(CNA) Father Julio Fernández Techera, a Jesuit priest and rector of the Catholic University of Uruguay, has written a widely circulated, critical essay about the Society of Jesus warning that the order, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola in 1534, is in “deep decline.” The essay by the 57-year-old priest is titled “Ad Usum Nostrorum… Read More Rest in Pieces. Jesuits in “Profound Decline” 🪦
Updated Note: I too am in anguish over the scandals Mr. Damian Thompson(1) cites in his above-referenced jeremiad. Terribly so. It is a crushing weight all traditional Catholics must feel. But after linking to his article and after prayer I have either fallen prey to some fearful scruples which I cannot ignore, or to some deeper… Read More The scandals haunting Pope Francis.
By Edward Pentin. Being a Catholic in 2024 is no easy endeavour. The West is undergoing a massive de-Christianization, so much so that Catholicism appears to be vanishing from the public sphere. Elsewhere, the number of Christians being persecuted for their faith is on the rise. What’s more, the Church has been struck by an… Read More Lay Movement Launches International Campaign for ‘Total Freedom of the Traditional Liturgy’
“The statement is likely to be embraced by conservatives and stir consternation among L.G.B.T.Q. advocates who fear it will be used as a cudgel against transgender people.” The Vatican on Monday issued a new document approved by Pope Francis stating that the church believes that gender fluidity and transition surgery, as well as surrogacy, amount… Read More NYT: Vatican Document Casts Gender Change and Fluidity as Threat to Human Dignity
Attacking the prevenient natural order, finitude itself, gender theory is ground zero. Dr. Margaret McCarthy, interviewed by Dr. Larry Chapp here, “received her doctoral degree in theology at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute at the Lateran University in Rome (1994), with a dissertation on the contemporary theology of predestination. Since then, her teaching and writing… Read More Gender Theory: “The Atomic Bomb of Nihilism”
Seven priorities of the next Conclave. A profile of the next Pope, writes Cardinal –two years after the text signed ‘Demos’ (later revealed to have been written by Cardinal Pell) a new anonymous document, linked to the first, defines the seven priorities of the next Conclave to repair the confusion and crisis created by this… Read More Demos II. Seven priorities of the next Conclave.
NCRegister: “A blessing is not compatible with a state of sin: One cannot bless that which breaks, consumes, destroys. To which sacrament, therefore, is the blessing of an irregular couple ordered? It is not true that blessing promotes and justifies nothing, because it implicitly promotes “disordered acts” and a pseudo union… “In the text of Fiducia… Read More ‘Non-Liturgical’ Blessings Do Not Exist
Note: Dismissing James Martin and Jeanine Gramick rather than encouraging their rainbow agendas would have been a more eloquent gesture, but this is not without its confusing significance. Carol Glatz – Catholic News ServiceMarch 01, 2024 VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The gifts of men and women are “fruitful” together, and to erase the difference between… Read More Pope Francis: Gender ideology is today’s ‘worst danger’
We, his critics, drawing strength from Catholic Tradition, have never ceased praying for the Pope, But he doesn’t seem to recognize true friendship. So we keep trying and cannot stop. Will he hear us? We must not seek the applause of the world, only it’s conversion. SH. “St. Thomas provides a guideline for addressing correction… Read More Will he hear so many?
2/24/24. “For years the annual Religious Education Congress in Los Angeles has been a regular source of liturgical distress as various innovations test the bounds of reverence, not to say sacrilege. This year as the congress unfolded on the West Coast, the genuine sacrilege took place on the East Coast, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in… Read More Dead Synodality. Fr. Raymond J. de Souza.
Catholic World Report. Responsibility, Accountability, Transparency: This was the threefold watchword. Christopher R. Altieri. “Five years ago, the Pontiff railed against “abominable crimes that must be erased from the face of the earth…” His record since has been abysmal and even scandalous.” “Pope Francis has refused to defrock a confessed child molester or even remove him from… Read More “Pope Francis’s ‘all-out battle’ against clerical abuse has been a failure”
“Canterbury Cathedral, where St Thomas Becket was martyred just next to the nave, is hosting a “90s Silent Disco” over two nights Feb. 8-9. 3,000 people expected to take part. Faithful are protesting against the event with prayer vigils outside @CburyCathedral”. Faithful Catholics are being taunted all over Europe, the United States and beyond by… Read More Canterbury Cathedral
National Catholic Register. COMMENTARY: Cardinal Fernández’s clarification of ‘Fiducia Supplicans,’ the Pope’s solidarity with the Jewish people, and the lack of priests at the Synod on Synodality were addressed by the Holy See last week. Father Raymond J. de Souza Vatican February 7, 2024 On the feast of St. Blaise, the Vatican cleared its collective throat… Read More Reset Saturday At the Vatican
Cardinal Gerhard Mueller wrote in 2023, “Throughout the history of the Church, whenever Popes have felt or behaved like politicians, things have gone wrong. In politics it is about the power of the people over the people, in the Church of Christ it is about the service of the eternal salvation of men, to which… Read More Peter, When you are converted…
… but pay attention to what is said” — Thomas a’ Kempis, The Imitation of Christ. Begging With Confidence January 27, 2024 Around us, evil on evil is unfurled? “Fear not,” said Jesus, “I’ve overcome the world” (Jn. XVI, 33). On the last day of 2023 a Franciscan priest of the Capucin Friary of Morgon… Read More “Do not inquire, ‘Who said this?’
