Summer reading recommendations from DD

We hope your summer includes opportunities for rest, reflection and restoration! Following the publication of the Synod’s Instrumentum Laboris for the second gathering of the General Assembly, there has been a flurry of good articles to read about Synod preparations alongside commentary about women’s participation in the Church. We have a few to recommend for your summer reading:

• This week as we celebrate the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, theologian Elizabeth Schrader Polzer explores the possibility that the Gospel of John provides a blueprint for women’s roles in pastoral care and ministry, particularly in its characterization of Mary Magdalene. Read: “In consideration of a female diaconate, look to Mary Magdalene”.

• Dominican Fr. Timothy Radcliffe will reprise his role as spiritual adviser to the October synod assembly. Christopher White has penned a profile on Radcliffe who has, in part, challenged synod delegates to consider the “prophetic voice of women,” adding that they are “still often seen as guests in their own house.”

• Pope Francis and the Council of Cardinals, commonly known as the C9, have held four meetings – December, February, April, June – with women theologians to discuss the role of women in the Church. Justin McLellan summarizes various viewpoints emerging from the conversations in “’No, but…’: Despite papal denial, dialogue on women diaconate continues”.

• America’s Vatican correspondent, Gerard O’Connell, interviewed Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, who will deliver the keynote address to the synod’s opening plenary assembly in October and preside over the drafting of its final text. “If women do not feel comfortable in the church, we have failed,” said Cardinal Hollerich about the work of Christians to fully recognize women’s contributions.

• Synod theological expert Austen Ivereigh argues in “Time to deliver” that the second session of the synod assembly has been tasked with designing the synodal map – the structures, processes and mindsets needed to create a necessary shift in the Church’s culture.

• The National Eucharistic Congress recently completed its 5-day event in Indianapolis, and we want to highlight two presentations. Gloria Purvis urged Catholics to respect the pope, repent of racism, and put God over politics: “We must get away from this idea that racism, when we talk about this sin, only attacks one group. No, it attacks all of us because we are a family,” said Purvis. Brian Fraga reported on Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich’s presentation connecting Eucharist to synodality: “Whenever we take the Eucharist, we gradually become freer to take up the mission of Christ,” said Cardinal Cupich. “We are called to be responsible for one another as we journey through time to what God has promised us.”

May your summer be filled with enjoyable reads and relaxation.