Lifestyle Policy

It was refreshing to read “Teaching by Example: New Orleans Adopts ‘Lifestyle Policy’” (July 29-Aug. 4).

Being a Catholic has lost a lot of its meaning in today's society. I pray this will only be the beginning of spelling out what it means to be Catholic. I pray other dioceses will follow suit with their own lifestyle policies.

JUDY GOODNIGHT

Dallas

Conception as a Sin?

There is something wrong in New Orleans listing “conceiving a child or fathering a child out of wedlock” as a cause for dismissal in its lifestyle policy. The sin is in fornication or adultery, not in conception. The child is simply evidence.

That provision could be a dangerous precedent for Church and civil authority.

SHEILA KENNY KAUFMANN

Denville, N.J.

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne attends a German Synodal Way assembly on March 9, 2023.

Four German Bishops Resist Push to Install Permanent ‘Synodal Council’

Given the Vatican’s repeated interventions against the German process, the bishops said they would instead look to the Synod of Bishops in Rome. Meanwhile, on Monday, German diocesan bishops approved the statutes for a synodal committee; and there are reports that the synodal committee will meet again in June.

Palestinian Christians celebrate Easter Sunday Mass at Holy Family Church in Gaza City on March 31, amid the ongoing battles Israel and the Hamas militant group.

People Explain ‘Why I Go to Mass’

‘Why go to Mass on Sundays? It is not enough to answer that it is a precept of the Church. … We Christians need to participate in Sunday Mass because only with the grace of Jesus, with his living presence in us and among us, can we put into practice his commandment, and thus be his credible witnesses.’ —Pope Francis