Christopher White

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to office, it's worth considering what Vatican-U.S. relations might look like during the four years ahead, NCR's Christopher White writes. 

For nearly 50 years, Columban Fr. Robert McCulloch has worked tirelessly to improve the country's health care and education systems, and in the process has helped boost Catholic-Muslim relations.

The U.S. bishops' conference needs a "committee on synodality," San Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy told NCR in a joint interview with Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich, who said, "This has to come in at the top of the list."

Pope Francis' three-year consultation on the future of the Catholic Church concluded on Oct. 26, outlining the institution's challenges and proposing ways for all the baptized to be involved in charting a path forward.

Rome's Caravita community has served as an unofficial parish for synod members from Australia, Great Britain, the United States and elsewhere over the past two Octobers.

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández told synod delegates that the study into female diaconate would continue, but insisted that questions on women's leadership in the Catholic Church should not be linked to ordination.

The scope of group five includes "theological and canonical matters regarding specific ministerial forms" and, in particular, "theological and pastoral research on the access of women to the diaconate."

As the yearslong synod on synodality inches toward its Oct. 27 conclusion, the resistance has effectively gone silent, a stark contrast to last year's summit, as well as to Pope Francis' earlier synods.

Delegates are officially barred from discussing specifics of the conversations inside the Vatican's synod hall. But members told NCR that hot-button issues are being discussed both inside the room and on the sidelines.

The pope just announced a new consistory that will take place Dec. 8 appointing 21 new cardinals from around the world. Eleven of these new cardinals are from religious orders. Only one of them is older than 80 so will not be eligible to vote in the conclave.

Pope Francis on Oct. 6 announced that he will create 21 new cardinals, giving the 87-year old pontiff another opportunity to further cement his legacy by now naming 80% of the men who will one day elect his successor. 

Pope Francis on Oct. 2 opened the final session of a Vatican summit on the future of Catholicism, encouraging participants not to use the monthlong meeting to push individual agendas, but to seek unity in diversity in the church so "each person feels welcomed." 

On Sept. 30, Pope Francis met with a delegation of women at the Vatican who presented voices from the Amazon region and around the world.

Pope Francis on Sept. 29 strongly condemned the disproportionate use of military force for the purposes of retaliation and said that any nation that violates this principle is "immoral."

Pope Francis on Sept. 28 slammed the "arrogant indifference" of powerful leaders who put financial interests over efforts to save the planet and said a conversion of the heart is necessary to combat climate change. 

At the Catholic University of Leuven, Pope Francis heard pleas for women's ordination, welcome to LGBTQ people and a deeper reckoning with its history of clergy abuse and cover-up. 

Pope Francis on Sept. 27 kicked off a three-day trip to Belgium by asking forgiveness for the church's shameful record on clergy abuse, but was met with a challenge by the country's prime minister that "words alone do not suffice."

Pope Francis on Sept. 26 used an eight-hour visit to one of the least populated but most secularized countries in Europe to cast a renewed vision for a church that is willing to "evolve" in order to evangelize the modern world. 

Pope Francis' Sept. 26-29 visit to Luxembourg and Belgium in Europe will force him to confront some of the Catholic Church's biggest challenges, including the clergy sexual abuse crisis and declining church attendance.

"It's often when Francis is on the road that he's able to underscore the simplicity that he expects from church leaders," writes Christopher White, NCR's Vatican correspondent.