In his 1896 Encyclical, Satis Cognitum, Pope Leo XIII warned us of the dangers of accepting error in something otherwise good: The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels…
Earlier this week, I told you about the pro-gay public tweets of Catholic News Service Director and Editor in Chief Tony Spence. The Lepanto Institute ran a full briefing on him, with screenshots of more than half a dozen offending statements on social media. Statements like: Spence’s resignation didn’t stop him from making clear his…
On 12 April, the influential German Cardinal Karl Lehmann wrote an official statement and praised the new Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia. Lehmann is the former President of the German Bishops’ Conference and was a member of the so-called “Sankt Gallen Group” which is known to have been a supporter of Jorge Bergoglio back at the 2005…
There are a number of people who seem to keep missing this key point, the super decoder ring to the entire synod and exhortation process. Gather round, everyone, and I’ll share the secret: To the average person — or the willing priest or bishop — it doesn’t matter that the exhortation didn’t change doctrine. If they’re given permission…
Rorate has a great little three-point commentary on Amoris Laetitia that should be read by every Catholic. I’m going to excerpt most of it because it’s so short, but please visit them for the rest: 1. An apostolic exhortation is not, by its very nature, a non-magisterial document. It is the content of a papal document…
I’ve often found myself wondering about the bias I see at the Catholic News Service(CNS), which seems to gloss over many of the serious problems in the Church. Today, my friend Michael Hichborn at the Lepanto Institute has a story on CNS Director and Editor in Chief Tony Spence that may help shed some light on…
Faithful Catholics around the world love Cardinal Burke. And in truth, there is and has been much to love. He is a good and holy man who loves Our Lord and His Church. He has, for a very long time, been one of the few voices of doctrinal sanity in a hierarchy gone mostly off the…
If the title of this post is all you want to hear about Amoris Laetitia, then kudos to you, because it’s true! He didn’t change doctrine. Never could. Never will. Of course, he absolutely gutted pastoral application and guidance on the doctrine on sin and marriage to the point that he made them both virtually unrecognizable.…
This morning, I noticed that the Drudge Report was leading with this: As I’ve said countless times, the “Magisterium of the Media” trumps the technically true (but pragmatically irrelevant) claim that “the pope hasn’t changed any doctrine.” Nope. He can’t. He won’t. He doesn’t need to. All he needs to do is gut praxis, and…
I don’t know the how or the why of it, but Rorate Caeli has published a summary (apparently leaked) of tomorrow’s hotly-anticipated post-synodal apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia. Even the summary clocks in at nearly 4,000 words, so tomorrow’s full text is going to be, as we all anticipated, a doozy. (Early reports say 260 pages or so – nearly…
At The Wanderer yesterday, Maike Hickson provided a summary translation of recent comments from Cardinal Brandmüller reiterating Church teaching on marriage on the eve of the Synod: “It is the Church’s magisterial teaching (Dogma) that a validly contracted and consummated marriage cannot be dissolved by any power of the world – also not by the…
