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Anonymous ID: 40f341 Dec. 21, 2021, 7:09 p.m. No.15234860   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4872 >>4879 >>4880 >>4903

Pope Francis: Halving of Jesuit numbers worldwide is a lesson in humility

 

In a private meeting with Jesuits earlier this month, Pope Francis said that a sharp decline in the prominent religious order’s membership is an opportunity to learn humility.

 

“One thing that calls for attention is the diminution of the Society. When I entered the novitiate, we were 33,000 Jesuits. How many are there now? More or less half,” the pope said during a private meeting with Jesuits in Athens, Greece, on Dec. 4.

 

His comments were published on Thursday in the Jesuit-run journal La Civiltà Cattolica.

 

“What does the Lord mean by this? Humble yourself, humble yourself! I don’t know if I have explained myself,” said Francis, the first Jesuit pope. “We have to get used to humiliation.”

 

Data published in 2018 by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) in Washington, D.C., showed that the number of Jesuits had declined by more than half since 1965.

 

At its peak 56 years ago, there were 36,000 Jesuits worldwide. In 2017, that number had fallen to 15,842, CARA reported. But the Jesuits remain the world’s largest male religious order.

 

The center said in September that 61% of Jesuits are now in South Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Asia Pacific and only 39% in Europe and North America.

 

More at: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/249907/pope-francis-halving-of-jesuit-numbers-worldwide-is-a-lesson-in-humility

Anonymous ID: 40f341 Dec. 21, 2021, 7:13 p.m. No.15234878   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Evangelical Lutheran LGBTQ ministry group suspends first transgender bishop

 

A group promoting LGBTQ clergy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has suspended its first transgender bishop over allegations of “racist words and actions” involving the bishop’s church area and the “Latinx community” in Stockton, California.

 

Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries said its board decided Dec. 16 “to suspend” Bishop Megan Rohrer’s membership “in the ELM Proclaim community and events.” The Proclaim program is, ELM says, “the professional community for Lutheran ministers and candidates, who publicly identify as queer.”

 

Bishop Rohrer was installed three months ago as leader of the church’s Sierra Pacific Synod.

 

ELM said Bishop Rohrer exhibited “an existing pattern of behavior” that doesn’t fit with its goal of “being an anti-racist organization.”

 

The group said the bishop’s membership suspension “is not only a response to recent harm done … to the Latinx community in Stockton, CA,” noting it came after Bishop Rohrer rebuffed an “invitation” to repair relationships ruptured by “the bishop’s racist words and actions [that] have harmed members of the ELM staff, board, and community.”

 

Officials of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries did not respond to email and telephone requests for details about what Bishop Rohrer and the Sierra Pacific Synod allegedly did to cause offense and harm.

 

Neither Bishop Rohrer nor a spokeswoman for the Sierra Pacific Synod immediately responded to a request for comment.

 

A spokeswoman at the Chicago headquarters of the Evangelical Lutheran Church In America did not respond to a request for comment.

 

Bishop Rohrer, 41, who is believed to be the nation’s first transgender bishop, was installed as leader of the ELCA’s Sierra Pacific Synod on Sept. 11 for a six-year term.

 

More at: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/dec/21/evangelical-lutheran-lgbtq-ministry-group-suspends/