A leading umbrella group of women religious has thanked Pope Francis for his recent decision allowing women to have voting rights in his upcoming Synod of Bishops on Synodality, saying the move is a step toward helping the church be more inclusive.
In a statement on May 3, Sister Nadia Coppa, president of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) said they welcomed the pope’s decision “with great joy and gratitude.”
“This decision, promulgated by Pope Francis, to enlarge participation in the Synodal Assembly, is the outcome of our ongoing rich reflection, as the People of God, and it is a concrete response to the discernment and desire for inclusiveness that is emerging at various levels,” Coppa said.
Her statement comes a week after the Vatican office of the Synod of Bishops announced a handful of changes to the rules governing the papally-convened summits, including the decision to allow laypeople and consecrated women to serve as full members with voting rights.
Under the previous norms, a synod was composed largely of bishops appointed to attend either by their national bishops’ conference, their religious institutes, or the pope himself, and Vatican dicastery heads who held at least the rank of archbishop. The norms also foresaw the participation of 10 clerics belonging to Institutes of Consecrated Life who were tapped by their respective communities.
A selection of auditors was also invited to attend the synod gatherings, meaning they were able to listen and participate in group discussions, but were unable to vote on the synod’s final document. While women have traditionally taken part in synods as observers, advisers, auditors and experts, until now none have ever been full members with the right to vote. This changed when last Wednesday the Synod of Bishops announced modifications to the rules, among other things omitting the membership of the 10 clerics appointed by their communities.

The president of the Pontifical Academy for Life has said that the Church might accept the decriminalization of assisted suicide, in the latest clear sign that the body established by Pope John Paul II to defend the dignity of human life has radically changed its stance.
In an April 19 speech, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, which was published in Italy by the leftist journal Il Reformista, the archbishop said that a change in Italian law to allow for assisted suicide “could not be ruled out,” and in fact “is feasible in our society.”
Using an argument that will be familiar to pro-life Americans, Archbishop Paglia said that he was personally opposed to assisted suicide, but that in a pluralist society, “legal mediation may be the greatest common good concretely possible under the conditions we find ourselves in.”
Reacting to the furor caused by the archbishop’s statement, the Pontifical Academy for Life issued a clarification, underling Archbishop Paglia’s personal opposition to assisted suicide and stressing that he said “legal mediation (certainly not moral) is possible.” The statement went on to say that “Archbishop Paglia has always supported the need for accompaniment towards the sick in the terminal phase of life.”

The COVID-19 pandemic touched nearly every aspect of American life. Schools, offices, grocery stores, and churches faced daunting challenges in the early days of the pandemic in their efforts to operate while keeping their employees, members, and the broader community safe. For churches and religious organizations, concerns over COVID-19 led many to pause traditional in-person worship services. A recent Pew Research Center study found that nearly one in three churches or religious organizations were completely closed in summer 2020, while others moved outside or online. By March 2022, most were offering some type of regular service, but only 43 percent of religious Americans reported that services currently being offered by their place of worship were back to their pre-pandemic operations.
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted religious participation for millions of Americans. In summer 2020, only 13 % of Americans reported attending in-person worship services. This rebounded to 27% by March 2022, but rates of worship attendance were still lower than they were before the pandemic. However, the pandemic did not appear to affect one’s faith, with most adults reporting that their religious affiliation today was no different than it was pre-pandemic.
To better understand how COVID-19 and church closures influenced patterns of religious attendance and identity, the Survey Center on American Life at AEI teamed up with researchers at NORC at the University of Chicago to measure religious affiliation and attendance both before the pandemic (2018 to March 2020) and again in spring 2022. For the 2022 American Religious Benchmark Survey, interviews were conducted with the same people to enable us to measure actual changes in religious behavior or identity.
The results show that religious identity remained stable through the pandemic. White mainline Christians and white evangelical Christians were the two largest religious groups both pre-pandemic and in spring 2022. Unaffiliated adults also made up a quarter (25%) of adults in both periods.

