Today, Public Religion Re-search Institute (PRRI) released a new survey report finding that church attendance and the im-portance of religion continue to decline among most Americans. “Religion and Congregations in a Time of Social and Political Upheaval,” details the findings of a national survey examining the health of American religious congregations in the wake of seismic social and political shifts, including the COVID-19 pan-demic, nationwide protests for racial justice, the 2020 election and January 6 insurrection, and ongoing legislative battles over reproductive and LGBTQ rights.
Today, fewer than 2 in 10 Americans (16%) say religion is the most important thing in their lives; notably that number more than doubles for white evangeli-cal Protestants (42%) and Black Protestants (38%). Nearly 1 in 3 Americans overall (29%) say religion is not important, a 10% increase from a decade ago.
Current attendance at religi-ous services is lower than report-ed in 2019 before COVID-19, with the number of Americans who attend once a week decreas-ing from 19% to 16%. Between 2019-2022, attendance at least a few times a year dropped to half or less for white Catholics (73% to 45%) and Hispanic Catholics (65% to 47%). While more than 6 out of 10 white evangelical Protestants, Protestants of color, and Latter-day Saints remain regular churchgoers, their atten-dance also experienced slight declines since 2019. Attendance had dropped below 50% prior to 2019 for white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants and non-Christian religions, and attend-ance for those groups experienced further declines over the past three years.
Yet among the faithful, Chri-stian churchgoers are satisfied with their current congregations; more than 8 in 10 churchgoers (82%) say they are optimistic about the future of their church.  This optimism spans across Christian denominations. Nearly 9 in 10 Christians who attend church services at least a few times a year (89%) are proud to say that they are associated with their church.
While the political landscape has become increasingly polari-zed, and 4 in 10 churchgoers report that hot-button political and social issues like abortion and racism are discussed in their churches, fewer than 2 in 10 churchgoers (13%) say that their church is more politically divided than it was five years ago. Only a slightly higher amount (18%) wants their church to address political divisions in America.

Italo-American director Martin Scorsese told the Jesuits’ international magazine in Rome on May 27 that he had decided to answer Pope Francis’s recent call to show Jesus to the cinema-going public. “I’ve responded to the appeal which the pope made to artists in the only way I know how: imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus, and I’m set to start making it,” said the 80-year-old Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas dir-ector, who made the controver-sial Last Temptation of Christ in 1988. Speaking as a guest of twice-monthly Jesuit publication La Civiltà Cattollica, Scorsese, who has Sicilian-born grandpa-rents on both sides, told editor-in-chief Father Antonio Spadaro: “I’ve answered the pope’s call to make us see Jesus,” The great director, who won an Oscar for The Departed in 2006, spoke freely about his life and work for a major interview with the Jesuit organ.

The bishop of Antwerp, Belgium, said that because Pope Francis has not voiced his opposition specifically to the Flemish bishops’ decision to bless same-sex unions, he has taken that as tacit approval for their action.
Bishop Johan Bonny said in a May 17 interview with Katholi-sch.de that he had had “two conversations” with Francis from which he inferred he knew that he and his brother bishops were “not going against the Pope.”
The Flemish ordinary said he was not allowed to share the precise contents of those conversations, but stressed that knowing the Pope’s stance was “very important for me and for the other bishops in Flanders.”
Bishop Bonny and the other Flemish bishops of Belgium introduced a blessing for same-sex couples in September 2022, pu-blishing a handout containing a suggested liturgy and prayers and basing their argument on Pope Francis’ 2016 apostolic exhortation on the 2014-2015 Synod on the Family, Amoris Laetitia.

Two German dioceses are forging ahead with lay participation in Church governance, despite warnings from the Vatican.
The dioceses have begun to put reforms proposed by the German synodal path initiative into practice, especially that of involving the laity in governance.
In the Diocese of Osnabrück, which has been vacant since the Pope accepted Bishop Franz-Josef Bode’s resignation in March, talks have begun between the nine priest members of the cathedral chapter and nine lay Catholics.
The Osnabrück diocese has thereby adopted a model developed by the neighbouring Archdiocese of Paderborn. The diocesan Catholic Council, or “Katholikenrat”, which represents lay Catholics in the diocese, selected nine lay members keeping strictly to a generation- and gender-equitable method.
This 18-member group will now discuss the profile of the future bishop and exchange opinions on possible named persons. These talks will continue until the summer holidays and are strictly confidential.
On the basis of the talks the cathedral chapter will then draw up a list of  names which the cathedral chapter will then send to the Vatican via the apostolic nuncio in Berlin, Archbishop Nikola Eterovic.
The Vatican will then choose three names – the so-called terna – from the list and the Osnabrück chapter alone and not the nine members of the laity, will choose one of them as future bishop.