Free Republic

[Barf Alert] Lonsdale pastor apologizes for ‘words that were hurtful to Muslims’ A Lonsdale pastor has apologized after remarks he made about Muslim immigration and Islam being “the greatest threat in the world” sparked controversy. “My homily on immigration contained words that were hurtful to Muslims. I’m sorry for this,” said Father Nick VanDenBroeke, pastor of Immaculate Conception in Lonsdale, in a Jan. 29 statement. “I realize now that my comments were not fully reflective of the Catholic Church’s teaching on Islam.”In a homily Father VanDenBroeke gave Jan. 5, the feast of the Epiphany and, in Minnesota, Immigration Sunday, he...

Neocatechumenals Heading Into the Sunset, With a Push From the Pope On Friday September 20 Pope Francs received in audience, at Casa Santa Marta, the founder of the Neocatechumenal Way, Francisco “Kiko” Argüello, accompanied by his two lieutenants María Ascensión Romero and Fr. Mario Pezzi. On the occasion, Kiko offered the pope a sketch he had made with the likeness of Saint Francis Xavier, a Jesuit and a great missionary of Asia.The gift was not a random one. An illustrious relic of Saint Francis Xavier is kept in Macao, on the coast of China, where the Vatican congregation “de Propaganda Fide”...

ROME — Pope Francis has publicly endorsed an essay that appeared in 2017 criticizing relations between Evangelicals and Catholics in the United States as an “ecumenism of hate.” On Thursday, La Civiltà Cattolica journal released the transcript of a meeting between Pope Francis and a group of 24 Jesuits on September 5, 2019, during his recent trip to Mozambique in which the pope suggested that certain Evangelical Protestants in the United States “cannot really be defined as Christian.” “Two important articles in Civiltà Cattolica have been published in this regard. I recommend them to you. They were written by Father...

September 25, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — The “Higher Committee to Implement the Document on Human Fraternity” signed in Abu Dhabi in February by Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb of Al-Azhar University, Cairo, met in New York last week in the shadow of the United Nations yearly national assembly for the second time in two weeks. Its most spectacular act was the unveiling of the design for the “Abrahamic Family House,” to be built on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, as a multi-faith complex giving equal space to a synagogue, a church, and a...