Jozef De Kesel, the former Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, and Luc Terlinden, the current Archbishop of the same Archdiocese, have been ordered to pay a fine of 1,500 euros to a woman named Veer Dusauchoit.

The woman attempted to enrol in training to become a Catholic deacon twice, but she was rejected because only men were allowed to become deacons in the Roman Catholic Church.

Dusauchoit has served at her parish church in a Flemish part of Belgium for years. As her parish no longer has a priest, Dusauchoit got involved with arranging funerals and scriptural readings,

The decision is both surprising and dangerous since it is yet another intrusion of secular courts into the internal affairs of a religious organisation.

However, it should be read in its entirety and has been somewhat misinterpreted by some international media. The decision does not compel the Belgian Catholic Church to ordain women as deacons. It emphasises that its subject matter was Dusauchoit's right to attend training, irrespective of whether she might be ordained at the end of the training.

The court's decision was made carefully, affirming the importance of respecting religious liberty. It was made clear that the court cannot force the Catholic Church to admit Dusauchoit to the training. Instead, the court can only require her bishops to pay her a monetary indemnification. Read more

Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, a leading organiser of the Vatican's ongoing synod process, also said that the church's language of describing LGBT persons as "intrinsically disordered" is "dubious."

While emphasising Francis is not in favour of the ordination of women, Cardinal Hollerich said that it remains an open conversation among some Catholics and that he would like to see women given greater pastoral responsibilities.

"Pope Francis does not want the ordination of women, and I am completely obedient to that," Hollerich said in a wide-ranging interview with the Croatian Catholic weekly, Glas Koncila, published on March 27.

"I am a promoter of giving women more pastoral responsibility. And if we achieve that, then we can perhaps see if there still is a desire among women for ordination," he added.

The Jesuit cardinal, the relator, or chairperson of the 2023 and 2024 Synod of Bishops, said that should the church ever reconsider the question, it should do so in consultation and unity with the Orthodox Church.

"We could never do that if it would jeopardise our fraternity with the Orthodox or if it would polarise the unity of our church," he said. "Love is not something abstract; it is the love for our sisters and brothers that prevents us from doing things that would alienate them."

Ordinatio Sacerdotalis not infallible

When asked if a future pope could rule against John Paul II's 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, which said that the Catholic Church does not have the authority to ordain women, Hollerich said it was possible.

But he denied that the teaching of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is infallible and said, "I think there could be room for the doctrine to be expanded."

He went on to offer a comparison to Pope Pius IX's 1864 "Syllabus of Errors," which was considered infallible and condemned religious freedom and interfaith dialogue. Such practices, the cardinal said, are now common in the church.

Nonetheless, the cardinal returned to his position that the decision of the current Pontiff would guide him. "But at this moment, if Pope Francis tells me it's not an option, it's not an option."

"It is very difficult to be Catholic without obedience to the pope. Some very conservative people always preached obedience to the pope, as long as the pope said the things they wanted to hear," said the cardinal.

"The pope says things that are difficult for me too, but I see them as a chance for conversion, for becoming a more faithful and happier Christian," he added.

Sources

National Catholic Reporter

Catholic Culture

The women stood outside the gates of the Vatican dressed in cardinal red, each carrying a scarlet parasol emblazoned with a phrase of female empowerment. "Ordain Women", "Reform Means Women", "It's Reigning Men".

"We hoped our witness would provoke an awakening of their consciences that there are sisters who are outside who are not included in these conversations," organiser Kate McElwee told NCR. She was speaking after being released by the Italian police responsible for St Peter's Square security.

The women hailing from the United States, the United Kingdom and Poland had marched down Rome's Via della Conciliazione, the iconic street leading into St Peter's Square. They then walked to the piazza outside the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

As prelates trickled in for a two-day meeting on the church's governance, some smiled at the women and said hello. Others took leaflets from the advocates who asked them to "pray for your sisters outside".

