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A Study of Synodality

Written on . Posted in Justice In the Church, Synod on Synodality.

Read Chapters 1 – 4

According to Prof. Luciani, We are experiencing a crisis in the transformation of faith because we are still mired in a clerical institutional model.

As he notes, Yves Congar was one of the giants at the Second Vatican Council who understood most clearly that the clericalist institutional church desperately needed reforming.  And Pope Francis has made overcoming it a cornerstone of his papacy saying to priests, “Clericalism is a true perversion in the Church…Clericalism condemns, separates, frustrates, and despises the people of God.”

Synodality is the re-structuring principle that transforms the Church from a Western, monocultural Church, centered on Rome and its primacy, to a global and intercultural Church, opening the way to recognize the authority of the local church.

Additional Media

Session Two: Synodality and the People of God

Read Chapters 5 – 8

The Second Vatican Council reinscribed the centrality of the church as thee “People of God.”  Cardinal Leo Joseph Suenens, the principal architect of Lumen Gentium, described it as a rediscovery of the people of God as a whole, as a single reality” with each member of the church sharing co-responsibility for the life and work of the Church.

However, in the 1980s the blossoming of this newfound way of being was thwarted by a pope who, once again, emphasized the primacy of the hierarchy subordinating the “sense of the faithful.”  Regressive policies and teachings undercut the reformist principles of Vatican II.

With his constant emphasis on synodality, Pope Francis wants to make take the church forward making this exercise of authority as the work of the entire People of God a constitutive ecclesial dimension and way of proceeding for this third millennium.

 

FC Powerpoint for Chapters 5 – 8 

Kelly Meraw’s synod resources (click below)

Synod 2021 – 2024

Session Three: Synodality and the Local Churches

Read Chapters 9, 10, & Conclusion

Although, under the papacy of John Paul II, there was a progressive deflation of the value of the local church as normative for interpreting tradition, theology, and faith, Pope Francis has emphasized that we become a “listening church” so that the People of God can be heard in their ” particular place and time” in order to know what the Spirit is saying and how to proceed.

In order to allow the Spirit to move us into this new phase of synodality, we must move into a new creative phase of receiving and implementing the Second Vatican Council.

How will this principle translate into new realities?  That is the work we are undertaking today!

The video for this session will not be posted here at the request of our speaker.  It has been sent to all the participants signed up for this study.  To learn more contact debrose@futurechurch.org.

FC Powerpoint for Synodality Book Study Part III, Chapters 9, 10 & conclusion

Synodality study –  Participant responses to what they learned

Women Erased: Women’s Authorship in Jewish and Christian Literature

Written on . Posted in Women Erased, Women In Church Leadership.

Professor Ross Kraemer joins FutureChurch for this “Women Erased” presentation which explores a few texts that may have been composed by women, ending with a conversation about why and to whom this matters in the 21st century. Was authorship of Jewish and Christian texts from the Greco-Roman period a “male only” enterprise? Or did Jewish and Christian women also shape the writings that are foundational for Christians today? Since a significant portion of early literature is either anonymous or pseudonymous, past assumptions of male authorship are rightly subject to new lines of feminist inquiry.

Ross S. Kraemer is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies at Brown University, where she specialized in early Christianity, Jews and Jewish religion in late antiquity (especially the Mediterranean diaspora) and other religions of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, often with an emphasis on issues of women and gender. She’s the editor of Women and Christian Origins (Oxford, 1998, with Mary Rose D’Angelo), and the New Testament editor for The Dictionary of Women in Scripture(Houghton-Mifflin, 2000). She’s also the author of Unreliable Witnesses:  Religion, Gender and History in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean (Oxford, 2011), Her Share of the Blessings: Women’s Religions Among Pagans, Jews and Christians in the Greco-Roman World (Oxford, 1992) and many articles on Jewish and Christian women in antiquity. Her most recent book, The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity: What Christianity Cost the Jews (Oxford, 2020) examines what happened to Jews living in the late antique Mediterranean diaspora in the wake of Christianization.

Texts for Further Exploration

 

Subversive Habits Book Study

Written on . Posted in Women In Church Leadership, Women Witnesses for Racial Justice.

