In this episode, Steve breaks down the bad news and the good that has followed in the wake of the extremely tumultuous Amazon Synod. There’s undeniably a lot of bad news, but there are also signs of hope. There’s a lot to cover, so if you like to listen to someone talking about Church politics…
At a ceremony in the Vatican gardens leading up to the Amazon Synod, a very strange ritual unfolded. In addition to more ecological symbolism than you could shake a shrinking polar ice cap at, we saw some disturbing scenes, including a pair of naked pregnant statues carved from wood and a group of people, some…
Amidst the raging debate over what was at best a syncretistic (and at worst an overtly pagan) opening ceremony for the Amazon Synod, an early push for ending clerical celibacy from Cardinal Hummes, cringe-inducing virtue-signaling from members of the Catholic media, and the jaw-dropping brazenness of a key synod organizer — Bishop Erwin Kräutler — openly supporting women’s…
On Monday, September 30, Pope Francis — the first Jesuit pope — sat down in the library of the Apostolic Palace with fellow Jesuit Fr. James Martin for a half-hour private audience. Gerard O’Connell, writing for the Jesuit-run America magazine, says, “It was their third meeting but their first substantial conversation.” Be that as it may, Martin is hardly an…
In a new, wide-ranging interview with with Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki published today in Spanish by Vatican News (English summary available here), Pope Francis broke his nearly year-long silence on charges made by former papal nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò that he knew about Theodore McCarrick’s illicit sexual activities and yet continued to work with with…
In response to an invitation to participate in a National Catholic Register symposium on the Clerical Sex Abuse Summit in Rome later this month, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has once again made public comments about the crisis in the Church. In his brief essay, he signals pessimism about the upcoming meeting, saying, “I am praying intensely…
I’ve been under the impression for a while now that everyone knew about Msgr. Battista Ricca, who is the director of the Casa Santa Marta (where the pope lives) and was the pope’s hand-picked liaison – his “eyes and ears” – on Vatican Bank reform. But I saw a post from a well informed Catholic…
This article is also available as a printer-friendly PDF document. Asking the Question Throughout his five-year reign, Pope Francis has been a controversial figure. He has pushed for novelties and innovations to both the papacy and the Church itself, from superficialities like refusing to live in the papal apartments to more substantial changes like permitting…
“Gaslighting,” writes Dr. Stephanie Sarkis at Psychology Today, “is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their [sic] reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders.” For…
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article was first published at OnePeterFive in October 2015 under the pen name “Benedict Constable.” Due to some controversy (the nature of which need not be gone into here), the article was taken down, but not before it had reached a large number of readers and received praise…
Manuel Clemente, the Patriarch of Lisbon, Portugal published on 12 July a letter sent to him by Pope Francis in which the Pope praises him for publishing pastoral guidelines permitting some “remarried” divorcees to receive Holy Communion. After his 2016 letter to the bishops of the Buenos Aires region, this is the second direct papal approval…
