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[IMPORTANT] Guest Op-Ed - Bishop Schneider: On the question of a heretical pope Note: We urge everyone to share this important Op-Ed -- published first here at Rorate Caeli -- far and wide. And we urge you to keep reading beyond the "Read more" link as His Excellency lays out a plausible case for future binding canonical norms to address a "heretical or a manifestly heterodox pope": By Bishop Athanasius Schneider Special to Rorate Caeli March 20, 2019 On the question of a heretical pope The issue of how to handle a heretical pope, in concrete terms, has not yet been treated...

China’s President Xi Jinping Unlikely to Meet Pope Francis During Rome Trip The leader of communist China arrives in Rome on Thursday, his first visit to Italy since the historic agreement last September between Beijing and the Holy See, but a papal audience is thought unlikely. The Pope and senior Vatican officials strongly want such a meeting with President Xi Jinping to go ahead, coming just six months after a controversial Sino-Vatican two-year provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops. The agreement also included the lifting of excommunications on seven illegitimate Chinese bishops. But Vatican sources say a papal audience is unlikely, primarily...

[Catholic Caucus] Six years in, Francis has shown himself to be the most troubling pope in history March 19, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the photomontage above tells quite a tale, on this, the sixth anniversary of Pope Francis’s papal inauguration on March 19, 2013. As we know from the seldom dull annals of Church history, many popes have deserved, and received, abundant praise or bitter criticism from their contemporaries or from later ages. On the one hand, the papacy shines, like a jewel-studded crown, with dozens of saints who shouldered their...

I was recently vacationing in Italy for my 20th wedding anniversary and decided to visit the Lamborghini factory. I’ve always loved the power and sleek look of the Aventador, the Diablo, the Veneno, and several other models. So, when I heard you can tour the assembly line, I persuaded my wife to drive a few hours for the rare opportunity to see firsthand how these beauties are built. During the drive to and from Modena, where the factory is located, it was no surprise to see several Lamborghinis being road-tested. Immediately I began daydreaming about taking one out for a...

Posted on March 18, 2019March 18, 2019 by Msgr. Charles Pope “And in the Morning Watch the Lord … Cast a Glance” - A Meditation on the Look of the Lord There is an astonishing verse in the Exodus account, which is read this week in the Office of Readings. The Lord had parted the waters of the Red Sea with a strong eastern wind and the Israelites had just made the crossing with the Egyptians in hot pursuit.And in the morning watch, the Lord in the pillar of fire and of cloud, cast a glace on the Egyptian...

[Catholic Caucus] Former altar server: Pell, Australian lay Catholics being persecuted as ‘scapegoats’ for clerical sexual abuse WASHINGTON, D.C., March 18, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― A former altar server at the Roman Catholic cathedral in Melbourne, Australia, says Cardinal George Pell was convicted as a “scapegoat” for real criminals among the clergy. And Pell’s not the only scapegoat.   Asked by EWTN’s “The World Over” host Raymond Arroyo if Pell’s jury ignored Justice Peter Kidd’s instruction not to scapegoat Pell, John Macaulay said it had. “Was the Church on trial?” Arroyo asked. “Very much so, and not just the hierarchy,” Macaulay...

Vatican Bishop: Petrol Companies Had Trump Elected to Ignore Climate A part of the “rich of the earth” do not want to save the world, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo told La Repubblica (March 15). Sanchez is the chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and belongs to the Francis' party. He explains that there are “presidents of countries who were elected through election campaigns financed by the petrol companies so that they would be silent about the climate once they are elected." La Repubblica asks Sanchez, “You talk about Trump?” Sanchez implicitly affirms. Sanchez calls the governments’ lack of interest...

Posted on March 17, 2019March 17, 2019 by Msgr. Charles Pope The Mature Christian As a kind of follow-up to yesterday’s Gospel of the Transfiguration, we do well to reflect a little further on the Lord’s intention in leading Peter, James, and John up a high mountain. The Church teaches us His purpose in the Preface for the Second Sunday of Lent:For after he had told the disciples of his coming Death, on the holy mountain he manifested to them his glory, to show, even by the testimony of the law and the prophets, that the Passion leads to...

[Catholic Caucus] The Oblivious Pope As my learned colleague Ed Faust has observed: “As tiresome as it has become to react to the vagaries of Pope Francis, it remains a necessity, for without a corrective some might believe what the Pope says is an accurate reflection of the Gospel and Church teaching. He is, after all, the Pope and the laity cannot be blamed for believing he is a faithful Catholic and credible teacher.”That Francis has consistently, not just occasionally, shown himself to be neither presents a situation quite unlike any other in the annals of the papacy.  Perhaps Francis,...

(This post was first published on March 17, 2015 and is being reprinted again today because I believe that it is the most important thing that we can say about St. Patrick, and for which to honor him on his Feast Day!) Has anyone created a comic book or graphic novel, St. Patrick: Demon Slayer? If not, someone should. Patrick, born in Britain — probably Scotland — around 385 A.D., went from being the teenage son of Roman British parents (some like to say “Italian”), to being kidnapped by wild Irish ruffians and brought to (Northern) Ireland as a slave....

