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Catholic Church Reform International is a global network of committed Catholic organizations and individuals seeking a deeply-rooted reform of our Church. It is crucial that we all stay involved in the synodal process!
News and Updates
You are invited …
Since Pope Francis has recently issued his Papal Exhortation sharing his personal dreams for the world, we envision this as an invitation for the people to share our hopes and dreams for the future of our world. You are invited to take this survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2XFGJ96. The objective is to listen to the voices of all people who identify with the principles of Christianity – love God and love your neighbor. It doesn’t matter whether you are active or not, or even baptized or not. We want to hear your vision for the social, cultural, ecological, and spiritual realities touching you in the world. We anticipate the results of the survey will represent the people in all our diversity, across religious, cultural, and political perspectives. The outcome will be a compendium of the reflections of the people – what we will call a Peoples Exhortation – that reflects our relationships with one another, with the Divine, and with all creation.
You are invited …
TO:
TO: All people who identify with Chistianity, whether you are practicing or not, whether you are even baptized or not, who wish to have your voices heard and your experiences shared during Covid-19. What are you being invited to do? Pope Francis shared his dreams for the future of the world in his most recent papal exhortation. Is that a top-down view from a traditional Roman Catholic Church? Or, now that Francis has shared his dreams, is it an invitation for the people to share our dreams for the kind of world we want to see … for our children and grandchildren? Is this an opportunity for the Spirit to lead from the bottom up? Is this even possible, given how diverse we are as a people? First, let us share the background.
Standing by and doing nothing is complicity
At this time of Pentecost, we are reminded of the story of the resurrected Jesus breathing the Spirit on his disciples giving them the power to forgive sins. It was the inception of the Christian movement when He breathed the Spirit into the early Christians and to...
Historic report withheld – Australian Bishops regress to ‘business as usual’
(Print /.PDF version HERE)
A new ‘historic’, ‘substantial’, and ‘comprehensive’ report on Catholic Church governance The Light of the Southern Cross was handed to the Australian bishops on 4th May 2020. It will have ‘far-reaching implications for the Church’s life and mission’.
The report recommends a ‘new paradigm’ for church governance in Australia with key principles of transparency, accountability, dialogue and leadership. But the decision of the bishops at their May 7-14 plenary meeting to lock the report away in secret until December is simply ‘business as usual’.
Catholics for Renewal, whose award-winning book Getting Back on Mission: Reforming our Church Together made substantial recommendations on church governance, believes this 6-month delay in making the report available is unhelpful, indefensible and unacceptable.
“This groundbreaking report”, says Dr Peter Wilkinson, President of Catholics for Renewal, “was commissioned and prepared on a recommendation of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. If Australia’s bishops are to honour their commitment to the Royal Commission they should make the report public at least by June 2020.”
“It belongs to all the People of God,” says Wilkinson, “not just to the bishops and religious orders. We have a right to see it without undue delay.”
Is the Church changing with COVID-19?
Virginia Saldanha, one of our Strategy Team members, the former executive secretary of the Office of Laity of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, and a freelance writer and advocate for women’s issues based in Mumbai, India has raised this question. Is the Church changing with COVID-19.
Perhaps this time of empty church buildings symbolically exposes the reality of our lived faith and should move us to examine whether our “Church going” leads us to a more authentic lived experience of faith.
Pope Francis preaching to an empty gathering in St. Peter’s Square is symbolic of the empty churches all over the world
Urbi et Orbi Blessing 2020
Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter!
Today the Church’s proclamation echoes throughout the world: “Jesus Christ is risen!” – “He is truly risen!”.
Like a new flame this Good News springs up in the night: the night of a world already faced with epochal challenges and now oppressed by a pandemic severely testing our whole human family. In this night, the Church’s voice rings out: “Christ, my hope, has arisen!” (Easter Sequence).
When Covid-19 makes people of all faiths live the Eucharist
Forgetting our differences offers hope that we can continue to live in peace and harmony
by Virginia Saldanha
India
April 6, 2020
(Reproduced with permission)
The 21-day lockdown in India that began on March 25 is in its second week. We Indians are slowly getting to grips with our situation.
For practising Catholics and ardent churchgoers, the lockdown has proved a bit traumatic. They are scrambling to find ways to replace going to church.
Quite a menu of livestreamed and recorded Eucharist celebrations is available to choose from. There are online Masses and retreats, and last week even had a holy hour with Pope Francis imparting his special Urbi et Orbi blessing.
While these are soothing to some extent, I feel my faith shaken each morning when I turn on the news. Thousands continue to die and the numbers are increasing each day.
James Alison invites us to an experiment
James has created 'Praying Eucharistically', a website enabling celebration of the Eucharist in these times of isolation. He says Many Christians of all denominations are not going to be able to attend Church services over the next weeks, and maybe even months. Rather...
Praying at home during this Coronavirus Holy Week
You can divide religions into those that are most at home in the large public space and those which are most at home in the domestic space. For most Christians the choice has never been visible: they own many big buildings – and that is where religion takes place. If it takes place elsewhere, that is really just ‘a follow up.’ Christians seem to like big public statements.
But it is startling to recall that the original eucharistic meals – where the followers of Jesus wanted to be distinctive from their fellow Jews – took place in their homes.
‘Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke the loaf at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts’ (Acts 2:46).
In this domestic scale, they were in tune with their Jewish roots. Every meal was to be an occasion at which those gathered blessed God (Dt 8:10); the weekly meal with which the Sabbath began was a special act of praise, and the most special night of the year is Passover meal when God’s liberating deeds are recalled around the table. This year – in most places – Christians are going to have to rediscover this domestic liturgical space.
A Home Liturgy for Palm Sunday 2020
If you have a garden and can get some greenery, then get enough to give a piece to each person in isolation with you.
If you cannot cut some greenery but have a potted plant, place that on the table – it will remind you and anyone with you of the strange year we are in.
Sit down around the table you are normally at for meals. If you do not have such a common table, then sit around where you normally eat.
Sisters and brothers, this Sunday we gather as individual households or alone in our homes. In all instances God is with us, the Christ is among us, and the Church is at prayer. This prayer resource is for you this Sunday.
Homily for Holy Thursday
Catholic Women Striking from Church Involvement during the Month of May
Women are the lifeblood of the Church
We will make our presence known by our absence!
It is time to boycott the institutional Church. If women stopped showing up for Church, stopped working for the diocese, stopped donating, the institution would screech to a halt. Women must refuse to participate in our own oppression. Without women, the pews and the collection baskets would be nearly empty.
Starting on May 3 (World Day of Prayer for Vocations), the entire month of May will launch coordinated, global, prophetic demonstrations or witnesses demanding women’s equality in the Roman Catholic Church through strikes, re-directions of resources, and radical acts.
We find inspiration and hope in the Maria 2.0 movement that started last May in Germany, and continues to be a witness for equality through demonstrations and courageous dialogue for women in the German Church. We are strengthened by the support of numerous other reform organizations in this effort and we ourselves are joining in this movement.
The Synod on Synodality
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Reforms We Are Seeking
Online Young Adult Seekers Small Christian Communities
Meeting ID: 863 4519 4432
Passcode: Evangelize
Young Adult Seekers Articles
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Get Involved In CCRI
We could use your help with everything from collating survery responses to strategic planning! With ten different working groups, we are sure to find a match for your talents.
We have never had a better chance to make a real difference. Click the button below to fill out the form to get started.
