Free Republic

[Catholic Caucus] Senior Synod theologian claims the Church is now in a ‘deeper phase’ of Vatican IIFr. Ormond Rush gave an address to the synod members at the start of their final week in Rome, urging them to draw on the arguments of Vatican II for their proceedings.VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Beginning their final week of the Synod on Synodality, members were told that the event “is a dialogue with God,” as a prominent Australian priest and outspoken advocate of the Second Vatican Council drew from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s 1960’s writings on “tradition” as understood at Vatican II.“Having listened to...

The protocols after the death of a reigning pope have in the past provided a well-known set of rituals, but the death of a pope emeritus presents a unique situation.VATICAN CITY — Just two official state delegations — from Italy and Germany — will attend the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the Vatican’s press office has confirmed, answering one of the many novel protocol questions posed by the death of a former pope. The German-born Benedict, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, lived in Italy for more than 40 years, beginning in 1981. The Holy See Press Office confirmed on Dec....

New book suggests St. Gallen Mafia agreement may have led to Pope Benedict XVI’s resignationAuthor Julia Meloni tells us that Martini's own confessor claimed that Benedict's resignation had been “scripted since his pontificate's beginning – because Martini had shifted his votes to Ratzinger at the 2005 Conclave."(LifeSiteNews) — The American scholar and columnist Julia Meloni has just published her long-awaited, excellent, and deeply researched history of the Sankt Gallen Mafia, a group of progressive bishops regularly meeting in Switzerland and plotting to further revolutionize the Catholic Church. The Sankt Gallen Mafia: Exposing the Secret Reformist Group Within the Church tells...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Sarah Cancels Talk, Calls Present Situation "Abject" Because of the current saga surrounding the famous Ratzinger/Sarah book on celibacy, Cardinal Robert Sarah received “thousands of messages.”“They touch me,” Sarah confessed on Twitter (January 24). Nevertheless, he decided to cancel a talk to which Créteil Bishop Michel Santier, France, had invited him.Sarah's explanation, "The abject and deleterious situation of the last days invites to stay calm and silent."

[The following text is the talk given by Sandro Magister at the study conference organized on June 4 2019 in Rome, at Palazzo Giustiniani, by the Fondazione Magna Carta, on the theme: “Catholics, politics, and the challenges of the third millennium”].*About politics Joseph Ratzinger has written and said a great deal, as theologian, as bishop, as pope. But to grasp his overall vision it is enough to review the speech that he gave on September 22 2011 in Berlin, to the Bundestag, on the last of his journeys to Germany.He began by citing the prayer of the young king Solomon...

Pope Benedict XVI, previously known as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, should be heeded: he knows what of he speaks. In the first general audience of his pontificate he stressed Europe's "inalienable" Christian roots. The wisdom of his choice of the his papal name Benedict (the name of Pope Benedict XV, "a courageous and authentic prophet of peace" who led the Catholic Church during the dark years of World War I, and Saint Benedict, founder of the Benedictine order and one of the patron saints of Europe) is being confirmed by the current rioting in Europe by an Islamic extremist criminal element...

Benedict XVI is fine, but slipped last week suffering an hematoma. The image was published on Facebook by the bishop of Passau, Stefan Oster, who visited the Pope Emeritus on October 26The rumors about the alleged aggravation of his condition had been shut down by the publication of a photo that portrayed the Pope emeritus during his afternoon walk in the Vatican gardens. Now another photo went public of Pope Benedict XVI, who has no problem to show his fragility linked to his age and who still continues to receive visits: Stefan Oster, the bishop of Passau, posted it on...

Reading three news articles yesterday makes me think that someone is really “getting bent out of shape” and we are entering now a perilous phase of decline: those who don’t agree with the boss – off with their heads! An unprecedented populist degeneration in the life of the modern Church. I sincerely hope I’m wrong: I’m not just saying this, I really hope so. However we have signs that are anything but comforting. The crux of the matter, it seems to me, is once again the Pope’s non-response (a year has now gone by) to the five questions asked by...

In 2012, a year before his retirement, the University of Notre Dame had already published a commemorative volume of essays on Ratzinger’s impressive theology and writings. Two years before that, following his successful visit to the United Kingdom, new Catholic youth movements began springing up, followed by an unexpected increase in men and women pursuing religious vocations. After his retirement, an online initiative titled “Generation Benedict” emerged, inviting young people to describe how Joseph Ratzinger had changed their lives. And this year, the Vatican’s publishing house, in cooperation with the Benedict XVI Foundation, released a new tribute, titled Cooperatores Veritatis...

In Agatha Christie’s classic Murder on the Orient Express, the great detective Hercule Poirot faces an unusual challenge. There are too many suspects—too many people with obvious motives for committing the crime. That’s how I feel about the news that Archbishop Charles Brown, the apostolic nuncio in Ireland, is being transferred to Albania. This is not a subtle move. The Vatican is explaining that it’s just a routine rotation; every now and then papal diplomats are given new assignments. That would make sense, except that: +Archbishop Brown is not a career diplomat. Pope Benedict sent him to Ireland, at a...

