All posts tagged: Bishops

Melkite Catholic bishops express concern over Israeli demolitions in southern Lebanon

Melkite Catholic bishops express concern over Israeli demolitions in southern Lebanon

Published by Sam Flores

BEIRUT (AP) — A branch of the Catholic church expressed deep concern Monday over reports that Israel was demolishing civilian and religious buildings in parts of southern Lebanon under its control, following allegations that a convent had been bulldozed. The Council of Melkite Greek Catholic Bishops in Lebanon urged the Lebanese government and the United Nations to protect the property of civilians and religious institutions in southern Lebanon, citing in particular the village of Yaroun where officials said Israeli troops destroyed a Melkite convent earlier this month among other demolition. The bishops called the destruction of buildings, after residents of the area had evacuated, a “deep wound in the national and human conscience.” Israel took control of border areas in southern Lebanon in its latest war against the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah ahead of a ceasefire on April 17 and has said it aims to root out the militants and their infrastructure in the area. It has asked residents to evacuate villages for their own safety. The Israeli military said it does not intentionally target …

Trump slammed the first US pope. The country’s bishops now appear more united than ever.

Trump slammed the first US pope. The country’s bishops now appear more united than ever.

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — After President Donald Trump attacked Pope Leo XIV and his foreign policy on social media this week, U.S. Catholics, and especially bishops, have largely reacted with condemnation and dismay. While it’s not new for U.S. presidents and the popes to disagree — especially on matters concerning war — what’s surprising about the recent spat between Leo and Trump is how much it has unified the Catholic bishops and faithful behind the pontiff, after years marked by division and internal conflict.  “The attack on Pope Leo has united the American hierarchy with particular zeal,” said Christopher White, author of the 2025 book “Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy.” The bishops’ unity has been strengthened by the election of an American pope and the “general sense of obligation that they need to support him and have his back,” he said.  From the moment Leo walked out on the loggia after his election last May, he laid out his mission, entrusted to him by the cardinals who elected him, …

For the first time, Black women bishops in the UMC share Good Friday pulpit

For the first time, Black women bishops in the UMC share Good Friday pulpit

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — The tradition of “Seven Last Words” services hosted by Black churches will mark a new milestone on Good Friday (April 3) when all seven of the active African American women bishops of the United Methodist Church are expected to preach at a Maryland church. “This is the first time there’s ever been that many” African American women bishops in the UMC, said the Rev. Jason O. Jordan-Griffin, pastor of St. Mark United Methodist Church in the Baltimore suburb of Hanover, where the service will take place. “And this is the first time they’ve all come together to preach for an event of this magnitude.” The retelling of the biblical account of the seven sayings of Jesus from the cross, used to feature solely men in pulpits across the country. That changed gradually. Back in 2011, Jordan-Griffin started inviting women to preach the seven sayings of Jesus — starting with “Father, forgive them … ” — at the first church he pastored, in Pumphrey, Maryland. Having been appointed to his third church last year, …

Meet the African women bishops attending the archbishop of Canterbury’s installation

Meet the African women bishops attending the archbishop of Canterbury’s installation

Published by Sam Flores

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — Five African Anglican women bishops said they will attend the historic installation of the first female archbishop of Canterbury, even as GAFCON, an alliance of conservative primates strongly represented in Africa, has urged a “principled disengagement” from the traditional center of Anglican power in England. The Most Rev. Sarah Mullally, a 63-year-old former nurse, will be installed on Wednesday (March 25) at Canterbury Cathedral in England, the final step in making her the head of the Church of England and the convener of the worldwide Anglican Communion. She is ​the 106th archbishop of Canterbury and the first woman to hold the office in the church’s 1,400-year history. “We are standing in solidarity with the archbishop of Canterbury,” the Rt. Rev. Rose Okeno, bishop of Butere, in Kenya, told Religion News Service, “strongly witnessing the love of Christ that transcends all social, religious, economic, cultural and political barriers, and which affirms the dignity of all ​h​umans as equal, created in his image, imago Dei.” Top row, from left: the Rt. Revs. Rose …

Why America’s Catholic Bishops Started Sounding Liberal

Why America’s Catholic Bishops Started Sounding Liberal

Published by Sam Flores

Not so long ago, when U.S. Catholic leaders said something political, they tended to sound like conservatives. American bishops’ most prominent policy statements focused on three issues: same-sex marriage, contraception, and—above all—abortion. Their frequently stated opposition to all three put them at odds with not just the left but also many Catholics. It even created tension with Rome. Since Donald Trump’s reelection, however, the Church in the United States has been sounding more liberal. Its teaching hasn’t changed, but the president’s second term has shifted the bishops’ attention. The most urgent political concern for America’s Catholic leaders is no longer abortion; it’s immigration. The issue has featured in their agenda for a while. After all, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that wealthy countries should welcome refugees and economic migrants “to the extent they are able.” But now immigration dominates U.S. Catholic leaders’ public messaging. In November, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops published a rare “special message” decrying the Trump administration’s “indiscriminate mass deportation.” The day of Trump’s State of the Union address, …

