Ecclesiastical Minefield
Papacy, Synodality, and Renewal
by Jeffrey A. Mirus
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Book Description
Everybody wants personal renewal and every Catholic wants the renewal of the Catholic Church. But Church renewal is a minefield, in which God often writes straight with crooked lines—and we sometimes trigger explosions. These are essays written from March of 2019 though January of 2022 in which I explore how much care we must take with the papacy, the concept of synodality, and authentic Catholic renewal.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Ten steps every bishop can take to renew the Church
- Theories that Francis is not the Pope (or can be deposed) destroy the credibility of the Church
- On saving the Church by breaking the tensions intrinsic to the Church’s life
- Once the crazy talk starts, it is hard to stop
- German Catholic women, in thrall to the world, boycott Mass
- On raising our voices in and for the Church
- Cardinal control: Is the Church’s future at stake?
- Pope Francis answers: Part inspiration, part frustration, so how can we grow spiritually?
- What’s wrong with popular causes (and with clerics who ride them)?
- How to explain Pope Francis without making things worse
- Church troubles: What good Catholics may and may not do
- Sedevacantism: An attack on the Church’s Authority Principle
- On funding (or dissolving) episcopal conferences
- Catholicism is even more local than politics
- The German Synodal Path: Noteworthy or not worthy?
- On Synodality and the German call to expand it
- Lay Catholic social action: The bishops must have our backs.
- Our Church: How should the watchman of Israel act?
- How long, O Lord? Praying about Pope Francis
- The Pope’s video on fraternity? Let’s go deeper.
- 5 things I regret that went uncorrected in 2020
- The road to heaven is paved by a healthy Church
- The Church and social policy: When less is more
- A Church dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century
- Synodality and the evasion of responsibility
- Francis knows the Church is in a rut. But does he know why?
- My battle cry for Church renewal? Debureaucratization!
- So the best we can offer is “encounter” and “dialogue”?
- Pope Francis stresses importance of democracy. Why?
- The ten commandments of liturgy
- “Radical change is coming in the Church”
- Diplomacy in the Church, in light of the Gospel
