RELATED LINKS: Pope Benedict’s Abdication Statement (Vatican Website) Interview With Pope Emeritus About Validity of His Resignation (1P5, La Stampa) Pope Emeritus Interview With Peter Seewald on Question of Forced Resignation (1P5, National Catholic Register) Pope Emeritus Letters to Cardinal Walter Brandmüller (1P5, Bild) On Questions of a Limitations of a Pope’s Powers/Power to Abrogate Canon…
I don’t know about all of you, but I am so unbelievably sick and tired of being treated as though we’re all a bunch of complete idiots. And when I see good bishops and priests playing games of mental Twister to try to reconcile deeply unorthodox statements from the pope just because he’s the pope,…
Last week, it was announced by the Australian court system that Cardinal George Pell had been convicted in December of child sex abuse. The media had been prevented from reporting on the verdict because there was a hope of moving forward with yet another trial against the cardinal. That trial against Pell fell apart. Another,…
…but never quite found the time, take yourself over to Crisis Magazine and read the excellent overview of the Francis Pontificate from Julia Meloni entitled, Francis Allies Reveal Their Plans for Revolutionary Change. Here’s an excerpt, and yes, it’s all this well-written: For Murphy-O’Connor and other mafia alumni, including Cardinals Kasper and Danneels, had expertly toured pre-conclave gatherings…
I’m not even going to attempt to present this one as a straight news piece. The inescapable feeling one gets when looking at the story is that it’s a farce. After months under an Australian court’s gag order, the December conviction of Cardinal George Pell on decades-old sex abuse allegations has just been announced. The…
A new survey conducted by Fr. Donald Kloster of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Norwalk, Connecticut, in cooperation with a statistician and Brian Williams of LiturgyGuy.com, has highlighted some interesting data from an underrepresented group of Catholics: those who regularly attend the traditional Latin Mass. The priest who initiated the survey has offered “both the…
The sex abuse summit in Rome hasn’t even begun yet this week, and already things aren’t looking so good for any serious attempt to deal with this global crisis. Related Links: Presentation of the Meeting on “The protection of minors in the Church” 2019-02-18 (Vatican News) Cardinal Cupich: Vast majority of clergy abuse is homosexual,…
Often times, as I scramble from writing one story to another, spend my days (and often nights) recording and editing video or podcasts, or try in vain to work my way through an overflowing email inbox, correspondence from readers — real, physical notes or letters — begin piling up on my desk. Today, I took…
Just because “Uncle” Ted McCarrick has been laicized and made a scapegoat on behalf of a Vatican that continues to demonstrate it’s anything but serious about clerical abuse, it doesn’t mean there’s nothing left we can learn from him. Here, very briefly, are two lessons from McCarrick worth remembering. First: just because a high-ranking cardinal…
There’s a new book coming out to coincide with the sex abuse summit in Rome, and it’s already all the buzz on a number of Catholic websites. Entitled, In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy [and known as “Sodom” in Europe] the book is written by a French journalist by the name of Frédéric Martel —…
The news broke very early this morning (about 9:30AM Rome time) that Theodore McCarrick, once the Cardinal Archbishop of Washington, DC, powerful Church fundraiser, and a kingmaker in ecclesiastical politics — including the election of Pope Francis — had been found guilty of depraved crimes by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF)…