Dear friends, It is very important to not only pray a lot but also to keep our eyes open for the very powerful and devastating traps of Satan, which are very well camouflaged and disguised “as an angel of light” (2Cor 11:14). Due to the greatest lack of prayer and lack of regard for the holy Laws of God today, we have given great influence to the “powers of evil” (CCC 409) to be able do deceive us! A great number of people today have taken the easy way of “ignorance is bliss”, imagining that the truth and reality are...

How do the choices in various Papal conclaves square with the Holy Spirit's will, which is Love? Jesus Himself chose Peter. +/- 235 papacies later, we tend to get the quality of Pope inversely proportional to how much some corrupt power faction like the St. Gallen Mafia can rig the results after decades of planning. (Read School of Darkness by Bella Dodd who recruited 1,500 communists into the hierarchy to understand their thinking.) Bergoglio's drive to rig the curia is liable to backfire on him, as his own supporters futilely try to get him to resign before he shatters the...

CANDLEMAS The Encounter Between Chaos and Light Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger In everyday modern life we are hardly aware that on February 2nd we celebrate an ancient feast, common to the Church of both East and West, which used to have a great significance in the rural calendar: Candlemas. Tributaries from many historical sources have flowed together into this feast, with the result that it sparkles with many colors. Its immediate reference is to the event when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem forty days after his birth to perform the prescribed sacrifice of purification. The liturgy...

Just before tomorrow’s consistory in Rome where Pope Francis will come together with the Cardinals of the Catholic Church in order to elevate his new Cardinals, it seems that the brewing conflict which started in February 2014 with Cardinal Walter Kasper’s speech at the earlier Consistory is now coming to a head. As Steve Skojec has recently reminded us, it was at that time that 85% of the cardinals who then spoke up had rejected the “Kasper prosposal” which finally wants to admit “remarried” divorcees to Holy Communion.In this context, the Four Cardinals Letter written against the papal document Amoris Laetitia is of...

On August 2, Pope Francis said a few words about gender identity—words that are not at all new with him. In a meeting with bishops that day, he observed: "In Europe, America, Latin America, Africa, and in some countries of Asia, there are genuine forms of ideological colonization taking place. And one of these—I will call it clearly by its name—is [the ideology of] “gender.” [It is, in fact, an artificial construct, as is evident by the co-opting of a word that, in its normative meaning, refers to grammar.] Today children—children!—are taught in school that everyone can choose his or...

Today, on the Feast of Pentecost, I called Fr. Ingo Dollinger, a German priest and former professor of theology in Brasil, who is now quite elderly and physically weak. He has been a personal friend of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI for many years. Father Dollinger unexpectedly confirmed over the phone the following facts: Not long after the June 2000 publication of the Third Secret of Fatima by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger told Fr. Dollinger during an in-person conversation that there is still a part of the Third Secret that they have not published!...

Fr Raymond De Souza asks the question in the Catholic Herald to which all Catholics would like an answer, despite the unfortunate fact that Pope Francis, not a week into his pontificate, delivered the answer when he recommended Cardinal Kasper's book, entitled 'Mercy', to the Faithful gathered in St Peter's Square. Depending on which side of this debate you fall - whether it be that of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Successors of St Peter until now - or some another side entirely, it has - in terms of the 'Kasper Proposal', been either 'uphill' or 'downhill' since then....

It used to be that just saying the words “liberation theology” around Catholics was enough to start a schism-level fight, or at least raise a red flag in Rome. The theological movement that focused on the poor emerged out of the church’s social justice ferment in the 1960s, but it was always viewed by conservatives as an irredeemably Marxist version of the gospel. Worse, they said it was a tool of Soviet communists who were using the Roman Catholic Church to foment revolution in Latin America and beyond, and at the very height of the Cold War. The 1978 election...

Ten years ago today Benedict began his transformative papacy Ten years ago today Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope, taking the name Benedict XVI. One surprise of the papacy that followed was that his visit to Britain was a such resounding success – so successful, in fact, that the benefits are still felt to this day. In the months leading up to the papal visit in September 2010, we had militant atheists, campaigning secularists and many sections of the anti-Catholic lobby doing their worst to cast a shadow over the visit. The National Secular Society launched its (grammatically suspect)...

Pope Francis is in no doubt that those who are not able to speak and listen, do not obey the Lord and want to silence anyone who preaches the newness of God, Vatican Radio reports. Today’s liturgy of the day was about obedience: “Obedience often brings us along a path that is not the one I think should be, but along another path,” Francis said. But what does it mean to obey? It means “to have the courage to change paths when the Lord asks this of us”. “The one who obeys has life eternal,” while for “the one who...