​Synod on the Family - this is what you should do…
Be less arrogant.
Listen to the People. 
Give women and men - who have actually formed and nurtured families
60% of the vote on all decisions made.
ORDAIN WOMEN. 
Allow married priests.
When you don’t know what your talking about — say nothing.
Please read Frank Bruni -  What Family Really Means

Dear Pope Francis:
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In 2012, after serving as a Catholic priest for 40 years, I was expelled from the priesthood because of my public support for the ordination of women. My expulsion from the priesthood by Pope Benedict came just five months before you became our Pope.

As Catholics, we are taught that men and women are created equal: "There is neither male nor female. In Christ you are one." (Galatians 3:28). Pope Francis, why can't women be priests?

Catholic priests say that the call to be a priest comes from God. As a young man serving in the military in Vietnam, I felt God calling me to be a priest. I was accepted into the Maryknoll Fathers and was ordained in 1972. In my years of ministry, I met many devout Catholic women who told me about their calling to the priesthood. They were all rejected because of their gender.

Pope Francis, who are we, as men, to say our call from God is authentic, but God's call to women is not? Isn't our all-powerful God, who created the cosmos, capable of empowering a woman to be a priest?

Let's face it. The male hierarchy's problem with ordaining women is not with God but with an all-male clerical culture that views women as less than men. The problem is with men who see women as a threat to their power and privileges.

Sexism, like racism, is a sin. And no matter how hard we try to make God our partner in discriminating against others because of their gender, race, or sexual orientation, in the end, it is not the way of a loving God who created every one of equal worth and dignity.

When there is injustice, silence is complicity. The exclusion of women from the priesthood is a grave injustice against women, the Catholic Church and our God, who calls both men and women to be priests.

Pope Francis, please break your silence and lift the ban on women's ordination.

In Solidarity,
Roy Bourgeois
Columbus, Georgia

VATICAN CITY With time running out, the synodal fathers appear no closer to resolving their conflicts over issues facing the family than they were a year ago. One of the principal sticking points is over Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics who do not have an annulment. Another controversy is over the language to be used in speaking about homosexuals.  continue reading

Clare Julian Carbone was ordained to the priesthood Sunday at First United Methodist Church in Salt Lake City by the group Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP). The Roman Catholic Church does not recognize the ordination of women and any woman claiming to be ordained is automatically excommunicated. However, according to a 2012 New York Times study, 59 percent of practicing Catholics in the U.S. favor the ordination of women.  continue reading

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (ABC 4 Utah) - The Roman Catholic Women Priests Association (ARCWP) is in Salt Lake City for The Parliament of the Worlds Religions. While here they also plan to ordain Utah's first woman Catholic priest. The only issue is the Vatican does not recognize any women priests, deacons, or bishops.

Bridget Mary Meehan is a Bishop with the organization who is in town for the events. She believes they are helping the church by going against its wishes.

"In order to change an unjust law you must break it," said Meehan...
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The woman being ordained in Salt Lake City Sunday is Clare Julian Carbone. continue reading

Before and now during the much heralded Synod on the Family, I have heard and continue to hear a great hullabaloo about whether or not to allow communion for divorcees who remarry without first having their previous marriages annulled.  I find this fixation odd because I think it represents misplaced focus, reeking of hypocrisy.  continue