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For many years, I have been actively involved in Catholic Church reform movements, advocating for a church that accepts men and women as equals, that is not run by an authoritarian old-boys club, and that is LGBTQ supportive. I write and lecture as well about the dangers of rigid fundamentalisms and advocate for an historical-critical understanding of Sacred Scripture.
That being said, my current focus is the need for spirituality.
Some people equate spirituality with religion, but the two are different. Religion is the medium not the message. Healthy religion should promote spirituality; but it does not always happen. A lot of contemporary people, like the “nones,” are, in fact, turned off by institutional religion and proclaim that they are “spiritual but not religious.” People hungry and thirsty for spirituality are searching for satisfying and solid nourishment. Too often, in many churches, they are finding the cupboards bare or the food unsavory.
Over the years, a number of friends and former students have gone on pilgrimage to the shrine of the Apostle James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. There they found a satisfying sense of spirituality that changed their lives. But many people can really do it closer to home.
In Chapter 7 of John’s Gospel, Jesus cries out: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and let the one who believes in me drink.’’ (John 7:37-38) Jesus’ call is significant. People do thirst for more. Thirst for justice, for truth, and for compassion. They thirst for the Divine.
Spirituality connects people to the Divine. To the depth of Reality. It provides peace and harmony in our lives. Spirituality goes to the very essence of what Christianity is all about. Spirituality is not something added on top of our Christian life.
Spirituality should be our way of life: in LIVED awareness of the Divine Presence, the Sacred, the Ground of Being, Emmanuel, God with us. There are many ways to describe the depth of Reality, just like there are many ways to describe what it means to love someone and to be loved. Some of the old images of God may no longer speak to contemporary people; but God has not abandoned us. And we should not abandon God. We simply need to reflect on better ways of conceptualizing and speaking about our experience of the Divine.
I still remember the observation by Dag Hammarskjold (1901-1961), former Secretary General of the UN: “God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder the source of which is beyond all reason.”
As I have stressed before but stress again, our communities of faith – like our schools, study groups, and our parishes — should be centers of excellence where people speak courageously about their awareness of the Divine Presence through personal shared faith stories, through drama, music, and art. And through deep reflection. We should invite and welcome the questioners and the seekers. We need to listen to young people at the start of their adult lives and to older people, confronting their life transitions.
But people, far too often, get busy and ignore what is really important in their lives. My old friend Fr. Richard Rohr (born 1943) said it well in his 2018 book Breathing Under Water:
“Christians are usually sincere and well-intentioned people until you get to any real issues of ego, control power, money, pleasure, and security. Then they tend to be pretty much like everybody else. They are often given a bogus version of the Gospel, some fast-food religion, without any deep transformation of the self; and the result has been the spiritual disaster of “Christian” countries that tend to be as consumer-oriented, proud, warlike, racist, class conscious, and addictive as everybody else — and often more so.”
Regardless of our place in the human journey, the Gospels remind us that God lives and walks with all women and men: all races, all nationalities. God is not focused on gender or sexual orientation. Matthew 25 is very clear: “’Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these, who are members of my family, you did it to me.’”
Christian spirituality is committed to the search for truth within a healthy multicultural and multi-religious pluralism. It involves both intellectual inquiry and personal introspection to discern facts from falsehoods and to understand one’s own beliefs.
What to do:
Develop personal spiritual practices. Engage in daily reflection, finding time to meditate or praying to understand your thoughts and feelings.
Practice mindfulness, finding spiritual experiences in your daily life.
Make a habit of recognizing and appreciating the good things in your life to boost feelings of hope and kindness.
Develop a sense of purpose by reflecting on the meaning of your life and what you believe is right and wrong. And then act accordingly.
For future reading and reflection: Awareness: Conversations with the Masters by Anthony de Melo, S.J.
My academic research and teaching, for many years, has focused on the historic interplay of religion and values in society, because we need to remember the past as we live in the present.
This week I offer a reflection about religion in Nazi Germany. The role of religion in Nazi Germany was complicated. Many leading Nazis were raised in the Christian faith, particularly Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), whose mother had been a devout Catholic. Early Nazi rhetoric and propaganda reinforced the importance of God and Christianity in the social and cultural life of Germany.
Whatever their spiritual beliefs, however, Hitler and his regime feared and detested the power and influence of organized religion, particularly the Catholic Church. They attempted to bind religion to the state to render it obedient. Where this could not be achieved, they persecuted churches and arrested dissenting church leaders.
The population of Germany in 1933 was around 60 million. Almost all Germans were Christian, either Roman Catholic (ca. 20 million) or Protestant (ca. 40 million). The Jewish community in Germany in 1933 was less than 1% of the total population.
It is noteworthy that in 1933, following Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor on January 30th the Nazi Party rapidly transformed Germany from a democracy into a one-party totalitarian state, known as the Third Reich; and the Third Reich at once began implementing radical racist and anti-Semitic policies. Key events included the Reichstag Fire on February 27, 1933, which allowed the Nazis to suppress opposition, the establishment of the first concentration camp for political prisoners at Dachau on March 22, 1933, and the Enabling Act of March 23,1933 granting Hitler dictatorial power.
