If religious differences are discussed at all today, they tend to be elided or celebrated. Ecumenism has been the watchword among Catholics in recent decades; the Second Vatican Council’s On Ecumenism was one of the most-frequently mentioned documents in American newspapers. For the 500th anniversary of Luther’s 95 Theses, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian…
Editor’s note: The following article comes to 1P5 from a Carmelite nun who fears for her order. For centuries, contemplative religious have been recognized as the “heartbeat of the Church.” Indeed, even the 2018 Vatican document “Cor Orans” calls contemplative nuns the “praying heart” of the Catholic Church — an acknowledged truth from which the…
The sacrament of Confession has been under attack in Australia since the conclusion of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in December of 2017. Several states have now passed legislation that requires Catholic priests to violate the confessional seal in cases where child sexual abuse is revealed in confession. The Queensland…
In 2017, Bishop Guo Xijin of Mindong in China’s Fujian province disappeared. At that time, he was pressured to sign a document stating his willingness to “voluntarily” be demoted to coadjutor bishop as a condition that he be recognized by the government during his one-month detention. This would have been bad enough. But in 2018, Pope Francis…
Dear friends and enemies … we are publishing a letter that Cardinal Joseph Zen sent some time ago to all the cardinals, and that he has now decided to make public. Needless to say, the latest news coming from mainland China only confirms and augments the concerns expressed for some time by many people about…
“Christ was crucified on earth and the Church is crucified in time, and the Church is crucified by all of us, by her members most particularly because She is a Church of sinners.” —Flannery O’Connor. There is quite a lot of talk these days about heresy and scandal in the hierarchy of the Church, of…
This week’s Bastille Day in Paris featured a man flying around on a brand new flyboard prototype, designed by inventor Franky Zapata. This “future soldier” buzzed through the air above the crowds and underneath a sky clouded in the colors of France’s flag. In his hands, he brandished a rifle in the hopes of demonstrating…
It was an “armored” press conference held by the pope [on Tuesday, September 25] on the flight that took him back to Rome after his trip to the Baltic Republics. The pope – who according to several correspondents on the plane appeared nervous and in difficulty – did not wish to respond to any questions…
It is never a good idea to sign a deal just for the sake of signing a deal The Vatican is set to sign an agreement with China by the end of the month, one that cedes control over the appointment of bishops to Beijing. In return, we are told, Beijing has agreed to recognize…
Peter Seewald, the German journalist who published several books with Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI, has recently been writing reports on the closing down of monasteries in the Diocese of Freising-Munich, always against the reverent will of the nuns in those monasteries. In April of 2018, OnePeterFive mentioned the case of Altomünster, a thousand-year-old abbey in…
Population Research Institute President and China Expert Steven Mosher went to Rome to warn the Vatican that under the rapidly growing power and religious persecution of the Jinping regime, any agreement between the Vatican and Beijing would be seen by Chinese believers as nothing short of a rank betrayal.
