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Bishop Salvatore Matano of Rochester, New York, has issued a set of comprehensive guidelines for the administration of the sacraments, calling for careful attention to the liturgical and canonical rules of the Church. In a cover letter introducing the guidelines, Bishop Matano urges ministers to “take very seriously the implementation of all that is needed and required for the proper celebration and reception” of the sacraments. His message implicitly acknowledged that the Church’s norms had frequently been ignored in parishes of the Rochester diocese.

Full disclosure: A New Yorker, I have lived and worked in Germany for the past 6 years and I happen to speak German as my first language. I have also edited the Winter 2014 edition of REGINA Magazine, which involved interviewing dozens of German priests and laity about the German Church and the situation of the Faith in Germany.So, I feel duty-bound to share this on-the-ground knowledge with the rest of the English-speaking world — at least those who read REGINA Magazine — about what is motivating the German Bishops in the upcoming synod in Rome on the family. Using...

The social teaching of the Catholic Church is a sizeable cloak of many colors. Its lineage is ancient and sacred, arising as it does from Biblical instruction and most emphatically from JesusÂ’ own words and example. These scriptural passages have been elucidated over many centuries by Church fathers and doctors and, since the late nineteenth century, by encyclicals or other formal papal statements. Inasmuch as the Church has been functioning (as Thomas Babington Macaulay famously put it) since cameleopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheater, the body of putatively authoritative social teaching is, as one might imagine, not merely...

Woman praying in Milan, Aug. 21, 2007. Credit: David Dennis via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0). Vatican City, Oct 7, 2014 / 04:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In what ways can the Church provide pastoral care for men and women of same-sex attraction that is compassionate and affirming in the faith – all the while remaining true to its teachings? At the opening of the Synod on the Family, participants were reminded that the Church's pastoral approach towards persons with same-sex attraction is an issue worthy of attention. Over the next two weeks, the Extraordinary Synod on the Pastoral Challenges of the...

While Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium is in Rome for the synod on the family, I hope that he has a chance to visit Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. The retired prelates may wish to reminisce about synods past, especially the 1985 extraordinary assembly on the 20th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council. St. John Paul had called the special synod in January 1985 to assess how Vatican II had been received in the life of the Church, examining both achievements and failures. In 1985, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was still in his first years as John Paul’s doctrinal...

A married couple have told the family synod that friends who welcomed their gay son’s partner to a Christmas celebration are a “model for evangelisation”. Ron and Mavis Pirola were giving their testimony to the extraordinary synod which got underway at the Vatican today. In their testimony they said that the “domestic church has much to offer the wider Church in its evangelising role”, adding that “the Church constantly faces the tension of upholding the truth while expressing compassion and mercy – families face this tension all the time.” The testimony continued: “Take homosexuality as an example. Friends of ours...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The author of a controversial proposal to make it easier for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion says he believes Pope Francis backs the measure but would not apply it without support from bishops at two upcoming synods on the family. "I had the impression the pope is open for a responsible, limited opening of the situation, but he wants a great majority of the bishops behind himself. He does not like division within the church and the collegiality of bishops," German Cardinal Walter Kasper, speaking English, told Catholic News Service Oct. 1. "I...

Alice and Jeff Heinzen (photo courtesy of the Heinzens) Alice and Jeff Heinzen of Menomonie, Wisconsin have the distinction of being one of 14 married couples invited to participate in the Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, to be held in Rome October 5-19. The Heinzens are the only American couple planning to attend the synod, the theme of which is “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization”; Americans Steve and Claudia Schulz of International Catholic Engaged Encounter were also invited but are unable to attend. The Heinzens were both born and raised in Wisconsin. They’ve been married...

The upcoming Synod of Bishops has been preceded by a rumpus in the media which attaches to it a historical significance greater than its ecclesiastical importance as merely a consultative assembly in the Church. Some are complaining about the theological war the Synod promises to be, but the history of all the Episcopal meetings in the Church (such is the etymological significance of the term “synod” and its synonym “council”) has been made up of theological conflicts and bitter debates on errors and divisions that have threatened the Christian community since its beginnings. Today the subject of communion for the...

The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal have announced that Father Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R., has died at the age of 81. The co-founder of the order passed away on October 3rd at 11 PM, the vigil of the feast of St. Francis. The Cardinal Newman Society reported on their facebook page earlier this week that Father Groeschel had taken a fall and reinjured the same arm that was hurt in his accident ten years ago. One of his brother friars, Father Glenn Sudano, said that Father Groeschel was in much pain. The Friars were founded in 1987 by Father Groeschel and...