Edward Pentin Updated. “An academy set up by former members of the Pontifical Academy for Life has called for Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández to be dismissed, saying he “does not have the necessary minimum qualities required to fulfil the role of defender of the faith.” Members of the John Paul II Academy for Human Life… Read More John Paul II Academy Calls for Removal of Cardinal Fernández as Vatican’s Doctrinal Chief
And an interview with Raymond Arroyo. “The collaboration between a future pope and young prelate is transformed into profound friendship when circumstances thrust Joseph Ratzinger into the Apostolic Palace, even as he expected to be released in retirement to his beloved Bavaria. Monsignor Georg Gänswein never left his side, and witnessed one of the most… Read More “Who Believes Is Not Alone.” Mons. Georg Gänswein.
Pinned 2.15.23 —Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794, is a papal document issued by Pius VI in condemnation of the Gallican and Jansenist acts and tendencies of the Synod of Pistoia (1786). In the introductory text the Pope exposes the “art of deception,” just as Pius X did again at the dawn of the twentieth century… Read More When Popes Exposed and Denounced Doctrinal Ambiguity, the “Art of Deception.”
Is Jesus Christ a mere symbol of transcendence or the concrete Redeemer proclaimed in Sacred Scripture, “the same yesterday, today and forever”? (Heb. 13:8) After graduating from the University of Notre Dame, he did graduate work in philosophy at Princeton University and holds an MA in Theology from Sacred Heart School of Theology in the… Read More A Paradigm Shift in Catholic Theology? Dr. Ralph Martin.
Truth does not change with the changes in political parties, current philosophies or trends. ” a thing cannot be and not be at the same time”— St. Thomas (Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 1, chap. 84) “…reason’s first principle is the principle of contradiction. He who denies this principle affirms a self-destructive sentence. To deny this principle… Read More Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange on Reason and The Law of Non-Contradiction.
It cannot be seriously doubted in our time that since the Second Vatican Council not a little of what has been called “Catholic ecumenism” has in fact gone off the Church’s traditional dogmatic rails. But for all that the principle cannot be doubted. It was doubtless the seemingly radical abruptness of the Church’s turnaround regarding… Read More Traditional Catholic Ecumenism
Also, Dr Ralph Martin on the same. 1255 For the grace of Baptism to unfold, the parents’ help is important. So too is the role of the godfather and godmother, who must be firm believers, able and ready to help the newly baptized. As Pope St. John Paul II beautifully put it in his theology of the body, “the body… Read More National Catholic Register on Recent Vatican Statements on Baptism
Hear Davies’ talk: What Happened at Vatican II? +++ Michael Treharne Davies (13 March 1936 – 25 September 2004[1]) was a British teacher and traditionalist Catholic writer of many books about the Catholic Church following the Second Vatican Council… Although Davies opposed French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s canonically-illicit consecration of four SSPX bishops in 1988 against the wishes of Pope John Paul II,… Read More Michael Davies. What Happened at Vatican II?
Tuesday Update: 11/14/23 Bishop Strickland Calls for Prayers for Pope Francis, Warns of Forces Corrupting Catholic Church WSJ: Texas Bishop Joseph Strickland, a vocal critic of the pope, has “warned of ‘blasphemies emanating from Rome’”(WSJ 11/12/23) “Ousted Bishop Speculates on the Reasons the Vatican Removed Him. National Catholic Register: ““I really can‘t look to any… Read More Pope Francis Fires Conservative U.S. Bishop. Updated.
A fireworks of metaphors employed in quest to assess its place in Catholic history. Then there is Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne who (Oct. 8) thinks “The assembly that Pope Francis opened in Rome last week is radical, though not in the sense that his right-wing critics have in mind. Its purpose is downright… Read More Theologians See Trainwreck in Synod of Pope Francis.
