Free Republic

The nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court would make her, if confirmed, the sixth Roman Catholic on the nine-person court. The Catholic Church has already contributed much to the United States’ legal system - including “the whole idea of law in general,” Fr. Pius Pietrzyk, OP, told CNA. “It’s the development of canon law (the law that governs the Church) that gives both the United States and Europe their modern notions of law..." While aspects of canon law were present since the early days of the Church, the use of the term ‘canon law’, as...

A bishop of The Episcopal Church announced that he'll be stepping down from office weeks after the denomination’s disciplinary panel ruled that he violated canon law by refusing to allow same-sex marriages in his diocese. Addressing the Diocesan Convention on Saturday, Bishop William Love of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany said he will resign as bishop on Feb. 1, 2021, according to Anglican Ink. On Oct. 5, the denomination’s Hearing Panel found Bishop Love guilty “by clear and convincing evidence” of violating Resolution B012, a measure passed in 2018 requiring that all Episcopal dioceses allow for the blessing of same-sex...

A disciplinary panel of The Episcopal Church has ruled that a bishop who refused to allow the blessing of same-sex marriages in his diocese violated canon law. Bishop William Love of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany was punished last year with a restriction on his ministerial duties after he refused to allow same-sex marriages in his diocese. Love had refused to allow for the enforcement of Resolution B012, a measure passed in 2018 requiring that all Episcopal dioceses allow for the blessing of same-sex unions. A Title IV Hearing Panel, which focuses on issues of ecclesiastical discipline when a clergy...

27 doctors to German bishops: ‘No medical reasons for a ban of Communion on the tongue’ When opening one's mouth, one tends to breathe in, rather than out, so that the dispersion of droplets is unlikely. September 21, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – A group of German medical doctors has written a statement to the German Bishops' Conference in which they say that there are “no medical reasons for a ban of Communion on the tongue,” according to a press release obtained by LifeSiteNews. The document is written by “physicians from different regions and with different medical specialties,” one of the organizers...

[Catholic Caucus] Spanish bishop apologizes to spouses refused Communion on tongue A deputy wrote to the couple that the bishop 'communicated with the rector of that church so that something similar does not happen again.' September 3, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — A Spanish Catholic who was refused Holy Communion on the tongue, together with his wife, has received a formal letter of apology from his local bishop, who confirmed that whatever sanitary recommendations are in place for the prevention of the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus, receiving the Host directly in the mouth cannot be forbidden. The incident took place on...

[Catholic Caucus] Argentinian bishop threatens to punish priests for giving Communion on tongue Bishop Eduardo Maria Taussig had previously closed down his diocesan seminary for the same reason. SAN RAFAEL, Argentina, August 31, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The Argentinian bishop who recently closed down his diocesan seminary for distributing Holy Communion on the tongue has now threatened his priests with canonical sanctions. As reported by Catholic News Agency (CNA), Bishop Eduardo Maria Taussig warned in a message dated August 20 that priests who have acted with “disobedience” toward his decree mandating the distribution of Holy Communion in the hand “have caused...

[Catholic Caucus] Vatican backs bishop in closing down seminary over priests’ resistance to giving Communion on hand The Argentinian seminary was accused of an ‘undisciplined reaction’ to the bishop's directive that Communion only be given in the hand SAN RAFAEL, Argentina, July 29, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) ― An Argentinian bishop, backed by the Vatican, has closed down his diocesan seminary because priests connected to the seminary refused to follow his directive that Holy Communion be only administered to people in the hand.   Bishop Eduardo Maria Taussig, the Bishop of San Rafael, grieved Catholics in his conservative diocese when, after the state...

[Catholic Caucus] 21 doctors tell bishops Communion on tongue ‘safer’ than in hand ‘From the point of view of hygiene, it is absolutely incomprehensible to us why oral communion has been banned in Austria. We also consider this form of distribution safer than hand communion.’ June 26, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Twenty-one Austrian doctors have authored a letter appealing their country’s Bishops’ Conference to lift the de facto ban on receiving Holy Communion on the tongue, which has been enforced since Communion in the hand was announced to be the only permitted form of distribution for the consecrated Host. As COVID-19 lockdown...

[Catholic Caucus] US archbishop forbids priests to say public Masses if they offer Communion on tongue MOBILE, Alabama, June 2, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi of Mobile, Alabama, has warned his priests that they are not allowed to celebrate public Masses if they want to distribute Holy Communion on the tongue. “If any priest cannot follow archdiocesan regulations, it will be necessary for him to refrain from the celebration of public Masses,” Rodi wrote in a May 20 letter obtained by LifeSiteNews. “This matter is too serious for us to take any other approach than one of extreme...

Cardinal: Pope’s Amazon exhortation defectively quotes canon law, undermining the priesthood Footnote 136 of Querida Amazonia quotes canon law in a defective way, according to Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes. February 28, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, a retired curial cardinal living in Rome, has written an analysis of the new concept of the priesthood as discussed by Pope Francis in his February 12 post-synodal exhortation on the Amazon region, Querida Amazonia. Cordes detects in the document a footnote which quotes canon law in a defective way and rejects the idea of separating the priesthood from its governing...

