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The Chinese government has banned all depictions of gay people on television, as part of a cultural crackdown on “vulgar, immoral and unhealthy content”. “No television drama shall show abnormal sexual relationships and behaviours, such as incest, same-sex relationships, sexual perversion, sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual violence, and so on.” The ban also extends to smoking, drinking, adultery, sexually suggestive clothing, even reincarnation. China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television told television producers it would constantly monitor TV channels to ensure the new rules were strictly adhered to.

At a meeting to discuss the apostolic exhoration Amoris Laetitia, Archbishop Bruno Forte revealed new insights into the mind of Pope Francis on one of the most controversial issues facing the Church: communion for the divorced and “remarried.” Forte was the man personally chosen by Pope Francis as the Special Secretary for the synods on marriage and family, and he is widely believed responsible for the insertion of the explosive language pertaining to homosexuals in the 2014 Synod’s mid-term relatio. During his presentation, the details of which were published on 3 May on the Italian news website, Zonalocale.it, Forte recalled...

"I honestly do not see how one could interpret Chapter 8 of the Exhortation in the sense of traditional doctrine. It would do violence to the text and wouldn’t respect the intention of the compilers." Father Barthe Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia cannot be interpreted in a traditional sense Interview of Roberto de Mattei with Fr. Claude Barthe Father Claude Barthe, theologian, author of works such as La messe, une forêt de symboles, Les romanciers et le catholicisme, and Penser l’œcuménisme autrement was one of the first in France, on April 8, to express on the blog L’Homme nouveau. We...

The reason Amoris laetita (AL)is rightly called a “catastrophe” is summarized in the already infamous paragraph 301, in which Francis announces nothing less than an excuse from culpability for those living in relationships — divorce and “remarriage” and cohabitation — which the Church has constantly reprobated as living in sin. According to Francis, however: “The Church possesses a solid body of reflection concerning mitigating factors and situations. Hence it can no longer simply be said that all those in any “irregular” situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace. More is involved here...

In my first column in this series on how Amoris laetitia (AL) engages in deceptive arguments and use of sources, I noted AL’s systematic and indeed fraudulent suggestion that in Familiaris consortio John Paul II endorsed a form of “pastoral discernment” that would allow public adulterers living in so-called “second marriages” to receive absolution and Holy Communion in “certain cases,” along with other habitual public sinners of the sexual variety, without any firm purpose of amendment. I also showed how AL literally hides from the reader, throughout 256 pages, John Paul II’s insistence in paragraph 84 of Familiaris, in line...

A vast amount of critical commentary has already been written about Amoris laetitia (AL), a document the Rorate Caeli blog site rightly summarizes in a single word: “catastrophe.” The focus of this series is suggested by the comment of Carl E. Olson at Catholic World Report (Father Fessio’s publication): “Francis apparently plays a bit fast and loose with some of his arguments and sources.” That’s putting it mildly, although it is remarkable that even a “mainstream” commentator on a “mainstream” Catholic website feels compelled to note the lack of honesty in the document. But it must be said in all...

News is now spreading about Cardinal Gerhard Müller’s varied remarks on marriage, as well as on the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia itself, during his trip to Spain at the beginning of May. As the Spanish website Infocatolica.com now reports, Cardinal Müller spoke at a presentation of his new book on hope at the Francisco de Vitoria University in Madrid, Spain, where he affirmed and confirmed the traditional view of marriage and the “impossibility” of changing that clear doctrine. “It is not possible to live in God’s grace while living in a sinful situation,” he said, and continued by saying that...

Fox News chief White House correspondent Ed Henry will not be appearing on the channel for the time being, following a report in In Touch Weekly that he cheated on his wife with a Las Vegas hostess. “We recently became aware of Ed’s personal issues and he’s taking some time off to work things out,” a Fox News spokesperson told POLITICO in a statement. Henry joined Fox News in 2011 as chief White House correspondent. He was previously the White House correspondent for CNN.

We all have been waiting for it for quite some time now. Finally, a prelate has spoken. On the topic of the apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Astana, Kazakhstan, has given a statement of over 6,000 words to the Italian website Corrispondenza Romana, which was published yesterday, 24 April. (No English translation has yet been made available; all of the following excerpts are taken from our own partial translation.) While Schneider says that different interpretations of Amoris Laetitia now are now spreading, he sees that “Some of the statements of Amoris Laetitia are objectively liable to misinterpretation.”...

On 17 April, the head of the German Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Reinhard Marx – who is the archbishop of Munich – gave a homily during Holy Mass in Fürstenfeldbruck, Bavaria. In this homily, the cardinal – who is also a member of the pope’s “Council of Nine Cardinals” – said that “there is no situation in which someone is excluded forever [MH: not even in hell, finally?].” In his eyes, the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetita now invites and encourages priests in their pastoral care of the faithful to “lead to the Sacraments” and to “integrate [them]with the help of the...

Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia permits divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to access the sacraments on a case-by-case basis, three German bishops claim. Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop Dr. Heiner Koch, and Bishop Franz-Josef Bode all cited footnote 351—the controversial footnote that critics worry undermines Church teaching by in certain cases allowing Holy Communion for those in objectively sinful situations—in their praise of the exhortation. The bishops also cited paragraph 301 of Amoris Laetitia, which states, “Hence it is can no longer simply be said that all those in any 'irregular' situation are living in a state of mortal sin...

Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, has begun to change attitudes to Communion in the archdiocese of Milan, according to a senior official. In an article for the Milan archdiocese website, Monsignor Fausto Gilardi, who is in charge of Confession at Milan Cathedral, says that there has been a growing “demand” in the diocese from the divorced and remarried for absolution and Communion. Mgr Gilardi’s piece, which has been translated for the news website Crux, claims that some priests have changed their practice. He says that some have “opened a ‘teller’s window’ for consultations”. Mgr Gilardi comments that this seems...

In his first interview with the a theist Eugenio Scalfari, published on October 1, 2013 in the daily newspaper La Repubblica, Pope Francis said overlooking some members of the Roman Curia: "The court is the leprosy of the papacy". But Francis seems "to be fighting not the leprosy but the leper," said Secretum meum mihi . The daily Il Foglio headline in yesterday's edition of the first page: "Müller Besieged". Schönborn instead of Müller The distance that exists between the Pope and the Cardinal Prefect of the Faith, Gerhard Müller, is recognized "by all". "The cold was obviously" felt by...

Situation Ethics Enshrined - Q & A on Francis' Amoris Laetitia A simple Q & A on Certain Aspects of the Post-Synodal Exhortation What is Amoris Laetitia? Amoris Laetitia (the “Joy of Love”) is the much anticipated post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis on marriage and the family. Released on April 6, it runs 260 pages, approximately 59,000 words. Father George Rutler, wryly commenting on the exorbitant length of modern Vatican documents, notes that Francis’ text “is nearly two-thirds the length of all the Vatican II promulgations.” What are we to think of Amoris Laetitia? Respected Italian journalist Antonio Socci...

Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation on the Family, Amoris Laetitia (AL) has been received with very mixed reactions ranging from positive jubilation to that of respectful reservation. It is a 60,000 word document that will require time, study and prayerful reflection in order to unravel all of its implications. While the nuances, implications and applications of AL are being unravelled, it seems to me that we ought to remain calm and take the sagacious advice of St Paul of simply following the well established Catholic rule of holding fast to what we have received and always believed. In practical terms and,...

It was the footnote heard around the world. Footnote 351, to be precise. The dynamite – or so it seemed to some – quietly buried deep in Pope Francis’ recent apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia. To journalists poring over the exhortation hoping to learn how the pope intended to resolve the debate that had pitted cardinal against cardinal and bishop against bishop at the two recent synods at the family, it seemed to provide the key. “In certain cases, this can include the help of the sacraments,” the footnote reads, before making reference to the Eucharist and confession. Were these the...

Well, Cardinal Kasper certainly seems pleased with the exhortation. It’s almost as though Christmas came early for him: Cardinal Walter Kasper explained that the Pope’s apostolic exhortation “doesn’t change anything of church doctrine or of canon law – but it changes everything”. The retired cardinal has been influential on Francis’ thinking on marriage and those living in “irregular situations” and it was he who the Pope asked to address a consistory of cardinals in February 2014 on how communion might be given to divorced and remarried couples. That address kicked off the Synod of Bishops discussions on the family, a...

Is the Spanish Episcopal Conference forging the path that the whole Church will soon be using to follow the Apostolic Letter Amoris Laetitia? Yesterday Archbishop Carlos Osoro of Madrid, the deputy president of the Spanish Bishops' Conference held a press conference yesterday. He was accompanied by the rector of the seminary of his archdiocese, a professor of the Pontifical University of Salamanca, José María Gil Tamayo, Secretary General of the Episcopal Conference and two Jesuits who played an important role. Ambiguities of "Amoris Laetitia" bring Archbishop of Madrid to embarrassment One wants to "value" the Exhortation of Pope Francis explained...

There is no other way to say this: Despite its protestations to the contrary Amoris Laetitia represents an attempt to achieve a revolution in Catholicism at the expense of the prior teaching of the Church on the indissolubility of marriage and reception of the Eucharist. In addition, and on a more mundane level, it is a tediously long and verbose piece of poorly-written and thought-out amateur post-modern-deconstructionist sociology. In order to achieve its aim of deconstructing the sacraments of Matrimony and the Eucharist, the tome paints the picture of sacramental marital love as a torture chamber of abuse, domination, sexism,...

Pope Francis said Friday that Catholics should look to their own consciences more than Vatican rules to negotiate the complexities of sex, marriage and family life, demanding the church shift its emphasis from doctrine to mercy in confronting some of the thorniest issues facing the faithful. In a major church document entitled “The Joy of Love,” Francis made no explicit change in church doctrine and upheld church teaching on the lifelong bond of marriage between a man and a woman. But in selectively citing his predecessors and emphasizing his own teachings in strategically placed footnotes, Francis made innovative openings in...