Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Pope Francis: The Synod Must Hear Excluded Voices

March 31, 2022

~ by Brian Fraga, National Catholic Reporter (NCR)

“If we believe in the imago Dei, that the image of God is in everyone, then if we do not hear from those voices, we are not hearing from the entire body of Christ. And that’s our loss,” said Mary O’Meara, the executive director of the Deaf and Disabilities Ministry for the Archdiocese of Washington.

Diocesan officials, chaplains, social workers, lay ministers, parish leaders and others are listening to people with intellectual and physical disabilities. They are reaching out to those in prisons, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and mobile home communities. Pastors have organized parish listening sessions for LGBTQ parishioners and seasonal farmworkers near the U.S. southern border.

Pope Francis and other church leaders have framed synodality as a decisive step in the church’s renewal that the Second Vatican Council proposed more than a half century ago. As the Pope has explained it, a synodal church journeys together with all the baptized, including those whose voices are usually not heard.

“Pope Francis’ main question is critical,” said Sr. Donna Ciangio, the chancellor for the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, told NCR. “What does the Holy Spirit expect of the church in the 21st century? We can sit around and look inward, but if we’re not hearing from everyone, we won’t know how we can get the Gospel out today.”

Archdiocese of Chicago
“You can’t be any more marginalized than an inmate in jail,” said Msgr. John Pollard, the synod coordinator for the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Pollard told NCR that the Archdiocese is relying on its Kolbe House Jail Ministry to hear from the estimated 700 Catholic pre-trial detainees at the Cook County Jail, one of the largest single-site pre-detention county facilities in the United States.

“It’s important to hear from them because they are human beings,” said Emily Cortina, the coordinator of outreach and formation at Kolbe House. “We’re following the model Jesus gave us to listen to the voices of those who have stumbled and fallen and are still reaching out for grace and mercy, because that’s really where we find God.”

Diocese of El Paso, Texas
In the colonias, or unincorporated communities, surrounding El Paso, Texas, volunteers are knocking on doors, asking residents how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted them, and how the church can help them regroup and get back on their feet.

“If you are doing a consultation with the people who are already in the pews, who are already coming to church, that’s great, and helpful,” said Surya Kalra, a lead organizer. “The difficult part is figuring out how to reach out to people we don’t see [in church], who used to be here, or would be here if we were different. That requires much more persistence and creativity. They are reaching out to those voices on the margins in house meetings, which are small informal group meetings in private homes.”

Archdiocese of Washington
At Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown, a couple dozen LGBTQ parishioners and their families earlier this year attended a special listening session. Jesuit Fr. Kevin Gillespie, the pastor, said there were tears and some anger directed at the Catholic Church.

“They expressed pain that their relationships aren’t recognized by the church,” Gillespie said. “They expressed their desires for sacramental marriage. In that group session, they expressed how important faith is for them, and how important a welcoming community is for them.”

Archdiocese of Seattle
Catholic Community Services of Western Washington (CCSWW) is planning bilingual in-person listening sessions at food banks, homeless shelters and rural mobile home communities in and around Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia, Washington.

We know the people who are served in those programs, and we feel they’d be comfortable with us,” said Erin Maguire, a regional network builder with CCSWW.

Diocese of San Diego
Marioly Galvan, chancellor for the Diocese of San Diego, told NRC that Catholic Charities of San Diego is helping the diocese to connect with migrant seasonal farmworkers. “We want to remain mindful of those communities. We’re all brothers and sisters, so to hear from their reality and lived experience, I think will be very enlightening for everyone to hear,” said Galvin.

“This moment is an opportunity for renewal and reawakening,” she said. “It is a moment that will lead us to become a more conscious church, to perfect and improve our ways in which we minister to others, and the ways that we listen to one another and journey with others.
To read the entire account, please click here

Collecting Religious’ Feedback for the Synod

March 22, 2022

~ by Dan Stockman, Global Sisters Report (GSR)

Sacred Heart Sr. Maria Cimperman is a true believer in the Synod of Bishops on synodality.

