"Praedicate Evangelium" and Reforms in the Catholic Church

On 19 March 2022, Pope Francis, published the Praedicate Evangelium ("Preach the Gospel"), a constitution that details reforms in the Catholic Church.  These reforms officially took effect on 5 June 2022.  It redefines and reforms how the Roman Curia (the administrative institutions of the Vatican) operates.  Many reforms have been discussed and planned in the years since Pope Francis began his term in 2013, so this publication was highly anticipated.  The full text in English of the Praedicate Evangelium can be on the Vatican web site here.

The document is a kind of constitution, so it defines and describes operations.  Some of its content describes reforms that have already occurred under Pope Francis's leadership.  One of these was the creation of an office to police financial matters within the Vatican.  Other reforms are innovations that are now just made public. Yet, there is an underlying, unifying theme that is captured by the title of the document, i.e., that the church's primary function is missionary work.

It is difficult to understand the significance of many of the changes without some insider knowledge of the Roman Curia's structure, but some developments are understandable to outsiders.  One of these later changes is that many Vatican offices will now be open to lay leadership.  This is significant because many leadership positions can now be filled by women whereas previously that was not possible.  Nuns will be likely candidates for many of these positions, but they do not have to be nuns.  Just today, Pope Francis announced that three women will serve on the council that that vets bishop nominations -- see this RNS news post.  Two of these women are nuns, but the other has been serving as the leader of Catholic women's organization.

If you are interested in learning more about these developments, Thomas Reese provides a nice discussion of the reforms on this blog post at RNS.

Religious groups must continually adapt to changing circumstances in the religious marketplace, and the Catholic Church is no different in this regard.  What makes the Catholic Church unique is its immense size, its long history, and its long-standing organizational institutions.  But even a group as old as the Catholic Church must still confront the challenges of being relevant and impactful in the world today.

To Be a Jehovah's Witness in Russia

This article in the Associated Press provides a glimpse into what life is like for Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.  Consider the following questions as you read this article:

• How have Jehovah's Witnesses been treated in Russia?
• What justification has the Russian government given for this type of treatment?
• What is distinctive about Jehovah's Witnesses teachings?
• In what other countries have Jehovah's Witnesses experienced persecution?
• How do many Jehovah's Witnesses respond to the persecution?

The Russia-Ukraine War and Religious Minorities

The title of this article in Religion & Politics asks an important question about the Russia-Ukraine war:  What does the Russian Invasion Mean for Religious Minorities in Ukraine?

Read the article to find out.  Here are some key questions for you to ask yourself as you read the article:

• What religious minorities currently exist in Ukraine?
• What types of challenges have religious minorities recently faced in Ukraine?
• What does the experience of religious minorities in Russia tell us about what the experience of religious minorities in Ukraine might be in regions of Ukraine that are taken over by Russia?
• Does the experience of what has happened in Crimea since Russia invaded in 2014 provide any clues?

These questions matter far beyond the scope of this class.  As the author states near the end of the article, "The protection of the rights of religious minorities is often the litmus test for democracy."  There is research to support this claim -- indeed the case of what has happened in Russia during the last two decades is itself evidence that religious protections are among the first to disappear when on a path that diverges from democracy.

Global Methodist Church to Begin Officially in May

Schism in the United Methodist Church is taking another turn.  During the last couple years, leaders of the UMC have been negotiating a peaceful way for the UMC to split into separate progressive and conservative groups.  The vote over a proposed plan was delayed due to the COVID pandemic, but various members and leaders in the church have sought to move forward without waiting any longer for the vote.  One group of members have set up a new Methodist denomination -- the Global Methodist Church -- announced yesterday that this new denomination will officially begin on May 1 of this year.  See this article at Religion News Service.

This is not the first new group to form as a result of the prolonged internal disputes over same-sex marriage and gay clergy.  The Liberation Methodist Connexion formed in January 2020 as a progressive alternative.  The Global Methodist Church is theologically conservative.

This schism is yet another case for us to consider using the sect-to-church theory.  The United Methodist Church began as an upstart sect and then transitioned to a low-tension church.  It has experienced revival efforts from within, but the progressive voices seem to have gained the upper hand, thereby compelling the conservative faction to break off and form their own group.  This summary matches the sect-to-church theory well on the surface, but of course there are other aspects of the case that do not fit the theory so easily.  For example, the formation of the progressive Liberation Methodist Connexion is a break-away sect with lower (not higher) strictness than its parent organization.  Examining cases like these can help us to modify and amend the basic sect-to-church theory.

If you are interested, you can see two earlier blog posts on the Methodist schism here and here.

The Russia-Ukraine War and Religion

Religion remains a significant part of national identity in many European countries, and this is true for both Russia and Ukraine.  Both have historical ties to the Eastern Orthodox Church, yet there have also been divisions.  Since the end of Soviet rule in 1991, religion and the official status of religious groups in both Russia and Ukraine have undergone significant changes and not without disagreement.

