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Rumors of Cardinal Gerhard Müller’s impending departure as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are nothing new. But last week, a new story hit the radar, largely-unnoticed in the English-speaking world. The Argentinian newspaper Clarín ran a report saying that Pope Francis planned to take advantage of the looming July 2 deadline on Müller’s five-year mandate to send him on his way. Without Müller to stand in the way, Clarín reported, “the path of renewal of the last phase of the pontificate of Jorge Bergoglio, who in December will turn 81, would be open.” Today, new reports confirming the Clarín story — without any additional...

Monsignor Livio Melina, the former President of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, who was sacked by Pope Francis, spoke on Jun 12th at the meeting of the Polish moral theologians in Nysa about the controversial document Amoris Laetitia. Melina is very appreciated by Benedict XVI, whose collaborator he was at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In his talk, Melina quoted Pope Francis' preference for a "bruised, hurting and dirty Church that was out on the streets" (EG 49). He comments: After Amoris Laetitia "it can hardly be denied that the...

Canon Law expert Father Gerald Murray decried the confusion created by Pope Francis’ exhortation Amoris Laetitia last week on EWTN, saying if pastors don’t vigorously defend the faith they are remiss in their duty. He noted that, because of the confusion, parish priests are now forced to question whether they should continue to uphold Church teaching that they learned in the seminary, which was carried out by the previous two pontiffs. This is the result of various Church hierarchies around the world now allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion because of the document. All of moral theology is...

Pope Francis’ silence is a bold denial of objective truth: former Vatican Bank chief Ettore Gotti Tedeschi amoris laetitia , catechism , dubia , four cardinals letter , magisterium , pope francis , vatican bank , veritatis splendor Why doesn’t the Pope respond to the Dubia? The former director of the Vatican Bank thinks he knows why. In a biting essay in Italy’s La Verità, translated below, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi suggests that Francis is sending two messages through his silence: that he can contradict himself if he likes and that he wishes to impose a “New Catholic Morality” on the...

Addressing the opening of the Italian Bishops’ Conference General Assembly on 22 May, Francis implored the gathering:“The first of these gifts [of the Holy Spirit] is already in the convenire in unum (coming together in unity), willing to share time, listening, creativity and consolation. I hope these days will be crossed by open, humble and frank confrontation.  Do not fear the moments of opposition: entrust yourselves to the Spirit, who opens to diversity and reconciles what is different in fraternal charity.”As His Humbleness spoke, nearly a month had already passed since he had received a letter written on behalf of...

In a blog earlier this week, I commented on the publishing of Cardinal Caffara’s letter of April 25, 2017 to Pope Francis, wherein he requested an audience with the pope to discuss the five dubia previously sent to the Pope. The Cardinal went public with the letter earlier this week in June because the pope either ignored or expressly rejected that request made in April.  I speculated in my recent blog that the upcoming consistory might be an opportune moment for the four dubia cardinals, and other cardinals man enough to join with them, to confront the Pope on the...

Saint John Fisher, pray for us - "I die for the Faith of the Holy Catholic Church"After the lieutenant of the Tower had received the writ for his execution, because it was then very late, and the prisoner asleep, he was loath to dis-ease him from his rest. But in the morning, before five of the clock, he came to him in his chamber, in the Bell-tower, finding him yet asleep in his bed, and waking him, told him, he was come to him on a message from the king, to signify unto him, that his pleasure was he...

A veteran clergyman described by an admirer as “the most courageous priest in our San Diego Diocese” warned at his pre-retirement party that although the priority of Christianity is saving souls, he was hearing more from prelates concerned about earthly matters than religious ones. Fr. Richard Perozich, sometimes involved in news events reported in The Wanderer, gave a farewell talk in early June to about 30 members of Ecclesia Militans of San Diego, conservative lay Catholics for whom he served as spiritual adviser. Perozich’s final assignment as pastor, ending at the close of June, is at Immaculate Conception Church in...

De Mattei: The Scandal of Silence By Roberto de Mattei June 20, 2017 The four Cardinals, authors of the “dubia” concerning Amoris Laetitia, have made public through Sandro Magister’s blog  a request for an audience presented by Cardinal Carlo Caffarra to the Pope last April 25th, but just like the “dubia” it has received no response. The deliberate  silence of Pope Francis – who receives a good deal less relevant personalities at Santa Marta  to discuss issues of a good deal less importance for the life of the Church – is the reason for the publication of the document. In this filial...

Pope’s doctrine chief: Those in ‘grave sin’ cannot receive Communion until ‘contrition, confession, and reparation’ Pete Baklinski Follow Pete amoris laetitia , catholic , communion , communion for remarried , gerhard müller , pope francis ROME, Italy, June 21, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Holy Communion cannot be given to Catholics who have left a “valid” marriage and have become civilly divorced and remarried to someone else until they have repented of and confessed “all grave sin,” said the Vatican’s doctrinal chief, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, in a new interview published today. “Contrition, confession, and reparation are the three necessary elements for absolution....

