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[Catholic Caucus] Francis' Obsession with Vestments ContinuesFashion style is a recurring obsession in Francis' "Magisterium", for example when he repeatedly tells priests and seminarians what to wear and what not to wear.This obsession has reached a new level. A year after the death of Benedict XVI, the supreme commander of Santa Marta ordered his master of ceremonies and the staff of the sacristy of St Peter's to remove the coat of arms of Benedict XVI from a set of chasubles in four of the five liturgical colours, writes SilereNonPossum.com (31 December).The coat of arms will be replaced by the tiara...

George Cardinal Pell is dead. As a man, Cardinal Pell stood accused of grievous sins before several earthly tribunals. He was convicted of some of those crimes in secular courts and as a result, spent over a year in prison—much of it in solitary confinement. He was later acquitted and released when the High Court of Australia unanimously overturned his convictions saying that the jury likely made its decision based on faulty evidence, and that there was a significant possibility that an innocent person had been convicted. Was Cardinal Pell guilty of the crimes he was accused of? Or was...

Cardinals express anger, bewilderment at 'scorched earth' papal homily VATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) - Pope Francis foiled plans for a state funeral for Benedict XVI and ordered the scaling down of his predecessor's burial rites, Church Militant has learned. Vatican officials involved in the coordination of the pope's emeritus funeral rites revealed that Francis personally intervened to deny Benedict the "shoulder procession" of his coffin being borne by pallbearers from the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery to St. Peter's Basilica. Francis, instead, ordered Benedict's body to be transported by minivan from the pope emeritus' monastic residence to the basilica. An insider told Church...

An Insider Tell-All Is About to Rip Pope Francis a New OnePope Emeritus Benedict XVI is dead. His right-hand man is about to come out swinging.Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had been dead for just two days when it was revealed that his personal secretary, a striking and influential cleric nicknamed “Gorgeous Georg” by the international press, was publishing a tell-all book that promised to avenge his former boss—and lambast the current pope.The news came as a shock in the world of Vatican observers. In part, that was because it arrived as the faithful were still, literally, mourning the pontiff at...

Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk 23:46). These were the final words spoken by the Lord on the cross; his last breath, as it were, which summed up what had been his entire life: a ceaseless self-entrustment into the hands of his Father. His were hands of forgiveness and compassion, healing and mercy, anointing and blessing, which led him also to entrust himself into the hands of his brothers and sisters. The Lord, open to the individuals and their stories that he encountered along the way, allowed himself to be shaped by the Father’s will. He shouldered...

Pope Emeritus Benedict VXI (sic), who died last Saturday at 95, and the Vatican requested that President Joe Biden not attend Benedict's funeral, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. Benedict made the request prior to his death. The U.S. will send Joe Donnelly, ambassador of the Holy See, "in line with the wishes of the late Pope and the Vatican. This is what their requests were. This is what their wishes were," Jean-Pierre said when asked if Biden would attend the funeral, which is being held Thursday in St. Peter's Square. 'Well why do you think? You tell...

The Vatican reported that Pope Benedict XVI, died on Saturday at age 95. Benedict’s body will be laid in St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday so the crowd can pay respects. “With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican. Further information will be provided as soon as possible.” tha Vatican's announcement read. ....

I forgive Pope Benedict. I hope others can too.I first met Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1994 when I was researching my book "Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church." I was getting ready to leave Rome and he was one of the last and most important interviews for the book. Because of illness, he had to cancel our first appointment and then graciously rescheduled me for a time when most Vatican officials were taking their siestas. At the end of the interview, I asked for his blessing — something I only did with two other Vatican...

Vittorio Messori confirms Benedict XVI has been placed incommunicado by the VaticanAuthorized English Translation (For Links in original Article marked with “HERE” see article above)As we have already said, on the anti-papal coup suffered by Benedict XVI, this is the first, extraordinary “participatory investigation” in the history of journalism . There are so many inputs, reports, information, documents that have come from simple readers, good Catholics who do not accept to see their Faith and their Church destroyed under the globalist agenda, without doing anything. In this regard, anyone with suggestions or information can write to codiceratzinger@libero.it : we will...

New Ways Ministry, a far-left, dissident LGBT group, has leaked to the press two letters written to them by Pope Francis. In the letters, Francis thanks the organization for their 'neighborly work' and praises its dissident founder, Sr. Jeannine Gramick, as a "valiant woman." New Ways Ministry was officially barred from calling itself a Catholic ministry and from working with homosexuals in 1999 by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was serving as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. ...

Nine hierarchs boycott 'heretic' Francis, Greeks snub ecumenical prayerNICOSIA, Cyprus (ChurchMilitant.com) - The Orthodox archbishop of Cyprus has dropped a bombshell on Francis, lecturing the pontiff on Turkey's "ethnic cleansing" of Cypriot Christians and asking him to imitate Pope Benedict XVI's support for Cyprus against the Islamic aggressor. "Turkey barbarically attacked us and by force of arms conquered 38% of our homeland and its Christian inhabitants, always expelling them from their patriarchal lands," His Beatitude Chrysostomos II reminded Francis during the pope's visit to Nicosia. Addressing the pope in the presence of the Holy Synod of the Church of Cyprus...