Cimperman, Director of the Center for the Study of Consecrated Life at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, is part of a four-member panel put together by the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) for women religious and the Union of Superiors General (USG) for men religious.
Religious congregations have until March 27 to submit their responses for the synod. Cimperman and her fellow commission members will meet in April in Rome to begin synthesizing those responses for the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops and the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. The response must be filed by August.

GSR: Your passion for the synod is undeniable.

Sr. Cimperman: It goes against polarization. Normally, we are in our own little worlds, and this – the synod – is flying in the face of that, and you don’t know where it’s going to go, which means it’s probably the Spirit guiding it.

The whole synodal process is really communal discernment. How do we walk and talk with each other and hear each other? And if we do it right, it may not be that dominant voice that stands out, it may be that quiet voice you hear and say, “There is truth in this.” How do we invite and engage religious everywhere in this so it’s not only the leaders, it’s everyone in the church and even people not in the church.

GSR: You have talked about how vowed religious have a particular role to play, by helping the process for laypeople.

Sr. Cimperman: Religious are being called to offer something – really, two things. Yes, fill out your response as religious, but also participate in the parishes, our schools, wherever the conversations are happening, to listen and hear – because we’re always trying to meet the unmet needs – and to offer some of our ways, to show how we seek to listen through our own discernment processes.

We have some experience in communal discernment. It’s the experience of listening, engaging, ways of being silent and listening, modes of prayer. Plus, we’ll learn from other people. It’s a space where we can offer what we are deeply about.
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GSR: Will it matter? Is it really worth the bother when so many people say the church won’t listen and nothing will change?

Sr. Cimperman: People are asking that question. It is an act of hope. It’s an action – and it’s hope. That’s important.

I also see this as a call of the Spirit. This is a cure for that polarization and all this division. Synodality is asking us to sit with one another and have a conversation and listen and do some sharing. If we don’t do this, if we keep doing the same thing, what will happen? This is not doing the same thing. This is doing something different.

Also, I have confidence in the Spirit’s movement among us. This is not top-down. It’s not bottom-up. It’s coming from everywhere. Everyone is asking and being asked to be involved in this. We don’t know where it’s going to lead, and that’s exciting.

GSR: Do you get the sense that people are responding, that they really are participating in this process?

Sr. Cimperman: I think they’re getting so many people responding that they are trying to refigure how to do this. To me, that’s a great sign. There’s a hunger, and we’re going to lose people if we don’t engage them, the possibilities here are immense. And we, too, as religious can offer spaces for these conversations, space for people of the margins whose voices don’t get heard.

GSR: Is there some fear that what is said and heard may not be positive? There’s no shortage of people with criticisms of the church.

Sr. Cimperman: I think we are going to hear both pain and grace, but we don’t know where the conversations will lead.

To read the complete account, please click here

College Students Watch for ‘More than Business as Usual’ in the Church

March 22, 2022

~ by Miguel H.Diaz, National Catholic Reporter

The historic February 24 encounter between Pope Francis and college students from across the Americas was part of a larger continental experience of synodality that involved 58 universities in 21 countries. For two months university students across seven regions in the Americas gathered virtually in a synodal process exploring the root causes of migration and dreaming together just resolutions.

The initiative was born from a collaboration between Argentinian theologian Emilce Cuda and Loyola University Chicago. The powerful public meeting between Francis and university students was mutually rewarding. Afrikaan Sahra, a refugee from Somalia, described the process as life changing. He observed how the Pope “was tenderhearted and very open-minded to differences.” A number of the students were touched by the fact the Pope listened to them, took notes during the Zoom meeting, and commented on their ideas and proposals to tackle the root causes of migration. Cuda commented that Francis “is still caught up in joy, delighting in the moment that he shared with them.”

