Free Republic

Professor Rist: The Catholic Church Could Be Facing a Crisis Worse Than the Arian Controversy of the 4th Centuryhe recent suspension of an Italian priest for writing a scholarly critique of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia was a foolish and “wholly unjust” decision but one that underlines the depth of a crisis in the Church that could be worse than the Arian controversy, Professor John Rist has said.Regarded as one of the Church’s finest living scholars of ancient philosophy, classics, and early Christian philosophy and theology, Rist believes the suspension in April of Father Tullio Rotondo would never have...

BROOKLYN DIOCESE TO SHUT 26 SCHOOLS February 10, 2005 -- Twenty-six Catholic elementary schools in Brooklyn and Queens will close after the school year — forcing more than 4,100 youngsters to find new schools before September, the Diocese of Brooklyn said yesterday. The largest blood-letting in diocese history — announced on Ash Wednesday — comes less than four months after The Post first reported that as many as 25 parish schools were facing the closing bell because of dwindling enrollment. The affected schools, 17 in Brooklyn and nine in Queens, represent more than one in six schools in the diocese.

ENTANGLED ON THE WEBby James HitchcockLast year there was a brief sensation over the revelation of the existence of a website called St. Sebastian’s Angels, where homosexual priests throughout the English-speaking world regularly exchanged messages. Official reaction to this revelation (more accurately, non-reaction) leads to the inescapable conclusion that activities of this kind are not taken very seriously in hierarchical circles. Of the public reaction, far more outrage was directed at the group called Roman Catholic Faithful, which discovered the site, than to its contents. Charges of “sexual McCarthyism,” “prurience,” “invasion of privacy,” and other things were immediately hurled at...