The string of eloquent German journalists who have gradually lost patience with Pope Francis does not seem to stop. Now we have another well-known and honorably independent journalist, Matthias Matussek, who has added his own name to the list of reflective papal critics. Matussek, who is an eloquent Catholic conservative critic and book author, currently…
Yesterday, 31 March, it became widely known that Pope Francis has chosen Anne-Marie Pelletier, a French Professor of hermeneutics and biblical exegesis, to write the meditations for the Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum on Good Friday which will be read by the pope himself. The author of this year’s Via Crucis Meditations was…
Which pope, long before being raised to the papal office, criticized “the all-too-predetermined dogmatic reading” [1] of the Bible, and later, having exercised that office, continued promoting this belief “that theology obviously has its own freedom and task, that it cannot be completely servile to the Magisterium” [2]? Many people today would be surprised to learn that…
On March 13, 2013, I sat in my office and watched my screen as a new pope — a man whom I had never seen before that moment — walked out onto the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica. I had never heard of him. I did not even know his name. Like most Catholics, I had…
Today, on 7 March, there appeared in the prominent secular Austrian newspaper Die Presse an article, entitled “Francis – Populism in a Catholic Way” (“Franziskus – Populismus auf katholisch”), which contains some strongly critical remarks about Pope Francis and his perceptibly continual leadership. (The Austrian Catholic website Kath.net has also reported on it.) Hans Winkler, the author…
I recently got to tour the papal gardens at Castel Gandolfo, and it was a remarkable experience. They were too lovely for my poor powers of description. Everything we passed was papal property. Papal olive groves, papal greenhouses, papal cypresses; the ancient remains of the imperial summer palace; and, yes, papal chickens and cows! There…
Today, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, is the 39th Anniversary of Cardinal Gerhard Müller’s Priestly Ordination. And exactly on that same day, a piece of news comes to us according to which Cardinal Müller is now under increasing pressure for having recently given an interview to the Italian journal Il Timone; in that interview, the…
On 9 February, the Washington Post ran a disgraceful and bizarre opinion piece designed to join the burgeoning propaganda efforts to link Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke to U.S. presidential adviser Stephen Bannon and President Donald Trump’s White House. From that alliance, the story goes, Bannon, through Burke, is plotting to bring the Trump administration into…
The following is Part IV of a series. Read Part I, Part II, and Part III at the links. Tradition, Doctrine and Magisterium (Continued) Ecumenism The 1928 encyclical Mortalium Animos condemns modern notions of ecumenism. It says the Catholic Church is the one true Church, to which separated Christian ecclesial communities should return. It says…
I want to say to you, about myself, that I am a child of this age, a child of unfaith and scepticism, and probably (indeed I know it) shall remain so to the end of my life. – Fyodor Dostoyevsky I find it on any showing quite ludicrous to suppose that, for nineteen of Christendom’s…
Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), has just made comments that seem to be critical of the Four Cardinals and their published Dubia. The pope’s close friend, the journalist Andrea Tornielli, immediately picked up on these words and has now published a report on them in…
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