They're appealing to the Vatican, claiming they are financially viable, despite the Archdiocese's assessment to the contrary.

Gerry Winters, president of Save St. Matthias Church, says the plan to merge his Lincoln Square parish with another has resulted in a lot of people stopping going to mass altogether.

He said it's disappointing the Archdiocese asked parishes to raise millions of dollars in 2013 and then were told they're closing a few years later.

In a move he calls "utterly clueless," Winters said St. Matthias members continue to get letters from the Archdiocese telling them they're behind on monthly donations more than a year after the closure announcement.

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This will see churches, schools and other buildings evaluated for their water usage, energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions.

Data will be tracked using the US Environmental Protection Agency's free Energy Star Portfolio Manager.

Chicago Archbishop Blaise Cupich said that "while it is a considerable undertaking, we have to set an example that it can be done and must be done if we are to fulfil our sustainability goals".

Chicago is the first US archdiocese to commit to benchmarking and tracking in this way.

Some of its buildings are already eco-friendly.

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The documents detail interpersonal communications between victims, the priests and archdiocese officials.

Making this information public comes after other documents were released in January as part of a settlement with victims.

The archdiocese says it is aware of 352 incidents of known abuse since 1952.

Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said the document release represents "a tiny first step" for the archdiocese in addressing past abuse claims.

Cardinal Francis George said: We cannot change the past, but we hope we can rebuild trust through honest and open dialogue. Child abuse is a crime and a sin."

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That's what New York magazine writer Lisa Miller wrote of Archbishop Cupich, who has, she said, a "heart for the poor".

"People who know Cupich say he has a particular genius for bridging gaps between rich and poor," Miller wrote.

He could also "model ways to address the agonising national problem of income inequality".

Archbishop-elect Cupich's fans say his brilliance comes from a deep understanding of Catholicism as a unifying force, and not a splintering one.

As Bishop of Spokane, he took off his collar once a week to work anonymously in a soup kitchen.

He is said to know the names of hundreds of the homeless men and women who live in and around Spokane.

He also celebrated Mass with hundreds of undocumented migrant workers in the wake of the wildfires there last summer.

"He drove three hours, and said an outdoor Mass at a camp. Then he stayed for hours afterward," a Spokane diocese spokesman said.

But he was also able to get alongside wealthy Catholics, who might not have agreed with all his actions, and convince them to make substantial contributions to good causes.

In Spokane, he also reduced the diocese's debt from US$4million, when he arrived in 2010, to US$150,000.

He played his part by living on a seminary campus and owning no furniture.

In 2012, Chicago archdiocese ran a deficit of more than US$70 million.

In Spokane, he also encouraged local Catholic Charities to sign up as many poor people as possible to the Obamacare health coverage plan.

He said he was chosen for Chicago "to serve the needs of the people", and characterised his role more as "pastor" than as "messenger".

Pope Francis made similar points in a message this month to US Catholic Charities that "No one is to be a ‘leftover' [and] no one is to be ‘excluded' from God's love and from our care".

Pope Francis said that like the Good Samaritan and Innkeeper in the Bible, "we are called to be in the ‘streets' inviting and serving those who have been left out".

The Pope concluded: "We are called to be a Church, a people of and for the poor".

Sources

• Fortune
• Vatican Radio
• Image: National Catholic Reporter

At the request of Chicago archdiocese's censor, Margaret Nutting Ralph's work was withheld from a resource book published by Liturgy Training Publications.

Ms Ralph had given a presentation on contextual interpretation of Scripture at a Call to Action conference.

Call to Action is a Chicago-based lay organisation that works for progressive reform of the Catholic Church.

One of its aims is ordination of women to the priesthood.

Ms Ralph told the National Catholic Reporter that she and her audience discussed Vatican II's Dei Verbum on revelation, as well as homosexuality and contraception.

They also spent a very short time on women's ordination, she said.

But at a later telephone conference between Ms Ralph, the publisher and the archdiocese's censor, the topic of women's ordination was raised repeatedly by the censor.

The censor, who is a priest, told Ms Ralph that refusing to publish the commentaries was called for because he wanted to avoid any public perception that the Archdiocese of Chicago is not firm on doctrine, especially the doctrine against women's ordination.

"He explained that by accepting an invitation to speak at Call To Action, even though my topic was on how to be a biblical contextualist, I had 'passively supported this unorthodox group's whole agenda'," Ms Ralph said.

She said the commentaries she wrote for the lectors' resource book were faithful to Church teaching.

She wrote to Chicago Cardinal Francis George in March and received a note from his office that her correspondence had been received and forwarded.

Ms Ralph worked for 16 years as secretary of educational ministries for the diocese of Lexington, Kentucky.

She was also director of a master's programme in pastoral studies at Lexington Theological Seminary.

Ms Ralph had written commentaries for two previous Liturgy Training Publications books.

Liturgy Training Publications retains copyright and ownership the work it hired Ms Ralph to do.

The company stated it would keep her writings on file in case they could be published in the future.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• American Catholic
• Call to Action
• Image: Boston College