Update: Without prejudice to the objectionable personal belief system of Jeffrey Sachs, noted below, there appear to have been developments in the political significance of Sachs: + Insider turned political heretic, Jeffrey Sachs, in discussion with Tucker Carlson (August 2024) ~~~ Pope Francis names Jeffrey Sachs to Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences —May 2023: Sachs on… Read More Jeffrey Sachs. Who he is ideologically and Why It Matters
Solène Tadié Vatican October 17, 2023 NCRegister. “Eight years after a footnote in one of Pope Francis’ signature documents appeared to open the door for divorced-and-remarried Catholics to receive Communion while remaining sexually active, a new round of public conflicts over its doctrinal legitimacy has exposed just how unsettled the issue remains at the highest levels… Read More Cardinal Müller: Latest Vatican Guidance on Divorce-Remarried Communion Represents a ‘Rupture’ With Church Teaching
Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register writes, “Pope Francis appears to open the door to same-sex blessings in his response to dubium no. 2, saying that priests may use their discretion in giving such blessings, so long as they don’t imply a same-sex union is equivalent to a heterosexual marriage: a) The Church has… Read More Francis Appears to Open Another Door
Edward Pentin.Vatican.October 2, 2023. VATICAN CITY — Five cardinals have sent a set of questions to Pope Francis to express their concerns and seek clarification on points of doctrine and discipline ahead of this week’s opening of the Synod on Synodality at the Vatican. The cardinals said they submitted five questions, called dubia, on Aug.… Read More Cardinals Send ‘Dubia’ to Pope Francis Ahead of Synod on Synodality
The final phase of the Synod of Synodality will begin in October. Among the 400 participants (cardinals, bishops, lay people and religious) will be the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Müller. Interview with Cardinal Müller: Q- This coming October, the final phase of the Synod on Synodality… Read More Cardinal Gerhard Müller: “whenever Popes have felt or behaved like politicians … “
A World Over analysis begins in hope then almost immediately enters into the darkness of what the Church is now facing: possible formal “heresy and schism”. Raymond Arroyo, Robert Royal and Canon Lawyer Fr. Gerald Murray. (CNA) “… The consistory will be held on Sept. 30. By Oct. 1 there will be 136 cardinal electors… Read More Shaking the Foundations. A “Hostile Takeover” of the Catholic Church?
Updated. See EWTN link below(1). “There’s a style of liberal Catholic argument that denies that it’s seeking real changes in church teaching, that insists that it just wants a different emphasis — less talk about sex, less fixation on the particular evils of unchastity opposed to other kinds of sin, less emphasis on rigid norms… Read More Ross Douthat On Liberal Catholicism’s Flirtatious Chasing of the Culture
Damian Thompson and Luke Coppen of The Pillar In the ancient Syro-Malabar Church of south India, clergy who try to change the liturgy do so at their peril. At St Mary’s Cathedral Basilica in Ernakulam last December, a long-standing dispute over whether the priest should face the people led to scenes in which protestors attacked… Read More “Inside the world’s most vicious liturgy wars.” Or… Monkeying Around With Ancient Liturgy.
Updated. Nancy Pelosi vowed to reverse the end of Roe v. Wade ‘one way or another’ By Anders Hagstrom | Fox News Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., urged her fellow Democrats to put the abortion issue front and center in their 2024 campaigns, arguing Republicans will lose big on the issue across the country. Pelosi appeared… Read More Pelosi says abortion is Democrats’ ticket to victory in 2024, accuses Republicans of ‘disrespect for women’
by Gregory Caridi.A Journal of the McGrath Institute for Church Life.June 03, 2021. “… The issue of improper correction of prelates has existed since the Church’s inception, and it is not likely to be resolved any time soon, particularly in a world that has become especially protective of the right to public speech, public criticism,… Read More How to Correct Bishops Correctly
Bends over backwards to save ubiquitous travesties. “A few months ago, I visited Lourdes for the first time, and when I saw the mosaics, I groaned out loud. Father Rupnik’s style is immediately recognizable, and my first thought was that the art would forever be tainted… Three years ago, he was even briefly excommunicated …… Read More America Magazine Compares Rupnik Cartoons to Caravaggio.
NCRegister: “When the Vatican recently announced that lay Catholic men and women will participate as voting members in the 16th ordinary general assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome Oct. 2-29, the news caused head-scratching among some Catholic experts. “The Synod of Bishops, as understood by the Second Vatican Council, as understood by Pope St. Paul… Read More “Never in the History of the Church”
Urges Hungary to welcome migrants. America Magazine (CNS): “As expected, in his first speech in Hungary—to government and civic leaders and diplomats serving in Budapest—the pope acknowledged efforts to protect traditional values, but insisted those values include supporting European unity, welcoming migrants and working to end the war in neighboring Ukraine… Mentioning some areas of… Read More Pope Francis Repeats Words on Gender Ideology, Abortion and Migrants
(CNA) In his remarks on April 19, Archbishop Paglia emphasized that the Church is not a ‘dispenser of truth pills’ when it comes to engaging with a pluralistic society on the most challenging moral issues of the day. Shannon Mullen/Hannah Brockhaus/CNA Vatican April 23, 2023 Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life,… Read More Pontifical Academy of Life President Calls Medically Assisted Suicide ‘Feasible’
“New World Order Without God”… Who needs the old Progressivist desire for a Third Vatican Council to mitigate Church teachings when they can have almost anything they want through an incremental permanent synodal Church? A lot of the infiltrators who maneuvered their way into the highest positions in the Church by pretending to be pious… Read More Cardinal Müller challenges Pope Francis
Catholic Critique 