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ROME, May 1, 2015 – Responses have come streaming into Rome from all over the world, answering the preparatory questionnaire for the second and final session of the synod on the family, scheduled for October 4-25. One widespread impression - sometimes deliberately fostered - is that the pre-synodal discussion is polarized between two extreme positions: on one side, those who would like to introduce radical changes into the Catholic doctrine and practice of marriage, allowing the dissolution of the bond and second marriages; on the other, those who are adamant in punishing with de facto excommunication anyone who violates the...

The dating website for adulterous affairs is planning to float in London. Here are all the dirty details Ashley Madison. Q: Is that some kind of shoe designer? A sensible guess, but definitely wrong. Ashley Madison is a dating website aimed at people who are already married. The service brands itself as “discreet”, and simply picked two popular American girls’ names as the company name. Q: Wait, so they’re a dating service for adultery? Isn’t that immoral? The company motto is: “Life is short. Have an affair.” The website offers affair guidelines, with advice on how to cover your tracks....

He (Sir Thomas More) gave up life itself, deliberately; he accepted violent death as of a criminal, not even for the Faith as a whole, but on one particular, small point of doctrine—to wit, the supremacy of the See of Peter. (Hilaire Belloc, “The Witness to Abstract Truth”) Saints die for all sorts of reasons and in all sorts of ways. Some are thrown to the lions or crucified; others die in bed. Some affirm the Real Presence, others the Trinity. We sometimes think that it might be nobler to die upholding the truth of the Incarnation than in upholding,...

(CNN)The marriage apocalypse may be coming. Talk to any millennial and you can envision an America virtually marriage-free, with everyone happily single. I did. And I do. Recently, I talked about marriage with a group of journalism students from my alma mater, Kent State University. They came to me for career advice, which I gave them, but I also picked their brains about politics, religion and marriage. Their views on marriage intrigued me the most. 'Cause, guess what? They don't care what your generation thinks -- they'll get married if and when they want. "I didn't go to college for...

During the height of President Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky scandal, a White House maid entered the bedroom to clean and was shocked to find the president and first lady’s bed covered in blood. The blood belonged to the president, who said publicly that he “hurt himself running into the bathroom door in the middle of the night.” But the White House resident staff believed differently. As one worker told author Kate Anderson Brower, “We’re pretty sure [Hillary Clinton] clocked him with a book.” “There were at least 20 books on the bedside table for his betrayed wife to choose from,” Brower...

In a major setback for the radically progressive controllers of the Phony Synod, who are gearing up and stacking the deck for another assault on Holy Matrimony, nearly 500 priests in England have signed an open letter, published in The Catholic Herald, which contains this stunning declaration: “We affirm the importance ofupholding the Church’s traditional discipline regarding the reception of the sacraments, and that doctrine and practice remain firmly and inseparably in harmony.” Just as stunning is the concluding paragraph: “We urge all those who will participate in the second Synod in October 2015 to make a clear and firm...

In an eight page document in preparation for the Synod on the Family the diocese of Essen, Germany, has asked the Vatican to elaborate a “Rite for the blessing of same-sex-couples”, to de facto abolish the indissolubility of marriage, to accept adultery and to allow artificial birth control. According to the document, blessing of practiced homosexuality would be a – quote – “sign of justice” and “non-discrimination”.

<p>Bored after 18 years with her husband, Robin Rinaldi placed an ad seeking casual encounters with new men and women. She tells what happened on her yearlong sex odyssey in her memoir "The Wild Oats Project."</p> <p>I broke the news to Scott that I wanted an open marriage in early 2008, a few months after his vasectomy. “I won’t go to my grave with no children and four lovers,” I told him repeatedly. “I refuse.”</p>

Hillary White wrote an article at the Remnant that I highly recommend reading, thinking and praying about. I don’t have any answers for the questions I will pose below, but I think, with less than eight months to go before the next installment of the Synod to End the Family, now might be a good time to at least open the discussion: what do we do when the Cardinal Kasper’s New Paradigm is officially in place? Simply put, can a Catholic in good conscience continue to attend a parish where the priest has agreed to go along with the New...

In an incredible and shameless act of defiance to Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, Pope Francis preached a blasphemous sermon this morning at Mass. Here is the Italian text, from Radio Vaticana:

The Bible and Catholic tradition have various images for describing the essence of the church. At the center of Pope Francis’s understanding of the church, corresponding to the approach of the Argentine theology of the people, stands the image of the church as the people of God (Evangelii gaudium, 111–34). It is firmly anchored in the biblical, patristic, and liturgical tradition. The Second Vatican Council renewed that understanding and presented the church as the messianic people of God (Lumen gentium, 9–12). Before long, however reservations grew loud among European theologians.

Pulling on his pants after our intimate encounter in my Las Vegas hotel room, the cute 23-year-old I’d just picked up holds out his cellphone, urging me to tap in my number. “You really don’t have to take it,” I say. Having sex with a stranger is thrilling, but I’m not that interested in a repeat performance. Two minutes after he’s gone, I climb back into bed and text my husband, Scott, whom I’ve been with for 18 years. “Just saying good night,” I type. “Good night, dove,” writes back Scott from wherever he is. Scenarios like these were typical...

The triggerman in the Pamela Smart murder trial was granted parole Thursday, nearly 25 years after he killed his school instructor's husband and launched a global spectacle packed with lurid details of sex and manipulation. William Flynn was 16-year-old "Billy" in 1990 when he and three teenage friends carried out what prosecutors said was Pamela Smart's plot to murder Gregg Smart. Flynn pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 28 years to life in prison, minus time served before trial. The trial was a media circus and one of the first high-profile cases about a sexual affair between...

German Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, who headed the Papal Council Cor Unum until 2010 and was made a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI, has publicly opposed the words and direction of the German Bishops' Conference. In a Letter to the Editor to the German newspaper Die Tagespost on March 7, 2015, Cardinal Cordes contradicts the words of Cardinal Reinhard Marx, head of the German Bishops' Conference, as well as Bishop Franz-Joseph Bode (Osnabrück). After the Bishops of Germany had had their conference in Hildesheim, Northern Germany, Cardinal Marx said words that provoked the resistance of Cardinal Cordes. The latter cardinal...

The nation's highest military court has reversed the aggravated assault conviction of a Kansas airman accused of exposing multiple sex partners to HIV. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces unanimously ruled Monday that prosecutors failed to prove that any of (the) acts were likely to transmit HIV to his partners. The court upheld for "offensive touching to which his sexual partners did not provide meaningful informed consent". It also upheld his conviction for adultery, even though his wife participated.

So on CNN, Kevin Costner admitted to having used the N word. Many times. So what? Does that make him a racist? I talked about it on this week's radio show, including MY experience with having used and heard the word. Watch for yourself and decide on whether the context matters in this instance.

Alabama's first openly gay state lawmaker threatened to "out" fellow elected officials engaged in extramarital affairs, especially those that champion family values and traditional marriage. State Rep. Patricia Todd's (D-Birmingham) ire came to a boil after several state officials reacted negatively to a recent federal ruling that declared Alabama's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard called the ruling "outrageous" and said that the will of 80% of Alabama citizens who voted in 2006 to define marriage as between a man and a woman has been overturned by the act of "a single unelected and unaccountable federal...

This may seem to be a rather obscure topic, but it popped up while I was reading Helen Smith’s musings on whether or not pornography should be made illegal and the long term, detrimental effects that it can have on marriage. As a subset of that discussion, she touched on David Friedman’s book, Law’s Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters. In it, Friedman makes the following observation on prostitution in general and the specific side effects it can have when married men pay for sex outside of marriage. (I specify “men” here only because...

I have been assured, over and over again, sometimes condescendingly and sometimes not, that the Kasper Proposal is a dead letter. First it was Cardinal Muller's letter in L'Osservatore Romano. Then it was some random papal comment affirming marital indissolubility (which ignored the fact Cardinal Kasper swearsies he's all about keeping marriages intact). Then, most recently, it was the supposed door-slamming vote at the end of the Synod, which asserted that the matter was--this time for sure, how could you ever doubt it?--done. Over. Locked into a safe, wrapped in chains and dumped square in into Challenger Deep, where it...

Evidence of this was already apparent in October of 2013, when Neo-Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin repeatedly referred to the Church’s perennial moral teaching prohibiting the reception of Communion in a state of mortal sin merely a changeable “discipline” or “practice.” Then in April 2014, Akin again referred to this teaching as a “practice” in his frantic defense of Francis informing a woman living in adultery that she could receive Holy Communion. Fast forward to October 2014. In the chaos immediately following the synod, Neo-Catholic apologist Jeff Mirus left no doubt about his willingness to go theological cliff diving in an...