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Working Document for Synod’s Continental Stage Calls for Reform of Church StructuresNEWS ANALYSIS: Canonists offered a mixed reception to the text released Oct. 27, with some dismissing its call for major reforms as a nonstarter.WASHINGTON — The Vatican’s Synod on Synodality issued a working document designed to set a framework for the second, or “continental,” stage of the three-year global process launched by Pope Francis in 2021. But the text’s explicit call for the transformation of Church structures stirred controversy, raising the stakes for Church leaders in the U.S. and Canada, who will begin their formal deliberations in January...

On the 15th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum: “What we oppose to Traditionis custodes is not ‘non possumus’ but ‘non licet’: it is not permitted!” — Jean Madiran in defense of traditionalism With July 7, 2022 we reach the fifteenth anniversary of Pope Benedict’s motu proprio and come close to the first anniversary of Pope Francis’s attempt to cancel out its provisions in his own motu proprio. On this occasion Rorate publishes a translation of the following article by Rémi Fontaine (original here), based on three earlier articles at Le Salon beige on November 5, 2021, March 31, and June...

What does it mean to reject Vatican II?The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) was a unique ecumenical council. The previous twenty were assembled to address particular doctrinal or ecclesial crises, while John XXIII called Vatican II to layout a new pastoral program for engaging the modern world. It was not a particular crisis but a general one, focused on finding a new way of conveying the Christian life in the modern world.In the aftermath of the Council, both progressive and traditional wings viewed it as revolutionary, a sharp break from the previous practice of the Church. It did not help that...

Pope reflects on papacy in interview with Argentine news agencyVATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis said the goals he has achieved in more than nine years as pope were simply the fruit of the ideas discussed by the College of Cardinals prior to his election.In an interview with Argentine news agency Telam published July 1, the pope said that objectives, such as the reform of the Roman Curia, were “neither my invention nor a dream I had after a night of indigestion.”“I gathered everything that we, the cardinals, had said at the pre-conclave meetings, the things we believed the new...

‘The job I try to accomplish in my writings is to try to get people to embrace the hopelessness and realize we have nothing to lose,’ Professor Miguel De La Torre saidCarlow University recently hosted an event on “Rejecting White Christianity” that featured a speaker who argued white people should “crucify their whiteness,” called for the embrace of “hopelessness,” and urged people to “ethically lie” to make right for past wrongs. The speech prompted a Catholic watchdog group to protest the event as antithetical to the Pittsburgh-based private Catholic university’s identity. The March 3 event was sponsored by Carlow’s Atkins...

Polish Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki raised concerns about the 'Synodal Path' with the Pope in a Monday meeting, leading to conflicting reports on the Pope's position on the process.VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) – Poland’s most senior bishop shared with Pope Francis his concerns regarding the influence of the dissident “Synodal Path” process being undertaken by the German Catholic bishops in a Monday meeting. A communiqué from the Press Office for the Polish Bishops’ Conference stated that during Monday’s 45-minute meeting, president of the conference Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki raised his concerns about the direction of the German program, supposedly leading the Pope to...