The Four Cardinals Plead for an Audience Why It Will Never Happen by Christopher A. Ferrara June 20, 2017 The Corrispondenza Romana website has just published the full text of a letter from Cardinal Carlo Caffarra to Pope Bergoglio dated April 25, 2017. Cardinal Caffarra is one of the four cardinals who presented to Pope Bergoglio the famous and never-answered dubia concerning the disastrous Amoris Laetitia (AL). He is also the cardinal whom Sister Lucia warned about the coming “final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan” over “marriage and the family” — the battle now raging throughout...

Do you remember the two shocking synods in October of 2014 and 2015? Lots and lots of controversy as it became increasingly clear that something completely crooked was going on. One of the leading behind the scenes characters was Washington D.C.'s Cdl. Donald Wuerl, who kept pushing the ridiculous notion that you can change the practice of something without causing a change in the doctrine — sort of like they don't really have anything to do with each other. Sure they don't. Among various cardinals and archbishops, Wuerl was out front in describing the synods as what he termed a...

Crisis for Pope Francis as top-level cardinals tell him: your synod could lead to the collapse of the church Damian Thompson Damian Thompson 12 October 201512:48 PM12 October 201512:48 PM Share Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Email  Update, 3.20pm Monday: As I write this, various cardinals have said they didn’t sign the letter, some of them waiting several hours before distancing themselves from it. Now Erdö says he didn’t sign it. It’s extremely hard to get at the truth. ‘Not signing’ can mean a number of things, ranging from an outright false claim that a cardinal supported the letter to panicky backtracking by cardinals who...

The Military Ordinariate in Italy, which is immediately subject to the Holy See, "allows" Communion for remarried divorcees in direct contradiction to the New Testament and Catholic doctrine. This break with the Faith of the Church is sanctioned in a guideline, published by the Ordinariate. It contains an introduction by pro-gay and pro-divorce Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, the president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts.

Polish and Belgian bishops have become the latest to issue statements on Communion for civilly remarried divorcees, and both contradict the other. Edward Pentin Since the publication last year of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on the family Amoris Laetitia, a “doctrinal anarchy” that was feared and predicted at the synods on the family is becoming apparent. Belgium’s bishops have become the latest to read the exhortation as giving — under certain conditions but with an emphasis on the primacy of conscience — access to the Sacraments for some civilly remarried divorcees without an annulment.

Bergoglianism = accommodating adultery, sodomy and abortion in the Church by Christopher A. Ferrara June 14, 2017 Pope Bergoglio greets, hugs and kisses “gay” former student and “gay” boyfriend at meeting he personally arranged. After four years of affliction by the current occupant of the Chair of Peter, it is clear that Pope Bergoglio, as incredible as it may seem, is programmatically committed to accommodating adultery, sodomy and even the toleration of abortion in the life of the Church. If that claim seems wildly extreme, consider the following irrefutable evidence: Bishop Ángel José Macín (age 50) of Reconquista, Argentina, whom...

Sicilian Bishops' AL Guidelines Authorize Communion for Adulterous Couples On June 4, the Sicilian Bishop Conference, encompassing the 17 dioceses of the island of Sicily, followed their neighboring bishops in Malta by promulgating pastoral guidelines on Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia that authorize Holy Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried without annulment (ie. in a state of public and permanent adultery). The Sicilian guidelines also bear resemblance in their drafting to those of the diocese of Catania. The guidelines significantly admit that Familiaris Consortio required (using the past tense) such couples to practice chastity, but that this requirement has been "expanded"...

Breaking: Bishop Receives Divorcees into "Full Communion"Bishop Ángel José Macín (50) of Reconquista, Argentina, presided last Sunday a Eucharist in the parish San Roque, Reconquista, during which he re-admitted around thirty couples of civilly remarried divorcees into "full sacramental communion" with the Church, writes adelantelafe.com. The adulterers previously met during six month on Saturdays in what was called a "camino de discernimiento" ("Path of Discernment").Macín justified his move with Pope Francis' letter to the Buenos Aires bishops, in which he said in September 2016, that there was "no other interpretation" of Amoris Laetitia than to allow adulterers to receive communion.At...

American Cardinal Blase Cupich has interpreted Pope Francis’ controversial Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia as a call for Catholics to graduate from “an adolescent spirituality into an adult spirituality” where they will be able to use their “freedom of conscience” to “discern truth” in their life.  “What it [Amoris Laetitia] does is it really asked people to have an adult spirituality,” Cupich, the Archbishop of Chicago, said in an interview with Salt and Light’s Fr. Thomas Rosica that was published June 4 via a YouTube video.  Cupich explained to Rosica that an adult spirituality means “being able to, in some way,...

American Cardinal Blase Cupich has written a glowing introduction to the English translation of a high-ranking Vatican prelate’s new book that calls for Holy Communion to be given to civilly-divorced-and-remarried Catholics living in adultery as well as to cohabiting Catholics.  Cupich, the Archbishop of Chicago, states that Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio’s new book titled A Commentary on Chapter Eight of Amoris Laetitia “fully complies with traditional Church teaching on marriage but is also in conformity with accepted standards of a pastoral approach that is positive and constructive.” “His exegesis of the document’s treatment of the subjective conditions of conscience and the...