Francis called the meeting of the world's cardinals to discuss Praedicate Evangelium, the apostolic constitution he released in March to reorganise the Vatican's central bureaucracy.

While the document explicitly allows women to serve as leaders of Vatican departments for the first time, McElwee said she thought it was an injustice that no women were invited inside for the two days of meetings.

"We wanted our witness to stir that awareness in our brothers in Christ who are in the room," said McElwee, the executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference.

However, 20 minutes after the advocates began their protest, they were approached by Italian police who asked them to close their umbrellas.

They were then moved to a holding area where they had passports and phones confiscated. After an hour, they were taken to a nearby police station where they were held for another three hours.

After signing what McElwee described as "scores and scores" of documents agreeing to comply with an investigation, the seven women were released, with their umbrellas and materials held as evidence.

Miriam Duignan, a spokesperson for the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research and Women's Ordination Worldwide, was carrying a parasol reading "Sexism is a Cardinal Sin". She said, "It's 197 men talking about the future of the church, never mentioning women, and then seven women — completely harmless, carrying delicate little paper parasols — are so threatening to them that they had to wrongfully imprison us, humiliate us and try to intimidate us to never do it again".

"The reality is that we are a threat to the status quo," McElwee said.

Sources

National Catholic Reporter

Religion News Service

During his homily at the Hong Kong diocesan Chrism Mass, Bishop Chow said he had "turned to English, just to address our ordained brothers, and I hope one day maybe ordained sister[s] too."

The bishop's homily did not focus on the topic, instead calling priests and deacons to "synodality through our own ministries in collaboration with the different capacities, or different roles, among the People of God… discerning the direction in which the Spirit wants us to move as a body."

With an allusion to the language of Pope Francis, the bishop also called his clergy to be "shepherds…realistic yet transcending, not stuck in a specific time or space, and not being shepherds without the smell of the sheep."

Read More

Erwin Kräutler, the bishop emeritus of Xingu in the Brazilian Amazon, expressed concern that not a word was said about opening up the Sacrament of Holy Orders to married men and ordaining women to the diaconate.

Many bishops "were and still are" looking for a plausible explanation as to why the two issues were not mentioned.

Some of them thought that the Pope had wanted to avoid a "schism". He had "certainly been under great pressure from the Curia" at the time, Kräutler pointed out.

"That was already crystal clear at the synod sessions and during our talks with the Curia. We found very little understanding for the problems and issues of the Amazon Region which we here experience day by day."

According to notes from the pope included in an article published in the Catholic periodical La Civiltà Cattolica, Pope Francis did not approve a proposal to ordain married men in the Amazon region because the idea was not prayerfully discerned at a 2019 synod of bishops.

"There was a discussion, a rich discussion, and a well-founded discussion, but no discernment. This is something different than just arriving at a good and justified consensus or at a relative majority," Pope Francis said, on the issue of addressing a priest shortage in the Amazon by ordaining so-called viri probati, or older, mature and married men from local communities.

However, just because Pope Francis did not mention the issues of ordaining married men to the priesthood and ordaining women deacons in his post-synodal exhortation, this "certainly does not mean that these issues are off the table," Kräutler underlined.

He recalled that right at the beginning of Querida Amazonia Pope Francis had made it clear that he would not be going into all the issues the Synod had gone into and had asked people to read the final Synod document very carefully.

And the final document, Kräutler pointed out, had underlined how important the permanent diaconate for women was in the Amazon Region.

He personally was convinced that the starting point of every discussion on the priestly ministry could not be the tradition of the Early Church but rather the needs of today.

Sources

The Tablet

Catholic News Agency

Warning the positive content of faith has become emptied, Father Tomáš Halík quotes the former Archbishop of Milan, Carlo Maria Martini; "I am not so much afraid of people who do not have faith; what disturbs me are people who do not think".

"For a large number of today's Christians, the positive content of faith has become empty.

"Therefore, they need to found their ‘Christian identity' on ‘culture wars' against condoms, abortion, same-sex marriage, etc", Halík writes in an article on "The Revolution of Mercy and a New Ecumenism."