Join us as we take a deep dive into Dr. Shannen Dee Williams groundbreaking research, Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle. We will explore the lives, experiences, struggles, and advances Black Catholic women religious made in the long struggle for freedom.  This series will include prayer, study, and guest speakers.  Please join us for an exciting exploration of our Catholic history and the women who changed the course of our faith.

Session One: Preface and Introduction

This first session covers the preface and introduction to Dr. Williams’ book. Deborah Rose, co-director of FutureChurch, provides a summary of the material and our guest, Sr. Anita Baird, DHM, offers her personal reactions.

View the Prayers, Questions, and Large Group Responses

Session Two: Chapters 1 & 2

Chapters 1 and 2 trace the emergence of Black Catholic communities; the struggles and barriers they faced and overcame; and, the unwavering commitment they made to education as a path to liberation in their formative years.

Here are resources that may be useful to you as you read each chapter.

  1. An article about the founding of St. Augustine, Florida, where African descended people, free and enslaved, first came to the U.S.  The Settlement of St. Augustine
  2. An article about the Haitian Revolution which was a turning point for abolition and the influx of refugees that prompted the growth of communities of Black Catholic women religious.  The Haitian Revolution
  3. A timeline the early years of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the ties to the Catholic Church.  Timeline Transatlantic Slave Trade: 1400s – 1600s

In this Second Session, we welcome Sr. Marcia Hall, OSP, who offers her insights and reactions as a member of the Oblate Sisters of Providence – the first successful community of Roman Catholic sisters of African descent in the United States.

View the prayers, questions, and large group responses from this session.

Session Three: Chapters 3, 4, and 5

Here is an excellent resource from PBS with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. that offers two minute videos on various aspects of Black history.  The series is called “Black History in Two Minutes (or so)” with dozens of videos that will help you contextualize Dr. Williams’ book, “Subversive Habits.”  https://blackhistoryintwominutes.com/ 

Also, please view the website of the National Black Sisters’ Conference to get a more thorough understanding of this historic organization.  https://www.nbsc68.com/

In this session, we welcome Sr. Josita Colbert, SNDdeN, a founding member of the NBSC, who shares their important work with us.

View the prayers, questions, and large group sharing for this session.

Session Four:  Chapters 6, 7, and Conclusion

We are joined this week by the author, Dr. Shannen Dee Williams.

To see the full documentary (at no charge through Avila University), Sisters of Selma:  Bearing Witness for Change go to https://www.avila.edu/avila-archives/sisters-of-selma/

Pope Francis’ Trip of Reconciliation in Canada

Written on . Posted in Justice In the Church, TalkUp Tuesday.

Christopher White, Vatican correspondent for National Catholic Reporter, joins FutureChurch to discuss Pope Francis’ long overdue, yet historic, penitential pilgrimage to apologize to the Indigenous peoples of Canada for the role the Catholic Church played in their forced assimilation, genocidal violence, and physical and spiritual abuse, especially in residential schools.

Christopher traveled with the pope and shares what saw, heard, and experienced and shares his insights on what he thinks will likely happen next.

Slide show photo credit: Catholic News Service.

Christopher White is the Vatican correspondent for NCR. His e-mail address is cwhite@ncronline.org. Follow him on Twitter: @CWWhiteNCR.

Prior to moving to Rome in August 2021, he served as NCR’s national correspondent, where his award winning reporting included coverage of the Catholic vote during the 2020 campaign and the election of President Joe Biden. He holds a master’s degree in ethics and society from Fordham University and a bachelor’s degree in politics, philosophy and economics from The King’s College. His work has appeared in Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Forbes, Foreign Policy, New York Daily News, International Business Times, among many other print and online publications. He has regularly appeared on television and radio programs, including CBC, CNN, NPR, RTE and BBC, and is a Vatican analyst for NBC and MSNBC News.

Women Erased: Women in Second Temple Judaism

Written on . Posted in Women Erased, Women In Church Leadership.

