A new statement from the Holy See Press Office today indicates that despite assertions to the contrary from an outspoken Chinese cardinal, Pope Francis is fully aware and approves of recent diplomatic steps taken by the Vatican to appease the Chinese government. Yesterday, we reported that Cardinal Joseph Zen, Bishop-Emeritus of Hong Kong, had released…
As Katholisch.de, the official website of the German bishops, reports today, Cardinal Willem Eijk, the Dutch cardinal and Metropolitan Archbishop of Utrecht, requested that Pope Francis bring light into the confusion concerning the question as to how to deal with “remarried” divorcees in the Church. In an interview published today in the Dutch newspaper Trouw Cardinal…
Today, on the Feast of the Epiphany, another courageous bishop joins the ranks of those six other prelates who have already signed the declaration of the three bishops of Kazakhstan professing the immutable truths about sacramental marriage and opposes the altering — or softening — of the Church’s teaching concerning the possible admittance of the “remarried”…
On December 30, the Feast of the Holy Family, three bishops from Kazakhstan — Tomash Peta, Metropolitan Archbishop of the archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana, Jan Pawel Lenga, Archbishop-Bishop emeritus of Karaganda, and Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of the archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana — issued a statement saying any change in sacramental discipline that would allow…
John Phillips of The Telegraph (UK) reported this morning that Pope Francis has now “placed a request for Roman Catholic priests to be allowed to marry in Brazil on the agenda of a forthcoming synod on the Amazon region”. Phillips, citing Vatican sources in the Italian paper Il Messaggero, says that the decision to put “a partial lifting…
In a new open letter rebutting points made by Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments (CDW), pope Francis has made clear that he is not in agreement with the African cardinal’s commentary on his recent liturgical moto proprio, Magnum Principium. This public “calling out” of the cardinal responsible…
Upon the occasion of visiting the relic of St. Thomas More, Cardinal Raymond Burke reflected in comments to the National Catholic Register on the heavy responsibility of those who act as jurists and members of government (presumably, the cardinal intended also to include members of ecclesiastical government) to serve divine law. In his remarks, Burke…