Halík is professor of philosophy and sociology of religion at Charles University in Prague, President of the Czech Christian Academy and a recipient of the highly prestigious Templeton Prize.

He encourages the Church to not submit to the yoke of slavery, of legalistic religion.

I really cannot march under the same banner as Christians who align themselves with populist and nationalist political movements, hold to literalist interpretations of the Bible, deploy facile arguments against the ordination of women and engage in fanatical fights against abortion and LGBT+ rights writes Halík.

He struggles with "major doubt" in respect to those Christians who fall prey to what Pope Francis labels as the "neurotic obsession" of faith.

A champion of the current Pope, Halík is encouraging a "culture of spiritual discernment and fostering of those values that lead both to the heart of the gospel and a courageous and creative response to the ‘signs of the times.'"

Francis shows the way to a "Christianity of tomorrow", and understanding mercy is key to his reform.

"Pope Francis is not a revolutionary bent on changing church doctrine… rather, he is merciful", Halík explained.

"This pope does not change written standards, nor does he tear down external structures; however, he transforms praxis and life".

Halík observes that Francis is not changing the church from the outside, but he is transforming it "far more thoroughly", spiritually from the inside and through the spirit of the Gospel.

Halík calls it "a revolution of mercy".

"In his case, these words [on same-gender civil unions] are not mere empty pious phrases. Therefore, his reform has the potential to change the Church and bring it back to the heart of Jesus's message more profoundly than many reforms of the past", Halík insisted.

It is "through his personal example of Christian bravery… (Francis) calls us to act like free children of God, responsibly exercising the freedom to which Christ has liberated us and not submitting again to the ‘yoke of slavery' of legalistic religion".

Attacking those "high priests of the church of dead religion" who downplay Francis' reforms on LGBT and other matters, Halík calls on Catholics to continue the "spiritual renewal of the Church".

He asks Catholics to redouble their efforts to communicate the idea of God "as a kind, generous, understanding, forgiving, and healing power capable of transforming the human heart, the Church, and society".

Halík says Francis enfleshes John Paul II's call, "Do not be afraid".

Sources

• Novena News
• Association of Catholic Priests

Marianne Schlosser, who is a professor of theology at the University of Vienna, says she is concerned about the path's approach and methodology.

She was invited to contribute to the discussions after the conference had held two preparatory meetings.

Her expertise was sought for the Synodal Way's forum "on women in ecclesial roles and offices".

However, she says she can't identify with a number of issues in an intermediate report produced by the Synodal Way's preparatory group.

These include a "fixation on ordination" of women.

This "fixation" was neither theologically and historically nor pastorally and spiritually justified, she says.

The Catholic Church teaches that it has no authority to admit women to priestly ordination.

Schlosser says as this topic is not about discipline, it cannot be "negotiated in a synodal forum with mixed members" - that is, between bishops and laity.

She also expressed the fear of a progressive polarization of the church in Germany.

Pope Francis appointed Schlosser as a member of the International Theological Commission in 2014. She was also appointed a member of the study commission investigating the female diaconate in 2016.

She is an advisor to the Faith Commission of the German bishops' conference and since January 2018 a member of the Theological Commission of the Austrian bishops' conference.

Schlosser was the Ratzinger Prize recipient in 2018.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Fondazione Ratzinger

The 64-year-old's ordination will not be acknowledged by the Catholic church, which only allows men to become priests, but the lifelong follower of the faith is not letting that stop her.

The San Rafael resident plans to press onward with the ordination, to be conducted by a female bishop of the Western Region of Roman Catholic Priest, in October at an Episcopalian church in San Francisco.

Though skeptical that in her lifetime she will see the church modify its rules of who can take the priesthood, Nolan said she hopes one day the church becomes more inclusive. Read more

"Barring women from ordination to the priesthood is an injustice that cannot be allowed to stand," the paper said in a December 3 editorial.

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