The vote to green-light a revision would also come on the heels of a report from the Lepanto Institute, released Monday, alleging that the largest Catholic health care system in the U.S., CommonSpirit Health, is performing transgender surgeries and providing hormone-based transgender therapies.
Another prominent agenda item is an update from Bishop Andrew Cozzens of the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, on the National Eucharistic Revival initiative and National Eucharistic Congress. The three-year initiative that began in June 2022 aims to “renew the Church by enkindling a living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ in the holy Eucharist.”
With eucharistic processions held across the country on the feast of Corpus Christi, the revival entered its second year aimed at fostering eucharistic devotion at the parish level. The bishops are also planning a two-month National Eucharistic Pilgrimage starting in May 2024 with four major pilgrimage routes ending at the National Eucharistic Congress on July 16, 2024, in Indianapolis.
Another event that the bishops will receive an update on at their spring gathering is the upcoming World Youth Day 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal, in August.
Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, chairman of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth, will lead a vote Friday requesting approval for the drafting of a new pastoral statement from the bishops addressing persons with disabilities in the life of the Church. The new statement will likely take into account developments in technology, a rise in autism diagnoses, and changes in the way issues involving persons with disabilities are discussed since the bishops’ first pastoral statement on the issue in 1978.
The bishops will also consider advancing the cause on the local level of the beatification and canonization of the Shreveport Martyrs, five French Roman Catholic priests who died ministering to the sick in Shreveport, Louisiana, amid the 1873 yellow fever epidemic.