Lucetta Scaraffia, editor in chief of "Donne, Chiesa, Mondo" Vatican news paper publishes articles on women equality
Too often in the Catholic Church, “the sacrifices of women are used only to reinforce the power of those who already have it,” the editor of the Vatican newspaper’s monthly section on women in the Church has written.
In the ‘Woman-Church-World’ supplement to L’Osservatore Romano published last week, editor Lucetta Scaraffia wrote: “A revolution is not needed to give women the place they deserve in the Church; it is not indispensable to admit them to the priesthood or even the longed-for, but at the same time feared, diaconate.”
“In fact,” she wrote, “all that is needed is a bit of courage and the prophetic ability to look to the future with positive eyes, accepting changes that often are already written in the order of things.”
The January issue of ‘Woman-Church-World’ was dedicated to a series of articles looking at how, without changing Church law or discipline, more could be done within the Catholic Church to treat women as equals, value their contributions and talents and include them in leadership and decision-making at all levels of Church life.
Hysterectomy acceptable in some cases Vatican rules
The Catholic Church teaches that sterilisation is morally unacceptable, but a hysterectomy could be morally acceptable if the uterus could not sustain a pregnancy, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has said.
Affirming past indications as to when a hysterectomy would be morally acceptable, the doctrinal congregation said that “when the uterus is found to be irreversibly in such a state that it is no longer suitable for procreation and medical experts have reached the certainty that an eventual pregnancy will bring about a spontaneous abortion before the foetus is able to arrive at a viable state”, it would be licit to remove the uterus with a hysterectomy.
“Removing a reproductive organ incapable of bringing a pregnancy to term should not therefore be qualified as direct sterilisation, which is and remains intrinsically illicit as an end and as a means,” it said.
Pope Francis approved the congregation’s response and ordered its publication.
The congregation reaffirmed the three responses it gave in 1993 to questions concerning “uterine isolation” or tubal ligation and “related matters”.
Don’t go to church if you spread hate – Pope
When praying, remember the words of Jesus when he taught the ‘Our Father’, meeting God as his beloved child and speaking from the heart, Pope Francis has said in his first General Audience of 2019.
Some think that to pray is to use many words. “I too think of many Christians who believe that praying is to talk to God like a parrot, no! Praying is done from the heart, from inside,” the Pope said.
“He does not need anything, our God: in prayer he asks only that we keep open a channel of communication with him to always discover ourselves [to be] his beloved children and he loves us so much.”
Pope Francis continued, saying when Jesus introduces the ‘Our Father’ as a way to pray, he at the same time distances himself from certain types of prayer.
One way is the mode of the hypocrite, who when he prays wants to be seen and admired, he said, noting that this is like the scandal of people who often go to Church, but then turn around and spread hate, speaking badly about people. “This is a scandal! Better not to go to Church: live like that, as an atheist,” he said.