It’s October. Clean up efforts follow Hurricane Helene, the Mideast is in crisis, Ukraine blames Russia for poisoning a clean river drinking water supply and killing all wildlife for hundreds of miles. The first woman president takes office in Mexico, significant endorsements are announced for a first woman president in the United States. The Catholic world assembles in Rome. Tomorrow on the Jewish calendar is 1 Tishrei 5785. It’s time to search for wisdom.
Mass of Lamentation
Invitation: Join Pax Christi USA and the AUSCP for an online Mass of Lamentation for all the victims of the violence in Gaza and Israel since October 7, 2023. Join the online celebration of the Mass on Wednesday, October 9, at 8 p.m. ET, 5 p.m. PT.
REGISTER on Zoom, or at the Pax Christi USA website.
Vice Presidential Debate
The Associated Press reports that “Vance and Walz keep it civil in policy-heavy debate last night. The AP lists a few take-aways.
SYNOD ON SYNODALITY
The AUSCP will be represented among the many faithful eager to engage with official delegates of the Synod on Synodality in Rome.
Discerning Deacons is back in Rome with 50 pilgrims, clergy and laity – including representatives of the AUSCP and Voice of the Faithful.
Yesterday (October 1) Dominican Friar Timothy Radcliffe offered a reflection on “Resurrection Fishing” to participants in the Second Session of the XVI General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, set to begin today.
Today’s American Catholic is covering the month-long session which theologian Massimo Faggioli has called “the most important moment in the life of the Catholic Church since Vatican II.”
ROSH HASHANAH
The Jewish New Year festival begins at sunset today (Wednesday). The festival, held on the first (also sometimes the second) day of Tishri is marked by the blowing of the shofar, and begins the ten days of penitence culminating in Yom Kippur.
In this sacred time on the Jewish calendar, Israeli clerics ponder the theology of the Oct. 7 attack. “The challenge,” said one rabbi, “has been the attempt to understand why God did this to us, or where was God on Oct. 7?”
Has Israel-Hamas war displaced Palestinian refugees forever? Columnists in the German newspaper, Deutsche Welle say the plight of Palestinian refugees has worsened dramatically since the Israel-Hamas war began.
Iran may be launching missiles, according to a report Tuesday in The Guardian. Live updates are available from this UK news source.
HURRICANE HELENE: Faith groups ramp up relief
Before the storm hit the US, the Salvation Army and Southern Baptists were already on their way to lend a hand. Faith-based groups make up more than half of the disaster relief organizations in the United States. Catholic Charities USA assists people in need throughout the United States. (Global relief efforts are provided through Catholic Relief Services.)
Devastation in Asheville. Nestled in the bucolic Blue Ridge mountains of western North Carolina and far from any coast, Asheville was touted as a climate “haven” from extreme weather. Now the historic city has been devastated and cut off by Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic floodwaters, in a stunning display of the climate crisis’s unlimited reach in the United States.
UKRAINE
“Everything is dead, starting from the tiniest minnow to the biggest catfish,” said the mayor of the village of Slabyn, in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region. The rustic settlement – population 520 – escaped the worst of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. But the war arrived last week in a new and horrible form. Ukrainian officials say the Russians deliberately poisoned the Seym River, which flows into the Desna. The Desna connects with a reservoir in the Kyiv region and a water supply used by millions.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/01/ukraine-seim-river-poisoning-chernihiv-ecocide-
MUCH MORE: SYNOD ON SYNODALITY
Ahead of the Synod, prominent Catholic writers published articles on LGBTQ Issues. The articles by Father Radcliffe and Father Martin in the days before the Synod on Synodality began its second and final session from Oct. 2–27 at the Vatican.
Secretary-General of the Synod of Bishops Cardinal Mario Grech opened a two-day retreat on Monday for participants of the second session of the Synod on Synodality, encouraging synod participants and the Catholic faithful to pray the holy rosary for the duration of the Oct. 2–27 global meeting. “I would like to invite everyone, in this month of October devoted to Mother Mary, to pray with the holy rosary during the synod so that this prayer may accompany us on the journey of these days,” Grech said. “The rosary is an endless rumination of the word of God.”
A former Vatican doctrinal chief cast sharp criticism on the Synod on Synodality days ahead of the synod’s second and final session. German Cardinal Gerhard Müller spoke with OSV News briefly Sept. 28 as he wound down a three-week visit to the United States. The worldwide Synod of Bishops takes place in Rome every three to four years with only bishops as voting members. In a decision formalized April 17, 2023, “the Holy Father approved the extension of participation in the synodal assembly to ‘non-bishops’ — priests, deacons, consecrated men and women, lay men and women.”
ANALYSIS: The October gathering could lead to several big changes that impact daily life in the Catholic Church.
Despite Vatican’s evasions on ordination, women demand answers. Pope Francis’ Synod on synodality had allowed for unprecedented discussions on the future of women in the church.
In Belgium, defiant Catholic university women demanded to the pope’s face a “paradigm change” on women’s issues in the church and then expressed deep disappointment when Francis dug in. The Catholic University of Louvain issued a scathing statement after Francis visited and repeated his view that women are the “fertile” nurturers of the church, inducing grimaces among members of the audience.
VIEWPOINT: Christ, born Jewish and male, entered a society rife with multiple forms of discrimination and inequality to fulfill God’s plan to restore love, truth and equality — Christianity’s essence to humankind. For women and girls, it was a patriarchal, patrilineal, patrilocal society. A free Israelite woman was defined as a dependent daughter or wife of the free Israelite man, who wielded complete authority over her. Dr. Jean D’Cunha is a gender expert with a continuing body of work on women’s labor migration and the links between gender, climate change, conflict and migration, offers a two part analysis, from UCA News.