The spread of Nazi totalitarianism in 1933-34 compelled German churches to take a position on Hitler and his regime and ideology. Some Protestant churches supported the Nazi movement. They advocated the creation of a Reichskirche: a ‘state church’ loyal to Nazism and subordinate to the state. The Deutsche Kristen (“German Christians”) was the large evangelical branch of German Protestants supportive of the Reichskirche. They saw Hitler as a visionary leader who could transform and revive German Christianity. There was also a strong anti-Semitic strain within the Deutsche Kristen, however. Some of its leaders urged the rejection of Jewish texts and the expulsion of Christian converts with Jewish heritage. The leader of the Deutsche Kristen, Ludwig Muller (1883-1945), met with Hitler several times and promised his church’s support for the Nazis. Hitler therefore had him appointed Reichsbischof (“Bishop for the Reich”).
On the other hand, in May 1934, several Protestant churches united to form the Bekennende Kirche (Confessing Church), which resisted attempts to ‘Nazify’ German churches. Members of the BekennendeKirche were strongly critical of Nazi policies during the mid-1930s, particularly its anti-Semitic policies and actions.
The most famous members of the Confessing Church were the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and executed at the Flossenbürg concentration camp in 1945 for his role in the conspiracy to overthrow the regime; and Pastor Martin Niemoller (1892-1984), who was arrested by the Gestapo in 1938 and detained in Dachau until 1945. Other members of the Bekennende Kirche risked their lives by sheltering Jewish-born Christians and supplying fugitives with forged papers during the war.
The relationship between Catholicism, Hitler’s original religion, and the Nazi Party was more conciliatory at first but quickly deteriorated. Before 1933, however, some bishops had prohibited Catholics in their dioceses from joining the Nazi Party. This ban was dropped, after Hitler’s March 23, 1933, speech to the Reichstag in which he described Christianity as the “foundation” for German values. The Catholic-aligned Center Party voted for the Enabling Act of 1933,
German Catholics had long desired a concordat – an agreement with the government that would guarantee their rights and religious freedoms. In March 1933, Hitler expressed support for this idea. But Hitler, in fact, had no great desire to protect Catholic rights and privileges. He wanted a one-sided concordat to reduce the political influence of the Catholic Church.
In April 1933, Nazi delegates began negotiations with Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (1876-1958) the Vatican’s delegate to Germany, who became Pope Pius XII in 1939. As these negotiations progressed, the Nazis launched a wave of anti-Catholic intimidation: shutting down Catholic publications, breaking up meetings of the Catholic-based Centre Party, and throwing outspoken Catholics into concentration camps.
The resulting agreement, the Reichskonkordat, was signed into law on July 20, 1933. It was a diplomatic and political victory for the Nazis, mainly because the Catholic Church and its representatives were banned from participating in politics.
Between 1934 and 1936, the Nazis shut down several Catholic and Lutheran youth groups. Many of their members were subsequently absorbed into the Hitler Youth. Catholic schools were closed and replaced with ‘community schools’ run by Nazi sympathizers. A year-long campaign against Catholic schools in Munich in 1935 saw enrollments there drop by more than 30%.
Direct attacks on the Catholic Church and its members escalated in 1936. Dozens of Catholic priests were arrested by the Gestapo and given show trials, accused of involvement in corruption, prostitution, homosexuality, and paedophilia. Show trials were public trials in which the guilt or innocence of the defendant had already been determined. The purpose of show trials was to present both accusations and verdicts to the public, serving as warnings to would-be dissidents.
Anti-Catholic propaganda in 1936 appeared on street corners, billboards and in the pages of the notorious anti-Semitic newspaper, DerSturmer. This Nazi persecution produced a defensive response from the Catholic Church. In March 1937, Pope Pius XI (1857-1939) released an encyclical titled MitbrennenderSorge (‘With burning concern’). It was written by Michael von Faulhaber (1862-1952) Archbishop of Munich, in consultation with other Catholic leaders, including Cardinal Pacelli.
Mit brennender Sorge criticized Nazi breaches of the Reichskonkordat, condemned Nazi views on race, and ridiculed the glorification of politicians and the state. “Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the state, or a particular form of state… above their standard value and raises them to an idolatrous level,” the letter said, “distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God.”More than 250,000 copies of the encyclical were distributed to German churches, to be read to congregations from the pulpit.
The action greatly infuriated Hitler, and the Nazi response was swift and intense. Gestapo agents raided churches and printers, seizing and destroying copies of the encyclical wherever they could be found. Propaganda and show trials against Catholic clergy gathered pace through 1938-39 and several priests ended up in the concentration camps in Dachau and Oranienburg.
Contemporary historians see Pope Pius XII’s relationship with Nazi Germany marked by controversy and debate, centered on the Pope’s wartime neutrality and public silence regarding the Holocaust. While the Vatican claims his silence stemmed from a desire for diplomacy and to protect the Catholic Church, others argue it reflected an anti-Jewish bias and a preference for authoritarianism.
