News in Church Issues

Church of England refuses to back same-sex marriage

 The Church of England said Wednesday it will allow blessings for same-sex, civil marriages for the first time but same-sex couples still will not be allowed to marry in its churches. The decision followed five years of debate and consultation on the church's position on sexuality. It is expected to be outlined in a report to the church's national assembly, the General Synod, which meets in London next month.

Bishops emphasise dignity in new migrants document

The bishops of England and Wales have published a document on the Catholic response to refugees and migrants, days after the bishops’ conference’s lead on the subject criticised the government’s Illegal Migration Bill. The new document, Love the Stranger, from the conference’s department for international affairs, outlines 24 principles derived from historic Catholic social teaching.

The Legacy of Cardinal Martini - His Origins and Inspirations

Pope Francis Ten Years on

Ten years on, many thousands of articles have been written about Francis’ papacy across a variety of global media. Fortunately for Tablet readers, our digital archive contains some of the most insightful, incisive, authoritative and well-informed writing on our current pope. Isabel de Bertodano wrote that on the eve of his inauguration, Francis called a friend in Buenos Aires to say “Hello, it’s Bergoglio. They trapped me here in Rome and they won’t let me come home.”

SVP reports doubling in numbers seeking support

Increasing prices combined with the decline of household incomes has meant the number of people requesting support from the St Vincent de Paul Society has doubled in comparison with last year.This is according to Stories from the Frontline: The real price of the cost of living crisis, a new SVP publication which describes the extent to which individuals and support structures are fatigued and under-resourced.

Bergoglio’s Map: Literature in the formation of Pope Francis

“The novel, literature, you see, reads the human heart. It helps us embrace desire, splendor and misery. It is not theory. It is helpful for preaching to know the heart…” That is what Francis told me when I interviewed him in 2016, near the end of our meeting. Ten years after his election to the papacy (March 13, 2013), we want to go in search of the formation of his thinking and pastoral attitude.

Christians in Israel Today: Identity, challenges and prospects

‘I Believe in the Holy Spirit’

 The pastor who says, “I believe in the Holy Spirit,” should ask himself some fundamental questions to discover the action of the Spirit among his faithful. In concrete terms he will ask: “How is the Lord present in the life of my people? How do my people welcome his presence? How do my people confess the Holy Spirit?” 

The Bible: A Library Written by Migrants

 We have all seen too many migrants being pulled out of the sea: men, women and children who have drowned during their journeys. Many schools now have refugees in the classrooms: children and young people who by the grace of God have survived the crossing. And in many European countries there are now many who are born with migrant backgrounds. These are sufficient reasons to reflect on flight and migration. 

The Figure of the Bishop According to Pope Francis

‘For A Synodal Church’: The Working Document for the Continental Stage

A year after opening in October 2021, the Synod “For a Synodal Church: communion, participation, mission” has taken a decisive step forward. Indeed, it has even expanded. At the Angelus on Sunday, October 16, Pope Francis announced that the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops will take place in two phases: to the session already scheduled for October 2023 a second one will be added for October 2024.

The pope who was God’s shy, studious, charming, conservative radical

 Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger, who died on 31 December 2022, was one of the most influential figures in the Catholic Church during the late-twentieth century and the first years of the twenty-first. He developed a reputation for steely determination and rigorous pursuit of the truth, even to the extent of constraining theological exploration and pursuing those individuals he saw as trespassing outside legitimate doctrinal boundaries during his years as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Benedict XVI In Memoriam

The Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away on December 31, 2022, at the age of 95, at the Mater Ecclesiae convent in the Vatican, to where he had retired after retiring from the papacy and where he spent the last years of his long life in retreat and prayer. A significant exception had been the trip he made to Regensburg from June 18-22, 2020, to visit one last time his beloved elder brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, just days before his death.

‘In Viaggio’ – Pope Francis’ Long Pilgrimage

 The film documents Pope Francis’ numerous journeys, with glimpses into some of the 37 apostolic visits  he has made to 59 countries, concluding with the trip to Malta in 2022. Each stage constitutes a piece of a mosaic that aims to show an outgoing Church, capable of touching the wounds and drying the tears generated by poverty, wars, power, exclusion and human and environmental exploitation.

John Paul II and the Social Doctrine of the Church

Is the secularized West witnessing a religious revival?

 A Church historian skeptical of recurring talk about revivalism admits that new forms of religiosity are appearing, but wonders if we're using the right indicators to observe them. Isn't this talk of revivalism, which comes up about every twenty years, a kind of recurrent journalistic theme that is based on only a few spectacular, but not really significant, facts? Surveys show that the secularization curve continues to move upward and religious institutions continue to disintegrate.

Parrhesia: Freedom of Speech in Early Christianity

 The philosopher Michel Foucault defines parrhesia as “the frankness, the openness of heart, the opening of word, the openness of language, the freedom of speech.” However, this does not mean saying what one wants in the way one wants, for by its very nature parrhesia reflects an ethical attitude in that what one has to say is said “because it is both necessary and useful, as well as being true.” Therefore, parrhesia is connected to the truth and to the good, and so excludes calumny, defamation and disinformation, while satire is admissible.

How could the Catholic Church develop its teaching on artificial contraception?

As rumours grow that Pope Francis is considering a new document that may soften the Church’s ban on artificial contraception, The Tablet’s Rome correspondent meets the advisor seeking to knit together and refresh the Church’s approach to ethical issues. The protection and nurture of human life from conception to natural death is at the heart of the Church’s mission.

'This Sacred Council' – Vatican II at 60

Its purpose was to renew the Church, to evangelise, and to engage with the world rather than to excoriate it. There were shortcomings and unintended consequences, but 60 years on, Vatican II’s achievements can be seen ever more clearly. There is a story that sometime in the 1950s, Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, picked up Yves Congar’s True and False Reform in the Church. Roncalli appreciated the boldness and vision of this French scholar-priest, but had to ask himself: “A reform of the Church: is such a thing really possible?”

The ‘Catechism of the Catholic Church’ is 30 Years Old

John Paul II had entrusted its preparation in 1986 to a Commission of 12 cardinals and bishops, chaired by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, following the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops of 1985 convoked by the pope for the 20th anniversary of the conclusion of the Council.