by Teresa Malcolm
Our team of copy editors reads and posts most of what you see on the websites for National Catholic Reporter, Global Sisters Report and EarthBeat. The Copy Desk Daily highlights recommended news and opinion articles that have crossed our desks on their way to you.
Back in 2012, Redemptorist Fr. Tony Flannery was suspended, and now he says it looks like the "end of the road" for his public ministry: Vatican tells Irish priest Flannery to sign fidelity oaths, or remain suspended. A letter he received this summer from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith asks him to affirm the church's teachings on a male-only priesthood, gay relationships, civil unions and gender identity. "To sign that document would be utterly ridiculous for me," he tells NCR.
George Weigel has been a long-standing critic of the Vatican's openings to China, but Massimo Faggioli argues that those criticisms rest on faulty historical and theological assumptions. As the Holy See evidently plans to renew its two-year agreement with the Chinese government on the appointment of bishops, keep in mind there are no easy solutions, Faggioli reminds us in a response to Weigel's critique of the Vatican-China deal.
The Network lobby's seventh Nuns on the Bus hits the virtual road ahead of US presidential election. Because of the coronavirus, the tour to raise awareness of Catholic social justice issues will be entirely in cyberspace, running Sept. 23-Oct. 23. "Everybody can be on the bus this time," says Social Service Simone Campbell. "That's the cool part."
Global Sisters Report is checking in on sisters around the world: COVID-19 has constrained ministries. This collection of pandemic vignettes comes from Tanzania, the United States, India, Panama, Nigeria and Vietnam.
Sisters carry on their work, but in the wider U.S. culture, the pandemic has revealed the country as the land of the free, home of the self-centered. The days of Rosie the Riveter seem to be gone, and Sr. Joan Chittister looks for the antidote to our toxic individualism.
ICYMI: During a panel on "The Church and Catholic Voters in the 2020 Election," Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, rejected single-issue voting and said that a 'person in good conscience' could vote for Biden. "I, frankly, in my own way of thinking have a more difficult time with the other option," the cardinal said.
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