The meeting sought to understand the challenges transgender people face. It included discussions with transgender individuals, their families, theologians, medical professionals and church ministry workers.

The move came against the backdrop of increasing state-based legislation and Catholic diocesan policies that critics argue negatively affect transgender individuals.

The meeting was organised by New Ways Ministry, a Catholic LGBTQ advocacy group.

New Ways Ministry, co-founded in 1977 by Loretto Sr Jeannine Gramick, has been at the forefront of advocacy for LGBTQ Catholics, despite facing historical opposition from the Vatican.

A step toward understanding

The day-and-a-half-long event, closed to both the public and press, sought to equip bishops with insights that would assist in enhancing pastoral care within their dioceses.

According to participants, the initiative reflects the varied reception and treatment of transgender individuals across Catholic dioceses and parishes nationwide.

Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky highlighted the consensus among attendees about the legitimacy of transgender experiences.

"After hearing from medical experts and from transgender people, we are not talking about something that is fabricated. People have a right to be called as they wish to be called" he said.

Engaging in dialogue

The meeting, attended by some 40 individuals, marks a significant moment of engagement between church leaders and the LGBTQ community.

"We've all encountered pastoral situations related to transgender persons and for the most part felt inadequately prepared to deal with them" Stowe noted, underscoring the bishops' eagerness to attend and learn.

This gathering is the second of its kind following a previous event in January 2023 that focused on LGBTQ issues more broadly.

Moving forward

Participants shared their stories and experiences at the meeting, providing a platform for open and heartfelt dialogue.

Dominican Fr Charles Bouchard, a previous attendee, lauded the meetings as a "safe space" for bishops to discuss and explore these complex issues candidly.

While the meeting did not aim to produce a unified statement or theological plan, it represents a significant step in the church's ongoing efforts to engage more inclusively with LGBTQ individuals.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops continues to revise its ethical directives for Catholic health care institutions, with expectations to align closely with doctrinal stances on gender-affirming treatments.

Source

• NCR

In a statement at COP28, the USCCB committee called decarbonisation of the economy the "preeminent environmental challenge faced by all nations" that must be addressed without burdening middle-and low-income citizens with increased costs.

However, according to Reuters, the US bishops continue to hold on to substantial investments in fossil fuel companies, directly benefiting from these industries.

"US dioceses hold millions of dollars of stock in fossil fuel companies through portfolios intended to fund church operations and pay clergy salaries, according to a Reuters review of financial statements.

"And at least a dozen are also leasing land to drillers, according to land records," reports Richard Valdmanis.

US Bishops stand firm

Despite Pope Francis' impassioned calls to shun highly polluting fuels, the USCCB stands firm in its reluctance to divest from these industries.

Reuters investigations into the financial reports of various American dioceses reveal substantial holdings in energy stocks and land leases with drillers.

While the Vatican and other global Catholic institutions embrace divestment strategies, the USCCB's investment guidance, guided by the Christian Brothers Investment Service, advocates active shareholder engagement with major oil and gas companies rather than wholesale divestment.

Media mirrors money

According to Sabrina Danielson, a professor at Creighton University, the bishops' financial engagement with major oil and gas companies is mirrored in the Catholic media they own.

Danielson has studied the media engagement of US bishops on the issue of climate change.

Fewer than 1% of the more than 12,000 columns by US bishops in official publications since 2014 mentioned climate change, Danielson found in a 2021 study.

She says that many of those mentioning climate change downplayed the urgency of global warming or described the topic as controversial.

Vatican continues to lead

The approach of the US Catholic bishops on Climate Change runs counter to the Vatican's lead.

In 2008 when Benedict XVI was pope, the first of 2,400 solar panels were installed on top of the papal audience hall in Vatican City.

Then, following this first move and several others in between, on 16 November 2023 the Vatican announced a new sustainability programme.

As part of the programme the Vatican

• will expand the number of charging stations for electric cars
• signed an agreement with German carmaker Volkswagen to replace the city-state's entire car fleet with electric vehicles by 2030
• ensure its electricity comes exclusively from renewable sources.
  

Sources

Crux Now

US News & World Report

Reuters

NBC

CathNews NZ

Rome Reports

The publication of "Laudato Si'" was a landmark moment in the fight against climate change.

Secular environmentalists were encouraged to see such a prominent global leader devote one of his most powerful tools to their cause. Many American Catholics hoped the encyclical would inspire their bishops to make climate change a priority.

Almost as soon as the document was published, however, the US bishops showed signs that they would largely ignore the pope's exhortation in their teachings and action.

In 2019, we began looking at the American bishops' writings to their flocks to see what they have said about climate change and "Laudato Si'" over the previous five years.

We asked: Did the American bishops faithfully communicate church teachings on climate change before and after "Laudato Si'"?

Our research shows clearly that US Catholic bishops' communications collectively diminished the impact of the encyclical on climate change.

Our study focused on ordinary bishops: those who lead a geographic segment of the Catholic Church known as a diocese.

