Word: synods
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...glittering assemblage of 235 Roman Catholic bishops, gathered at a solemn pontifical Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, hardly resembled a convention of gamblers. Yet in large measure that is just what they were. As a month-long synod of representatives of the church's hierarchy drew to a close last week, the bishops were betting against a heavy losing streak. Faced with a net decline of 16,500 priests in the past decade, the church has decided to hold firm in its discipline, particularly on the touchy issue of clerical celibacy, in the belief that higher standards...
Many Catholics believe the time has come for the hierarchy to consider ordaining married men, or perhaps even women. As the synod was concluding, an Italian newsmagazine poll reported that 53% of the country's Catholics favor a married priesthood. In the U.S., priest-sociologist Andrew Greeley, himself no opponent of celibacy, claims that a change in the requirement "would probably lead to the ordination of 1,500 more priests a year...
...spurns Moscow's centralized religious rule. Even more threatening is the sudden resurgence of Eastern Rite Catholicism in the western Ukraine. The millions of Catholic believers follow Orthodox liturgy but are loyal to the Pope. After World War II, the Eastern Rite church was abolished at a Stalinist-controlled synod, followed by a bloody repression in which church property was given to the Russian Orthodox. Somehow Catholicism survived...
...agenda item in this week's talks between Gorbachev and the Pope. Friendlier contacts, and a papal visit to the U.S.S.R., cannot occur unless this, the world's largest underground religious community, is restored. Under Stalin, all Ukrainian Catholic bishops were imprisoned and a fraudulent 1946 synod dissolved their jurisdictions, handing over 4,100 churches to Russian Orthodoxy. The majority of the Catholic priests rejected the takeover and either were arrested or went into hiding...
Despite such hazards, the Fort Worth gathering drew significant backing. Besides the six active bishops, 20 retired U.S. bishops participated, along with nine bishops from overseas, where Anglicans are generally more sympathetic to the Synod's views than in the U.S. All in all, the Synod claims a founding flock of 290 parishes in 85 of the 95 U.S. dioceses. Boosters are talking grandly of enlisting 200,000 Episcopalians by Christmas of 1990 to sign the Synod's Declaration of Common Faith and Purpose, which so far has been endorsed by 26 dissident bishops and 13,000 priests...