We have written at considerable length about the tragic saga of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in these pages over the past two years. In my most recent piece, I discussed how the recent election has highlighted how fully the German faction has now taken over the Knights of Malta. This was evidenced in…
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is in the news again today after the release of a new, 8,000-word interview with the Washington Post. According to the post, the interview was conducted via email over a period of two months, with the former U.S. papal nuncio providing answers to some 40 questions. Those who have read previous Viganò testimonies will find…
“In our time the Church is experiencing one of the greatest spiritual epidemics, that is, an almost universal doctrinal confusion and disorientation, which is a seriously contagious danger for spiritual health and eternal salvation for many souls. At the same time one has to recognize a widespread lethargy in the exercise of the Magisterium on…
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, the head of the pope’s council of cardinal advisers, has, according to a tweet from National Catholic Register Rome correspondent Edward Pentin, been evacuated from a plane bound for Panama today due to political protests at Honduras airport. According to Pentin’s sources, Maradiaga was secreted away out the back of the airport because…
In an interview published yesterday, Pope Francis finally addressed the allegations made by former US Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò that he knew about the illicit sexual activities of former-Cardinal (and Bergoglio-promoter) Theodore McCarrick. Viganò has always claimed since his first testimony was released in August of 2018 that he personally told the pope about McCarrick.…
In a new, wide-ranging interview with with Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki published today in Spanish by Vatican News (English summary available here), Pope Francis broke his nearly year-long silence on charges made by former papal nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò that he knew about Theodore McCarrick’s illicit sexual activities and yet continued to work with with…
On May 1, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which has just gone through one of its most tumultuous and troubling periods in its 900-plus-year history (see our coverage here), conducted its Chapter General. The purpose: to elect a new government. At the conclusion of the election, one thing has become clear: the takeover of…
A new papal motu proprio letter, Vos Estis Lux Mundi, makes some important changes to the way the Vatican handles clerical sexual abuse. The plan, promulgated today, goes into effect on June 1, 2019. “The crimes of sexual abuse,” the letter reads, “offend Our Lord, cause physical, psychological and spiritual damage to the victims and…
There have been a number of developments on the Open Letter accusing the pope of heresy since I first summarized it in this space on April 30. The first of these is that the number of scholars who have signed it has gone from 15 to 81. (At LifeSite, Maike Hickson has been updating the list…
“Clericalism” has been a favorite buzzword of Pope Francis almost since the inception of his pontificate. He wields it like a Swiss army knife, applying it to every problem he doesn’t have a sufficient alternative explanation for. (There’s also not a little irony in his use of the term, but that’s par for the course.) Most recently, he…
When news broke earlier this week about the formation of a new “super dicastery” for evangelization that will supersede the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I expected to see more commentary on it. As an American covering things coming out of Rome from 6,000 miles away, I’m less aware of the nuances and…