Pius XII did maintain links to the German Resistance and shared intelligence with the Allies, but at the same time he developed alliances with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Historical research and probing continue. But I doubt that he will be canonized like his successors John XXIII (1881-1963), Paul VI (1897-1978), and John Paul II (1920-2005).
This week, I feel a strong need to return once again to some serious reflections about authoritarianism in very contemporary form. Many scholars observe that, around the globe, we are now experiencing a competitive authoritarianism where democratic institutions are being tested and eroded.
Authoritarianism has always bothered me because it uses and abuses people. It destroys human freedom to think, act, and live. It manipulates people and often destroys the “undesirables.”
The historical Jesus stressed that human greatness is based on compassion and service. His life story and teachings were used to motivate and guide people, to heal, support, and call to conversion. Some self-proclaimed “Christian leaders” today still do not get the message.
In contemporary political and religious life, we are confronted with a creeping virus of authoritarianism that seeks to dominate and control – and often displace and destroy. A very unhealthy kind of leadership. Honesty and integrity are replaced by self-promoting deceit and dishonesty.
Some symptoms of contemporary authoritarianism:
1. Ongoing efforts to intimidate and discredit the media, except for Fox News. The distinction between information and misinformation disappears.
2. Truth becomes fake news….and the actual fake news becomes the to-be-accepted real news. As George Orwell (1903-1950) predicted years ago: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
3. Police surveillance and violence against ideological “enemies” is accepted as a contemporary and necessary public safety necessity.
4. Foreigners are arrested, families are torn apart, and children and adults are incarcerated for indefinite amounts of time in military camps. Right now, in Utah, on the outskirts of Salt Lake City the state plans to place as many as 1,300 homeless people in what supporters call a “services campus.”
Authoritarian “leaders” can only succeed because because authoritarian followers applaud and support them. Much more so than the average person, authoritarian followers go through life with impaired thinking. Their reasoning is often sloppy and based on prejudiced beliefs and a fierce dogmatism, that rejects evidence and logic.
So what does one do?
We must first of all acknowledge that authoritarian followers are extremely resistant to change. The more one learns about authoritarianism, the more one realizes how difficult it will be to reach people who are so ferociously aggressive and fiercely defensive.
We need to educate and promote a balanced education which hands on authentic information, tells people where to find correct information, and gives people the skills to be well-informed critical thinkers.
Our Christian communities, more than ever, must become, compassionate and supportive gatherings of multicultural, multi-ethnic, and all-gender, brothers and sisters.
We need to courageously speak out and we need to help other people courageously speak out. If something is wrong or something untrue, people need to strongly and clearly state that it is wrong or untrue.
Those who courageously speak out need the strong support of friends gathered around them. Going alone is increasingly difficult if not impossible in our cyber-linked world.
We need to be on guard, as well, that we do not become promoters of polarization and vicious partisanship. We need to learn how to work together for the common good. As Jesus says in Matthew (chapter 12): “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.”
After last week’s reflection about contemporary young priests and American Catholics, this week I would like to offer some reflections about young Americans in “Generation Z.”
On October 4, 2025, Fox News claimed that members of Generation Z are returning to church in astounding numbers. Some people at once reacted that this was a new religious “great awakening” in America. But a leading religious trends researcher at Washington University in St. Louis, Ryan Burge, stressed that the Fox News assertion was really overblown: “We’re not seeing anything at the scale that would even begin to point in the direction of a sustained, significant, substantive revival in America right now.” (Religion News Service, October 21, 2025.)
Generation Z, often shortened to “Gen Z” and informally known as “Zoomers,” has approximately 70.79 million members, representing about 21% of the total U.S. population. They were born between 1997 and 2012. Many in Generation Z are now entering the full-time workforce.
Generation Z’s identity has been shaped by the digital age, climate anxiety, a shifting financial landscape, and COVID-19. They are known as “digital natives” because they are the first generation to grow up with the Internet very much a part of their daily life. Generation Z values fluidity, inclusion, and self-definition.
Another part of their identity: Generation Z is the least religious generation on record, with a large and growing number identifying as religiously unaffiliated, agnostic, or atheist. However, within this generation, there are pockets of increased religious interest, particularly among some young men who are drawn to more fundamentalist religions in a cultic way.
Generation Zers are also passionate about climate change and peace. But there is also a small number of Generation Z Republicans promoting Christian Nationalism; and many Generation Z Republicans voted for the incumbent U.S. president in 2024. Now, today, 67% disapprove of him.
Although Generation Zers generally identify as “spiritual,” Christianity doesn’t seem to resonate as much with them as it did with previous generations. About 45% of America’s Generation Z identify as Christian, according to Pew Research Center’s most recent Religious Landscape Study– a 10% decline from the previous 2014 survey. More than half of the Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, and a little over 70% of Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980, identified as Christian. But less than a third of Generation Z attend religious services with any regularity.
Generation Z’s parents, belonging to Generation X, were the first generation to use “helicopter parenting,” an over-involved and overprotective style where parents hover over their children, micromanaging their lives and rushing to solve their problems. But Generation Z’s parents did very little to encourage their children’s regular participation in formal religion and to promote their religious development. Today, younger Generation Zers are driving the surge of Americans who identify as “religiously unaffiliated.”