Hundreds of Armenians have marched through Yerevan to mark the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
Those in attendance gathered in a central square, carried burning torches, set light to Turkish and Azerbaijani flags, and paraded in a procession escorted by an orchestra.
Today marks the 108th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, where 1.5 million Armenians were killed between 1915 -1923 by the Ottoman Empire.
Armenians say they were deliberately targeted for extermination through famine, forced labor, expulsion, death marches, and massacres.
While Turkey accepts that many died in that era, Ankara has rejected the term genocide, saying the death toll is inflated and the deaths resulted from civil disorder during the waning days of the Ottoman Empire.
The commemoration takes place every year, and it ends with crowds carrying torches to the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex.
Two years ago, U.S. President Joe Biden recognized the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as genocide. Turkish officials were angered by Biden’s declaration.

As Pope Francis’s ongoing Synod of Bishops on Synodality wraps up its second phase and prepares for the first of two large Rome-based gatherings, organizers have said a prominent theme in the process has been embracing the church’s diversity.
Speaking to members of the press on April 21, Archbishop Timothy John Costelloe of Perth, president of the Australian bishops’ conference, said, “One of the most important things that we are experiencing on the journey, and that we experienced very powerfully during these continental assemblies, is that there is in fact more than one way of being the Church.”
“I think that’s a very important thing and something that’s emerging as a significant feature of this synodal journey,” he said.
As the synod process goes on, “we’re going into a deeper experience of synodality and in doing that, we’re recognizing and celebrating this reality of great diversity,” he said.
Diversity has always been a part of the Church, but Costelloe voiced his conviction that it is something “we need to acknowledge and more and more to celebrate and to be grateful to God for.”
“I would say that what is happening, both in the ideal world, but also in reality, is that we’re beginning to experience a profound unity, which is not only not grounded in uniformity,” he said, saying, “we all know, unity and uniformity are not the same thing.”

Global conservative Anglican leaders withdrew their recognition on April 22 of the Church of England and Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, as its leader, amid disagreements about blessing same-sex couples.
The primates announced the move at the fourth Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), which ended this weekend in Rwanda’s capital of Kigali.
The Kigali commitment issued at the end of the weeklong conference reflected a consensus among Anglican conservatives, with a majority from Africa and the Global South.
“We have no confidence that the Archbishop of Canterbury nor the other instruments of communion led by him are able to provide a godly way forward that will be acceptable to those who are committed to the truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency and authority of scripture,” the primates said in a statement.
The primates accused successive archbishops of Canterbury of failing to guard the faith by “inviting bishops to Lambeth (official residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury), who have embraced or promoted practices contrary to scripture.”
This failure of church discipline, the primates said, has been compounded by the current Archbishop of Canterbury who has welcomed the provision of liturgical resources to bless practices contrary to scripture.
“This renders his leadership role in the Anglican Communion entirely indefensible,” it said.
The clerics expressed their hard stance during the conference.
Archbishop Ben Kwashi of Nigeria, described as “troubling for many Anglicans” the Church of England’s new move on civil marriages, while Archbishop Laurent Mbanda from Rwanda and newly-elected chairman of GAFCON, told Anadolu the Bible should remain the center of reference.

A German foundation that supports persecuted Christians honored an Iranian Christian civil rights activist with a prestigious prize for her brave and relentless campaign for human rights despite state oppression.
The Stephanus Foundation for Persecuted Christians conferred the Stephanus Prize 2023 on Mary Fatima Mohammadi for her “outstanding courage” and “extra-ordinary selflessness” at a ceremony in Bonn on April 21, said a press release from the group.
“The 24-year-old has not only claimed the right to change one’s faith for herself in Iran, where turning away from Islam is considered a crime. She has also compiled and published information on the totalitarian dictatorship’s persecution of dissidents, including the inhumane treatment of inmates in Qarchak and Fashafoye prisons,” the release said.
Mohammadi was arrested several times and imprisoned twice for a period of time, most recently in 2020, when she spent three months in jail.
The US government campaigned for her in public speeches and interviews in 2020. Christians rights group, International Christian Concern, termed her “the bravest woman in Iran.”
Michael Brand, human rights policy spokesman for a parliamentary group in the German Bundestag, described her faith and human rights as “incredible” and “heroic” and what she suffered, including imprisonment, torture, and ill-treatment, as “martyrdom.”
“She researched the religions and worldviews of other peoples” Brand campaigned for her release from prison.

