The pope has made repeated calls for mercy and for the church to hear voices from the peripheries. This is an invitation to accept that the Holy Spirit speaks not just to church leaders but also to all the baptized.

Cardinal Tobin delivered his message on May 4 n his talk, ‘Synodality and the Long Game of Pope Francis'.

The talk was given during the annual Cardinal Bernardin Common Cause Lecture at Loyola University Chicago's Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage.

To bring about the necessary change, the pope has focused on synodality as the path forward. His experience as a church leader in Argentina influenced this, the cardinal explained.

"One way we can look at this is that the election of Pope Francis opened up the rest of the world to the rich theological foment of the church in Latin America, with its strong sense of mission, encounter, the peripheries and mercy," Tobin said

"Many, including church leaders in this country (USA), have found that shift to be uncomfortable," Tobin added.

"They shouldn't because it didn't start with Francis, and I believe it's not going away anytime soon," he added.

The path toward synodality, the cardinal continued, will require the church to undergo its own conversion, "a new way of understanding and approaching how we carry out our mission."

Tobin went on to quote Pope John XXIII's opening address to the Second Vatican Council that "Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than of severity."

Vatican II produced that blueprint, Tobin suggested but noted that other popes continued the work.

He said St. John Paul II made sure it "kept to the exact specifications required."

Then Pope Benedict XVI put the finishing touches on the propulsion engine. "Now Pope Francis has flipped the switch to on."

Describing how Pope Francis "is revving up the engine to see what it can do," Tobin said those who feel most threatened by including those on the peripheries in the life of the church are those "with the most engineered grasp of all the norms and canons (of church law)."

"To this, I would posit, you can be the most knowledgeable mechanic on earth and still be a rotten driver," Tobin said.

Synodality, he said, requires that voices throughout the church are welcomed and heard.

The cardinal again turned to St John XXIII, recalling how he urged Vatican II's participants to "open the window."

"We always associated this with letting in fresh air," Tobin said.

"But something else happens when you open a window. You can hear what the people outside, those below your window, are saying.

Eight years into Francis' papacy, through the process of conversion — a process Tobin said that even the pope has undergone — and through the instrument of synodality, Francis is helping to "integrate the head of the church and the rest of the body of Christ."

"We can't embrace people with just our heads," said Tobin, before asking: "Where are the outstretched arms of the body of Christ?"

Sources

• Crux
• National Catholic Reporter

These policies are particularly hard on children and their families.

"I am Joseph, your brother, who has been heartbroken by the inhumanity," Tobin told a rally in Newark, New Jersey last Wednesday.

The government must stop detaining immigrant families, he said.

"I ask Catholics and others of goodwill to contact their elected officials and urge them not to manipulate immigrant families as political pawns."

After blessing the group of about 400 protesters, Tobin joined them as they marched from Saint Mary's Church to the city's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office.

A group of protesters blocked a pedestrian crossing outside the office, arranging themselves in the shape of a cross.

At the same time as the protesters were rallying, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General was releasing a report about the damage caused by separating children from their parents.

The report says migrant children separated from their parents "exhibited more fear, feelings of abandonment and post-traumatic stress" than migrant children who had not been separated from their loved ones.

Besides fleeing violence and experiencing direct threats to their safety during their journey to the US, the report notes some children also experienced an additional trauma: being unexpectedly separated from their parents because of U.S. immigration laws.

Tobin is of the same opinion.

"Children will bear the trauma wrought by immigration enforcement raids, separation from their families, and indeterminate detention," he said.

"These draconian measures are not a solution to our broken immigration system.

"They are violations of human dignity and are contrary to all religious teachings and the sacred call to care for our most vulnerable populations.

"Unlike others, we don't have to look up Bible verses to justify the building of walls. There are none."

A young man who migrated to the US with his family several years before the border detentions began and today organises communities via the Cosecha Movement also addressed the rally.

"A family is something holy. An attack on a family is an attack on religion," he said.

"How long must we endure this pain before people act? That is my question ... I ask everybody present to not only to stay strong in your prayer but to stay strong in your action."

Source

• CBS New York
• America Magazine
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: National Catholic Reporter

He has called on American Catholic leaders to resist the Trump administration's views.

He says "you really have to believe in inflicting cruelty on innocent people to choose to support the policies we've seen in recent months." Read more

"Building A Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity", was written by James Martin.

Martin is a Jesuit priest and best-selling author.

"The Church needs a book like this," Cardinal Kevin Farrell wrote in its blurb.

Farrell leads the Vatican office on laity, family, and life issues.

He says it will "help bishops, priests, pastoral associates and all church leaders more compassionately minister to the LGBT community".

"It will also help LGBT Catholics feel more at home in what is, after all, their church," he added.

Although the book calls on the Church to be more respectful and compassionate towards gay people, it does not advocate for any changes to doctrine.

Nor does it discuss same-sex marriage.

A number of senior clergy have shown support for the book in its blurb.

As an example, Newark Cardinal Joseph Tobin, wrote:

The "... book marks an essential step in inviting church leaders to minister with more compassionand in reminding LGBT Catholics that they are as much a part of our church as any other."

Bishop Robert McElory of San Diego also supports the book.

He wrote: "The gospel demands that LGBT Catholics must be genuinely loved and treasured in the life of the church. They are not."

Martin has often written about the role of gays and lesbians in the church, and about the need for the church to do more to welcome them.

Source

• The Salt Lake Tribune
• LifeSite
• Image: The University of Scranton