Polygamy, LGBTTQ+, saints, the "Canadian method" and other reflections from the Synod on Synodality

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I gathered way more information while in Rome at the Synod on Synodality than could be published in the Free Press. So I published some reflections on the week in my column last Saturday. 

About things like how the need for the Roman Catholic Church to be more flexible around the issue of polygamy in Africa may open the door for a broader welcome for LGBTTQ+ people in Europe, the U.S. and Canada. 

About the Canadian connection to Conversations in the Spirit—the new way Catholics around the world are being encouraged to be synodal with each other. (It’s called the “Canadian method.”) 

About how the canonization of a new saint from Canada on the Sunday of the last week of the synod might have caused Canadian women advocating for greater leadership roles in the Church to shake their heads. (Marie-Leonie Paradis of Quebec was known for her for her devotion to doing domestic chores for priests — things like cooking, cleaning and laundry.) 

About the role played by fraternal delegates at the synod, including a Mennonite from France. (Apparently Pope Francis knows about Mennonites.) 

And other things, such as reaction to the synod’s decision not to say yes to the ordination of women as deacons (it didn’t say no, either) and the revolutionary way it ended. It can all be found in my column in the Free Press.

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