Pope Francis’s Amoris Laetitia has elicited a wide variety of reactions. Most Catholic media have accentuated the positive: this document clearly rejects abortion, the idea of calling same-sex couples “married,” and a formal process of offering Holy Communion to married Catholics separated from their spouses and living in adultery unless they commit to be celibate…
Last September, in the leadup to the second synod, I found myself overwhelmed. The deluge of bad news washed over me like waves in a tempest, and the feeling of defeat that came with it was, at times, crushing. The game was rigged, the deck was stacked, the fix was in, and everyone knew it — even…
Yesterday, we broke the story that Pope Francis had made comments on his plane presser (returning from Greece) indicating with a simple, emphatic affirmative that yes, there were concrete changes to the way the Church is going to deal with the divorced and remarried following the exhortation. Some have (predictably) disputed those claims. There is…
It is our pleasure to present the commentaries of some reflective people in Europe and in the U.S. who are knowledgeable experts when it comes to the Vatican and the Catholic Faith. Each was asked to write a brief commentary to the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, and they have generously responded. We are very honored…
In Sankt Pelagiberg, a little Marian Pilgrimage site near Sankt Gallen in Switzerland — and a little way down the slope of the hill of the Church – there stands a modestly adorned field cross, just at the junction of two hiking paths. Under the shielded Cross of Christ Crucified is a plaque with these…
On Saturday, 9 April, Cardinal Walter Brandmüller explicitly commented on the pope’s Apostolic Exhortation on the Family and warns against a dilution of the Catholic Church’s teaching. The cardinal spoke to the German tabloid newspaper, Die Bild, as reported by the German Bishops’ website, katholisch.de. While many of the statements that are quoted here…
Pope Francis has just published his long-awaited Apostolic Exhortation on the Family, Amoris Laetitia. In it, he repeats many of the problematic and controversial statements of the previous 2014 and 2015 Synods of Bishops on the Family. Among these, one finds the law of gradualism with regard to sinful relationships, the claim that there are “seeds”…
Cardinal Walter Kasper — the most infamous member of the German episcopacy — appears to be just tingly with anticipation for the coming apostolic exhortation on marriage and family. Ed Pentin reports (with my emphasis): According to the Italian newspaper Il Terreno, the German theologian told an audience in the Italian city of Lucca on Monday evening that in a “few…
The German Church is in a dire state. Threatened by burgeoning apostasy and heresy within its own ranks, orthodox Catholics around the world look with a wary eye to the nation that gave us Martin Luther and the Protestant “Reformation”. The original title of Fr. Ralph Wiltgen’s essential account of the ecclesiastical revolution that took place at the…
Even before it became available on March 1, Loyola Press’s Dear Pope Francis was listed on Amazon as a #1 Best Seller in its category (Other Christian Denominations and Sects). Thirty letters from children to the pope are answered in a picture book intended to simulate a series of heart-to-heart chats with Francis. I wish I…
In a 2 March article published by the French Catholic magazine, La Vie, editor-in-chief Jean-Pierre Denis recounts parts of a private conversation between Pope Francis and a group of thirty Catholics engaged in the field of social Christianity – led by French Socialist Delegates – which took place on 1 March of this year at…
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