synod of bishops

A number of bishops have begun pushing back against an effort to endow local Church bodies with authority over doctrine, warning that this would lead to a splintering of the Church’s teaching.

Five prominent cardinals have challenged Pope Francis to clarify apparent ambiguities in his teaching regarding topics such as blessings for gay couples, the ordination of women, and the authority of the synod of bishops.

South African Cardinal Wilfrid Napier has blasted the European bishops for focusing more on structures and the exercise of power than on Jesus Christ.

The Vatican’s upcoming major meeting on the Church in the Amazon region centers on indigenous traditions and integral ecology, leading some critics to suggest that the summit is pursuing a “neo-pagan agenda.”

Pope Francis told young people Wednesday that their critical ideas have a right to be heard and respected in a curious departure from recent statements that accusers are Satanic.

Pulling no punches, Pope Francis laid out statistic after statistic before a group of German bishops, and wondered aloud why the Church in Germany is in freefall.

The Global Network of Rainbow Catholics is out with a response to the recently concluded Vatican synod on marriage and the family, noting its optimism that “a new era for inclusive pastoral care of LGBT people is going to start after the synod.”

As the Vatican synod on marriage and the family draws to a close with no significant change in Catholic doctrine or practice, liberals are left nursing their wounds over yet another revolution that didn’t happen.

In his most important address yet to the bishops gathered for the Vatican Synod on the Family, Pope Francis reasserted his authority Saturday, reminding the bishops that the synod operates “not only with Peter, but also under Peter.”

The redoubtable Archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles J. Chaput, told his fellow bishops gathered in the Vatican Synod on the Family that in a world as confused as our own, precise language is critical for keeping the Church united, and unity is key.

On Friday, an unprecedented letter written to Pope Francis by thirteen cardinals taking part in the Vatican synod on marriage and the family was published online, revealing contention regarding the revamped synodal process as well as the suitability of the draft document being used to guide the bishops’ discussions.

On Friday, Pope Francis asked the bishops and participants in the Vatican synod on the family to join him in offering midday prayers for the intention of reconciliation and peace in the Middle East.

Pope Francis is urging the bishops gathered for the Vatican Synod on the Family not to give in to “conspiracy” theories, after 13 cardinals and bishops expressed their concern that the assembly is being manipulated in a progressive direction.

In a word intended to reassure conservatives, Pope Francis told the bishops gathered in the Vatican Synod on the family Tuesday that Church teaching on marriage is “still valid,” while also urging them to broaden their horizons, instead of focusing on internal questions such as Communion for the divorced and remarried.

More than 130 notable converts to Catholicism have published an open letter begging Pope Francis and the bishops gathered at the Vatican Synod on Marriage and the Family to stand firm in teaching traditional Christian beliefs regarding the permanence of marriage, human sexuality, and the meaning of the family.

Msgr. Kryzstof Charamsa simultaneously released a “manifesto of liberation,” consisting of a list of ten “demands,” in which he insists that the Catholic Church change its teaching on the morality of gay sex as well as its interpretation of the Bible as condemning sodomy.

The Pope said that Christian marriage is a cure for much of the solitude experienced by men and women in our own day. Our world, he said is characterized by loneliness and paradoxes. Today we enjoy “many sophisticated means of entertainment, but a deep and growing interior emptiness; many pleasures, but few loves; many liberties, but little freedom.” People need the family, even if they don’t realize it, Francis said.

On the eve of the Vatican synod on marriage and the family, progressive German Cardinal Walter Kasper has come out publicly against doctrinal “fundamentalism” in the Church, while expressing his hope that the synod will open a “dialogue” on contraception for Catholics and reconsider the situation of homosexuals.

More than 500,000 Catholics, including many senior clerics, have signed a petition calling on Pope Francis to reaffirm traditional teaching on marriage and the family after months of confusion over his supposed liberal stance on the issue. The petition, which

In an unusually public and confrontational manner, South African Cardinal Wilfrid Napier shot off a series of Twitter messages this week criticizing his fellow cardinal, the German Walter Kasper, in response to a Huffington Post article that called Kasper “the Pope’s theologian.”

When the hastily written interim report was read aloud before all the bishops gathered for the Vatican marriage summit last October, it was met with consternation and disapproval. At the time, it was generally assumed that Pope Francis had never seen the text, but now the Cardinal in charge of organizing the summit has claimed that the document was “seen and approved by the Pope.”