Inside The Vatican

The U.S. bishops’ debate over whether pro-choice policians like President Joseph R. Biden should be allowed to receive communion has been raging for over a year now. After the bishops’ meeting last November, the bishops created a sub-committee aimed at addressing the challenges of working with a Catholic, pro-choice president.

Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, president of the U.S. bishops conference, informed the Vatican in March that the working group had decided to draft a document on “Eucharistic coherence,” and Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, responded in a letter telling the bishops that their document should not focus solely on politicians, and advising them to engage in dialogue with one another and with the politicians the bishops would be writing about.

The Vatican’s effort to temper the bishops’ statement appears to have been successful: a leaked draft of the document lacked any explicit reference to pro-choice politicians, focusing instead on the idea of a Eucharistic revivial and a restatement of Eucharistic theology.

On this deep dive episode of “Inside the Vatican,” producer Maggi Van Dorn and host Colleen Dulle dig into the history of the U.S. bishops’ engagement with political issues and give some background on today’s “Communion wars” and the calls for a “Eucharistic revival.” They ask: If no one can win the “communion wars,” does everyone lose?

Links from the show:

Leaked draft of bishops’ document on Communion lacks explicit reference to pro-choice politicians

Explainer: Why the Eucharist is confusing for many Catholics (and survey researchers)

No one can win the Communion wars over abortion

Pope Francis: ‘I have never denied Communion to anyone.’

Archishop Aquila: For the church to live in eucharistic coherence, we must be willing to challenge Catholics persisting in grave sin.

Bishop McElroy: The Eucharist is being weaponized for political ends. This must not happen.

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Pope Francis met with President Biden, President Moon of Korea and Prime Minister Modi from India last week, and in all of the conversations, one subject came up: Climate change.

Many of the world leaders who were in Rome for the G20 summit of the world’s largest economies have now continued on to Glasgow, Scotland for the UN’s climate summit, COP26, which runs through Nov. 12.

This week on “Inside the Vatican,” host Colleen Dulle and veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell unpack Pope Francis’ message to the leaders at COP26 and how the pope understands his role in the climate movement.

Then, Colleen and Gerry turn their sights to the U.S. church. Two recent studies paint the image of a church hierarchy that is disconnected from pew-sitters: A 2020 Princeton analysis showed how “Laudato Si” helped convince American Catholics that climate change is an important issue that carries a moral imperative, and 2021 Creighton analysis revealed that “Laudato Si” was largely ignored by American bishops.

Links from the show:

Pope Francis’ COP26 message: ‘There is no time to waste’ on climate change

Pope Francis on BBC Radio: We need ‘a genuine moment of conversion’ on climate change

Meet the Catholic map lady who wants to help Pope Francis fight climate change—if the Vatican will let her.

Podcast: How ‘Laudato Si’’ changed U.S. Catholics’ minds on climate change

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Today, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met with Pope Francis in a highly anticipated meeting at the Vatican. The two leaders spoke privately for 75 minutes, which is unusually long compared to other meetings between the pope and heads of state.

Details of the private meeting were not released, but the Vatican said the two leaders discussed their joint commitment to the protection and care of the planet, healthcare and the fight against Covid, refugees and assistance to migrants, the protection of human rights, the international situation leading up to the G20 summit, and the promotion of peace in the world through political negotiation.

Following the meeting, President Biden said that the pope told him he is a “good Catholic” and encouraged him to continue receiving Communion.

Read:

Biden says Pope Francis told him to ‘keep receiving Communion’

Pope Francis and Joe Biden enjoy unusually long meeting at the Vatican

Which president met the most popes? Who gave the weirdest gift? A brief history of U.S.-Vatican encounters.

Watch:

What President Biden said to Pope Francis at the Vatican

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Pope Francis is expected to meet with U.S President Joseph R. Biden, Korean President Moon Jae-in and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week while the leaders are in Rome for the G20 summit. So, what happens when a pope meets a president?

On this episode of “Inside the Vatican,” veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell and host Colleen Dulle explain the formal steps of an “official visit” between a head of state and the pope. Then, Colleen and Gerry dig into the specific issues that President Biden, President Moon and Prime Minister Modi are likely to bring up with Pope Francis.

At the end of the episode, Gerry and Colleen discuss why the pope is no longer attending the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, and Colleen gives an update on Pope Francis’ recently-announced trip to Canada.

Links from the show:

Joe Biden to meet Pope Francis at the Vatican on Oct. 29

Joe Biden is taking a page from Ronald Reagan’s playbook in his meeting with Pope Francis

Pope Francis agrees to Canada trip to help reconciliation efforts with Indigenous peoples

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This weekend, Pope Francis gave a speech to grassroots activists that some are already calling an important contribution to Catholic Social Teaching. At America, we called it “Pope Francis’ 9 commandments for a just economy.” The pope called on everyone from tech giants to arms manufacturers to stop their destructive and extractive behaviors and instead put their energy toward activities that would build up a better post-Covid society.

In the same talk, a video message sent to the “popular movements”–grassroots activist groups around the world–the pope called Black Lives Matter activists “collective Samaritans” and called for a shortened work week. On this episode of “Inside the Vatican,” host Colleen Dulle and Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell contextualize the pope’s comments and explain how his relationship with grassroots activists differs from past popes’.

