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October 18, 2014Feast of Saint Luke, Evangelist    Reading 1 2 Tm 4:10-17b Beloved:Demas, enamored of the present world,deserted me and went to Thessalonica,Crescens to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia.Luke is the only one with me.Get Mark and bring him with you,for he is helpful to me in the ministry.I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus.When you come, bring the cloak I left with Carpus in Troas,the papyrus rolls, and especially the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me a great deal of harm;the Lord will repay him according to his deeds.You too be on guard against him,for he has strongly...

Just a quick question. As we all know now, Cardinal Kasper gave an interview which Ed Pentin of the Register and Zenit reported on in which he denigrated the African bishops. When the outrage ensued, he denied ever giving the interview and said he'd never said any of those things. Pentin, however, taped the interview. But here's my question. If he hadn't, Pentin's career would've been harmed. Possibly irreparably. Would Cardinal Kasper have admitted to the interview or simply watched another man's life be possibly destroyed? There's no answer. But perhaps we have our answer in that Cdl. Kasper is...

Oct 17 20147 Comments By Church Militant TV News Headlines BREAKING: Pope Harming the Church Cardinal Burke: Pope is harming the Church by not making his position clear. To read the entire interview with Cardinal Raymond Burke, click here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLS3cOxfkJw

While Pope Francis has been silent about many of the controversial matters being debated at the Synod, both in the lead-up to the Synod and in the Synod Hall, veteran Vatican watchers say he has been obliquely making his views known through other avenues, including through some of his close advisors, as well his homilies at his private morning masses. When it comes to advisors, none have sparked more speculation than Cardinal Walter Kasper, with debate swirling for months about whether Pope Francis himself personally supports Cardinal Kasper’s controversial proposal to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion in...

I must say, I am impressed… Father Z publishes the translation of the story published by Marco Tosatti on La “Stampa”. The extent of the events yesterday cannot be underestimated. It is obvious that a deep malcontent was already there. It is also obvious Francis, Kasper and Baldisseri thought they could keep treating the bishops like the pussycats they have been in the last nineteen months (and for a long time before then). What has happened afterwards could, one day, be remembered as the turning of the tide. Notice the dynamic. As rather often in life, it needs for only...

>Details: Pope Francis has for the first time allowed the Sistine Chapel to be rented out for a private corporate event, with the proceeds to go to charities working with the poor and homeless. The concert, to be performed amid the splendour of Michelangelo’s frescoes on Saturday, will be attended by a select group of about 40 high-paying tourists who have signed up to an exclusive tour of Italy organised by Porsche. But as the unprecedented deal was announced, the Vatican announced that it would limit the number of visitors allowed inside the chapel to the current total of six...

The news from the Synod this day is improved. Thanks be to God, many, yes many of the bishops and synod participants have articulated how deficient and misleading the “rough draft” Relatio was. Keep praying! The struggles to lay hold of and articulate with clarity God’s stunning teaching on Holy Matrimony and family in a doubtful world will continue.But, frankly, even at the moment Jesus uttered his unequivocal insistence that marriage was one man and one woman in an indissoluble bond, many were stunned and scoffed, If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Cardinal George Pell said working-group reports from the Synod of Bishops on the family finally give a true picture of the assembly's views, counteracting what he characterized as a misleading midterm report. "We wanted the Catholic people around the world to know actually what was going on in talking about marriage and the family and, by and large, I think people will be immensely reassured," Cardinal Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, told Catholic News Service Oct. 16, the day the reports were published. "We're not giving in to the secular agenda; we're not...

Card Sarah of Africa on SynodPosted on 17 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf Even as it had been decided that the Synod will end today, CNS has a piece about the view of His Eminence Card. Sarah. HEREAfrican cardinal: Pressure groups behind push to change Church Vatican City, Oct 16, 2014 / 04:21 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Innacurate media reports about Church teaching on homosexuality published after the synod’s midterm relatio are an attempt to pressure the Church to change its perennial teaching, a cardinal who is also a synod father has affirmed.Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the Pontifical...

I have been searching for just the right word to describe to you what my work is. I have thought of ambassador, as that captures much of what I am sent for. But a reader, speaking on another matter, gave me the perfect word: Sherpa. I have not been given messages primarily to share with the world. From a profusion of visitations, I have often been forbidden to share it with anyone but my priests. Frankly, on the rare occasions that I am directed to give a specific message – either to a person or publicly – it makes me...

Featured Term (selected at random:FIFTEEN MARKS OF THE CHURCH The fifteen features of the true Church developed by St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621), cardinal, Archbishop of Capua, and Doctor of the Church. As a contemporary of the original Protestant Reformers, he expanded the traditional four marks to fifteen, as follows: 1. the Church's name, Catholic, universal, and worldwide, and not confined to any particular nation or people; 2. antiquity in tracing her ancestry directly to Jesus Christ; 3. constant duration in lasting substantially unchanged for so many centuries; 4. extensiveness in the number of her loyal members; 5. episcopal succession of...

