The German progressivist bishops are unanimously indignant and disappointed about the recent CDF letter from Archbishop Ladaria which told them not to make public their controversial intercommunion guidelines. In a new interview, a Vatican specialist explains that there is, indeed, a civil war in the Church and that the Pope himself had to make a…
Image: Antonio Escobar y Mendoza, a prominent casuist of the 17th century. One might think casuistry is dead and buried, that the controversies of the 17th century should be over once and for all. Rarely do any of our contemporaries still read the Lettres Provinciales (Provincial Letters) and the authors whom Pascal (1623-1662) attacks therein.…
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…
Bishop Johan Bonny was back in the news last week following his selection by the Vatican as a participant at the upcoming Synod on the Family in Rome. Bishop Bonny, you may recall, said the following back in December: “We have to look inside the Church for a formal recognition of the kind of interpersonal…
The following editorial by Father Peter Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D., appears in the current (May/June) issue of The Catholic Response magazine. It is posted here with Father’s permission. When the Extraordinary Synod on the Family was announced and when it concluded, I promised our readers ongoing reflections on the Church’s understanding of marriage and the family, particularly…
Over at Aleteia there is an interesting post about last week’s International Conference of family and life movements held in Rome (January 22-24). With the theme, “The Vocation and the Mission of the Family in the Church and in the Contemporary World”, the conference opened with an address by Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, the Secretary General…
While Humanae Vitae is viewed today as the Catholic Church’s official response to the increasing acceptance of birth control within marriage, the actual teaching contained within Pope Paul VI’s landmark 1968 encyclical is much more profound and prophetic than many remember. Looking back over the past forty plus years since it’s release we can see…
No, I’m not referring to myself in the title, though I would bristle at the accusation of heresy, or even theological imprecision. The forthcoming (November/December 2014) edition of The Catholic Response magazine features this cool-headed commentary by its founder and editor, Father Peter Stravinskas, on the 2014 Extraordinary Synod on the Family. Because it generates more…
With the release on Monday of the relatio post disceptationem, the mid-term report presented at the start of the second week of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, the Catholic blogosphere went crazy. And rightfully so. While the report is in no way official or binding, it very much captures a tone and verbiage that…
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke continues to shine as a beacon of hope for the faithful during these days of trepidation. As the Extraordinary Synod on the Family continues, Catholics are hearing a steady drumbeat of self-styled reformers calling for “pastoral solutions”, “less offensive language” and the revisiting of “alleged interpretations of dogma” in an effort…
Back in 1998 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and its prefect at the time Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, released the document “Concerning Some Objections to the Church’s Teaching on the Reception of Holy Communion by Divorced and Remarried Members of the Faithful”. While it was written over sixteen years ago, Cardinal Ratzinger was…