Dr. Amy-Jill “AJ” Levine presents this FutureChurch “Women Erased” session to clear up the popular, but false and toxic, perception that Jesus was a first-century feminist working to liberate Jewish women from an oppressive Judaism that made the Taliban look progressive. Professor Levine digs into the sources and what they reveal about women in Second Temple Judaism, reconstructing the lives of these women, and offering good news for women today.

Amy Jill Levine is Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University of Religion and Peace and University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies Emerita, Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies Emerita, and Professor of New Testament Studies Emerita at Vanderbilt.

Articles for Further Reading:

Books for Further Reading:

2022 Mary Magdalene Virtual Liturgy

Written on . Posted in Mary of Magdala, Women In Church Leadership.

FutureChurch celebrates the 2022 Feast of St. Mary of Magdala. Our virtual liturgy, “Confronting Gun Violence” was led by Crystal Catalan with preaching from Kimberly Lymore, D.Min.

Dear friends, as we gather today
to celebrate the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene,
we do so in a world plagued by horrific violence of every kind
and still in desperate need of the Easter Good News
first proclaimed by Mary Magdalene some two thousand years ago.

Today, as we reckon with the violence raging around us,
and especially the gun violence that day after day, night after night,
claims lives, shatters families, and terrorizes communities, we remember that Mary – along with other women – remained with Jesus, keeping vigil as he suffered the horrific violence of the cross and left the safety of the upper room to anoint his broken body, and was blessed and sent forth to share the news of Resurrection.

And we pray for the same faith, strength, and courage to
bear witness, to stand vigil,
and to confront evil and violence in our midst.
That we too might become bearers of the Good News:
That light dispels the darkness, that truth exposes the lies,
That love conquers hate, that hope overcomes despair,
That death gives way to new life.

View/Download the Worship Aid

Plaque Replicas of Bronze Relief by Sister Margaret Beaudette, SC (1928-2017) available for purchase here.

 

 

 

The Crisis of Catholic Communications

Written on . Posted in Justice In the Church, TalkUp Tuesday.

David Gibson, longtime Catholic journalist and currently director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, discusses his recent National Catholic Reporter article on the decision by the USCCB to shutter Catholic News Service and what it says about their financial priorities, their pastoral priorities, and the entire project of evangelization and communications.

David Gibson was appointed the director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham in July 2017, coming to New York’s Jesuit university after a long career as an award-winning religion journalist, author and filmmaker. He’s also a convert to Catholicism, and came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, working at the English Program at Vatican Radio in Rome in the late 1980s. He returned to the United States in 1990 and worked for newspapers in the New York area and has written for a variety of magazines and periodicals. He is the author of two books on Catholicism: The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism, and The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World. Before coming to Fordham, Gibson worked for six years as a national reporter at Religion News Service specializing in coverage of the Vatican and the Catholic Church. Gibson is a frequent media commentator and op-ed writer on topics related to the Catholic Church and religion in America.

2022 Mary of Magdala Virtual Art Tour with Dr. Christine Axen

Written on . Posted in Mary of Magdala, Women In Church Leadership.

FutureChurch begins its 2022 celebration of the Feast Day of Saint Mary of Magdala with a virtual art tour, comparing artistic depictions of Mary Magdalene in the East and West and two homilies that helped to shape those cultural and artistic imaginations.

The misidentification of Mary as reformed public sinner achieved official standing in a homily delivered by Pope Gregory I (540-604). Henceforth, Mary of Magdala became known in the west, not as the strong woman leader who accompanied Jesus through a tortuous death, first witnessed his Resurrection, and proclaimed the Risen Savior to the early church, but as a wanton woman in need of repentance and a life of hidden (and hopefully silent) penitence. The Eastern church, however, never identified her as a prostitute, and honored her throughout history as “the Apostle to the Apostles.” Dr. Axen’s presentation explores how these disparate treatments influence artistic representations of Mary Magdalene.

Dr. Christine Axen, Ph.D. is a medievalist with a specialization in French religious history and female religiosity in the Middle Ages. She received her doctorate from Boston University, and currently teaches art history at St. John’s University in Queens, NY. She also gives guided tours of the Met Cloisters, the medieval branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and is interested in the depiction of women in medieval art, and the messages that art conveys about social order.

Prayers:

Opening Prayer
Closing Prayer