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The prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith refutes the ideas of those who want to permit second marriages with the first spouse still alive. He is backed up by Cardinal Sebastián, who also disagrees with Cardinal Kasper. But whose side is Pope Francis on?ROME, July 29, 2014 – In a book-length interview recently released simultaneously in Italy, Spain, and the United States, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, revisits and develops what he had already reiterated last fall in an article in “L'Osservatore Romano” that made a sensation:...

Today is my youngest brother's birthday. He died a week before his 51st birthday. In his honor, and to show what kind of person he was, I thought I'd share something he wrote for our Mother's Day in 2010 for her, while she was dying of esophageal cancer. "Promises (Between a Mother and a Son)" Dear Mother, When I was conceived, you promised to bring me into this world healthy. And you did. When I was young, you promised to love me and nurture me. And you did. When things got rough, and you were all alone, you promised to...

Pope Francis walks onstage with Giovanni Traettino, a Protestant pastor and his friend, in Caserta, Italy, July 28. Pope Francis said he knew people would be shocked that he would make such a trip outside of Rome to visit a group of Pentecostals, "but I went to visit my friends." (CNS photo/ L'Osservatore Romano via Reuters) VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- His voice breaking with emotion, Giovanni Traettino, a Pentecostal pastor in southern Italy and longtime friend of Pope Francis, welcomed the pope, "my beloved brother," to his partially built church in Caserta. Pope Francis said he knows some people were...

To offer oneself to God, in witness to the Gospel of Life.This is the mission of the Little Sisters Disciples of the Lamb, a contemplative order in France which opens its doors to women who feel a call to religious life, but who may be turned away from other orders because they have Down Syndrome. The community depends on other sisters who do not have Down Syndrome, but who have committed to share their lives with these lovely, holy women.The community was founded in 1985 with the support and encouragement of Jerome Lejeune, the French pediatrician and geneticist whose laboratory...

I am coming up on my first year as an ordained minister in a continuing Anglican church, and I have noticed that participating on political forums (even when the topic is religious) I find that my opinions and postings more often than not generate more hatred than anything else. Among the things I often hear are that the laity are the real priests and that I am a Pharisee, that my vocation disqualifies me from offering an opinion on anything Christian because I am too narrow minded, and (my personal favorite) because I look too Catholic I must be a...

Back in May, I offered some general comments on the question of communion for divorced and remarried Catholics — which looms over the Synod on the Family scheduled for this autumn in Rome, and may represent one of the defining controversies of Pope Francis’s pontificate — and then wrote what was intended to be the first of two posts addressing Cardinal Walter Kasper’s high-profile case for admitting the remarried to the sacrament. That post offered theological and sociological reasons to be skeptical of Kasper’s broad suggestion, offered in an interview with the editors of Commonweal, that Catholic marriage generally is...

Archbishop Charles Chaput has disclosed the Pope Francis plans to attend the World Meeting of Families, to be held September 2015 in Philadelphia. Although the Vatican has not made an official announcement, the Pope "has told me he is coming," Archbishop Chaput said. He said that the Pontiff would be in Philadelphia for the final 3 days of the meeting, September 25-27. (As a rule, the Vatican does not formally confirm papal trips until a few weeks before they take place.) The archbishop also announced that Pope St. John Paul II and St. Gianna Molla are the patron saints of...

Aleteia published a piece today by Steve Weatherbe entitled "Bishops React to Obama's Executive Order on Hiring Discrimination".  The article offers commentary on the USCCB's reaction of July 21 to Obama's action.  It's worth noting that one of the two authors is Archbishop Lori of Baltimore - who just applied for a federal grant to finance his aiding and abetting of illegal aliens. He too seems to see through the smoke and mirrors that the USCCB is throwing up in the wake of this order.  They know that the federal funding spigot is about to be closed.  He quotes...

During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods' appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of return from death. The debate went on for some time until C. S. Lewis wandered into the room. "What's the rumpus about?" he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity's unique contribution among world religions. Lewis responded, "Oh, that's easy. It's grace." After some discussion, the conferees had to agree....

Brethren: Peace be with you. I want to share with you one more e-zine project by yours truly: New Christian Martyrs. The hand-picked documents I'll put in here will document what Pope Francis has called "the new ecumenism of blood", that is, the blood shed by trinitarian Christians worldwide in imitation of Christ and for His sake. I will also the more subtle yet blatant persecution that Christians are suffering in developed countries, particularly in the U.S. The magazine is better appreciated when you subscribe to it via the Flipboard app for either your Apple or Android device. Also, you...

