Catholic Church Refrom

What is Catholic Church Refrom?

   

Catholic Church Reform International (CCRI) is a global organisation of Church Citizens (laity) for giving whole hearted support to Pope Francis' effort to update the Catholic Church.

   Any well-meaning person who wants to be its member can join it. Simply write to: 

info@catholicchurchreform.com, You will  surely get a speedy reply from them, unlike our revered bishops from whom we never get even an acknowledgement as our last two months of experince has taught us. 

    I am already a member of this movement and yesterday,Sunday 23 midnight they arranged an interntional telephone conference and got me also take part in it.  The letter below is from Robert Blair Kaiser, from USA to me. I am publishing it in Almaya for the benefit of all who want to be a suppoter of the initiatives being  taken by Pappa Francis.

     The Sunday telephone conference was also to find out why Indian bishops have done nothing to collect the opinons of the laity on Challenges to Family Ordered by the Pope. I had raised this issue by word and in writing with Cardinal Alancherry and BP. Edayanthrath already on last Dec.13. None of them have communicated even a word about it to me to this day. Many people are asking me the same question. I tell them all: Ask your local bishops or all the bishops of the CBCI. If you have a better answer, I should give, please share with me.

        james kottoor

On 24 February 2014 06:44, kaiserbob<rbkaiser@justgoodcompany.com> wrote:


James,
 I am delighted that you have joined up with us at CCRI. Rene and I founded this "movement" (rather than an "organization") because we thought Pope Francis deserved some supportive feedback for the initiatives he had already undertaken and for the new tone that he was establishing in Rome, an approach that we could only take as encouragement for us to speak up and speak out. None of the world's other "reform" organizations had made a move along these lines, so Rene and I decided to do it (thinking quite rightly I believe that these other organizations would take a great deal of time to even decide what to say and with what words). Rene and I (because we were just two people with a simple idea) felt we could (and ought to) move fast. We composed a letter to the pope, and then set about getting people to sign it on the Internet. We also reached out to approximately 100 reform organizations. As I recall, we  launched our websitewww.CatholicChurchReform.com on June 22 and we did this in less than three weeks.

I personally reached out to friends of mine (most of them with international reputations) and asked them to serve on our "board of advisors." (If you take a look on our Home Page, you can see who they are.) I made most of these friends while covering Vatican II for Time magazine.

I think that Gaston Roberge, SJ, of Kolkata is the only one on that board from India. It was he who arranged for me to come to India in September 2012, where he set me up to give 18 talks on Vatican II in nine Indian cities. Much of the time, I stayed in Jesuit houses and made friends with a good many Jesuit. All of this is a long introduction to my reason for this note.

It was clear from what you said on our conference phone call today that, while eager to help, you are only one man. I am now suggesting that I can put you in touch with a few of these Jesuits because it is quite possible that they can help you recruit a few young men and women in places like Kolkata, Mumbai, and New Delhi to help you get the word out through 1) social media, 2) the Internet, and 3) the news media about CCRI's plans to prepare for the Synod. I guess I am saying that, once we identify them and get them to agree to be of help, they can help you reach out to the people of India (including the 186 (?) bishops of India to tell them what we are up to.

And what is that? Well, they can read all about us on our web pages, but, in brief, what we want in the long run is to have a voice, a vote, and citizenship in our Church. Our task: in due course, to figure out ways of getting a voice and a vote.

Our first opportunity: to have some influence on the Extraordinary Synod for the Laity, scheduled for early October in Rome. What kind of influence? Well, we think the best thing we can do is tap into how our Catholic people feel and think about the kind of Church we want to take shape in the very near future. We hope that we can make happen by organizing regional meetings--maybe not a national meeting (which is perhaps too ambitious), but meetings at the parish or diocesan level where people would be encouraged to express how they think and feel about some key issues--issues already enunciated by the Secretariat of the Synod when it sent out questionnaires to every one of the world's bishops. Two issues leaped out to me: 1) how people feel and act vis a vis birth control, and 2) how they feel about remarriage in the Church after divorce. (This is part of what Cardinal Newman described many years ago as "the sensus fidei"--something that pastors and bishops and popes ought to take into consideration in their roles as teachers of the faith. A good many theologians consider the sensus fidei a local theologicus, a jumping-off-place for deeper reflection on the meaning, e.g., of marriage.

I am wondering if you are willing and able to start the ball rolling in India by getting parishes and even dioceses to organize meetings where the people can be encouraged to speak out? What good will that do? Well, the organizers of these meetings shoul try to get the meetings covered by the local press (radio and TV as well as newspapers) AND to do a follow-up news release that tries to summarize what happened at those meetings. I realize this might be asking a great deal of you, now 79, but still full of zeal for the Kingdom. But if you could recruit some help????

You might ask George Pattery sj, <gpattery@gmail.com> president of the Jesuit theologate at Pune, if he has any Jesuits still in their studies who could help you--at least when it comes time for you to tell India what CCRI is doing. (I mean just distributing our news releases.) As I write this overly long note, I am beginning to think that the CCRI's aspirations--to get regional meetings going all over the world--may be more than a little ambitious. Especially in a place like India with 186 dioceses--and you, our only member in India?