Category: Church

The Catholic Church in Cambodia.

A compassionate, constructive approach

I often think, myself, that we need to do a lot better job in the church to explain what the “common good” entails, and I would argue it’s not good for society if you are separating families. Regardless of whether or not they’re documented. If they’re peaceable families, and people are working, you need to find another way to kind of address the fact that they’re in an irregular [document] situation, like an expired tourist visa which could be addressed rather than just simply deporting the father, because that causes a rupture in what is a basic good of society, which is: You keep families together, you allow them to work to feed their families, and you address whatever legal issues are there within the context of the least disruption possible.

Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas (quoted in the NCR)

Prayer for the Elections

Lord God, as the election approaches,
we seek to better understand the issues and concerns that confront our city/state/country,
and how the Gospel compels us to respond as faithful citizens in our community.
We ask for eyes that are free from blindness
so that we might see each other as brothers and sisters,
one and equal in dignity,
especially those who are victims of abuse and violence, deceit and poverty.
We ask for ears that will hear the cries of children unborn and those abandoned,
Men and women oppressed because of race or creed, religion or gender.
We ask for minds and hearts that are open to hearing the voice of leaders who will bring us closer to your Kingdom.

We pray for discernment
so that we may choose leaders who hear your Word,
live your love,
and keep in the ways of your truth
as they follow in the steps of Jesus and his Apostles
and guide us to your Kingdom of justice and peace.

We ask this in the name of your Son Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Coming September 3….

In 2024, Pope Francis proclaimed the Final Document of the Synod on Synodality to be magisterial teaching [official doctrine], including the historic Paragraph 60 on women’s leadership in the Church. Under Pope Leo, our Church has entered the 2025-2028 Synod Implementation Phase, where all of the baptized are called to implement the proposals of the Synod’s Final Document and to report back on their experiences of living into synodality. Below is a quote from Paragraph 60 of the final document of the synod.

[From Paragraph 60] There are women who hold positions of authority and are leaders of their communities. This Assembly asks for full implementation of all the opportunities already provided for in Canon Law with regard to the role of women, particularly in those places where they remain underutilised. There is no reason or impediment that should prevent women from carrying out leadership roles in the Church: what comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped. Additionally, the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open. This discernment needs to continue.

Notable Quote

In the coming Sunday gospel, Jesus says we must take up our cross and follow him.

What would the life Jesus is offering, with its cross, look like now, in this world? It would mean becoming compassionate people, having integrity and strength in our relationships, and being courageous as we speak and act on behalf of the least among us.

What a paradox! We find our true life not by clinging desperately to ourselves, but by giving ourselves away in love.

Fr. Jude Siciliano, OP — Preacher Exchange

Fratelli Tutti

We forget that “there is no worse form of alienation than to feel uprooted, belonging to no one. A land will be fruitful, and its people bear fruit and give birth to the future, only to the extent that it can foster a sense of belonging among its members, create bonds of integration between generations and different communities, and avoid all that makes us insensitive to others and leads to further alienation”.

Pope Francis in his encyclical Fratelli Tutti, #53

Notable Quotes

In that community [of Jesus], there are no second-class citizens. We had to learn that idea concerning people of color and concerning women. And now, the time has come to face the same gospel reality about LGBTQ persons as others who are welcomed as first-class citizens in the community of faithfulness and justice.  We learn that the other is not an unacceptable danger and that the other is not required to give up “otherness” in order to belong fully to the community. We in the community of faith, as in the Old and New Testaments, are always called to respond to the other as a neighbor who belongs with “us,” even as “we” belong with and for the “other.”

Walter Brueggemann, theologian

Right to Life

When we speak of the right to life, we need to support positive measures in policies that help disadvantaged mothers care for their children, such as food, housing, childcare credits, and healthcare for both child and mother. We need to work to protect the life found in the biodiversity of our planet as a healthy biodiversity supports healthy lives. Another imperative, is to work to end the “isms” that diminish the dignity of the human person, especially racism. We need to oppose the death penalty and to work for promoting diplomacy over the instruments of war and the military industrial complex. As I stated, we have a lot of work to do.

Barbara Molinari, Director of Office of Human Life, Dignity, and Justice Ministries, Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh, NC

Fratelli Tutti

Here is another teaching from the encyclical of Pope Francis, about respecting each other-all the others.

#191 At a time when various forms of fundamentalist intolerance are damaging relationships between individuals, groups and peoples, let us be committed to living and teaching the value of respect for others, a love capable of welcoming differences, and the priority of the dignity of every human being over his or her ideas, opinions, practices and even sins. Even as forms of fanaticism, closedmindedness and social and cultural fragmentation proliferate in present-day society, a good politician will take the first step and insist that different voices be heard. Disagreements may well give rise to conflicts, but uniformity proves stifling and leads to cultural decay. May we not be content with being enclosed in one fragment of reality.