[Catholic Caucus] Pro-abortion Joe Biden: ‘The Holy Father…gives me Communion’ November 1, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Pro-abortion former Vice President and 2020 Democratic hopeful Joe Biden has commented on a priest recently upholding Catholic teaching by denying him Holy Communion, saying, “It’s not a position that I’ve found anywhere else, including from the Holy Father, who gives me Communion.” The Catholic Church teaches that the Eucharist is the literal body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ and therefore may only be received by practicing Catholics in a state of grace. Additionally, Canon 915 of the Catholic Code of Canon...

.- The Archdiocese of Indianapolis announced Thursday that a local Jesuit high school will no longer be recognized as a Catholic school, due to a disagreement about the employment of a teacher who attempted to contract a same-sex marriage. “All those who minister in Catholic educational institutions carry out an important ministry in communicating the fullness of Catholic teaching to students both by word and action inside and outside the classroom,” the archdiocese said in a statement Thursday. “In the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, every archdiocesan Catholic school and private Catholic school has been instructed to clearly state in its contracts...

[Catholic Caucus] Cdl. Cupich defends giving Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians BALTIMORE, June 14, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago defended giving Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians, saying, “I think it would be counterproductive to impose sanctions, simply because they don’t change anybody’s minds.” Cardinal Cupich expressed his position in the wake of Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois barring pro-abortion legislators from receiving the sacrament of Holy Communion. Citing canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law, Bishop Paprocki ruled last week that state legislators working to pass Illinois’s new abortion bill may not present themselves for communion in his diocese...

Pope Francis said he has always been a doctrinal conservative and takes accusations of being a heretic with a grain of salt. “I have always defended doctrine,” the pope told Mexican reporter Valentina Alazraki in a lengthy interview released Tuesday by Vatican News. “I am a conservative.” Asked how he reacts to being called a heretic, the pope said he takes it “with a sense of humor.” Just weeks ago, a group of 19 Catholics, including clergy and scholars, questioned the pope’s theological orthodoxy, accusing him of “heresy” in an open letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church. “I...

Breaking law once hardly justifies breaking it twice November 10, 2018 If Pope Francis wants to change the canon law forbidding ecclesiastical funeral rites for “manifest sinners who cannot be granted ecclesiastical funerals without scandal” (1983 CIC 1184 § 1 n. 1) he can do so. Till then Church law forbidding such funerals, a law that dates back many centuries, remains in effect, and its apparent gross violation last week by clergy of the Archdiocese of Boston, who (seemingly with approval from the chancery), granted notorious mob murderer James “Whitey” Bulger a Catholic funeral Mass, hardly justifies granting Church funerals to...

Can. 1373 A person who publicly incites among subjects animosities or hatred against the Apostolic See or an ordinary because of some act of power or ecclesiastical ministry or provokes subjects to disobey them is to be punished by an interdict or other just penalties.

Pope Francis delivered a Holy Thursday homily for a congregation of priests attending Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome in which he told them that they “can” tell adulterers to “go and sin no more,” but should not do it “with the legalistic tone of truth as definition.” Instead, he told them, they should do it with the “tone of truth as fidelity.” “I suggest that you meditate on three areas of priestly closeness where the words, ‘Do everything Jesus tells you,’ need to be heard—in a thousand different ways but with the same motherly tone—in the hearts of...

The honeymoon, as it were, is apparently over. A day after Pope Francis grabbed headlines by pronouncing two flight attendants man and wife while flying 36,000 feet over Chile, the conservative Catholic commentariat on Friday questioned the legitimacy of the impromptu sacrament and warned it could cheapen the church’s marriage preparation down the line. “Do you know what’s a ‘marriage’ ripe for annulment?” tweeted the traditionalist blog Rorate Caeli. “One celebrated apparently on a whim in an airplane whose celebrant cannot even be sure if parties are validly baptized.” For those who missed the news, Francis on Thursday presided over...

Fasting on ALL Fridays and Lent There is some question raised about my strong words (later in this article) regarding one who knowingly and willingly rejects Canon 1251. Some Catholics have attempted to convince me that not observing some sort of fast from some sort of food on all Fridays of the year does not constitute a sin. One has stated it is not a major precept, so "breaking" it is not sinful. This confuses and concerns me. How can any Catholic knowingly and willingly reject ANY precept laid out in Canon Law and not have it be a...

Former SSPX Bp. Williamson consecrated another bishop. They both have incurred the late sententiae excommunication foreseen in Canon Law.The SSPX issued an official statement HERE: On March 19, 2015, Bishop Richard Williamson performed the episcopal consecration of Fr. Jean-Michel Faure at the Benedictine Monastery of the Holy Cross in Nova Friburgo, Brazil.Bishop Williamson and Fr. Faure have not been members of the Society of St. Pius X since 2012 and 2014, respectively, [NB] because of their violent criticisms of any relations with the Roman authorities. According to them, such contacts were incompatible with the apostolic work of Archbishop Lefebvre. [I suspect...