A German theologian and member of the Vatican’s International Theological Commission strongly criticized in a recent interview the German intercommunion handout as it was approved already on 20 February by a majority of the German bishops. He calls this handout “unlawful,” “unwise,” and “defective.” On 25 May, domradio.de, the radio station of the Diocese of…
Image: Herforder Münster (Germany), formerly Marienkirche Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the head of the German bishops, is now opening up to the idea of different German dioceses having different rules concerning the possible admittance of Protestant spouses of Catholics to Holy Communion. Another bishop just said, moreover, that Pope Francis seems not to see in the…
Image: Copyright EWTN / Paul Badde In May, there is to be an historic meeting with the CDF and some German bishops concerning the recent German pastoral guidelines on intercommunion. Many well-informed observers of this situation worry that this meeting might turn into a compromise and into an official Vatican approval of the progressivist German approach…
In the wake of the 4 April revelation that seven German bishops have turned to the Vatican in protest against the recent decision of the German Bishops’ Conference in favor of intercommunion for Protestant spouses of Catholics, Ulrich Ruh, a German Catholic theologian, now claims that this move is also a vote of mistrust, not…
In the middle of the fourth century, Saint Jerome remarked that the world “awoke with a groan to find itself Arian.” Arianism divided the Church and Empire of the fourth and fifth centuries and beyond by claiming that the Divine Logos, Jesus Christ, was not of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father and not…
Image: “The Dragon Transmitting Power” Master of Sarum, c. 1250. Sometimes, it’s hard to find words. This is one such occasion. What can be said to explain the Vatican’s decision to issue a stamp with a reverential image of one of the most notorious heretics in history, to “mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation”? Note the…
I loved primary school. I loved my teachers. I loved my friends. I loved history lessons. And I loved R.E. lessons. We had them about twice a week, and I believed that the topics we covered were helping me to become a better Catholic. In hindsight, I see that I retained my faith not so…
In October of 2016, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the head of the German Bishops’ Conference, along with Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, the head of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), together made an official visit to Israel. In spite of the fact that this visit was meant to be an ecumenical event, it turned out, in part,…
It is a curious conceit of an obtuse generation that it believes itself to be committed to modernity, embodied by devotion to science and reason, and yet is so irrevocably immutable to evidence. The spiritual (but not religious) Mecca of modernity in the Catholic Church is the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the headquarters of which…
