Reading Francis

Slight departure from my too infrequent posts on Evangelii Gaudium, about which much more needs to be said.

This week’s news is personal and local for me, as Pope Francis announced an a series of meetings by bishops (called synods) on the topic of the family. One remarkable thing is that he asked all families to pray for the meetings. His announcement came via a letter addressed simply “Dear families,” which you can read in its entirety (it is short) on the Vatican website.

While I have not gotten to this point in The Joy of the Gospel, the humility of Francis in asking for prayers from regular families, and his promise to include lay Catholics in the proceedings, shows a theme apparent from the beginning of his papacy that spiritual wisdom and faith lies with all believers and not just with priests.

Incidentally, if the pope wants me, I’m all in for this process. Especially since I help (very little, and insufficiently,) with marriage prep at my church. Just putting it out there.

But beyond the synod announcement comes news from my very own diocese, St. Petersburg, Florida, where Bishop Robert Lynch had the audacity to follow directions and implement a broad survey of the faithful in his care as requested by the Pope. Apparently, this isn’t what most of his US colleagues did. And apparently, the Catholic press was surprised that he was so direct in reporting the results. Here, see?

If you’re wondering, here’s a link to Bishop Lynch’s actual blog post. And http://home.catholicweb.com/diosp/files/Bishop/Vatican_Survey_Statistical_Survey_2-6-2014.pdf are the results themselves. All worth reading.

Since you may have heard some of this, I figured it would be helpful to put all the resources in one place. More on the synod as news breaks. Back to your irregularly and infrequently scheduled blog.