There has been a meme making the rounds on Facebook for awhile now. Showing images of the last three pontiffs, it states: Pope John Paul II “This is what we believe”, Pope Benedict XVI “This is why we believe it”, Pope Francis “Now go do it”: Despite the good intentions of those who made it,…
I’ve had a special fondness for the Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem for several years now. In 2011, I discovered their fledgling priory in Charles Town, WV, where they had recently found a home with the gracious permission of Bishop Michael Bransfield of Wheeling-Charleston. As an Augustinian community dedicated to the Church’s traditional liturgy and…
During her weekly press conference on Capitol Hill earlier today, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had the following exchange with an unidentified reporter: Q: “Is an unborn baby with a human heart and a human liver a human being?” Pelosi: “Why don’t you take your ideological questions…I don’t…” Q: “If it’s not a human being,…
As many Catholics already know, the Ordinary Synod on the Family is set to meet in Rome in just a few days. One of the issues that will be discussed by the bishops is the Kasper Proposal, described by the Relatio Synodi document from last year’s Extraordinary Synod on the Family as: “…the possibility of…
News this morning from Rome about a “shadow synod” that is already working on the outcome of the Synod on the Family before it even begins: Italian journalist Marco Tosatti reveals that A SECRET PARALLEL SYNOD has been established in Rome, a cabal composed almost exclusively by Jesuits, with the occasional Argentinian presence (easy to…
My daughter has been bugging me for the past two days to get her one of the Lemony Snicket books for the book club she’s in. I’m a notorious procrastinator, so I hadn’t gotten to it yet, and then I read this: American author Daniel Handler, popularly known by his pen name Lemony Snicket, tweeted…
In my other piece today, I said that the “image of a Rorschach papacy upon which one can project whatever ideological alignment one wills if they only squint hard enough has become impossible to dismiss.” Now see this, from the Public Religion Research Institute: I haven’t had time to go through the rest of…
When I decided to publish Maureen Mullarkey’s essay, Notes on a Road Show, I had no idea that First Things editor R.R. Reno would make the decision to kill off Maureen’s entire blog. The piece first appeared there, but was soon thereafter taken down on Reno’s orders. Over the past year, Maureen and I have struck up a friendly correspondence based in…
Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, Oregon made an urgent appeal for prayers today for the upcoming Synod on the Family in Rome. Using his Facebook page to post the below message to the faithful, His Excellency asked that all “pray that God’s will be done at this Synod and that all the powers of the…
The road show is over. The spectacle flamed up and subsided, a Roman candle of demonic sanctimony. Think of it as pre-game warm-up for the main event: the global climate summit in Paris, November 30 to December 11. The Vatican is partnering with the Obama administration, at the U.N. and later in Paris, in magnifying…
Voice of the Family has the latest on the Filial Appeal to Pope Francis: A Filial Appeal signed by 790, 190 Catholics, including 201 cardinals, archbishops and bishops, has been submitted today to Pope Francis. The appeal calls on the Holy Father to say “a clarifying word” to dissipate the “widespread confusion arising from the possibility that…