HISTORY OF THIS SYNOD: Nine years ago, this Papal Speech Set the ‘Synodality’ Machine in Motion. The National Catholic Register offers analysis: Since Pope Francis’ 2015 speech, synodality has grown from a theological concept into a guiding principle of Church governance. As the nearly month-long gathering begins, it’s worth asking: how exactly did we get here?
The XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, featuring 363 voting members — including laymen and women for the first time — will convene at the Vatican Oct. 4-29 to advise the Pope on the theme: “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission.” EWTN promises full coverage.
FAITHS CHALLENGED
OPINION: Another type of Muslim ban hurts us all. Muslim stories and books are slowly being pulled from library and school shelves across the country.
Turmoil in Christian Reformed Church. At its 2024 synod in June, the Christian Reformed Church instructed LGBTQ-affirming congregations to repent and comply with the denomination’s beliefs on sexuality. Some are now choosing to leave. The exodus is part of a larger sorting of Christian congregations across Protestant denominations over the past 30 years as a growing number of churches have opened their doors to full membership of LGBTQ members.
ELECTION SECTION
OPINION from Jesuit Thomas Reese: Most Americans believe politicians should work together in a bipartisan fashion for the common good, but sadly, too often political parties tend to agree on policies that are stupid. Reese says the most recent example of bipartisan stupidity is the proposal to exempt tips from taxes. At first blush, this sounds like a good way to help low-wage workers in restaurants. In truth, it is just another way for politicians to buy votes.
ANALYSIS from Baptist News Global: How the party of business came to embrace anti-immigrant policies bad for business. Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant policies have so reshaped the Republican Party that the party once known as being driven by business interests nearly wholeheartedly favors a policy that would wreck the U.S. economy. That policy is mass deportation of immigrants.
REPORT: North Carolina Baptist association sends out letter calling Democrats Marxists. The letter is filled with far-right conspiracy theories and political talking points about Marxist threats and Democratic plans to shut down Christian churches.
OPINION about the Al Smith Dinner: Since 1984, three of nine Al Smith Dinners in presidential election years have been held without either presidential candidate. The fact that Cardinal Dolan has attacked the Democratic Party’s abortion politics, while staying friendly with Donald Trump, may have been part of Harris’ decision to skip the dinner, Steven Millies, professor of public theology at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, said.
More than 200 evangelical Christian leaders, moderates as well as influential conservatives, have signed an open letter urging the presidential candidates of both parties to reflect “biblical principles on immigration.” The letter had cautions for both parties, but its authors appeared especially frustrated by the Trump campaign’s recent rhetoric regarding immigration policy and immigrants.
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance took the stage at Christian nationalist preacher Lance Wallnau‘s election-season revival tour on Saturday (Sept. 28), using the setting to make a theological defense of the GOP campaign’s controversial immigration policies and to appeal to Wallnau’s conservative Christian crowd in a hotly contested swing state.
A prominent Muslim American advocacy organization endorses Harris. The endorsement comes as Muslim Americans continue to express outrage over how President Joe Biden has handled the Israel-Hamas war.
Democrats have counted on Muslims voting for the lesser of two evils. That will no longer fly, according to a viewpoint expressed in Religion News Service.
OPINION: On both sides of the aisle, when it comes to evangelicals, there is a distinct approach to voting that needs reexamination.
MEXICO PRESIDENCY: After her landslide victory in June, left-wing Claudia Sheinbaum takes office as Mexico’s first female president. The former mayor of Mexico City is a staunch ally of outgoing leftist populist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
US SUPREME COURT
ANALYSIS from Christian Science Monitor
Next week, John Roberts will gavel in his 20th term as chief justice of the United States. It has been an enigmatic two decades for the man in the center chair of the U.S. Supreme Court. But this October feels different, with the chief justice’s role coming under renewed scrutiny. He has cultivated a reputation as an institutionalist more concerned with the court’s public standing than with any legal philosophy. But after a term in which he wrote landmark opinions benefiting former President Donald Trump, some court watchers are reevaluating that institutionalist image.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Since returning to power three years ago, the Taliban have been enforcing oppressive laws that violate people’s freedoms and human rights, especially those of women and girls. But a newly passed “vice and virtue” law goes further. It is among the most repressive and discriminatory measures ever enacted by the Islamist fundamentalist group.
LDS Church puts strict bans on transgender participation. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known the Mormon church, has taken one of the harshest formal positions against transgender identity of any faith group in America. Last month, LDS leaders rolled out new policies that bar transpeople.
OPINION Seeking truth, justice and healing in the new school year. This year, Congress should pass the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act. After centuries of suffering from the abuses and trauma of the Indian boarding school system, Native American communities should not be asked to wait any longer.
BACKGROUND CHECK: A Texas crusader about the “woke” left turns out to be a former gay porn star. Corey DeAngelis is listed as a “contributor” to Project 2025 in his capacity as a senior fellow for the American Federation for Children, a conservative advocacy group for private and charter schools founded by Betsy DeVos. And now he also appears to have been known as “Seth Rose” as a gay porn star whose videos are still available online. As a speaker and author, he opposes LGBTQ rights. His new book, The Parent Revolution, claims to teach parents how to “rescue” their children from “the radicals ruining our schools.”
MARTINI JUDAISM by Rabi Jeffrey Salkin
In Poland, you don’t have to be Jewish to love Jewish culture. “A day at one of the greatest Jewish museums in the world grabbed my gut and my soul.”
BASEBALL’S PATRON SAINT?
Knights of Columbus founder, Blessed Michael McGivney, was a 19th-century Connecticut parish priest now on the path to canonization. A writer and the National Catholic Register says McGivney has a claim to the title of patron saint of baseball. After all, he played the game.
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