Dear Friends,

Because of your support, the open letter in support of courageous
priest Father Roy Bourgeois was published in the National Catholic
Reporter Christmas issue. We especially wish to recognize Frank Meuers,
Marilyn Lieber, Raymond McGrath, Barbara O'Connor, whose names were
left off of the published copy of the ad by mistake. Thank you for
helping make this community effort possible!

The Quixote Center will publish a full-page signature ad in the National Catholic Reporter in support of Father Roy's prophetic ministry and witness to justice, peace and equality in the Roman Catholic Church. We call on others in the many communities Father Roy has touched to join in supporting him and celebrating the call of our conscience towards acts of social justice and equality for women in the Catholic Church and for the people of Latin America.

Sign the ad and let your voice be heard.

The new lectionaries have arrived check them out here.

Pope Benedict's first visit to Washington, DC, although cordial, highlights the sharp differences between Catholic social teaching and the foreign and social policy of the Bush Administration. 

While the Pope was arriving in D.C., car bombs in Iraq laced the streets with flying shards of death, and the President continues to brandish the wounded U.S. military and threatened Iran. 

Order the Inclusive Bible

We are happy to announce that the Inclusive Bible: The First Egalitarian Translation is now available in paperback! Sheed and Ward (now an imprint of the Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group) has done a beautful job. You may order it from our online bookstore .

The Inclusive Bible
in a single volume is the last installment of a 20-year inclusive
scriptural program that began here at the Quixote Center with a series
of lectionaries in the late 1980s.

Most recent issue of Speaking Out

• New Publications from the Quixote Center
• Report Card Project is Complete!
• Latin Mass More Common?

Full Newsletter in PDF

  Inside this issue:

• Bishops Ignore Own Advice, an analysis of their latest actions.
• Women in the Church, documenting the problems.
• Pressure Builds to Ordain Women, Abolish Rule of Celibacy.
• A Woman-Church Forum, Aug. 17-19, Chicago.
• Pope Urged to Meet with Reform Leaders.
• CSO's Howarth Steps Down

Read the issue now (pdf)

For Immediate Release
We Are Church-USA regards the very unpleasant confusion around the succession of the Polish Primate, and other problematical appointments of bishops in recent years, as an urgent signal warning to the Vatican to make decisions on its personnel much more carefully and in much closer cooperation with local churches.

For Immediate release

Nov. 12, Baltimore, MD… An expected set of “pastoral guidelines” scheduled for review by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) at its annual Fall meeting in Baltimore begins with an erroneous understanding of what it means to be homosexual, Catholic reform leaders say in a letter to U.S. Catholic bishops.

November 10, 2006

Most Reverend Arthur J. Serratelli
Chairman
Committee on Doctrine
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 Fourth Street, NE
Washington, DC 20017

Dear Bishop Serratelli,

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) proposed document, “Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination: Guidelines for Pastoral Care” begins with the premise that homosexuality is an inclination towards same-gender, genital activity and denies the well-known existence of homosexual orientation as a normal variation of human sexuality.

Any guidelines that follow from this premise are deeply flawed. These proposed guidelines are not pastoral, particularly when they repeat the spiritually violent language of the past 20 years that homosexuality is objectively disordered and same-gender relationships are inherently evil. We bear witness to the physical and spiritual harm done to the Catholic community—ourselves, our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters – specifically because of this language.