Pope Francis on Monday issued a new motu proprio, a change to canon law impacting the Eastern Catholic Churches of the Catholic communion.
The change puts an age limit on the Eastern Catholic bishops who participate in the synods of bishops of Eastern Catholic Churches — restricting the “active voice” of retired Eastern bishops over the age of 80.
The Eastern Catholic Churches headed by patriarchs — six in total — and those headed by major archbishops — another four — each have a leadership and governance institution called the “synod of bishops.”
That institution, the synod of bishops, is composed of all the bishops who belong to the particular Eastern Church — or nearly all of them.
The synod of bishops has deliberative governing authority in the Eastern Catholic Churches in which it exists — it elects a patriarch, is involved directly in the appointment of bishops and the creation of new dioceses (called eparchies), and is required to be either consulted by the patriarch, or to give consent, on a number of important financial, administrative, or personnel decisions for the Eastern Catholic Church in question.

As representatives of the Ca-tholic Churches in the Middle East gather in Cyprus, the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches apologises for the role the western Church has histori-cally played in undermining Chri-stians in the region, and pledges the Holy See’s support.
“We Westerners bear a heavy responsibility for destabilising the Middle East, with our tendency to export our culture and ask its peoples to conform their lives to it”.
This were the words with which Archbishop Claudio Guge-rotti, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, greeted more than 250 representatives of the Middle Eastern Catholic Churches.
They had gathered in Nicosia for the opening of the symposium “Rooted in Hope”, organised to mark the tenth anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI’s post-syno-dal apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Medio Oriente.
“As Western Catholics,” the Prefect said, “we apologise for supporting this myopic approach. We pay tribute to your heroic efforts to be witnesses to our common faith despite difficulties of all kinds.”
Gugerotti expressed his concern for “the diaspora of Middle Eastern Christians, which is caused by the current tragic situation, deeply affecting their daily lives.”

Neither the nature nor the name is changing—which remains the Synod of Bishops—but the composition of the participants in the October 2023 General Assembly in the Vatican on the theme of synodality is set to change, since a sizeable group of “non-bishop” members will also take part.These 70 individuals will include lay people appointed directly by the Pope, 50 percent of whom shall be women and among whom shall be included several young people. All 70 will enjoy voting rights at the Assembly, which will consist of around 370 voting members out of more than 400 total participants.
These represent the main changes introduced  by Pope Francis for the Synod Assembly, which will seal the synodal path he himself launched in the Autumn of 2021.
The changes were presented by Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the Secretariat for the Synod, and Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the Synod’s General Relator.
“This is not a revolution but an important change,” they specified at a press conference at the Holy See Press Office on Wednesday.
The new arrangements were communicated on the same day in a letter to the heads of the Continental Assemblies held recently in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Oceania.
The letter states that no current regulations have been repealed, and that the 2018 Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis Communio already provided for the presence of “non-bishops” at the Synod.
The 70 non-bishop members will be chosen by the Pope from a list of 140 prepared by the 7 International Reunions of Bishops’ Conferences and the Assembly of Patriarchs of Eastern Catholic Churches.
“We are talking about 21 percent of the Assembly remaining a plenary assembly of bishops, with a sizable participation of non-bishops,” Cardinal Hollerich reiterated further. “Their presence ensures the dialogue between the prophecy of the people of God and the discernment of the pastors.”
The choice of the 140 candidates, they added, shall take into account each person’s general culture, prudence, and knowledge and participation in the synodal process. As members, they have the right to vote.