Phyllis Zagano

Must one vote for one or the other, as the pope suggests? Phyllis Zagano explores the basic question for both voters and bishops alike: Which team is more pro-life?

Christopher White, NCR’s Vatican correspondent, participated in “The Synod: What happened? What didn’t? What’s next?” The panel addressed a wide range of topics, including synod highlights and lowlights.

To reform the church is to put God first and adore him, and to love and serve others, Pope Francis said at Mass marking the conclusion of the first session of the Synod of Bishops on synodality on Oct. 29.

The Catholic Church’s synodal process, intended to actively solicit input from all its members, is not a threat to the hierarchy, a cardinal said.

Sr. Maria Cimperman described Pope Francis’ reimagined process for the Oct. 4-29 Synod of Bishops as a “walking together,” even if prelates still hold the majority of votes.

The Vatican has secured financial support to generate offsetting carbon credits by sending “efficient cooking stoves and water purification technologies to households, communities and institutions” in Kenya and Nigeria.

The Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S. praised the synodal process at the opening of the U.S. bishops’ spring assembly. And the bishops delayed for a day a vote to begin a process that could ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals.

Lately, the question of ordination for women seems restricted to the growing requests for women priests. Even Francis uses that shorthand. But the tradition of ordaining women as deacons could easily be restored.

At their fall plenary meeting, the bishops spent less time on the Gospel than on internal church matters.

First, the bad news: two officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith have told me, in person, at lunch, that women cannot be o...