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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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. … Read more
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 … Read more
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” … Read more
At The Wanderer yesterday, Maike Hickson provided a summary translation of recent comments from Cardinal Brandmüller reiterating Church teaching on marriage on the eve of the Synod: “It is the Church’s magisterial teaching (Dogma) that a validly contracted and consummated marriage cannot be dissolved by any power of the world – also not by the … Read more
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, Austria, has been chosen by Pope Francis to present his apostolic exhortation, Amoris Leaetitia, on 8 April. We’ve already explored some of his statements over the past few days, because we believe it may shed light on why he was chosen for this particular task. Of special importance in this regard is … Read more
The Italian journalist Marco Tosatti just published on 4 April an article on his blog in which he reports on Cardinal Robert Sarah’s strong words about gender theory. At a recent presentation of his own book, God or Nothing, Cardinal Sarah said as follows: “The gender theory, the marriage between persons of the same sex, and … Read more
In a briefing in Rome this morning, Father Frederico Lombardi of the Holy See Press Office announced that Pope Francis’ long-anticipated post-synodal apostolic exhortation — titled, ‘Amoris laetitia‘ (The Joy of Love: On Love in the Family) — will be released on Friday, April 8. The event will begin with a press conference to present the exhortation … Read more
Bear with me in a little folly. I present a fictional account on a hypothetical “what if?” question. That is, what if the great patron saint of parish priests, the Curé of Ars (St. Jean-Marie Vianney), were alive in our times and placed in a typical parish? Based on the Abbé Francis Trochu’s biography of … Read more
I begin by recounting a magnificently horrible tale from the Church’s past: the exploits of the iniquitous Pope Stephen VI. It speaks to corruption, power, and the extent one is willing to go to “undertake” macabre vengeance. Briefly, the notorious Stephen VI, soon after his election in 896 A.D., had the rotting corpse of his … Read more
