Welcome to a pre-mid-term-election issue of Wisdom Wednesday. We feature a list of articles and several sources you can use to find reputable coverage in the days ahead.
Also today, November is National Adoption Awareness Month, and also Native American History Month, a letter about the climate crisis, a doctor’s call for re-examining contraception, and a 17-year-old High School senior who convinced her local community to acknowledge the horrendous lynching of seven Black men.
We have an answer to the question: Which is more important: Vatican II or theological reflection on gender? Either-or? Or both/and?
But first, we have some synod updates including a report from a small listening session for Catholics, former Catholics and others – from Australia to Rome to an island in Maine.
The Synod
Australian Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane says real change takes time, which the extended synod gives us. At the Vatican, the latest synod document includes taboo topics including women’s ordination LGBTQ relationships, part of the document, “Enlarge the space of your tent.” And on an island in Maine, Nicole d’Entremont assembled a group of 13 participants. In Today’s American Catholic, she writes of the insights gathered and how they “weave together relationships” and “create a bright resourcefulness” that Pope Francis has identified as the purposes of synodality.
It is not either-or theology
A recent comment from NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters has brought a reaction from New Ways Ministry. “Theological reflection on gender does not compete with Vatican II.”
Midterm elections
- 45 percent of Americans say the U.S. should be a “Christian Nation,” while two-thirds of U.S. adults say churches should stay out of politics.
- Vanity Fair Magazine takes a shot at explaining “What the midterms could mean for America.”
- Black church leaders in Georgia rallied for their “souls to the polls” tradition.
- Meanwhile, some poll workers are training for conflict feared on election day.
- Faith groups around the country are focusing on multiracial, multi-faith voter protection.
- Michael Sean Winters writes, “I wish [Candidate J.D.] Vance and his ilk would at least stop giving Catholicism a bad name.”
- Some typical religious posturing comes from Wisconsin where a congressional candidate went to a prayer breakfast and said “leftists” cannot be Christian.
- The man accused of breaking into Nancy Pelosi’s house and beating her husband is reportedly a QAnon follower and an election denier.
Stay informed!
Here are sources, today and through the U.S. midterm election, from National Catholic Reporter and the Associated Press. Click for their full directory of election coverage.
Elections internationally
A leftist win in Brazil. Brazilians delivered a very tight victory to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a bitter presidential election, giving the leftist former president another shot at power in a rejection of incumbent Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right politics.
It’s Adoption Awareness Month…
…however, Religion News Service says many adult adoptees say the national effort gets to only part of the adoption experience.
Native American Heritage Month
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is the oldest bureau in the Department of the Interior.
Losing their religion
Canadians are losing their religion at an unprecedented rate, with more than a third of the country reporting no religious affiliation in the latest census, Statistics Canada revealed last week. And non-religious Christians doubled in the last 20 years.
Expressing their religion
The search for meaning throughout history has led to the creation of holy sites, architectural wonders to honor their gods and meaningful connections in sacred forests, sacred mountains and sacred rocks. The BBC features five such sacred sites.
In case you missed it . . .
Ray Temmereman writes to bishops about the climate, and James Magner writes about “re-thinking contraception.”
History: A slave revolt, injustice acknowledged
The largest slave revolt in US history happened in Louisiana. The Black Catholic Messenger reports on a re-opened museum. And more than a century after seven Black men were lynched, an Indiana teen persisted in her efforts to rectify the injustice. Steve Hartman reported the story for CBS News.
Support Wisdom Wednesday
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