In the second half of the show, Colleen is joined by America O’Hare Fellow Doug Girardot. In the last month, Colleen and Doug contacted every diocese in America to find out what they had planned for the recently launched global “synod on synodality.” The two discuss their findings, their experience reporting the story, and their unexpected appreciation for Eastern Catholic eparchies.

Links from the show:

Pope Francis’ 9 commandments for a just economy

Read Pope Francis’ full address to the popular movements

We contacted every diocese in the U.S. about their synod plans. Here’s what we found.

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The “synod on synodality,” Pope Francis’ two-year effort to move the church toward a more collaborative and decentralized model, kicked off in Rome on Sunday with a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. In his pre-synod speech on Saturday, Pope Francis laid out his vision for the synod, outlining three challenges and three opportunities that the synod faces.

The challenges, as host Colleen Dulle and Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell explain on this week’s episode of “Inside the Vatican,” aren’t limited to those the pope mentioned: In addition to the difficulty of changing the attitudes of Catholics accustomed to what author Austen Ivereigh called a “command and control model,” there are a number of logistical challenges including the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, long distances and conflicts that make diocesan gatherings difficult, and the challenge of holding a large number of meetings in only a short time.

Still, the syond’s purpose is not to complete a transformation in the church, but to begin it.

Links from the show:

Pope Francis clears the way for the beatification of Pope John Paul I

‘There is no need to create another church, but to create a different church,’ Francis says before synod

Pope Francis: Synod calls us to become experts in the art of encounter

Pope Francis receives Speaker Nancy Pelosi in private audience

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Pope Francis welcomed 40 leaders of the world’s major religions to the Vatican this week to call for definitive action on climate change ahead of the United Nations’ COP26 conference in Glasgow. On “Inside the Vatican,” Gerard O’Connell and Colleen Dulle explain who attended the meeting and what initiatives they called for.

The document the religious leaders signed was seen by many as a parallel to Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical Laudato Si (“Praised Be”), which gave a major push to world leaders to sign on to the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015.

With the COP26 conference focused on advancing the goals of the Paris Agreement, Colleen and Gerry ask, can this interreligious document play a similar role to “Laudato Si,” changing the hearts and minds of political leaders from around the world?

Links from the show:

Pope Francis and 40 faith leaders call for urgent action to combat climate change: ‘Future generations will never forgive us’

Report: 330,000 child victims of sex abuse in France’s Catholic Church

Analysis: In Vatican real estate trial, prosecution made mistakes—but not enough for charges to be dropped against Cardinal Becciu

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Women are rising to new heights in the Vatican, but there is still a long way to go before women’s voices and leadership are satisfactorily integrated in the Vatican.

In this deep dive episode based on Colleen Dulle’s cover story in America Magazine’s October issue, Colleen and producer Maggi Van Dorn take a look inside the corporate culture of the Vatican to examine how things have been changing for women—and why it’s difficult to have conversations about women’s empowerment there.

You’ll also hear from three prominent women working in or with the Vatican: Cristiane Murray of the Holy See Press Office describes her experience over 26 years working in the Curia’s most female office; celebrity economist Kate Raworth gives voice to a new understanding of women’s contributions that Pope Francis seems to have adopted; and Sr. Nathalie Becquart, undersecretary of the synod of bishops, explains why she sees synodality as the way toward recognizing men and women’s God-given equality.

Links from the show:

Women are rising to new heights at the Vatican. Could they change the church forever?

Read America’s women’s month issue

Doughnut Economics Action Lab

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Last week, Pope Francis visited Hungary and Slovakia—two countries with about 1,000 years of Christian history. But today, that history is being re-interpreted for political ends, as nationalist or populist leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban use Christian identity as an argument for keeping new migrants out.

On this bonus episode of “Inside the Vatican,” Slovakian religion historian Agata Sustova Drelova joins host Colleen Dulle for a closer look at Pope Francis’ interpretation of the countries’ religious history, reframing it as a history of openness, stretching all the way back to Sts. Cyril and Methodius, who first evangelized the area in the ninth century.

Agata and Colleen also discuss the pope’s visit to Slovakia’s largest Roma settlement and why Agata believes this papal visit was “a crash course in synodality.”

Links from the show:

Pope Francis wants a better future for Slovakia’s Roma communities. Roma women are making it happen.

Pope Francis to populist leaders: Do not use the cross for political purposes

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In a Q&A session with Jesuits in Slovakia, Pope Francis revealed that after his colon surgery this summer, some prelates wanted him to die. He also issued a thinly-veiled criticism of EWTN, saying the Catholic network’s attacks on him are “the work of the devil.”

America’s Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell wrote about the pope’s comments and reported that Pope Francis had previously confronted an EWTN reporter about the network’s attacks on him. On this episode, Gerry joins host Colleen Dulle to discuss the pope’s distinction between attacks on him and on his office, and between legitimate criticism and attacks.

Gerry and Colleen also look into Pope Francis’ comments that “some people wanted [him] to die” after his colon surgery and even held meetings to prepare for a conclave.

With the pope facing resistance both in the Vatican and in the media, Gerry said, “I found it sad that the pope has to defend himself. EWTN is based in the United States, can not the [U.S.] Catholic bishops’ conference defend the pope on this?”

Links from the show:

Gerard O’Connell | Pope Francis responds to attacks from EWTN, other church critics: ‘They are the work of the devil.’

Full transcript of Pope Francis’ Q&A with Slovak Jesuits

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