Three Orthodox churches have played the most significant roles in Ukraine, one of which has strong ties to Moscow.  As recently as 2018, there was a unification of the three into a single Orthodox Church of Ukraine -- although some of those with ties to Moscow did not join the unification.  This development was supported by many Orthodox leaders worldwide and gained official support by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in 2019.  However, it was criticized by Russian political leaders and leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church who want Ukrainian Orthodox Christians to exist under the direction of Orthodox religious leaders in Moscow.

Read this article about religion in Russia-Ukraine war from the Religion News Service, and think about the following questions.  What key religious developments have occurred in Ukraine?  What is the significance of religious developments in Ukraine?  What role has religion played in the war?

Students' Beliefs and Academic Success

This article by Ilana Horowitz at Religion News Service reports on interesting findings on the relationship between religiosity and academic success.  Religiously devout American students get higher grades and are more likely to graduate from college, on average, than students who are much less religious, but they also attend less selective colleges.  Read the article to see the explanation, and to see what the research reveals about atheist students.

The Nuns of TikTok

The Daughters of St. Paul have created a splash on TikTok, getting millions of views for their videos.  They also got some attention in the latest issue of the Economist Magazine (gated).

Their videos reveal the creative and humorous sides to these nuns from outside of Boston -- especially Sister Orianne Pietra Rene and Sister Danielle Lussier.  As explained in that Economist article, the videos have also created opportunities for them to share their beliefs and develop new friendships.  Even if these videos were not intended to serve a missionary purpose, they still do, which goes to show you that publicity can take many forms.  And different forms allow the nuns to reach different people.

The Benefits and Costs of Streaming Church Services

The COVID pandemic has affected social interactions in many ways, and this is also true for religious interactions.  One of the biggest changes for churches is is that many congregations began live streaming their church services online.  Some did this because large worship services were temporarily prohibited by law, while others did it to enable members with health concerns who would not attend in person to watch remotely, or both.

As COVID infection rates have continued to fluctuate, congregations that started live streaming during the pandemic must decide whether or not to continue streaming their services.  But as with any type of activity, the streaming of church services has benefits and costs.  Let us consider some of these here.

Benefits:

1. Streaming allows people who would not participate in person to participate remotely.  Streaming thus allows those people to maintain their religious capital -- or to prevent it from depreciating as rapidly as it would if they did not participate at all.  This is the most important reason to stream and is the main motivation for beginning to stream during the pandemic.  Some members might be especially served by streaming services, including those who are out of town and those whose health prevents them from attending in person.
2. Streaming allows the congregation to more easily reach and recruit new members.  Attending a congregation for the first time can be a scary experience.  When a person is invites you to attend church you have not previously attended, you might hesitate to go because you are unsure of what the experience will be like.  Watching a service remotely entails a much lower cost and risk because you can easily stop the stream or watch anonymously.  Streaming the service thus allows potential recruits an easier entry into the congregation.  Some people might be too afraid to go in person but be willing to watch remotely, and maybe they will come in person once they determine that they like the congregation. 
3. Streamed services can be recorded, thereby allowing some people to have a form of engagement with a church service that they missed synchronously.  As with 1 and 2 above, the ability to watch a recorded services enable people to reinforce their religious capital when they might not have been able to do so otherwise.

Costs:

1. Some people who would attend in person if there was no remote option might switch to remote attendance rather than attend in person.  If this happens, then the lower in-person attendance can reduce the vitality of the in-person meetings.  It also means that those who switch to remote viewing will have fewer chances to develop friendship and other ties at church services, thereby causing their religious capital to be lower than it would be without the remote option.  Worshipping together and fellowshipping each other are two of the main benefits of in-person church attendance, and these are missed when people switch from in-person participation to remote viewing.  Lower in-person participation can thus bring a lower quality of collective religious production.
2. Some equipment and software may need to be purchased, and a volunteer will need to run the live stream.  The technical requirements for streaming a church service are not that large.  A smart phone and a Zoom account can be enough to do a simple live stream, and a tripod and good microphone can improve the quality. More sophisticated set-ups with multiple audio feeds and viewer participation are also possible, and a volunteer will be needed to run the live stream.  Note that many of these technical costs are set-up costs that are paid when first beginning the live streams and not thereafter.  The ongoing costs of continuing to live stream are fairly low.

The size of these benefits and costs will differ across congregations.  A congregation that places a high value on in-person participation will be less comfortable with an easy remote option that creates an added incentive for members to skip church because of the convenience of remote viewing.  Another congregation that values a low cost of initial participation for potential new members will like having the remote option for new recruits.  There might also be innovations in how to grant access to the live stream or the recordings that try to balance different desires.  For example, a congregation can limit access to its live stream, e.g., limit to only those who are unable to attend in person due to health.  By limiting the remote access, the in-person participation is promoted while still making a remote option available for some of the members.

A key point to take away from this discussion is that we should expect to see wide variation across congregations in how streaming is used going forward.  Some will continue their live streams while others will stop them, and among those that continue there will be variation in how open or restricted the access is to those live streams.