There are a number of people who seem to keep missing this key point, the super decoder ring to the entire synod and exhortation process. Gather round, everyone, and I’ll share the secret: To the average person — or the willing priest or bishop — it doesn’t matter that the exhortation didn’t change doctrine. If they’re given permission…
Rorate has a great little three-point commentary on Amoris Laetitia that should be read by every Catholic. I’m going to excerpt most of it because it’s so short, but please visit them for the rest: 1. An apostolic exhortation is not, by its very nature, a non-magisterial document. It is the content of a papal document…
In Sankt Pelagiberg, a little Marian Pilgrimage site near Sankt Gallen in Switzerland — and a little way down the slope of the hill of the Church – there stands a modestly adorned field cross, just at the junction of two hiking paths. Under the shielded Cross of Christ Crucified is a plaque with these…
A recap of Steve’s appearance on Fox & Friends and his followup video on pastoral practice, true mercy, and the exhortation – all in podcast format. [powerpress] RELATED LINKS: My Visit to Fox News In His Own Words: Cardinal Schönborn on Exhortation’s Deepest Concerns Msgr. Kieran Harrington misquotes the Catechism at Steve on Twitter
I’ve often found myself wondering about the bias I see at the Catholic News Service(CNS), which seems to gloss over many of the serious problems in the Church. Today, my friend Michael Hichborn at the Lepanto Institute has a story on CNS Director and Editor in Chief Tony Spence that may help shed some light on…
Faithful Catholics around the world love Cardinal Burke. And in truth, there is and has been much to love. He is a good and holy man who loves Our Lord and His Church. He has, for a very long time, been one of the few voices of doctrinal sanity in a hierarchy gone mostly off the…
On Saturday, 9 April, Cardinal Walter Brandmüller explicitly commented on the pope’s Apostolic Exhortation on the Family and warns against a dilution of the Catholic Church’s teaching. The cardinal spoke to the German tabloid newspaper, Die Bild, as reported by the German Bishops’ website, katholisch.de. While many of the statements that are quoted here…
This morning was my “big moment”. I woke up at 4:50AM and dragged my tired, exhortation-weary self into the shower to get ready to go on national television for the first time. I was invited to go on Fox & Friends — “the most-watched program on cable television between 6am – 9am ET” — to talk…
If the title of this post is all you want to hear about Amoris Laetitia, then kudos to you, because it’s true! He didn’t change doctrine. Never could. Never will. Of course, he absolutely gutted pastoral application and guidance on the doctrine on sin and marriage to the point that he made them both virtually unrecognizable.…
This morning, I noticed that the Drudge Report was leading with this: As I’ve said countless times, the “Magisterium of the Media” trumps the technically true (but pragmatically irrelevant) claim that “the pope hasn’t changed any doctrine.” Nope. He can’t. He won’t. He doesn’t need to. All he needs to do is gut praxis, and…
Pope Francis has just published his long-awaited Apostolic Exhortation on the Family, Amoris Laetitia. In it, he repeats many of the problematic and controversial statements of the previous 2014 and 2015 Synods of Bishops on the Family. Among these, one finds the law of gradualism with regard to sinful relationships, the claim that there are “seeds”…
