Word: synods
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This week the General Synod, the church's legislative body, which is composed of three houses (bishops, clergy and laity), will vote on the issue. Women make up almost 20% of the synod and, taking into account the bishops' support for female ordination, approval is virtually certain. The move would further fuel a controversy that has raged in the church since the campaign for women priests began gathering strength twelve years ago. Seven of the 28 provinces that form the 70 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion, including churches in the U.S. and Canada, have opened the ranks of the priesthood...
Marty was reared in two Nebraska towns, West Point and Battle Creek. He was a member of the staunchly conservative Lutheran Church -- Missouri Synod, which employed his father as an elementary school principal. He attended Synod schools from first grade through Concordia Seminary near St. Louis. The training was so European oriented, says Marty, that "I was 26 years old before I cracked a book in the field to which I have devoted my career," American religion...
...received 39% and Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk, a May-style moderate, 34%. Milwaukee's liberal Archbishop Rembert Weakland, who has implied that there are similarities between the Pope's clampdown and inquisitions of the past, drew 26%. Pilarczyk eventually won. In elections of U.S. representatives to a Vatican synod next year, moderates and liberals joined forces to elect Weakland and again bypass...
Next year a conference in Rome will give even broader church approval to lay activity like C.L.'s. The International Synod of Bishops, which meets every three years to advise the Pope on church teaching and practice, has set the role of the laity for its 1987 agenda. When the debates end, the Pontiff, who customarily issues a document summarizing the synod's conclusions and giving his own teaching, will establish more specific guidelines for lay action in reforming society...
During the synod, one lay Catholic, a U.S. feminist who was wearing a priest's stole, attempted to celebrate a mock Mass on an altar in St. Peter's Basilica; two Vatican guards removed her. Bizarre though the incident was, it dramatized a growing issue in U.S. Catholicism: demands of women for fuller involvement in the church. The synod fathers did allow women, including Mother Teresa of Calcutta, to attend, but only as nonvoting "auditors." Bishop Malone sought to bring the women's message to his colleagues, but lack of interest among the majority of delegates from developing nations...