[Catholic Caucus] Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt: Another McCarrick Frédéric Martel's recent bombshell book exposing the gay culture in the Vatican includes among its claims the thesis that sex abuse cover-up occurs in the Church in part because homosexual prelates are engaging in sexual relations with one another, and it's in their interests to keep quiet about homosexual misconduct taking place among their clergy. This thesis is nowhere more evident than in the case of Abp. John Nienstedt, forced to step down as head of the archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis in 2015 for his mishandling of sex abuse.   Church Militant has obtained...

Why did Pope Francis write such a strange paragraph about Cardinal Danneels? March 15, 2019 (CatholicCulture.org) — Was Pope Francis sending a subtle message to his critics this week? Or have I become a bit paranoid about papal statements? You decide. In a statement of condolence after the death of Cardinal Godfried Danneels, Pope Francis summed up the ecclesiastical career of the Belgian prelate in two sentences. Pay particular attention to the second sentence: This zealous pastor served the Church with dedication, not only in his diocese, but also at the national level as president of the Conference of...

Posted on March 16, 2019March 16, 2019 by Msgr. Charles Pope The Cross Is a Fruit-Bearing Tree - A Homily for the Second Sunday of Lent The Second Sunday of Lent always features the Transfiguration. The first reason for this is that the trek up Mt. Tabor was one of the stops Jesus made with Peter, James, and John on His final journey to Jerusalem. It is commonly held that He did this to prepare His apostles for the difficult days ahead. There’s a line from an old spiritual that says, “Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down, sometimes I’m...

St. Patrick Sparked a Fire The holy patron of our archdiocese was a contemporary of St. Augustine. While Augustine of north Africa became one of the greatest Doctors of the church, Patrick of Roman Britain humbly called himself uneducated, even though he was schooled in France by St. Germaine of Auxerre and possibly St. Martin of Tours, and was given books by Pope St. Celestine I. Patrick, after six youthful years as a slave captured by Irish pirates, embarked upon the conversion of the Druid tribes. He did not chase the snakes out of Ireland because there were none, nor...

[Catholic Caucus] The Communion Rail and Complementarity The traditional Communion rail has functional and sacramental purposes.  It distinguishes the sanctuary from the nave and the priest from the people.  The architectural logic of the Communion rail symbolizes the sacred (“set apart”) and ministerial priesthood with the priest offering Mass as a mediator in Christ the Head. The priest, as male, images Jesus as the Divine Bridegroom in union with His beloved Church.  And he feeds the Bride of Christ at the Communion rail, from the “table of the Lord.” Bride and Bridegroom are distinct but never divorced.

Polish Bishops Reject LGBT+ Declaration WARSAW, Poland (ChurchMilitant.com) - The Polish bishops are condemning a charter that claims to introduce protections for "LGBT rights" but instead proposes discrimination against those that are not supportive of it, pushing immoral and unchaste sexual education to children. Aimed at implementing anti-discrimination measures and introducing sexual education that complies with the World Health Organization (WHO) standards, Warsaw's mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, signed the "LGBT+ Declaration," in February. In 2016, Poland has been accused by the European Union's Commission for Human Rights of violating women's human rights. A report by Nils Muižnieks, the commissioner of the European Council for Human Rights, focused...

Exclusivity is one of the most popular charges leveled against the Christian faith. Here, author and apologist Ravi Zacharias and RZIM speaker John Njoroge challenge the assumption that Christianity is alone in making exclusive claims...

Pope Embracing Envirowhackoism For Deconstruction Of The Faith The blog Non Veni Pacem put up some commentary regarding the murder of Natacha Jaitt in Argentina that occurred two weeks before she was to testify against Gustavo Vera, long-time friend of Cardinal Bergoglio, now Pope Francis.  Security cameras detected suspicious activity in the area just after Jaitt died.  The blogger pointed out that Vera and Jeffrey Sachs were speakers at a Vatican conference held March 4-5.  The conference focused on Laudato Si and Sachs shilled for the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.  Journalists were not invited to this pow-wow.  Well, golly-jee! ...

Posted on March 14, 2019March 14, 2019 by Msgr. Charles Pope Jesus Teaches on the Need to Persist in Prayer and Wear God Out In the Gospel reading from Thursday, the Lord teaches the need to persist in prayer.Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened (Matt 7:7-8).Seeking and knocking indicate persistence. While we might look for something briefly and then give up...

15 mar The Society of Jesus Adrift. The Indictment of a Great Jesuit “It seems that I am in good Company….” This is how an exultant Antonio Spadaro hailed via Twitter the release of “Confesiones de jesuitas,” the expanded new edition of a book published back in 2003 with the title “31 jesuitas se confiesan,” in which he too now appears together with 37 other confreres, including several of the highest rank, living and dead, from Avery Dulles to Carlo Maria Martini, from Roberto Tucci to Tomás Spidlik, from Jon Sobrino to Robert F. Taft, from Adolfo Nicolás to...