Perspectives
Articles, essays, and reflections from progressive Catholic voices.
To contribute to Perspectives or submit an article, contact cta@cta-usa.org.
Sacred Necessity
Interim Executive Director Lauren Barbato reflects on the 2022 midterm elections, violence, and abortion. She writes that it’s time for Catholics to take sacred, necessary action.
Calling Families, Allies, and LGBTQ+ Catholics to the Synodal Process
This video explains what synodality is, why it is important, and how LGBTQ+ Catholics, their families, and allies can effectively participate in the synodal process.
The synod brings good news to the church
Call it naive, but I find in the synod a fresh way to proclaim good news about the Catholic Church: to everyone! To the weary, the tired, the despairing... that together we might be repairers of the breach.
The Pope’s synod will not empower the laity
Let’s appreciate what is meaningful about the synod process — and be clear-eyed about what kind of power it takes to build a new church.
Sojourners: Don’t hide bishops’ complicity in white supremacy
Many of us at Call To Action object to the decision of Sojourners Magazine and its editor-in-chief Jim Wallis to retract its August 2020 article “The Catholic Church Has a Visible White-Power Faction.”
Who is the Church, the universal institution?
I find that in practice, when we say “the Church,” we tend to mean the hierarchy’s institution. For instance: “The Church condemns women’s ordination…” We progressives are not much better than conservatives on this.
Changing of the guard in Chicago
I am a progressive Catholic who writes and works within a movement that is leery of hierarchy. So I have to be suspicious of any talk about “grace of office,” and I am. But as a Catholic who is at home with messy paradox, and who participates in the historic Catholic imagination, I still maintain a stable of traditional sacred persons. The departing Chicago archbishop is one of them.