Joshua J. McElwee

National Catholic Reporter • 4th April 2024

Bishop Gumbleton, longtime soul of the US Catholic peace movement, dies

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, the Detroit prelate who for many American Catholics defined faith-based social justice activism in the post-Vatican II church, died April 4. He was 94. "To put it most succinctly, Tom lived out the peace of Christ in his complete being," said Johnny Zokovitch, Pax Christi USA's executive director, shortly after the bishop's death. "Everything that our movement strives to be was evident in Tom and how Tom lived."

National Catholic Reporter • 22nd March 2024

At UN event, Vatican presses for global ban on child surrogacy

The Vatican's mission to the United Nations pressed for an international prohibition against the practice of child surrogacy on March 20, during a panel discussion that framed arrangements where women carry others' children as exploitative and contrary to the U.N.'s landmark 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.

National Catholic Reporter • 28th October 2023

Pope's major Vatican summit ends without action on women deacons, mention of LGBTQ Catholics

Pope Francis' high-stakes summit on the future of the Catholic Church concluded on Oct. 28 by postponing action on the possibility of ordaining women as deacons and failing to acknowledge deep tensions that surfaced in a month of debates over how the global institution should care for its LGBTQ members.

National Catholic Reporter • 25th October 2023

Pope Francis meets leaders of LGBTQ 'Rainbow Catholics' coalition

Pope Francis greeted the leaders of an international association for LGBTQ Catholics at the end of his weekly audience in St. Peter's Square on Oct. 25. The pontiff spoke with the co-chairs of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics, a coalition that draws together LGBTQ Catholic organizations from across six continents.

National Catholic Reporter • 2nd October 2023

Pope signals openness to blessings for gay couples, study of women's ordination

Pope Francis has expressed openness to Catholic blessings for same-sex couples, under the condition they are not confused with marriage ceremonies for men and women, in what could be a watershed moment for the global Catholic Church.

National Catholic Reporter • 19th June 2023

Catholic LGBTQ conference talks controversies, but focuses on affirmation, love

Tania Tetlow, Fordham University's president, opened a June 16-18 conference for Catholics involved in LGBTQ ministry across the U.S. with a simple message: "I am here to tell you that you are loved."

National Catholic Reporter • 19th April 2023

Georgetown hosts discussion on 'unfinished' question of women's ordination

Several institutes at Georgetown University hosted a conversation on women's ordination in the Catholic Church April 17, with a panel of theologians and lay leaders discussing the church's answer on the issue as "unfinished."

National Catholic Reporter • 10th February 2023

Vatican official praises US Catholic colleges, urges engagement with wider culture

Bishop Paul Tighe told a Feb. 3-6 gathering of American Catholic college leaders that the Vatican's Dicastery for Culture and Education is primarily a "catalyst" for conversations, not a doctrinal supervisor.

National Catholic Reporter • 7th February 2023

Benedict, a pope who shaped his times but didn't tower over them, dies at 95

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who was situated squarely at the centers of power during five decades of epochal change and unprecedented scandal in the global Catholic Church, has died.

National Catholic Reporter • 1st June 2022

San Antonio archbishop praises Biden for visiting Uvalde shooting victims

Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller, who has been helping minister to the families of those murdered May 24 at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, praised President Biden's visit to the community over the weekend.

National Catholic Reporter • 21st May 2021

Francis widens scope of next synod: diocesan, continental phases before Vatican event

Pope Francis significantly widened the scope of the next planned meeting of the world's Catholic bishops, postponing the event by one year to allow for periods of consultation in every local diocese and at the continental level before the opening of the usual Vatican gathering of prelates.

National Catholic Reporter • 11th May 2021

Francis officially creates Catholic ministry of catechist, open to men and women

Pope Francis on May 11 formally created a new official ministry in the Catholic Church for those who teach the fundamentals of the faith to children and others, opening the position to "men and women of deep faith and human maturity."

National Catholic Reporter • 8th March 2021

Francis defends traveling to Iraq during pandemic: 'Aware of the risks'

ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT FROM BAGHDAD — Pope Francis on March 8 defended making a historic trip to Iraq despite the possibility of spreading the coronavirus in the country, saying he was "aware of the risks" but hoped God would help protect people from infection.

National Catholic Reporter • 5th March 2021

Pope Francis arrives in Iraq as 'penitent pilgrim' begging for peace

BAGHDAD— Pope Francis arrived in Iraq March 5 for a three-day visit aimed at encouraging the nation's historic but diminishing Christian community amid tight security measures and worries about how the trip may facilitate the spread of the coronavirus.

National Catholic Reporter • 23rd February 2021

Pandemic, terror threats: Iraq papal trip is complicated, even for Francis

ROME — Traveling during an ongoing global pandemic. Heading to a country where suicide bombings are a threat. Preparing for the first meeting between a pope and one of the world's leading Muslim clerics. Even for a pontiff who has undertaken some difficult trips abroad, Pope Francis' planned visit to Iraq, March 5 to 8, has more than a usual share of complexity.

National Catholic Reporter • 11th January 2021

Francis changes Catholic Church law: women explicitly allowed as lectors, altar servers

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has changed Catholic Church law to make explicit that laywomen can act as readers and altar servers in liturgical celebrations, effectively removing a previous option for individual bishops to restrict those ministries only to men.

National Catholic Reporter • 14th December 2020

Pope's planned trip to Iraq raises coronavirus worries

ROME — Public health experts and Catholic ethicists are expressing concern about Pope Francis' newly announced plan to visit Iraq in March, warning that the trip could facilitate the spread of the coronavirus in a nation with an underdeveloped healthcare system.

National Catholic Reporter • 23rd November 2020

Women need not be priests to lead church, Francis says in new book

ROME — Pope Francis has strongly defended his record on naming women to positions of authority at the Vatican, saying in a new book that women do not need to be priests to serve as leaders in the global Catholic Church. In the volume Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future, being released Dec. 1, the pontiff points especially to his 2016 appointment of Italian Barbara Jatta to lead the Vatican Museums and to several other women he has named as under-secretaries of Vatican departments.

National Catholic Reporter • 11th November 2020

McCarrick and John Paul II: key moments in the Vatican's report

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican's explosive report on the career of disgraced ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick makes one thing devastatingly clear: the late Pope John Paul II decided to appoint the priest as archbishop of Washington despite repeated warnings from high-level advisers on both sides of the Atlantic.

National Catholic Reporter • 10th November 2020

Vatican's explosive McCarrick report largely places blame on John Paul II

VATICAN CITY — In an explosive report that calls into question the decision-making of three Catholic popes, the Vatican has revealed a series of institutional failures that led to the repeated promotion of now disgraced ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick despite rumors of his alleged sexual misconduct with young men as early as the 1990s. The Vatican places an abundance of responsibility on Pope John Paul II, who appointed McCarrick as archbishop of Washington in 2000 and made him a cardinal in 2001.