That Pope Francis is very attentive to the dialogue with non-believers is clear from his most recent conversation with Eugenio Scalfari, the founder of the Italian leftist newspaper “La Repubblica”. Scalfari, a self-proclaimed atheist, who even wrote a book entitled “Me and God”, on his being a non-believer. The conversation published by “La Repubblica” on July 16 – which was partly downplayed and its content clarified by Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office – also showed that what the secular press think about him is very close to Pope Francis’ heart. This is ultimately the original...

I’m frankly surprised that this has been going on for so long.Details: For the better part of 40 years in churches across the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester, clergy ceded the floor to laypeople for the delivery of the homily — the sermon that follows the reading of the Gospel at Mass.The practice, which dated to the mid-1970s and was simultaneously derided by the faithful for running afoul of church law and praised for its inclusiveness, has come to an end.In an extensive interview, Bishop Salvatore Matano said he has been confronting the issue on a case-by-case basis since his...

One of the most exasperating bits of exegetical trendiness to afflict first-world Catholics for the past 30 years or so has been the endless recirculation, like a bad penny, of the “True Meaning of the Miracles of the Loaves and Fishes” homily. It goes like this: Jesus found himself in the wilderness with a crowd of 5,000 people who were two millennia less smart than we suburban Americans. When people started getting hungry, Jesus took five loaves and two fishes and gave them to a couple of people around him. Suddenly, inspired by a wave of warm fuzziness emanating from...

Naeem Fazal was born and raised in the deserts of Kuwait. He is the son of Pakistani parents who grounded him and his siblings in Islam. Naeem moved to the United States after the first Gulf War, following his older brother Mahmoud, who had previously enrolled in Spartanburg Methodist College in South Carolina. While attending the college, Mahmoud found the Lord. And on a visit to Kuwait to see his family he announced he had converted to Christianity. Naeem was furious with his brother, cursing him for renouncing the Islamic faith they grew up with. He even went so far...

As a Church historian, the German cardinal refutes the notion according to which clerical celibacy was an invention of the 10th century. No, he objects: its origin is with Jesus and the apostles. And he explains why ROME, July 19, 2014 – “Perhaps you do not know that celibacy was established in the 10th century, 900 years after the death of our Lord. The Eastern Catholic Church even now has the option for its priests to marry. The problem certainly exists, but it is not large in scope. It will take time, but the solutions are there and I will...

Gaza City, Jul 18, 2014 / 11:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Though fighting has escalated between Israel and Palestinian militants based in the Gaza Strip, a Catholic Relief Services spokeswoman has stressed that the agency still aims to advance peace in the region. “This conflict has dimmed the prospects for peace among Israelis and Palestinians, but as a Catholic organization, we are called to be peacemakers,” Liz O’Neill, Catholic Relief Services’ communications officer for the Middle East region, told CNA July 17. “We continually advocate for our leaders in Washington to take concrete steps to promote a peaceful resolution to the...

Palestinian soldier stands guard during Pope Francis' May 25, 2014 Mass in Bethlehem's Manger Square. Credit: Lauren Cater/CNA. Vatican City, Jul 18, 2014 / 08:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In wake of the rising death toll in Gaza due to increased tensions between Israel and Palestine, Pope Francis made a personal call to both presidents in order to ask for peace. “Following last Sunday’s heartfelt appeal for continued prayer for peace in the Holy Land, this morning the Holy Father Francis personally telephoned President Shimon Peres and President Mahmoud Abbas,” a July 18 statement from the Vatican read. During the calls,...

I spent last weekend learning about Sacred Art. Got this in an email from one of the wonderful people I met there.

In the wake of the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s recent decision to celebrate same-sex “marriages,” celebrity pastor John MacArthur of “Grace to You” has come out with some strong statements condemning “false churches” that abandon Biblical teachings against homosexual behavior. “They have no allegiance to the Bible,” MacArthur told The Blaze online news service. “You go back to every one of those seminaries … for a century [they] have been deniers of biblical authority, they have no relationship to scripture, they are the apostate church, they are Satan’s church.” While it seems clear MacArthur was implying that self-professed Christians who accept...

Catholic News Service photo Bishop Elias Zaidan visits Portland the weekend of July 19-20. Catholic Sentinel photo by Ed Langlois Abouna Jonathan Decker and Monk Anthony Joseph Alles at the Maronite monastery in Beaverton in 2011. Ed LangloisOf the Catholic Sentinel The variety of Catholic tradition and the plight of Christians in the Middle East will be at the forefront this weekend in Portland. The leader of Maronite Catholics in the western U.S. is visiting to ordain a Portland monk on the path to priesthood. Bishop Elias Zaidan of the St. Louis-based Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon...