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…
This morning we told you the story of Fr. Thomas Weinandy, a Capuchin friar who, after receiving what he believed was a sign from God, wrote a letter to Pope Francis — with obvious filial respect and love — in the hopes of bringing to his attention some of the more damaging effects of his…
Fr. Thomas Weinandy is a Capuchin friar who formerly served as chief of staff for the US Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine. He is also a current member of the International Theological Commission at the Vatican. Like Fr. Brian Harrison, OS, Fr. Weinandy is not a supporter of the Filial Correction despite his own misgivings. In…
As I was reading through a backlog of articles and news stories in preparation to write this reflection, I received a phone call from one of my oldest friends. After referencing all that is transpiring in the Church, he asked with a nervous laugh how it is that I’ve not yet fallen into despair. “To…
The temptation to despair when pondering the state of Holy Mother Church is all too great at the moment, especially when we see that those on whom we should be able to rely are sacrificing the Faith on the altar of humanism. It is easy to forget that we are not in fact helpless. We…
Dear friends, enemies, and any other readers, this morning I thought I was going to have a day off. Then a message arrived from “Big Shot”, which, I must confess, truly took my breath away, because of its tone and because I know that “Big Shot ” has seen it all and is not someone…
One of the two remaining dubia cardinals, Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, has just given an interview to the prominent German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) which has been published today, 28 October. In this lengthy interview, the 88-year old German prelate explains once more the fundamental teaching of the Catholic Church on marriage, as it has been…
In his Monday column at First Things, Italian journalist and veteran Vatican-watcher Marco Tosatti gave voice to what had previously been little more than a whispered rumor: that a group was at work, with Vatican knowledge and support, on a kind of interfaith liturgy: [T]here is the matter of the “Ecumenical Mass,” a liturgy designed…
Today, 28 October, an encouraging piece of news comes to us. At the Conference on Humanae Vitae which takes place in Rome, at the Pontifical University St. Thomas Aquinas, and which was organized by the lay organization Voice of the Family, Professor Josef Seifert – a former member of the recently reformed Pontifical Academy for…
Today I watched a short but moving video about a Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, that was founded at the close of the Second World War. Once filled with 84 monks, it has now dwindled to only handful, who are being forced to leave because there are not enough of them — in good enough…
In a two-part essay at Public Discourse (here and here), E. Christian Brugger has responded to Edward Feser and Joseph M. Bassette’s new book on capital punishment (By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment). Feser and Bessette argue that the Church’s traditional teaching on the moral permissibility of the death penalty…
