Free Republic

MONTREAL, May 19, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Archbishop of Montreal Christian Lépine has defended giving Holy Communion to Canada’s notoriously pro-abortion Catholic prime minister during Mass on Wednesday, describing it as “a gesture of hope.” Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau received Holy Communion and was among the dignitaries who spoke from the sanctuary at a Mass marking Montreal’s 375th anniversary, and which CBC broadcast live from Notre Dame Cathedral. Cardinal Gérald Lacroix of Quebec City, Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto, and papal nuncio Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi were among the prelates who concelebrated with Lépine. The event was widely publicized, with the...

A canon lawyer, employed by a U.S. diocese, taught her audience including priests, that because no directives from the bishop have been issued about Amoris Laetitia, the priests should follow Buenos Aires and Malta. In those territories, priests are free to give permission to adulterous partners to receive Holy Communion, even though the couple continues to have sex, and one (or both) of the parties is already married to someone else. This permission occurs after accompaniment and discernment by the priest. MaryÂ’s Advocates is sharing the audio recording, though the person that made the recording said the diocese must be...

On Monday, March 13th, St. Peters Basilica will be desecrated as, for the first time in history, Anglican Choral Evensong [roughly equivalent to Catholic Vespers] will be celebrated at the altar of the Chair of St. Peter. The following details come to us courtesy of our friends at the Fatima Center (and a kind reader of this space, MC): The service, scheduled for 3:00 p.m. [local Roman time], will be led by Archbishop Moxon from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which supplanted the Roman Missal and Breviary in Protestant England centuries ago, and will feature choral music sung by...

The day after my column on Phil Lawler's cri de cœur concerning "This Disastrous Pontificate" appeared, another voice from the mainstream, citing Lawler's piece, has joined the growing chorus of mainstream alarm about the rapid acceleration and threatened train wreck of the Bergoglio Express. Thomas Peters at catholicvote.org posted an article entitled "This Papacy is in Crisis and in Need of Urgent Prayer this Lent." Peters states the simple, undeniable truth: "The papacy is meant to unite the Church, not divide it. Almost four years into the papacy of Pope Francis, the division his teaching (or lack of teaching) is...

The Vatican Cardinal tasked with interpreting Church law is defending a book he published last month in which he says Catholics in so-called irregular unions “must be given” Holy Communion. Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, President of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legal Texts, told National Catholic Register’s Ed Pentin that when he spoke to Pope Francis “about these questions […] we always thought the same.” In his 30 page book titled The Eighth Chapter of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, Coccopalmerio stated that the “sacraments of Reconciliation and Communion ought to be given also to so-called wounded families...

The bishops of Malta have issued an invitation to Catholics on the island nation to show “mercy and pastoral discernment” to those living in difficult family situations. In a letter, to be read out in churches all over Malta and Gozo, the two Bishops Charles Scicluna and Mario Grech explain that they have recently issued guidelines for priests, aimed at accompanying couples and families “in complex situations, especially those involving separated or divorced persons who have entered a new union”. The bishops say that although these people may have “lost their first marriage”, many of them “have not lost their...

Defends German bishops’ guidelines on document as Cardinal Walter Kasper says allowing intercommunion with Protestants in some cases is the “position of the current Pope.”

An Austrian bishop has given a sweeping interview claiming that "remarried" Catholics now have the "blessing of the Pope" to receive Communion, the use of contraception is "a decision of conscience" for couples, and homosexuals can constitute a "family." Bishop Benno Elbs, who heads the Feldkirch diocese in west Austria, made the comments in an interview with Die Presse on December 23. Regarding the admission of “remarried” divorced Catholics to Communion, he said, “The teaching [of the Church] has changed insofar as she has opened the door. People have made decisions of conscience in the past, but now they can...

From the official website of the German Bishops' Conference: Hope for shared Holy Communion for married couples It is already being lived out in many interdenominational marriages: Eucharistic communion. It is, however, not allowed. Bishop Franz-Josef Bode [of Osnabrück] has hopes for a change in this matter — and soon. The Bishop of Osnabrück, Franz-Josef Bode, would like to see the possibility of Holy Communion for mixed marriages. He said so in a conversation with the Evangelical Press Service [Evangelischer Pressedienst, epd]. Thereby, the Church would allow a practice, reportedly already common among spouses from different Christian confessions. In 2017,...

"Archbishop Mark Coleridge - The profane heresiarch of Brisbane leaves one to ask, "where are the Catholics there?"" ...Mark Coleridge is the Archbishop of Brisbane. We've written about this heresiarch before; here, and here. Both, were during the Synod in October 2015. I was going to write another on his comments that the four Cardinals' are unnerved and that their actions issuing a dubia, are "false charity." You can read all about that at EWTNUK by Deacon Nick Donnelly who is really doing incredible work there. As I was stating, "I was going" to write on that until I came...

