Site-seeing, Etc.

National Catholic Reporter coverage of our Church in transition is outstanding. The “John Paul II Special Commemorative Issue and Papal Succession Coverage” is a special offer to new subscribers. To subscribe, click here. The current issue of NCR has some interesting thoughts shared by a few cardinals with John Allen.

For a quick overview of the papal election process, click here. Also, John Allen’s book Conclave provides an excellent overview of this ancient process. (Allen is the Rome correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter and CNN’s Vatican analyst in Rome.) Also check this to find who (or what) the camerlengo is; and did you know that any baptized male, who is not a heretic, in schism or known for simony can be elected Pope?; another succinct site offers a complete list of the current list of cardinals who will be voting for the next Pope.

Lay people and survivor support organizations were not alone in protesting Cardinal Law’s striking visibility during the official period of mourning for Pope John Paul II. Read More.

A recent AP poll indicates that change is very much on the minds of Catholics. Click here.

VOTF president Jim Post will participate in a “Virtual Conclave” hosted by Beliefnet.com. The on-line publication has invited a broad spectrum of Catholic and non-Catholic leaders to carry on a conversation, as virtual cardinals, about the future of our Church. It appears that “virtual” has been re-defined just enough to include some female cardinals in the conversation stream – surely a historic first. To “listen in,” go here. How’s this for a list of participating “cardinals”?

• Harvey Cox - Thomas Professor of Divinity at Harvard University.
• William Donohue - president of the Catholic League, the United States' largest Catholic civil rights organization.
• Sr. Joan Chittister - Benedictine sister and Executive Director of Benetvision, a resource center for contemporary spirituality.
• James Post - president of Voice of the Faithful
• Helen Hull Hitchcock - founding director of Women for Faith & Family and editor of Voices.
• Fr. Thomas Reese - editor in chief of America, the national Catholic weekly magazine.
• Kathleen Kennedy Townsend - former lieutenant governor of Maryland
• John Esposito - University Professor and Founding Director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University.
• Fr. Juan Pablo Torrebiarte - a teacher at the seminary of Our Lady of the Way in Solola, Guatemala.
• Amy Welborn - author of De-Coding Da Vinci: The Facts Behind the Fiction of The Da Vinci Code
• Rabbi James Rudin - Senior Interreligious Advisor for the American Jewish Committee and past Chairman of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations.
• Roberto Rivera - a Fellow at the Wilberforce Forum at Prison Fellowship.
• Russell Shaw – former Secretary for Public Affairs of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and former Director of Information of the Knights of Columbus.
• David Kertzer - Paul Dupee, Jr. University Professor of Social Science at Brown University.
• Michelle Gonzalez - Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University.
• Mary Louise Hartman - member of the board of directors of the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church and its immediate past president.
• Parvez Ahmed - board member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and writes frequently about Muslim issues.
• Domenico Bettinelli Jr. - managing editor of Catholic World Report magazine and Catholic World News web site.
• William LaFleur - Buddhist scholar and E. Dale Saunders Professor in Japanese Studies and distinguished professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
• Tom Bethell - Tom Bethell is a senior editor of The American Spectator and a Beliefnet columnist.
• Fr. Renato Lanfranchi - member of the Missionarios Combonianos and lives in Brazil.
• Brian McLaren - founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church, a nondenominational church in Maryland. McLaren was recently named one of America's 25 most influential evangelicals by Time magazine.
• Rosemary Bray McNatt - Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt is a Unitarian Universalist minister in New York City.
• Judy Ress – involved with missionary projects in Latin America since 1970. Former managing editor of the weekly Latin America Press in Peru. Judy lives in Chile and heads a women's ministry working in the areas of theology and spirituality.
• Patrick Madrid - Patrick Madrid is the publisher of Envoy magazine, a Catholic journal of apologetics and evangelization.

Read the “Report on the Church in America,” the Leadership Roundtable 2004, Wharton School, Philadelphia, PA, July 2004, and let us know what you think at pthorp.ed@votf.org. Associated Press coverage is available here.

Closing lecture, conversation and reception for the IREPM program at Boston College, MA. “The Church and Human Sexuality: An Ecclesiological Perspective” on Thursday, April 28; 7:00pm; McGuinn 121. Free. Presenter: Richard P. McBrien

This presentation will review the sexual-abuse crisis within the broader context of the Catholic Church's teachings and practices regarding human sexuality. It will underscore the damage done to the Church's sacramental life and suggest ways in which the Church can promote healing, renewal and reform.

There will be a reception with Fr. McBrien immediately following the presentation. Rev. Richard P. McBrien, STD, is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of numerous books including Catholicism.

June 15-17: Boston College program “Church in the 21st Century” to sponsor a conference on the “Roman Catholic Priesthood in the 21st Century.” See the program, speakers and registration information their web site. NOTE: Registration deadline is April 15.

“Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility” was approved by the USCCB Administrative Committee in September 2003. (A summary brochure is available here.) The document was among the topics of discussion at the Ninth Annual Cardinal Bernardin Conference on “Religion, Law, and Politics” in Arlington, VA, March 4-6 of this year. This conference is part of the Common Ground Initiative (see below). Papers presented at the conference are available here. Initiative Report is the quarterly newsletter produced by CGI – the current issue recaps the March conference.

Common Ground history: “Called to be Catholic: Church in a Time of Peril” was prepared by the National Pastoral Life Center in consultation with Catholic men and women serving the church and society in a variety of callings and sensitive to the diversity of Catholicism in the United States. This statement provides the basis for the Catholic Common Ground Project. The statement is available here.