Approximately 29% to 31% of contemporary American adults are religiously unaffiliated, meaning around 90 to 100 million people in the U.S. do not identify with a specific religion. This group, often called “nones,” includes atheists, agnostics, and those who describe their religion as “nothing in particular.”
Religiously unaffiliated Americans express skepticism about the societal benefits of religion. American religious identity, in fact, has experienced nearly three decades of consistent decline. Research has shown that every generation of adults is somewhat less religious than the generation that preceded it. This pattern continues with Generation Z demonstrating less attachment to religion than the Millennial generation.
Yes, in terms of identity, Generation Z is the least religious generation yet. But Generation Z’s relationship with religion is complex, marked by a significant increase in religious disaffiliation and atheism but also a rise in “spiritual but not religious” beliefs, and an active search for meaning. They may reject dogma but are engaged with existential questions, spirituality, and ethics, sometimes in unconventional, non-institutional ways.
Curiously, Generation Z is the first modern generation of Americans in which men appear to be more religious than women. But careful observation is important here.
Generation Z men are more likely than Generation Z women to support Christian Nationalism, and they actually have strong ideas about repealing women’s right to vote! Generation Z men view themselves as victims of modern culture and see themselves as part of a cosmic struggle between good and evil. If these young men view themselves as victims, they will more likely identify with protective male-dominated far-right religious movements.
Generation Z women, on other hand hand, represent, what some observers see as the most leftwing demographic movement in modern U.S. history. They are convinced that both Democrats and Republicans have capitulated in a way to the current presidential administration’s authoritarianism. They came of age amid climate crisis, debt, job insecurity, and the growing threat of authoritarianism. They do not see compromise as civility, but rather as danger. If older generations saw politics as negotiation, Generation Z women see it as self-defense. According to Melissa Deckman, CEO of PRRI the Public Religion Research Institute, in her book The Politics of Gen Z (Columbia University Press), Generation Z men are becoming more conservative as well as increasingly indifferent to politics, but Generation Z women have not only become the most progressive cohort in US history but are also expected to outpace their male peers across virtually every measure of political involvement.
What do we do today?
I think concerned people should focus on Generation Zers’ interest in spiritual growth and making a positive impact on the world. Not lecturing to them but traveling with them in thoughtful conversation and collaboration.
A new study about younger American Catholic priests highlights sharp differences between the outlook and experiences of older and younger clergy.
TheNational Study of Catholic Priests, released on October 15, 2025, by the Catholic University of America in Washington DC and conducted by the Gallup Poll, has found that younger Catholic clergy are far more conservative than their older counterparts. They are also not enthusiastic about their American Catholic bishops but remain positive about Pope Leo XIV.
Among priests ordained before 1975, 70% described themselves as progressive. But on the other hand, 70% of priests ordained after 2000 self-identify as “conservative” or “orthodox” meaning pre-Vatican II (1962-1965) in mentality.
Younger American Catholic priests today are more likely to prioritize Eucharistic devotion, while older clergy focus on issues like climate change, immigration, the LGBTQ community, poverty, racism, and social justice. Younger clergy are also far less concerned about the question of women’s influence in the Church than their older peers. When it comes to outreach to the LGBTQ community, 66% of priests ordained before 1980 consider this a priority, but just 37% of priests ordained in 2000 or later agree.
Many American diocesan bishops have curtailed celebrations of Mass in Latin, according to the 1962 Missal, also known as the Tridentine Mass, following the publication of Pope Francis’ 2021 document Traditionis custodes, which effectively reversed his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI’s liberalization of the older form of the Mass. But for the younger clergy access to the Traditional Latin Mass has now become a priority. Personally, if the Mass reverts to Latin, I think Catholic worship will revert as well to a spectator event with the congregation piously watching the priest.
In the recent Catholic University of America study, younger priests reported burnout and loneliness to a higher degree than older priests. A higher percentage of them believe that they are being asked to do more than they ought to be doing. This is no doubt due to parish structural changes, which have led to growing concerns about sustainability in ministry, especially as parish demands increase. Since the year 2000, many American dioceses have closed and merged parishes amid demographic changes. While most parish priests had traditionally been responsible for only one parish, today 23% oversee two, and 17% three or more. But noteworthy as well is the decline in the number of ministering priests. Between 1970 and 2024, the number of priests fell by more than 40%, from 59,192 to 33,589, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
When it comes to contemporary political views, 61% of older priests say they are liberal compared to only 10% of younger clergy who self-identify that way. In fact, 51% of today’s younger priests, identify as politically conservative.
When it comes to American Catholics in general who are registered voters, 53% identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, while 43% affiliate with the Democratic Party. But 61% of White American Catholics align with the Republican Party; and 56% of Hispanic Catholics favor the Democratic Party.
American Catholics were mostly Democrats from the mid-19th century until the mid 1960s. Beginning with the decline of unions and big city machines, increased suburbanization, and upward mobility into the middle classes, Catholics drifted away from the liberalism of the Democratic Party.