Former Pope Benedict XVI warned in a 2004 memo that high profile politicians who persist in their public support for abortion should be denied Communion. Benedict wrote the memo when he was known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and when former presidential candidate John Kerry, a pro-abortion Catholic, was running for president. Ratzinger warned that “not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia” and said that though Catholics may have diversity of opinion on some topics, there is no “legitimate diversity of opinion” when it comes to abortion and euthanasia. Ratzinger’s comments are particularly relevant now...

Benedict XVI blasts same-sex ‘marriage’ legislation as a ‘deformation of conscience’Mankind, ‘in the mode of male and female, is ordered to procreation, as well as the fact that the community of male and female and the openness to the transmission of life determine the essence of what is called marriage.’Benedict argued that “the legalization in 16 European states of ‘homosexual marriage’” has led to a “deformation of conscience” that extends beyond the secular realm, having “penetrated deeply into the world of marriage in sectors of the Catholic people.”As such, “the issue of marriage and the family has taken on a...

Pope emeritus Benedict XVI has said that the legalization of same-sex marriage in many countries is “a distortion of conscience” which has also entered some Catholic circles. In an introduction to a new anthology of his writings on Europe, Benedict XVI said that “with the legalization of ‘same-sex marriage’ in 16 European countries, the issue of marriage and family has taken on a new dimension that cannot be ignored.” “We are witnessing a distortion of conscience which has evidently penetrated deeply into sectors of the Catholic people,” the pope emeritus wrote. “This cannot be answered with some small moralism or...

Dear Brothers and Sisters, In these past months we have meditated on the figures of the individual Apostles and on the first witnesses of the Christian faith who are mentioned in the New Testament writings. Let us now devote our attention to the Apostolic Fathers, that is, to the first and second generations in the Church subsequent to the Apostles. And thus, we can see where the Church's journey begins in history. St Clement, Bishop of Rome in the last years of the first century, was the third Successor of Peter, after Linus and Anacletus. The most important testimony concerning...

There is a lot of talk about the Pope resigning, being constrained to resign, or being deposed... Let’s consider the question, then, “Can a Pope be deposed?” by first defining our terms. Here, “pope” means the Bishop of Rome, who ex officio is the Vicar of Christ and the Successor of Saint Peter... The first determination we must make is to distinguish the auxiliary verb “can”. A thing can be done physically, morally and legally. An enemy of the Church could arrest the Pope, force him under pain of death to sign a decree of abdication. That is a physical...

On May 17, I published an article in the Italian newspaper La Verità about pope Benedict’s abdication. A few days before, in a renowned Italian geopolitical magazine called Limes, Professor Germano Dottori had argued that Joseph Ratzinger’s 2013 abdication, and the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s resignation in 2011, after a financial storm sold to public opinion as a “public debt” crisis, were the result of pressures on the part of Obama administration in the United States. According to Dottori, Obama was eager to dethrone Benedict XVI for two reasons. On the one hand, his presidency was close to...

(ANSA) - Rome, January 16 - The case of emeritus pope Benedict XVI apparently coming out against Pope Francis' possible ordination of married priests in the Amazon and other outlying regions is closed, Francis told journalist Eugenio Scalfari in an interview with La Repubblica daily Thursday. Benedict's staunch defence of priestly celibacy in a book he apparently co-authored with a high-ranking conservative cleric caused a row in Church circles, with the German ex-pope accused of undermining his successor. The controversial book by Cardinal Robert Sarah about priestly celibacy came out in France Wednesday with Benedict's name on it as co-author.

[Catholic Caucus] Abp Viganò denounces Benedict’s secretary for ‘abusive and systematic control’ of Pope Emeritus 'Gänswein,' Viganò claims, 'habitually filtered information, arrogating to himself the right to judge how opportune or not it was to send it to the Holy Father.' ROME, January 16, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — In the wake of the controversy surrounding the genesis of Cardinal Robert Sarah’s new book with Benedict XVI on priestly celibacy, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has released a testimony denouncing Archbishop Georg Gänswein for what he calls his “abusive and systematic control” of the pope emeritus. “It is time to reveal the...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Schneider defends Cdl Sarah for his ‘heroic’ book on priestly celibacy  ‘One might say that the intervention of Cardinal Sarah has provoked, so to speak, the anger of hell.’ ROME, January 14, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Bishop Athanasius Schneider is speaking out in strong support of Cardinal Robert Sarah for his new book with Benedict XVI defending priestly celibacy, calling his actions “heroic.”  News of the forthcoming volume, titled “From the Depths of Our Hearts: Priesthood, Celibacy, and the Crisis of the Catholic Church,” was announced on Sunday, receiving a wave of praise but also considerable backlash. ...