Many have now begun to ask what comes next. These students want more than business as usual in the church. They want conversation to evolve into concrete actions, and they want marginalized people to be recognized as agents of change. As these students dream of a new beginning in the church, they are ready to take the lead in this innovative educational and synodal initiative to address the salient signs of the times within and beyond our American continent

Welcoming new minds, hearts and hands lies at the heart of a synodal church. As Pope Francis mentioned in his conversation with the students, this means that the church, as people of God, must be willing “to open its doors and exit from its temples to meet Jesus in the streets.”

To become this synodal presence in the world is to embrace the mind, the heart and the hands of Jesus and seek to encounter and serve him preferentially among the poor and marginalized. The students who participated in this synodal process expressed deep commitments to become this synodal presence in the world, especially by placing themselves, their studies and their talents in service to re-incorporating those who have been disenfranchised from church and society, marginalized and oppressed by ecclesial and socioeconomic realities.

Church’s Initiatives on Synodality, Laudato Si’ and Eucharist Intertwine

February 16, 2022

~ Brian Roewe, EarthBeat, National Catholic Reporter

In a span of several weeks last fall, three large initiatives landed on the doorsteps of U.S. Catholic dioceses, parishes, congregations and organizations.

In October, Pope Francis opened the synod on synodality, a two-year engagement of the global churchy focused on listening and encounter. A month later, the Vatican officially launched its Laudato Si’ Action Platform, which invites all parts of the Church to take up seven year programs to adopt sustainable and ecologically friendly practices. And just days after that, the U.S. bishops announced their own plans for what they’ve called a National Eucharistic Revival, a three-year project that will culminate in the summer of 2024.

The three programs make for busy schedules in the coming years for many corners of the U.S. church. But do they have anything to do with each other? That was a question the Catholic Climate Covenant attempted to explore in a webinar on February 10. And it’s one its half-dozen panelists answered in the affirmative.

“These three initiatives are not separate but they’re deeply integral to one another. They fertilize and enhance and nourish each other,” said Jesuit Fr. David McCallum, a member of the Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops and founding executive director of the Program of Discerning Leadership, a project of the Society of Jesus.

The synod on synodality aims at a churchwide conversion toward a more synodal, or listening, church, through what Pope Francis has called “the art of encounter.” Through June, dioceses are conducting listening sessions with people across the world.

Some see the Laudato Si’ Action Platform as the perfect venue to put that vision into practice. Jose Aguto, Covenant Executive Director, [says] that the synodal process “naturally flows into the Laudato Si’ Action Platform” with the synod representing an opportunity for Catholics to voice, and their local church to hear, desires for greater engagement on environmental concerns and then with the platform as a way to respond. The platform has been billed as the Catholic Church’s response to accelerating climate change and environmental destruction around the world.

“Many of our constituents have for years expressed concern and frustration that their pastors and bishops are not stepping into care for creation. This is an opportunity for constituents to say in a collective and honest way about the desiring that their churches embrace care for creation,” Aguto said.

As for the U.S. bishops’ Eucharistic Revival which begins in June, Aguto said the image of “one bread, one body” could help unify Catholics across ideologies and priorities and to see their work, including on creation care, as the work of all.
To read the entire article, please click here

Pope Francis Goes to College

January 27, 2022

Vatican Announces Virtual Meeting with University Students Across the Americas
~ by Gerard O’Connell, AMERICA

Pope Francis will engage in a dialogue with university students from North, Central and South America on February 24. The historic event will by hosted by Loyola University Chicago in collaboration with Argentinian theologian, Emilce Cuda, the head of the office of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, who convinced the pope to participate.

Ms. Cuda, whom Francis appointed on July 26 to be the first woman ever to head this Vatican office, explained that Loyola University invited her to lead a dialogue on the synodal process that is now underway in the Catholic Church worldwide.