Vatican calls for divestment from mining, citing harm to poor communities

Vatican calls for divestment from mining, citing harm to poor communities

Published by Sam Flores

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — The Vatican announced a new campaign to urge divestment from mining activities, which Catholic Church leaders said enrich wealthy countries while leaving environmental damage and poverty in the Global South. “We are living in a time when humanity faces a decisive question: What kind of world do we want to leave to the generations that come after us?” said Cardinal Fabio Baggio, undersecretary of the Vatican Department for Integral Human Development, in announcing the campaign on Friday (March 20). “This question is not abstract. It has the face of concrete communities — Indigenous peoples who see their territories threatened, families who lose their sources of water, mountains opened like wounds and rivers turned into silent witnesses of contamination.” The Vatican’s campaign and divestment platform is in conjunction with the Church and Mining Network, a group that engages 12 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to promote rights of local and Indigenous communities and build consensus around divestment from mining and related activities. Institutions that join the platform can share and …

Conservative Anglican bishops seek ‘disengagement’ from Canterbury without naming rival leader

Conservative Anglican bishops seek ‘disengagement’ from Canterbury without naming rival leader

Published by Sam Flores

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — Weeks before the Rt. Rev. Sarah Mullally is officially installed as the first female archbishop of Canterbury, a group of conservative Anglican prelates known as GAFCON renamed their body the Global Anglican Communion and elected a set of leaders to exercise “principled disengagement” from the archbishop and the historic center of Anglicanism in England. The four-day Global Anglican Future Conference meeting in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, that ended Friday (March 6) was expected to elect a rival to the Archbishop of Canterbury — its own “first among equals” among its bishops to convene and guide them. Instead, it elected Archbishop Laurent Mbanda, the Anglican primate of Rwanda, as the chairman of the newly constituted Global Anglican Council, a body consisting of primates, advisers and “guarantors.” Archbishop Miguel Uchôa, the archbishop of the Anglican Church in Brazil, will be deputy chairman, and Bishop Paul Donison, a Canadian-born American bishop, the general secretary.  “We recognize that there is still much work to be done by the Global Anglican Council …,” said the communique …

Catholic bishops: Trump’s assault on birthright citizenship affronts Catholic teaching

Catholic bishops: Trump’s assault on birthright citizenship affronts Catholic teaching

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has filed an amicus brief in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court opposing President Donald Trump’s efforts to eliminate birthright citizenship, arguing to the majority-Catholic justices that doing away with it would undermine church teaching and the “moral foundations” of the country. The right of anyone born in the confines of the United States to automatically be a citizen has traditionally been found in the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868. But the Trump White House claims that birthright citizenship is only an interpretation, not explicitly granted in all instances. In January, the president issued an executive order to end the right, which drew immediate legal challenges and outcry — including from the Catholic bishops. “The intended and unintended effects of the Executive Order are immoral and contrary to the Catholic Church’s fundamental beliefs and teachings regarding the life and dignity of human persons, the treatment of vulnerable people — particularly migrants and children — and family unity,” the bishops’ brief reads. The brief is the latest …

How Trump’s treatment of the vulnerable shifted the US Catholic bishops’ politics

How Trump’s treatment of the vulnerable shifted the US Catholic bishops’ politics

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — From the first days of President Donald Trump’s second term, the U.S. Catholic bishops have repeatedly pushed back on administration policies. While their most frequently stated concerns have addressed the Department of Homeland Security’s deportation effort, they haven’t hesitated to speak out on other issues. On Jan. 22, 2025, after the newly inaugurated president issued a raft of executive orders on everything from DEI to TikTok, the bishops responded by officially condemning the spirit behind the policies. Trump’s executive orders, wrote Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, then-president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which “focused on the treatment of immigrants and refugees, foreign aid, expansion of the death penalty, and the environment, are deeply troubling and will have negative consequences, many of which will harm the most vulnerable among us.” They went on to say, “The use of sweeping generalizations to denigrate any group, such as describing all undocumented immigrants as ‘criminals’ or ‘invaders,’ to deprive them of protection under the law, is an affront to God, who has created each of us …

Notre Dame professor’s appointment pits academic freedom against bishops’ authority

Notre Dame professor’s appointment pits academic freedom against bishops’ authority

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — What began as a faculty leadership appointment at the University of Notre Dame this winter has become a focal point in a broader negotiation between episcopal authority and institutional autonomy in Catholic higher education. Earlier this year, Susan Ostermann, an associate professor of political science at the flagship Catholic university, was appointed to lead the Keough School of Global Affairs’ Liu Institute of Asia and Asian Studies, beginning July 1. No one doubts Ostermann’s credentials. Trained at University of California-Berkeley and Stanford Law School (she is also an attorney), she has written on regulatory enforcement, particularly in South Asia, and the effects of state power on vulnerable populations. The controversy instead centers on about a dozen public essays she wrote in recent years with sociologist Tamara Kay, in which the co-authors argue that contemporary abortion politics in the United States cannot be understood apart from longer histories of racial hierarchy, immigration anxiety and demographic change. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in the Dobbs case overturning Roe v. Wade, they published an …