the text or original understanding of the Constitution prevents a state from requiring the proper burial of fetal remains.”

The Texas bishops have emphasized the importance of being able to deliberate privately and freely.

“Children are not disposable,” said Bishop Edward J. Burns from the Diocese of Dallas, comparing the lawsuit to the policy of separating undocumented children from their parents at the U.S. border.

“We believe that life is sacred from the moment of conception. We also believe that we have a right to discuss in private how to address this issue and uphold the dignity of every human life, and that while upholding the sacredness of life may seem at odds with some people, our religious liberties and religious rights should not be eroded.”

[…]

Vatican City, Apr 10, 2021 / 03:03 am America/Denver (CNA). Pope Francis’ private visit to Cardinal Angelo Becciu on Holy Thursday set off speculation about whether the pope is attempting to rehabilitate the disgraced cardinal. The […]