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 has been printed and is now available! We received our first boxes here at the Quixote Center last week, and the publisher Sheed and Ward (now an imprint of the Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group) has done a beautful job on the printing and binding. This is a hardcover edition with a glossy cover and durable cover that will last many decades. Order The Inclusive Bible direct from the publisher.

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.

Thanks to everyone who purchased a lectionary or one of the individual volumes of the Inclusive Bible.  We are now sold out of lectionaries!  We will be issuing a new edition of lectionaries in December.  We'll let you know as soon as they are ready.

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.

In 1877, Lord John Acton wrote his most famous observation, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Catholics Speak Out is happy to announce the launch of the Women's Justice Coalition website, and the kick-off of the Report Card Project to rate US Dioceses on their inclusion of Women.

The "Time has Come" Ad campaign last year was extremely successful in allowing Catholics accross the country to register their hope and demand for a fuller and more equal role for women in the Church.

Today we are launching a new effort to energize change at the local, practical level by asking Catholics to rate their diocese on the inclusion of women. We need th participation of Catholics from around the country to download our worksheet, research the conditions in their diocese, and report back to our national tally center. We will be providing a platform to help each other in this process with community forums and resources.

Please visit http://womensjusticecoalition.org to join the effort and sign up for updates and alerts!