San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy is calling on his city's priests to embrace "LGBT families," and to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion in certain cases. Following a much-hyped diocesan synod on the family last month, Bishop McElroy encouraged priests to publish a diocesan notice in their bulletins saying the Church will "assist those who are divorced and remarried and cannot receive an annulment to utilize the internal forum of conscience in order to discern if God is calling them to return to the Eucharist." "The Synod proposed a spirituality of family life which is deeply inclusive," and...

The bishop of Rouen in the Norman town of France, where Saint Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in 1431, organized an unprecedented public ceremony on the feast of All Hallows at his cathedral, welcoming divorced and remarried couples of the diocese for a special benediction. The couples were personally invited in a letter distributed by local parishes as part of a special “Year of Mercy” initiative. The letter included references to Amoris Laetitia. More than 600 people answered Bishop Dominique Lebrun’s call to the “separated, divorced, divorced and remarried” to join vespers of the feast of All...

Bishop Athanasius Schneider was the guest celebrant of the Traditional Latin Mass at Mater Ecclesiae Parish on Sunday, October 23, 2016. Following the Mass Bishop Schneider gave a 40 minute conference on the topic of the Kingship of Christ. A Q and A period followed his presentation, during which time he answered a wide variety of questions related to the current state of the Church and the world. Mater Ecclesiae, established in October of 2000, was the first canonically established Mission in the United States, owned by a Diocese and staffed exclusively by diocesan priests. All of its liturgies and...

I have often referred to the signing of the document “Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World” by the Vatican, the World Council of Churches, and the World Evangelical Alliance in 2011 as a crucial event in the history of the church. Now I was allowed to witness another event in Lund of at least equal importance. I am neither Catholic nor Lutheran. But what has happened here paves the way for all Protestant churches and confessions. And the presence of Orthodox representatives, even of the ancient oriental churches, such as the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Aphrem II, proves that the results...

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the bishop of Vienna, Austria, and one of the closest collaborators of Pope Francis with regard to the post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia, has recently made new morally troubling statements with regard to marriage and the family. In a recent talk, he gave the appearance that he publicly condones the idea of “remarriage” after the divorce (but not the annulment) of a Catholic couple who were validly and sacramentally married, using his own mother’s case as an example. According to the Austrian website Kath.net Cardinal Schönborn gave the address in question in Vienna on 19 October 2016 for...

It’s gearing up to be one of the hottest topics in Sweden and around the Lutheran world. As the October 31 kickoff draws near for the yearlong celebration of Martin Luther’s launch of the Protestant Reformation, Lutheran and Catholic bishops are expressing their expectation of the ability to receive Communion in the Catholic Church, a practice that is not lawful. Pope Francis, who will travel to Lund, Sweden, to participate in the ceremonies, has himself elicited the excitement by suggesting that intercommunion is a possibility. The Lutheran Church of Sweden to which Pope Francis is going for the celebration accepts...

The Catholic Primate of Ireland has said people in “new relationships and unions” should be welcomed into the church. Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin made the comments at a conference celebrating “family and family life”, in preparation for Ireland’s hosting of the World Meeting of Families in 2018. “The Synod [OF BISHOPS]was clear that we need to be mindful of those who have begun new relationships and unions, and find sincere and truthful ways of welcoming and including them in the life and worshipping community of the church,” he told some 700 delegates at DCU St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra on...

In a recent publication of the German journal Stimmen der Zeit (Journal for Christian Culture), Cardinal Walter Kasper published an article calling Amoris Laetitia a “paradigm shift” in the Church’s teaching. “Amoris Laetitia: Break or Beginning” is the title of a recent scientific article by Kasper in which he analyzes the post-synodal exhortation and provides his opinion on the right hermeneutic in reading it. In the first part called “Discussion regarding the binding character,” Kasper critiques Cardinal Raymond Burke for his statement that post-synodal documents by the Pope are not necessarily binding. Instead, Kasper states, “This position is refuted by...

In the pope’s diocese, the divorced and remarried can receive communion, in other Italian dioceses no. Because every bishop is deciding as he wishes. A manual by Cardinal Antonelli for confessors who want to remain faithful to perennial doctrine by Sandro Magister ROME, October 14, 2016 – Pope Francis has said plainly right from the first lines of “Amoris Laetitia” that “unity of teaching and practice is certainly necessary in the Church, but this does not preclude various ways of interpreting some aspects of that teaching or drawing certain consequences from it.” And therefore “each country or region can seek...

From the very beginning of this ill-fated pontificate, this page was maligned for stating the obvious about Cardinal Bergoglio, and the prospects his positions brought to the papacy. For example, from the very beginning it was clear to us Francis wanted to impose on the Church the new doctrine of communion to the "divorced and remarried" (that is, those living in permanent state of sin, without the desire to end their sinful situation), the new German Doctrine. Other commentators tried to hide for as long as possible, even up to a few days ago, that the Pope wanted to personally...