Overall changes in today’s American Catholic Church are significant as well. Today, 20% of American adults describe themselves as Catholic. This is slightly lower than in 2007, when 24% of American adults identified as Catholic. The share of American Catholics who are Hispanic is rising. Currently, the American Catholic population is 54% White, 36% Hispanic, 4% Asian, and 2% Black. But since 2007, the share who are White has dropped by 10 percentage points. Curiously, American Catholics tend to be older than Americans in general with 58% of Catholic adults being 50 or older.
Surprisingly, American Catholics today do not agree with official Roman Catholic teaching about abortion. While the official Catholic Church strongly opposes abortion, around 60% of American Catholics, according to the Pew Research Center, say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
I find it politically and religiously significant that three American Catholic bishops and a parish priest are among religious leaders the current U.S. President has appointed to his Religious Liberty Commission: Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco; Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois; and Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort-Wayne-South Bend, Indiana. Joining them is Father Thomas Ferguson, pastor of Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Alexandria, Virginia.
The U.S. Constitution’s prohibition of a national religion has long been interpreted as a mandatory separation of church and state. By setting up his Religious Liberty Commission the President is brushing aside the historic U.S. separation of church and state.
Especially significant, politically, and religiously, six of the nine current U.S. Supreme Court justices are Catholic: Chief Justice John Roberts, and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. While most are conservative Catholics, Justice Sonia Sotomayor is a more progressive American Catholic.
Even more significantly, Kevin Roberts, the conservative Catholic architect of the Project 2025, the blueprint for a MAGA dictatorship, has close ties to the far-right Catholic organization Opus Dei.
Historically, Opus Dei grew rapidly during the years of Francisco Franco’s Spanish dictatorship from 1936 to 1975. Many Opus Dei members supported Franco and served in his administration. After 1945, Opus Dei began to expand internationally. In 1982, the global organization was elevated by Pope John Paul II to a personal prelature with headquarters in Rome. (A Catholic personal prelature is a special ecclesiastical jurisdiction for a particular group of clergy and laity, governed by a prelate.) Opus Dei’s founder, the Spanish priest Josemaría Escrivá (1902-1975), was highly respected by Pope John Paul II (1920-2005) and was canonized by him in 2002.
An interesting report published on October 14, 2025, in InfoVaticana claims that Pope Leo XIV is on the verge of approving new Opus Dei statutes that would effectively dismantle Opus Dei as a personal prelature and replace it with three distinct juridical entities.
Some concluding thoughts about American Catholics and the born-in-USA current Pope. Right now, I suspect Pope Leo XIV may be enjoying a honeymoon-type phase among American priests and American Catholics. Currently 86% of American priests express a great deal of confidence in him. Overall, according to the Pew Research Center, 84% of American Catholics say they have a favorable view of Pope Leo. But, interestingly, most American Catholics say they really do not know much at all about the new pope.
A trailblazer is usually the first person to do something and who shows that it is also possible for others to do the same.
This week, a reflection about women trailblazers: contemporary women who have broken barriers and inspire others.
My first thoughts are about Bishop Sarah Mullally who has been selected to become the new Archbishop of Canterbury. There have been105 male Archbishops of Canterbury since the establishment of the office in the 6th century. Bishop Sarah Mullally, as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury, will be the first woman to hold that office and will be installed in a service at Canterbury Cathedral in March 2026. She became a priest in 2006 and was appointed as the first female Bishop of London in 2018.
Reflecting on her appointment, Bishop Mullally said she hopes to encourage her church “to continue to grow in confidence in the Gospel, to speak of the love that we find in Jesus Christ, and for it to shape our actions across the global Anglican Communion.”
Thinking about women trailblazers closer to home, at my alma mater, the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), founded on December 9, 1425, we now have, for the first time in six hundred years, a woman Rector: Professor Séverine Vermeire, who was elected on May 20, 2025, and began her term on August 1, 2025. A medical doctor and professor of medecine at the KU Leuven, she is also Research Director of Biomedical Sciences at our university.
Rector Vermeire recently stressed that the KU Leuven must continue to strive for innovative and excellent education, and that “Quality and humanity must go hand in hand.”
At the KU Leuven, we also have for the first time, a woman dean of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, my friend Professor Bénédicte Lemmelijn. Bénédicte is a professor of Old Testament studies specializing in textual criticism. She is also a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission at the Vatican. In May 2022 she was elected dean of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies.
Under Dean Lemmelijn, about one third of the current professors are women. Bénédicte says there is a lot to learn from the wisdom and experience of her predecessors. “But now is a different time…. Hope, in this context, is about looking forward to a new future, about longing for a new perspective.”
Today, women trailblazers in education, theology, and ministry need our encouragement and support.
For several years I have been following the not always smooth and easy path of women seeking priestly ordination.
The “Philadelphia Eleven” for example were eleven women who were the first women ordained, but irregularly, as priests in the U.S. Episcopal Church, on July 29, 1974. In 1975 four women, the “Washington Four,” were also, irregularly, ordained in Washington DC. Then in 1976, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church affirmed and explicitly authorized the ordination of women to the priesthood.
The ordination of women in the Anglican Communion, in fact, has been increasingly common in certain provinces since the 1970s.
A Roman Catholic group that very much interests me is the Roman Catholic Women Priests movement, even though they have not yet been officially recognized by Catholic authorities.
Change comes slowly in the RCC. In April 1976, the Pontifical Biblical Commission concluded unanimously: “It does not seem that the New Testament by itself alone will permit us to settle in a clear way and once and for all the problem of the possible accession of women to the presbyterate.” But on October 15, 1976, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome issued a document affirming: “The Church, in fidelity to the example of the Lord, does not consider herself authorized to admit women to priestly ordination.”
Pope John Paul II stirred things up a bit more with his May 22, 1994, document Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. “We declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women” the Pope wrote and continued “this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.” The Pope had wanted to describe the ban as “irreformable,” but met substantial resistance from high-ranking bishops who gathered at a special Vatican meeting in March 1995 to discuss the document.
Change in the Catholic Church has most often followed a three-stage process. First a movement is condemned. Secondly, when it continues and grows, the movement is tolerated as an experiment. Thirdly when the movement becomes widespread, it is allowed as “part of the Catholic tradition.”
This three-stage process is seen in the history of the Beguines a lay womens’ movement particularly in the Low Countries, in the 13th–16th centuries. Beguines pursued a life of contemplative prayer, study, and active service in the world. They were active in Leuven as early as 1205 and began to really flourish in 1234. Nevertheless, in 1312 Pope Clement V and his Council of Vienne condemned the Beguines as heretics and called for them to disband. This happened two years after a Beguine named Marguerite Porete had been condemned as a heretic by theologians from the University of Paris. She was burned at the stake in central Paris on June 1, 1310.
Scholars today argue that the real reason the Beguines were condemned was that they were independent women who did not properly submit to male authority. Men sought to gain control over these rebellious women. Just as many modern Christians see the LGBTQ+ Pride movement as degenerate, many Christian men in the Middle Ages felt the same about the Beguines. They regarded these women’s lifestyle as unnatural. They feared the very existence of the Beguines might corrupt and defile “God-ordained gender roles.”
In any event, the Beguines continued and flourished. The papal condemnation of the Beguines, however, was not reversed until 1321 by Pope John XXI. They were then permitted to officially resume their way of life.
Change of course comes when there are new understandings about our past. Today, women historians and women theologians are giving us new insights and added information which earlier male historians and theologians either did not know or simply wanted to hide or ignore.
We know today that in early Christianity, women presided at Eucharist and exercised various ministerial roles. An important book about this is: When Women Were Priests by Karen J. Torjesen, Professor Emerita of Religion at Claremont Graduate University. In an earlier post I have also mentioned The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination by Gary Macy, from Santa Clara University.
Today I know a number of women priests and bishops in what is known as the international Roman Catholic Women Priests movement. They are trailblazers and their day will come.
The mission of Roman Catholic Women Priests movement is to prepare, ordain, and support women who feel called by the Holy Spirit and have been called by their communities to priestly ministry.
This international movement is operating worldwide with two groups formed in the USA referred to as Roman Catholic Womenpriests-USA (RCWP-USA) and the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP). Both of these organizations have international members. Today there are more than 215 women priests and at least 15 bishops worldwide. These women priests and bishops are ministering in over 34 USA states and are also present in Canada, Europe, South and Central America, South Africa, the Philippines, and Taiwan. For more information see: https://romancatholicwomenpriests.org
It is very important that we support current and potential women trailblazers in education and ministry. Their often courageous actions are necessary for achieving gender equality and fostering social progress.
Who are the women trailblazers in your community? Who are the young women who can become trailblazers? And most importantly, how can we all be supportive of them?
A couple of months ago, I had an email exchange with a “young earth creationist.” He claimed that our Earth and its lifeforms were created by God between about 10,000 and 6,000 years ago. I replied that his “young earth creationist” perspective has already been strongly contradicted by established scientific data that puts the age of Earth at around 4.54 billion years. He proudly told me he was a devout fundamentalist Christian and not a “progressive liberal Catholic” like me.
The word “fundamentalist” was first used in print in the United States, in 1920, by the prominent American Baptist pastor Curtis Lee Laws (1868-1946), who was the editor of The Watchman Examiner, a national Baptist newspaper. Laws proposed that Christians who were fighting for the fundamentals of their faith should be called “fundamentalists.” But the term “fundamentalist” was not applied to other religious traditions until around the time of the Iranian Revolution in 1978-79.
In general, all fundamentalist religious movements arise when people are confronted with an unsettling disruption of their “normal” way of life. Sensing societal chaos, they develop strong feelings of anxiety and fear about losing control over their lives and losing personal and group identity.
Regardless of the religious tradition to which they belong, all fundamentalists follow certain patterns:
• Religious ideology is the basis for their personal and communal identity.
• They insist upon one statement of truth that is inerrant, revealed, and unchangeable
• They see themselves as part of a cosmic struggle between good and evil.
• They seize on historical moments and reinterpret them in the light of this cosmic struggle.
• They demonize their opposition.
• They are selective in what parts of the religious tradition and heritage they will stress.
Although we have not usually thought of Roman Catholics as fundamentalists, the term can be applied to some contemporary Roman Catholic individuals and movements. Catholic Fundamentalists consider themselves upholding purer beliefs and religious practices than regular Catholics.
An important book about U.S. Catholic fundamentalists, published this year, is Catholic Fundamentalism in America (Oxford University Press) by Mark S. Massa, S.J., who is professor and Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. Professor Massa examines the motivations and the tactics of U.S. Catholic fundamentalists who have propagated an alternative universe of Latin masses and scorching rhetoric aimed at overthrowing post-Vatican II ‘liberal’ Catholicism.
Religious fundamentalists place such a high priority on doctrinal conformity and obedience to doctrinaire spokespersons that they end up sacrificing values basic to all the great religious traditions: love, compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, and caring. When Christian belief becomes highly fundamentalized, churches start to become repositories not of grace but of grievances. They become places where something like tribal identities are reinforced, fears are nurtured, and aggression and nastiness become part of their holy cause.
In their overwhelming seriousness about “their” religion, fundamentalists do not hesitate to intervene in political and social processes to ensure that society conforms to the values and behaviors required by their fundamentalist worldview. This can then turn into militancy and attempts to pursue their vision with violence, force, and warfare. In this process their agenda then moves to override the well-being and lives of the people they are trying to influence.
Fundamentalism appeals for a variety of reasons:
For people who feel unimportant or insignificant, fundamentalism says you are important because you are God’s “special messenger.”
For people who are fearful, fundamentalism says “you can’t be saved without us…join and be saved.”
For the confused, fundamentalism says one doesn’t have to think about doctrine nor even be educated in it. Just believe what fundamentalism teaches.
Fundamentalism makes the fundamentalist feel good about himself or herself. It is self-stroking.
Fundamentalism justifies hatred of one group of people for another, because it believes that God hates those who do not conform to the fundamentalist worldview.
Fundamentalism appeals to people burdened by guilt and shame because it exempts them from responsibility for situations or actions that cause guilt and shame. Fundamentalism says…if you are one of us, you are OK.
Fundamentalism excuses people from honest self-examination; and it justifies their prejudices, zealotry, intolerance, and hatefulness.
What does one do about fundamentalism?
The best way to confront the narrow vision of fundamentalism is through broad-based education that emphasizes critical, analytical thinking skills.
Broad-based education emphasizes the importance of gathering evidence and then proceeding to conclusions. Fundamentalists work in the opposite fashion. They begin with their conclusions and then search for arguments to support them.
We need to establish channels for dialogue and support those institutions that promote multi-cultural knowledge and understanding.
We need to courageously work against ignorance and speak-out about dishonest or faulty information. And speak-out about those who advocate and publish it.
We need to humbly realize that we too are still on the road to discovery. We cannot fall into the trap of many fundamentalists who have become self-centered know-it-alls.
I conclude this week’s post with a Raymond E. Brown quotation mentioned in his obituary by Myrna Oliver, in the Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1998. Raymond E. Brown (1928-1998), the eminent Catholic biblical scholar, died at Saint Patrick’s Seminary and University in Menlo Park, California on August 8.
“Truth is always complicated by the human envelope in which it is enclosed. It is not only an intellectual problem, but one at the heart of the Gospel itself. It was not sinners who turned Jesus off. It was the righteous religious types who felt they had all the answers.”
A follow-up on last week’s post about religious pluralism…
The historical Jesus, whose Hebrew name was Yeshua, belonged to the Hebrew faith tradition and had a keen knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. He did not establish a new religion. He did not set up a church. He called people to a new way of life. “I have come that they may have life, and have it in all its fullness.” (John10:10) His early followers were called “followers of the Way.”
Thought-starter: How do we live and promote the Way of Jesus today? How can we really inspire and motivate people?
The Fourth Gospel even tells us that Jesus celebrated the Hebrew Chanukah (Hanukkah). “Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade.” (John 20:22-23)
Thought-starter: How do you imagine Jesus in the temple or in a synagogue? Did people stare in awe at him? Or did they raise their eyebrows when he walked in with his band of young followers?
Jesus’ disciples were young men and women, inspired by his example, teaching, and divine wisdom. Most of them were probably under the age of twenty.
Thought-starter: Where do young men and women today get their Christian inspiration? What do we need to do? Whose wisdom do they admire today? How can we speak meaningfully to them about Jesus?
As the post-Resurrection community of Jesus’ disciples and followers began to grow, non-Hebrew members also joined.
Thought-starter: How do we welcome God-seekers today, especially those turned-off by organized religion?
Post-Resurrection Christian structural developments led to two things: the composition of the Gospels AND the formation of Christian faith communities with their own Christian rituals, symbols, and leadership, independent from the Hebrew communities.
There was also a growing concern about passing on the heritage of Jesus to future generations. This called for religious structuring.
Thought-starter: What kinds of institutional structuring and re-structuring do we need today, especially in view of institutional misogyny, clericalism, and doctrinal rigidity?
In the earliest Christian communities men and women held leadership roles and presided at celebrations of Eucharist. At first there was no ordination. No separate clergy. Later ordination was introduced, not to transfer some kind of sacramental power but for quality control. Only qualified men and women could lead Christian communities.