I encounter so many struggling pastors. And unfortunately, I know so many who used to be pastors but no longer hold the position. It may be through a blatant sin or a casual drifting from doing what they knew to be right, but it landed them in disaster. A pastor friend of mine said recently, “We need healthy churches and we need healthy pastors.” Amen. Agreed. We must stand guard. What are we guarding against? No single post would be perfect. Obviously sin, but I can’t address everything that gets in the way of a healthy pastor. I can only...

Kasper's following Spirit of the Council to its logical end.The General House of the Society of Saint Pius X (FSSPX / SSPX) in Switzerland has just released an interview granted by the Superior-General of the SSPX, Bp. Bernard Fellay, on the meaning of the meeting held with the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Cardinal Gerhard Müller, on September 23. You were received by Cardinal Müller on September 23rd. The communiqué from the Vatican Press Office repeats the language of the 2005 communiqué issued after your meeting with Benedict XVI, which already said that the...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The highest ranking U.S. bishop at the Vatican says this month's Synod of Bishops on the family should mark the end of a high-level debate over whether to make it easier for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion. "The matter really has to be clarified at this point so that this doesn't continue," Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature, told Catholic News Service Oct. 1. "For this to go on for another year, it can only do harm." By church law, divorced and civilly remarried Catholics are...

Cardinal Walter Kasper continued to defend his proposal to allow Communion for some divorced and remarried Catholics, and to assail critics of that proposal, in a new interview. The German cardinal said that his critics are fearful that “if you change one point, all would collapse.” Dismissing such fears of a “domino effect,” he said that his critics were displaying “a theological fundamentalism which is not Catholic.”

As I recall a time in my daughter’s life when she was not drawn toward the church or Christians, I wonder how others with Asperger’s Syndrome feel about the church, religion, and spirituality. I googled “Aspergers” and “Religion” to research Aspies’ thoughts about this matter. (Individuals with Asperger’s often refer to themselves as Aspies). To my surprise, there are hundreds of articles written about Aspies and religion. Psychology Today recently featured two articles on this very topic: Bullying, Hypocrisy, and Church: An Asperger Perspective on ReligionThe Pain of Isolation: Asperger’s and Suicide The reality of many Aspies’ experience with religious...

Frankly, I was among the most vigorous supporters of Bishop Robert Finn when he took over the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in May of 2005. It did not take this “Opus Dei” bishop long to start making the kinds of changes which are so critical to both Catholic renewal and the New Evangelization. I did not hesitate to provide a long list of reasons to praise Bishop Finn after his first year in a piece called Everything’s Up To Date in Kansas City. And when I rerview that commentary today, I am still struck by how promising Finn’s leadership...

The prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith said when the authentic Word is deconstructed, we risk depriving ourselves of the authentic happiness only Christ can bring.CORDOBA, Spain — With the Synod on the Family just days away, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith cautioned against deconstructing the Gospel message to make it artificially easy. “We can talk a lot about God, and in the end, do so without faith,” warned Cardinal Gerhard Müller during a Sept. 28 Mass at the cathedral in Cordoba, where he delivered an address on St. John...

The worldwide Anglican Communion’s next Lambeth Conference, scheduled for 2018, has been cancelled for the first time in its history. A gathering of Anglican bishops from around the world which takes place once a decade, the cancellation, which is indefinite, is due to ongoing division over the gay clergy issue. The 2008 conference was marred by a significant boycott over the same issue. According to the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the US, Most Rev Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and titular head of Anglicans worldwide was “very clear that he is not going...

Cardinal Raymond Burke strongly defended his criticism of the “Kasper proposal,” and said it was “outrageous” for Cardinal Walter Kasper to suggest that such criticism was actually aimed at Pope Francis, during a teleconference with reporters on September 30. “I find it amazing that the cardinal [Kasper] claims that he speaks for the Pope,” Cardinal Burke said. “The Pope doesn’t have laryngitis.” Cardinal Burke joined several other participants in a teleconference on preparations for the Synod of Bishops. The teleconference was arranged by Ignatius Press, which will release four books on October 1 presenting arguments against the Kasper proposal and...

With 1 in 68 people on the autism spectrum, most churches will encounter a number of people of various ages and backgrounds who are autistic. I am autistic and a Christian, and my faith is a very important part of my life. As a child, I had little use of language and was very “typically autistic.” But as an adult, I learned to use language, and now I teach churches worldwide about autism. I work with leaders from the Church of England, and I wrote their national autism guidelines at the request of the Bishop of Oxford, the Right Reverend...