We compiled 12,077 columns published by these bishops in the official publications for 171 of the 178 Catholic dioceses in the U.S. from June 2014 — one year prior to "Laudato Si'" — to June 2019.

The bishops' columns are not only a matter of personal viewpoints.

Bishops have a duty to share the fullness of faith, including church teaching on climate change, with their diocese.

They also oversee buildings and lands, school curricula, investments and advocacy that could be used to help mitigate the climate crisis.

Overall, American Catholic bishops have been overwhelmingly silent about climate change.

Of the 12,077 columns we studied, only 93 (0.8%) mention climate change, global warming or their equivalent at all.

Those 93 columns come from just 53 of the 201 bishops in our data set. The other 148 (74%) never mentioned climate change in their columns.

Secondly, when the bishops did mention climate change, they distanced themselves from church teaching on this issue: 44 of the 93 columns (47%) that mention climate change do not refer to church teaching on the issue.

Of the 49 columns that do, many fail to substantively communicate the contents of church climate change teaching.

In six columns, the bishop downplayed the pope's authority to teach about climate change.

In nine columns, the bishop minimized focus on climate change within the church's broader ecological teachings.

Additionally, 29 columns do not clearly convey the bishop's personal view about the teaching.

Since silence can be a form of climate change denial, readers could interpret their bishop's silence as disagreement — and license for dissent.

When the bishops did mention climate change, they downplayed the parts of "Laudato Si'" that conflict with a conservative political identity or ideology.

Because US political conservatives have a history of denying, ignoring and sowing doubt about climate change, it's reasonable to assume that many bishops — who are recognized as becoming increasingly aligned with the Republican Party politically — may have experienced tension between their political ideology and their duty to communicate church climate change teaching.

The bishops, after all, fall into other demographics besides being faith leaders: They are by and large older, white Catholics. In 2016, 47% of U.S. bishops who responded to a survey said the conservative Fox News Channel was their primary source of cable news.

According to a recent academic study, conservative U.S. Catholics "devalued the pope's credibility on climate change" after "Laudato Si'" and appeared more guided on the issue by political ideology than by the pope's teaching.

This political ideology holds that climate change is not really happening, not caused by humans or not urgent.

Conversely in "Laudato Si'," Francis reiterated 25 years of papal teaching from St John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI that human-caused climate change is real and pressing.

Yet only 56 of 12,077 bishops' columns (0.46%) describe climate change as real or happening. Only 14 columns (0.12%) affirm the scientific consensus about climate change.

Only 29 columns (0.24%) describe climate change as urgent.

In "Laudato Si'," Francis approvingly cited scholarly analysis that growth-based, deregulated capitalism is the predominant cause of climate change.

The American bishops, however, were nearly silent about the economic causes of climate change.

Fifty-four of the 56 columns (96%) that do discuss climate change as real or happening fail to describe its economic roots — a phenomenon known as "ideological denialism."

The bishops who made mention of climate change also deviated from Francis on what to do about it.

The church teaches that internal and external actions are complementary and that social justice is essential to Christian love.

In "Laudato Si´," Francis calls for internal action (e.g., prayer and education) and external action, including social justice (e.g., political advocacy).

However, the U.S. bishops who discussed climate change emphasized internal over external action and widely ignored public policies.

Of the 93 columns that refer to climate change, 73 (78%) mention internal action.

Only 36 columns (39%) mention any external environmental action.

Only nine columns (9.7%) name a particular climate change policy such as the Paris Agreement.

Bishops' relative silence on environmental politics is especially notable since they were not silent in their columns about politics around other social issues, such as abortion, that show up only rarely in "Laudato Si'."

While Francis mentioned climate change 24 times and abortion only once, the bishops mentioned both issues with equal frequency when discussing the encyclical.

Our findings do not definitively show that U.S. Catholic bishops' conservatism was the primary cause of their silence on climate change or skewed teachings around "Laudato Si'."

Additionally, individual bishops may have addressed climate change in their dioceses in ways other than writing columns.

Nevertheless, our data found that as group, U.S. Catholic bishops were silent, denialist and biased about climate change in their official diocesan publications around "Laudato Si'."

We especially found them to be so in ways that correlate with conservative political identity.

Our findings raise questions about whether U.S. Catholic bishops will embrace the Vatican's new Laudato Si' Action Platform.

Our findings also suggest the U.S. bishops are squandering opportunities to connect with youth and young adults who as a demographic prioritize climate change and are increasingly less affiliated with religion, including Catholicism.

Bishops' silence on climate policy raises serious questions about how many U.S. bishops will support Vatican advocacy for an international climate agreement at the 2021 U.N. Climate Change Conference, which begins Nov. 1.

The U.S. Catholic Church has unprecedented capacity to help avoid climate catastrophe.

It also has a responsibility to address the climate emergency as an essential part of its mission.

To realise this potential and fidelity, however, individual U.S. bishops must fulfill their duty to teach the fullness of faith that includes church teaching on climate change.