The genesis of the upcoming event with students and the pope, Ms. Cuda said that in June 2021, before Pope Francis had appointed her to the Vatican post, Loyola University invited her to give a lecture on the topic of synodality, in which she would facilitate a conversation on how to interpret what is meant by “the synodal way.” But, she told Loyola that she was not interested merely giving another conference on synodality. Instead, she “proposed to do a synodal action that involves migrant university students [from the Americas.] Ms. Cuda explained she wanted to focus on migration, not from the humanitarian point of view of “assisting migrants” when they arrive in a new country, but instead “looking at the root causes of migration from the scientific and technological perspectives, and asking what we can do to resolve them.

Ms. Cuda said she wants “to involve our advanced students to seek solutions in each country.” Most migrants from Latin America are economic migrants, not refugees, she noted, and in her view, the root causes of migration are “structural” and, for example, linked to foreign countries taking resources away from countries in the region.

Migrants are portrayed in the media as cleaners or manual workers in the gig economy. Ms. Cuda added, while the media rarely shows migrants working in scientific or technical fields. To correct this she wants to give greater visibility to this second, under-represented group of migrants. She proposed to Loyola a synodal action – which in the spirit of synodality, would involve students’ gathering together to discuss and to listen to one another’s thoughts on the root causes of migration – rather than a conference.

Ms. Cuda sent the pope a letter in which she proposed that Francis join in on the event, and she was surprised and overjoyed when on December 20 he replied, “Yes, I will participate, but you must help me.”

To read the full account please click here

Pope Francis greets Emilce Cuda, an Argentine theologian and head of office of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, at the Vatican March 17, 2017. Cuda, a participant at the Nov. 21-28 Ecclesial Assembly of Latin America and the Caribbean in Mexico City, said the meeting did not issue a new pastoral plan for the region, but will continue evangelization efforts outlined in the 2007 Aparecida document. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

Synodality is Not New, But a Tradition That Has Drifted

January 19, 2022

Synodality is Not New, But a Tradition That Has Drifted
~ Dan Stockman, Global Sisters Report

Synodality, where the church hierarchy listens to those in the pews, may seem like a new concept – but only because the Catholic Church has drifted away from this ancient tradition, a professor says.

Boston College School of Theology and Ministry professor Rafael Luciani told a webinar with 1200 registrants that synodality dates back to the first millennia of the church, and that through the Synod of Bishops on synodality, Pope Francis is simply reviving the practice in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

And synodality is especially important now because “the church is in the midst of a clericalist crisis,” Luciani said. “Synodality is rooted in the tradition of the church, Francis is rescuing this value of our tradition.”

The webinar, focused on how consecrated religious can engage in synodality was hosted on January 12 by the Center of the Study of Consecrated Life at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Luciani is an expert on the Theological Commission of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops.

Sacred Heart Sr. Maria Cimperman, Director of the Center for the Study of Consecrated Life and the moderator of the discussion, said Luciani has previously noted that “if you’re only listening, it’s a survey,” but that synodality calls us to much more.

“When I am being listened to , it is the Spirit speaking through my life,” he said. “We have to find a consensus, and this is new. To build a consensus means to discern together, to share time together – it’s a process.”

Luciani said synodality is much more than just the bishops of the church listening to the people – which they should be doing anyway. Rather, they should participate in dialogue “as just one more among the faithful,” noting that the roots of the word synod come from Greek words meaning “to journey together.”

“This changes the whole way we relate to each other as a church and as the people of God,” he said.

The church is not the hierarchy, the church is the people of God, Luciani said, and being people of God demands that everyone is part of the dialogue.

The synodal process is supposed to begin in the dioceses and parishes, but those on the panel said that is not happening in many areas.

Sr. Cimperman said that while men and women religious are often on the margins of the church, this is a chance for them to be the catalyst that makes the synodal process work.

Organizers said a recording of the webinar should be available in a few days on the Center for the Study of Consecrated Life’s media channel