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All of which amounts to a concern that the commission is being used as a cover: to look at the scientific and historical character of the document, but with the ultimate goal of presenting the Pope with enough information for the encyclical’s dissenters to say: “Times have changed — Humanae Vitae needs to be interpreted in the light of conscience, according to the complexity of people’s lives today.” Before his death on Sept. 6, Cardinal Carlo Caffarra had privately expressed similar grave concerns about the commission. Like others, he believed the opening of the archives was a ploy to obtain...

The death of Carlo Caffarra, the beloved dubia Cardinal, has left an additional empty place in the group of the original four who presented their concerns to the pope concerning Amoris Laetitia. So much so, in fact, that one of the pro-papal apologists, Dr. Austen Ivereigh, even put on Twitter this somewhat breezy comment: “Only two of the four dubia cardinals alive.” (I will leave out here Dr. Ivereigh’s more explicitly demeaning comment about Cardinal Caffarra himself on the very day of his death.) One could well imagine (but I do not claim any intimate knowledge here) that these two...

Pope Francis has sent his condolences to the relatives of Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, Archbishop emeritus of Bologna, who died on September 6, 2017, at the age of 79. In the telegram addressed to, current Archbishop of Bologna, Matteo Maria Zuppi, the Pope said he shares in the suffering of the late cardinal’s loved ones. “I think affectionately of this dear Brother in the Episcopate, who served the Gospel with joy and loved the Church intensely.” “I remember with gratitude,” Pope Francis continued, “the generous pastoral work carried out by him.” The Pontiff remembered his work at the John Paul II...

A priest who visited Cardinal Carlo Caffarra recently said that Caffarra started crying in front of him because of the disastrous state of the Church, writes the Vaticanista Antonio Socci. Caffarra, a former archbishop of Bologna, Italy, and one of the four Dubia cardinals, died on September 6th. The priest relates, that Caffarra "was very sorrowful, but he transmitted to me so much courage and love for the Church." Socci believes that Caffarra died from heartbreak.

Editor’s note: the following is an exclusive interview with Cardinal Carlo Caffara, conducted by OnePeterFive’s Dr. Maike Hickson. Cardinal Caffarra is Archbishop emeritus of Bologna and former member of the Pontifical Council for the Family. It was in a letter to Cardinal Caffarra that Sister Lucia of Fatima revealed that “the final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage and the family.” Maike Hickson (MH): You have spoken, in a recent interview, about the papal exhortation Amoris Laetitia, and you have said that especially Chapter 8 is unclear and has already caused confusion even...

An unexpected side effect of Pope Francis’ trip to United States came out when the news broke that he had secretly met Kim Davis in Washington. Kim Davis is the Kentucky county employee jailed in the last month because she not only practiced the conscientious objection by refusing to issue marriage licenses for same-sex marriages, she also forbade her staff from issuing them. The several interpretations – and over interpretations – that followed the news of the meeting show a general concern about Pope Francis’ pontificate. It has been depicted as a revolutionary pontificate, but how does this image square...