• Daniel R. DiLeo is an associate professor and director of the Justice and Peace Studies Program at Creighton University.
• Sabrina Danielsen is assistant professor of sociology at Creighton.
• Emily E. Burke is a doctoral student in the joint Sociology and Community & Environmental Sociology Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• This essay is adapted from their article published in Environmental Research Letters with support from Creighton and the Louisville Institute.
• First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

Last week the US House of Representatives passed the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act by voice vote.

The bill funds efforts to increase palliative care faculties at medical schools. It also funds palliative care and hospice training and education.

Palliative care involves pain management and physical, psychological and emotional care for those suffering from a serious illness.

This type of care can be provided alongside medical care.

Hospice care is when palliative care is given to patients with a terminal diagnosis, who do not wish to unnecessarily prolong their life through extraordinary means of medical care.

At the same time, these patients wish to remain as comfortable as possible.

The new bill requires federally-funded palliative care to be in accord with Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act of 1997.

This means the funding cannot promote "assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing."

However, changes in the bill's language has some Catholic groups, including the U.S. Bishops Conference, concerned.

This is because the bill currently before the House omits language contained in the Senate version of the legislation.

The Senate bill states:

"As used in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) palliative care and hospice shall not be furnished for the purpose of causing, or the purpose of assisting in causing, a patient's death, for any reason."

This clarification is significant because it offers a definition of palliative and hospice care that specifically excludes any act that would hasten or bring about death.

It refers to certain controversial practices which some in the medical community recognize as a legitimate part of palliative care, but which may cause or assist in causing the death of the patient.

"We support the Senate version, and we made it clear to both the House and the Senate that we want the Senate version to prevail," Greg Schleppenbach, associate director to the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, says.

Schleppenbach says the language in the Senate bill is key to providing a sound definition of palliative care.

This is important, as some in the medical community are advocating practices that are contrary to the Church's teaching on palliative and end-of-life care.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: The Mirror

The assessment will be conducted by a team of social scientists.

It will seek the participation of pastoral leaders such as bishops and diocesan directors, pastors and pastoral teams, volunteers and parishioners.

The study also will convene focus groups at large gatherings, such as the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress and the Mid-Atlantic Congress in Baltimore, and will conduct extensive interviews with influential leaders who minister to these communities.

"Participation in these efforts is essential to help the Catholic Church develop a better understanding of the contributions and needs of such a diverse community," said Bishop Randolph Calvo of Reno, Nevada, chairman of the Subcommittee for Asian and Pacific Islands Affairs.

"Today, the Church continues to be enriched by the presence and growth of people of Asian and Pacific Island descent who now constitute six percent of the overall United States population."

"Some are new immigrants, others are well-established, and an increasing number are U.S. born. Some come from distant lands and others, such as Hawaiians or Guamanians, are native to the U.S," Calvo said.

The project's findings will be summarized in a report and will inform the development of a National Pastoral Plan for Asian and Pasifika Catholics.

Source

• usccb.org
• Image: media.dma.mil

Some agenda groups who oppose one or more Catholic teachings, for example, use the name "Catholic," even when there seems little evidence of Catholics in their ranks and no evidence that they represent Catholic teaching. Read more

Sources

• Sister Mary Ann Walsh on US Conference of Catholic Bishops' Blog
• Image: Watching Media

Sister Mary Ann Walsh is a Sister of Mercy and is Director of Media Relations, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In virtue of our membership in the Catholic Church we are ordinarily free to receive Holy Communion. In fact, it is most desirable that we receive the Lord's Body and Blood, so that Holy Communion stands out clearly as a participation in the sacrifice actually being celebrated. Indeed, we should all cherish the grace given to us in the Eucharist. We should strive to receive Holy Communion regularly, gratefully, and worthily. We may find ourselves in situations, however, where an examination of our conscience before God reveals to us that we should refrain from partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ. Moreover, we should be cautious when making judgments about whether or not someone else should receive Holy Communion.

Objectively, certain thoughts, actions, and omissions entail grave sinful matter. As Catholics, we are obliged to form our consciences regarding what constitutes grave matter in accordance with the Church's teaching. While it is not possible to make a complete list of thoughts and actions that involve grave matter, they would all be serious violations of the law of love of God and of neighbor. If we follow the order of the Ten Commandments, some examples of such thoughts and actions would be:

Believing in or honoring as divine anyone or anything other than the God of the Holy Scriptures; Swearing a false oath while invoking God as a witness; Failing to worship God by missing Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation without a serious reason, such as sickness or the absence of a priest; Acting in serious disobedience against proper authority; dishonoring one's parents by neglecting them in their need and infirmity; Committing murder, including abortion and euthanasia; harboring deliberate hatred of others; sexual abuse of another, especially of a minor or vulnerable adult; physical or verbal abuse of others that causes grave physical or psychological harm; Engaging in sexual activity outside the bonds of a valid marriage. Read more

Sources

• The Deacon's Bench
• Image: Aufer a Nobis