On January 22, 2017, in an interview with the Spanish daily El País, Pope Francis said, “In China the churches are full.You can practice religion in China.” It was a statement that raised eyebrows among those who have long followed the history of Christianity under Communist regimes, of which China is certainly no exception. China, in fact,…
As we had reported at the end of last year, Pope Francis terminated the membership of all the then-current members of the Pontifical Academy for Life, and there were around seventy of them at that time. A well-informed source told us recently: At the end of 2016, the Pontifical Academy for Life was closed and…
Last Sunday’s Gospel reading, taken from Matt. 13:24-30, struck me — as the readings so often have in recent months — as eerily applicable to our present moment: AT THAT time, Jesus spoke this parable to the multitudes: “The kingdom of heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seed in his field. But…
The following is Part IV of a series. Read Part I, Part II, and Part III at the links. Tradition, Doctrine and Magisterium (Continued) Ecumenism The 1928 encyclical Mortalium Animos condemns modern notions of ecumenism. It says the Catholic Church is the one true Church, to which separated Christian ecclesial communities should return. It says…
Image: Salzburg, Austria Today, on 7 February 2017, the Austrian Auxiliary Bishop Andreas Laun of Salzburg has published on the Catholic website Kath.net a commentary on the current situation in the Church with regard to the papal document Amoris Laetitia and its cumulative effects. Bishop Laun speaks about a German priest who now works in…
Just a quick note: some of you have written to me to express your concern about some inappropriate advertisements showing up near the comments. I share your concern. Disqus has been a good, robust platform for managing our comments. It provides many of our users a single login associated with other sites, gives us pretty…
Many Catholic observers have more fully come to see in the recent days the disproportionate injustice done to Fra’ Matthew Festing, the former Grand Master of the Order of Malta, and to Cardinal Raymond L. Burke himself, the Cardinal Patron of the Order, both of whom have now been effectively punished for their attempt to…
On 3 February 2017, the Vatican’s official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, published an article presenting the new pastoral guidelines concerning marriage as published by the German Bishops’ Conference on 1 February. This fact in itself is already newsworthy and of great importance, especially since the new German guidelines are, first of all, approvingly presented and not…
Just two days after the official publication of the new pastoral guidelines concerning marriage, there seems to be in Germany an increase of disorder. Contradicting, confusing, and alarmed voices are now to be heard from all corners of the country. But, foremost, the document itself turns out to be more insidiously dangerous than had seemed…
(Image courtesy of MarkNowakowski.com) Attention readers in Virginia (and surrounding areas)! It’s late notice, but I wanted to pass along an invitation to attend an evening of sacred music ancient and new. Our own writer and composer, Dr. Mark Nowakowski, is currently in the Old Dominion, working with the baroque ensemble “Three Notch’d Road” on his…
Image: Werdenberg, Sankt Gallen, Switzerland In the wake of an indisputably liberalizing Pastoral Letter on Marriage and the Family as published by the German Bishops two days ago, there comes now to us a more encouraging event from the neighboring country of Switzerland. One Swiss Bishop now publicly defends the traditional Catholic teaching on marriage. Bishop…
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