On October 20th, 2015, as the second half of the Synod on the Family was underway, I wrote: It has long been my concern that Francis will make an end-run around the restrictions of papal infallibility by not making a decision that is binding, but rather by delegating the decision on matters as important as…
Everyone has that family member or friend who embarrasses them by saying things they shouldn’t in public. The racist joke, the sexist comment, the unsolicited conspiracy theories…the options run the gamut. Sometimes, they might even say something you might agree with in private, but would never say around strangers. Whatever the case, you just wish they’d…
Today’s Holy See Press Office Bulletin tells us that Pope Francis received a thousand German Lutherans in audience at the Pope Paul VI hall at the Vatican: The Holy Father described this as a “beautiful initiative” and thanked the bishops who supported and accompanied the pilgrims. “Let us give thanks to God”, he said, “because…
After the announcement that Pope Francis had selected Archbishop Blaise Cupich of Chicago to become one of the new cardinals, Cupich gave short, but very revealing, 12 October interview to the Italian newspaper La Stampa‘s publication Vatican Insider. This interview is very important, because Cupich explains his own understanding of the Eighth Chapter of the…
The Catholic Church in Germany seems to be becoming more and more unbounded in its proposals. In the recent past, for examples, the official website of the German Bishops’ Conference, katholisch.de, has reported about the idea to have women cardinals; about establishing homosexuality as a human right; and about the need for married priests and for…
Just after the news about Pope Francis’ support of more liberalizing approaches to the “remarried” question in Argentina and in Rome, news is now coming to us from Germany that other elements of the Catholic Church are moving in the same direction. Stephan Burger, Archbishop of Freiburg, Germany, has just announced that he expects the German Bishops’…
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn continues to make news with various heterodox and equivocal messages coming out from his Diocese of Vienna, Austria. Not long ago, we reported on his website’s promotion the gender theory; now the Parish Bulletin for his Cathedral of St. Stephen in Vienna contains an article presenting a homosexual couple with their adopted…
Today, Dr. Sandro Magister, the well-informed Italian Vatican specialist, published an article of great importance because he explicitly shows another example of what Pope Francis has likely intended with his post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia. After the example of Argentina – where Pope Francis gave express approval of a more liberalizing attitude toward those “remarried” divorcees…
The volume and scope of the analysis by Church scholars, theologians, and other Catholic writers on the topic of Pope Francis’ post-synodal apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia (AL), is little short of staggering. But in recent weeks, since the pope’s brazen approval of the Argentine Bishops’ letter making clear that there is “no other interpretation” than that AL chapter…
I am a 38-year-old priest. Most of my priesthood has been spent with university students and young families. Every week, I end up in some conversation on the phone with someone who is enduring unspeakable suffering within their family. I know that every age of history has suffering, but something is different about this year.…
On the official website of the Archdiocese of Vienna, Austria – whose reigning archbishop is Cardinal Christoph Schönborn – two different articles, though not explicitly related to one another, will likely be of great importance for Catholics in the world today. First, there is to be found the report that Pope Francis himself has just written…
