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The Rev. James Martin Editor's Note: The Rev. James Martin is a Jesuit priest, editor at large of America and author of the new novel  "The Abbey." The views expressed in this column belong to Martin. Author Father James Martin (CNN) The Synod on the Family, the gathering of bishops from around the world that just concluded, changed no Catholic doctrine. None. But you wouldn't know that from the fierce reactions the synod evoked. Even the possibility that the church might deal more openly with, for example, divorced and remarried Catholics or the LGBT community, sent some Catholics into a near frenzy. It seemed out of proportion to the synod's discussions as well as the final document, a rather workaday overview of issues related to the family. The final report did not, for example, say that divorced and remarried could return to Communion. Instead it talked about possible avenues of reconciliation that already existed. Nor did it approve

By DAVID GIBSON Religion News Service Pope Francis smiles as she arrives for the afternoon session of the last day of the Synod of bishops, at the Vatican, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2015. Catholic bishops from around the world vote Saturday on a final document to better minister to families following a contentious, three-week summit that exposed deep divisions among prelates over Pope Francis' call for a more merciful and less judgmental church. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Vatican City • A momentous and divided gathering of global bishops ended Saturday by endorsing ways that could lead to greater participation by divorced and remarried Catholics — a major source of friction here — while the 270 churchmen declined to take up the even more controversial issue of how and whether to be more welcoming to gays. The final document was an obvious compromise intended to gain support from both reformers and hard-liners and achieve as much consensus as possible. The three-week meeti

By Laura Bernardini, CNN This is week 22 of an ongoing series:  A Catholic Reads the Bible . Read  Week One,   Week Two  and  Week Three . As I read the Book of Nehemiah, I couldn't contain my surprise. The introduction said that there was a section of the book that was a "memoir." But, I didn't anticipate this: All of a sudden, every sentence started with "I" and it was a personal narrative. (Duh, Laura...that is the definition of a memoir.) For the first time in the Bible that I can recall, the "I" speaking isn't God. It was a guy I had never ever heard of before called Nehemiah. He was talking about how his life and role in restoring the walls of Jerusalem. Wait. What? Who was this guy? Why was he talking directly to me? This story came out of nowhere and had me looking at other resources for answers. First, I didn't really know that Ezra and Nehemiah were. And now, Nehemiah -- a name I couldn't spell in m

  By  NICOLE WINFIELD . View gallery . VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis called Saturday for a Catholic Church that is far more decentralized, where they laity play a greater role, bishops conferences take care of certain problems and even the papacy is rethought. Related Stories Pope encourages Cuba to provide Church with 'freedom'   Reuters How The Catholic Church In America Is Doing On The Eve Of Pope Francis's Visit   Huffington Post Does Pope Francis Have Sharp Words In Store For American Bishops?   Huffington Post Pope Francis, Inequality and Abortion Huffington Post Pope Francis Simplifies Rules on Marriage Annulments   The Wall Street Journal Francis issued the call during a ceremony Saturday to mark the 50th anniversary of the institution of the Synod of Bishops, a consultative body formed during the Second Vatican Council that was intended precisely to encourage more collegiality in the running of the church by inv

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. View gallery . DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (AP) — Wildlife activists are applauding the arrest by Tanzanian authorities of a Chinese woman for alleged ivory smuggling but caution that it's a small step toward stemming the "slaughter of industrial proportions" of elephants According to the government, Tanzania's elephant population plummeted from an estimated 109,051 in 2009 to 43,330 in 2014. Yang Feng Clan, 66, was charged Wednesday in Dar es Salaam alongside two Tanzanians with smuggling 1.9 tons of ivory between Jan. 1, 2000 and May 22, 2014. Their case was adjourned to Monday. "We are very happy to hear about this arrest since Tanzania has been facing a major catastrophe with the death of 30 elephants per day for several years now," Paula Kahumbu, a top wildlife conservationist, said Friday Tanzania has been largely in denial about the crisis, and anyone reporting on it has been threatened, she said. Kahumbu says she is

. View photo A customs officer arranges confiscated elephant tusks before a news conference at the Port Authority … By Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - A Tanzanian court has charged a prominent Chinese businesswoman, dubbed the 'Ivory Queen', with running a criminal network responsible for smuggling tusks from more than 350 elephants, court documents seen by Reuters on Friday showed. Yang Feng Glan, 66, was accused in Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, this week of smuggling 706 pieces of ivory between 2000 and 2004 worth 5.44 billion Tanzanian shillings ($2.51 million). Glan, a Swahili-speaker who has been in the east African nation since the 1970s, is secretary-general of the Tanzania China-Africa Business Council and owns a popular Chinese restaurant in Dar es Salaam, according to police sources. Reuters was unable to reach the lawyer for Glan who was not allowed to enter a plea until the case resumes. She

BY  JACK JENKINS CREDIT: AP PHOTO/ALESSANDRA TARANTINO Archbishop Heiner Koch A German archbishop is calling on the Catholic Church to reconsider its practice of barring parishioners who have divorced and remarried from receiving communion, saying the practice makes people “doubt God.” According to the National Catholic Reporter , Berlin Archbishop Heiner Koch addressed the issue during the ongoing Synod on the Family, a gathering of roughly 270 Catholic elite convened by Pope Francis to discuss family issues such as homosexuality, divorce, and priestly celibacy, among other things. Koch dedicated the majority of his allotted three minutes of speaking time to the subject of divorced and remarried Catholics who kept from receiving the Eucharist. He said the Church’s traditional arguments to support the ban “do not silence the questions in the hearts of people,” and called for the assembly to rethink its stance. Is there no place at the Lord’s table for people who exp

Mota cave in Ethiopia, where researchers found the body of a 4,500-year-old man whose DNA was still preserved.  (Kathryn and John Arthur) Karen Kaplan Contact Reporter DNA from a man who lived in Ethiopia about 4,500 years ago is prompting scientists to rethink the history of human migration in Africa. Until now, the conventional wisdom had been that the first groups of modern humans left Africa  roughly 70,000 years ago , stopping in the Middle East en route to Europe, Asia and beyond. Then about 3,000 years ago, a group of farmers from the Middle East and present-day Turkey came back to the Horn of Africa (probably bringing crops like wheat, barley and lentils with them). Population geneticists pieced this story together by comparing the DNA of distinct groups of people alive today. Since humans emerged in Africa, DNA from an ancient Africa could provide a valuable genetic baseline that would make it easier for scientists to track genome changes over time. See