Thought-starter: How do we provide quality-controlled Christian leadership today? Have annual performance appraisals for clergy and bishops? Have parishes elect their pastors?
Religion and Faith:
Faith or “trust” is our personal and group experience of what we call the Sacred or the Divine: God. In Christian faith that experience is anchored in living in the Spirit of Christ.
Religion is not faith. Religion is a system of beliefs, rituals, and symbols designed to help people understand their faith experience. We use religion. We don’t worship it.
Unhealthy religion grows out of and supports clouded vision and hateful hearts.
Religion is healthy when it points to the Sacred. It is unhealthy when it only points to itself: to rituals, symbols, and religious leaders. Particularly unhealthy when it manipulates and uses people for the leaders’ self-serving goals. When this happens, one needs a reformation.
In Jesus’ days, as in our own days, some people have used religion-mixed-with-politics to achieve self-serving and ungodly goals. This combination was deadly for Jesus. It threatens our lives today as well.
Strenghtened in Christian hope, we move ahead anchored in the belief so well expressed in Luke:
“By the tender mercy of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
To guide our feet into the way of peace.” Luke 1:78-79
Following up on last week’s post about being open-minded and inquisitive, my thoughts this week are a reflection about inter-religious understanding and collaboration.
Right now, on both sides of the Atlantic, fundamentalist religions’ polarization is fueling conflict and aggression. I am thinking about the politicization of Christianity with white Christian nationalism in the United States; the Hindutva movement in India leveraging Hindu identity to demonize and marginalize religious minorities; religious divisions within Europe concerning moral issues like LGBTQ+ rights; the extreme religious polarization in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and the global impact of social media in fostering religious extremism by connecting like-minded extremist people across borders.
Inter-religious education, tolerance, and understanding are crucial for the survival of humanity. For our survival and that of our grandchildren.
As I have often stressed, theological understandings do change over time. My own theological understanding of world religions began to change when I was a budding theologian and was greatly influenced by Nostra Aetate the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Non-Christians issued on October 28, 1965.
“In our time,” Nostra Aetate stressed, “when day by day humankind is being drawn closer together, and the ties between different peoples are becoming stronger, the church examines more closely its relationship to non-Christian religions. In the church’s task of promoting unity and love among all men and women, indeed among all nations, it considers above all, in this declaration, what people have in common and what draws them to fellowship. One is the community of all peoples, one their origin, for God made the whole human race to live over the face of the earth. One also is their final goal: God. God’s providence, God’s manifestations of goodness, God’s saving design extended to all people.”
French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858-1917), one of the principal architects of modern social science, argued that religion is the most fundamental social institution, and, in one form or another, will always be a part of social life. Today, some 85% of people around the globe identify with a religion. While there are around 10,000 distinct religions in the world today, over three-quarters of the global population adheres to one of these four – Christianity (31%), Islam (24%), Hinduism (15%), and Buddhism (7%).
Another 7% of the global population identify with religions with much smaller followings. Judaism, though one of the three major Abrahamic religions (along with Christianity and Islam) is represented by just 0.2% of the global population (15.8 million), most of whom reside in Israel (7.2 million) and the U.S.A. (7.5 million). Had the Holocaust not wiped out over a third of world Jewry during World War II, it is likely the Jewish population would be twice the size it is today.
While I remain a strongly committed Christian, my own theological understanding has moved well beyond religious exclusivism: the theological position that maintains the absolute necessity of faith in Christ for all people. Exclusivists insist that there is no salvation in non-Christian religions. This position, today, is most often identified with conservative evangelical Christians.
Considering the world’s religions, I suggest we have to work together in what some of my favorite late twentieth century theologians like Karl Rahner (1904-1984), Hans Küng (1928-2021), Edward Schillebeeckx (1914-2009), and David Tracy (1939-2025) have called religious pluralism. We need to move beyond a simple tolerance for other religions and develop a positive appreciation for what they have to offer.
It is not always easy to be accepting of other religions. A friend reminded me last week that it was ten years ago, on December 15, 2015, that Larycia Hawkins, the first female African-American tenured professor at the evangelical Christian college, Wheaton College, in Illinois, was suspended from her job as professor after she vowed to wear a hijab for Advent in solidarity with Muslims and created a social media storm by posting on Facebook that she agreed with Pope Francis that “Christians and Muslims worship the same God.”
On February 8, 2016, Wheaton College and Professor Hawkins issued a joint statement that they had “reached a confidential agreement under which they will part ways.” On March 3, 2016, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia announced that Lyricia Hawkins would be appointed as the the University of Virginia’s Abd el-Kader Visiting Faculty Fellow.
Lyricia Hawkins’ story was later documented in A New York Times Magazine feature, on October 13, 2016: “The Professor Wore a Hijab in Solidarity – Then Lost Her Job.”
Nevertheless, today we all need to move from just inter-religious tolerance to collaboration. From collaboration to genuine appreciation. From appreciation to learning from the other. We are all on this journey together.
Global understanding, anchored in inter-religious dialogue and appreciation, is essential for everyone’s life and future.
Another Voice 