VATICAN CITY – The final version of the relatio from the Exraordinary Synod on the Family will get a vote on Saturday and probably not released until Sunday at the earliest, but Cardinal George Pell warns that those expecting support for a “secular agenda” had better be prepared for disappointment. Catholic News Service interviewed Pell, who serves in the Vatican as prefect for the Secretariat for the Economy, at the end of the circoli minori process. Pell said the draft relatio was “tendentious, skewed,” and broadly opposed on the synod floor when discussed: Cardinal George Pell said working-group reports...

There has been a lot of talk – in dozens of languages – about the Extraordinary Synod since the Relatio post disceptationem (the interim report) was published to great controversy this past Monday. Much of what people who are not here in Rome are saying is worthy of some attention. But since we are awash in so many words, perhaps the best way to analyze Thursday’s news is via some hard numbers. Yesterday morning, the 10 small language groups delivered their formal reports (Lat. relationes – don’t confuse these with the earlier document). Every one of them is basically solid...

A Catholic journalist has published the audio recording of an interview with Cardinal Walter Kasper in which the German cardinal made controversial remarks about the contribution of African bishops at the family synod. Edward Pentin published the recording along with a full transcript and explanatory statement on his personal website yesterday. The interview was conducted on Tuesday October 16 and was published on the Catholic news website Zenit the following day. It was subsequently removed from Zenit’s website after Cardinal Kasper denied giving the interview to Zenit in a statement to German media. In the interview, the cardinal said that...

ROME – As the Synod of Bishops continues to produce drama, coming today in a surprise decision to release frank internal reports of its debates, one big-picture question captured by the event seems to be coming into clear focus. Here it is in a nutshell: Is a tipping point drawing close, when conservatives who have been inclined to give Pope Francis the benefit of the doubt will, instead, turn on him? Granted, labels such as “liberal” and “conservative” often conceal as much as they reveal, especially when applied to the Church. That said, they capture something at a big-picture level,...

October 17, 2014Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr    Reading 1 Eph 1:11-14 Brothers and sisters:In Christ we were also chosen,destined in accord with the purpose of the Onewho accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will,so that we might exist for the praise of his glory,we who first hoped in Christ.In him you also, who have heard the word of truth,the Gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him,were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,which is the first installment of our inheritancetoward redemption as God’s possession, to the praise of his glory....

More and more there is talk in Rome that this synod is being engineered by groups intent on steering the Church in a heterodox direction, and increasingly evidence is coming to light that points to it. . It still remains unclear who exactly wrote it and how many eyes had seen it before it was made public, but the strong criticisms of it from such Church leaders as Cardinals Raymond Burke and Gerhard Mueller are enough to point to a lamentable lack of scrutiny, with consequences for souls. Archbishop Bruno Forte, the synod’s special secretary, known to be a keen...

¡Hagan lío! Synod Bishops revolt against leadership and get their way – UPDATE!Posted on 16 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf BIG UPDATE BELOW!____Apparently the bishops at the Synod are tired of being manipulated.They created a little lío of their own.In full view of the Pope, they rose up pretty much as a body and rebelled against the way Card. Baldisseri, who seems to be the chief architect of what may have been a pre-determined agenda, has been handling them.I am reading Marco Tosatti’s piece at La Stampa.My translation:Synod, more censorship, protestsThe General Secretary of the Synod [Card. Balidsseri]...

FULL TITLE: AP confirms: "Outed" Forte exclusively responsible for "Gayspel", only ONE Father had even mentioned issue in Synod Hall Bruno "Outed" Forte From Nicole Winfield's Associated Press article on Synod special secretary Abp. Bruno "Outed" Forte. We post it here for the record of the history of the most embarrassing document in Catholic history, and its most infamous passage, where Forte sneaked his own "New Gospel": Erdo has already "outed" the official who wrote the section on gays, Monsignor [Archbishop] Bruno Forte, appointed by Pope Francis as the special secretary to the synod. Forte is an Italian theologian known...

It seems Walter Kasper's racist remarks on Africa and Africans have caused an understandable shock wave throughout the assembly. They reflect a racist, xenophobic, and anti-African mindset that has removed the Church in Africa from any participation in the Synodal administration and governance, or in the committee formed to help draft the final relatio. Other than that, Synod Fathers are being strongly pressured by the allies of the racist German cardinal, who are in the minority, to modify as little as possible the partial relatio: as Tosatti explains below, that was one of the main reasons why the racist manipulators...