Free Republic

This morning there was to have been an eagerly anticipated press conference featuring Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, answering questions about his recently published pamphlet endorsing the "liberal" interpretation of Amoris Laetitia. However, Cardinal Coccopalmerio failed to show up, pleading a "diary clash." This was later explained as a conflict with a meeting at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. In his short work, published by the official Vatican publishing house on February 8, Coccopalmerio had argued that all the sacraments including communion should be open to those "living in situations not in...

What in the world is going on in Rome this week? First the Vatican press office issues a statement from the Council of Cardinals, supporting the Pope. It would certainly be news if the Council of Cardinals did not support the Pope. But why was this statement newsworthy? Why did the Council thank the Pontiff in February for a speech he delivered to the Roman Curia in December? Is there any way to see this message as something other than damage control—as a bid to reassure the world that the increasingly evident tensions within the Catholic hierarchy are not tearing...

In face of the confusion caused by the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, and after having shown in two recent studies the lamentable incoherencies and falsities in the document (see here and here), and Denzinger-Bergoglio would like to remind its readers of the teachings that the Church has always conveyed to the ‘remarried divorced’ and to sinners in general.

The L’Osservatore Romano is raving about the letter of the German bishops introducing communion for adulterers, a decision that reduces the indissolubility of matrimony to a meaningless principle while in the individual case adultery is allowed. The German bishops are known for their heterodoxy that has led their local church in an unprecedented crisis with over 100,000 Catholics leaving their Church every year and the number of priestly ordinations down to 58 in 2015. https://gloria.tv/video/4phXZ3ju4Ssg4w2KnZCFEV6Yy

Criticism of the alarming and quite unprecedented direction of the current pontificate is now firmly established in the mainstream Catholic commentariat. This is most encouraging as the post-Vatican II crisis in the Church, now approaching the Arian crisis (which lasted some sixty years) in duration, enters a new and critical phase. Father Gerald E. Murray is one of the leaders in this auspicious development. His training and doctorate in canon law give him a perspective that permits a precise diagnosis of the raging controversy over Amoris Laetitia (AL), which continues to expand as it convulses the human element of the...

The Pope’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia has caused widespread concern among cardinals and bishops, according to new reports. Edward Pentin, veteran Vatican reporter for the National Catholic Register, reports: “Before the document was published, 30 cardinals, having seen an advance draft of the apostolic exhortation, wrote to the Pope expressing their reservations, especially on the issue of Communion for remarried divorcees, warning that the document would weaken the three essential sacraments of the Church: the Eucharist, marriage and confession.” Pentin also said that a “significant number” of bishops’ conferences have expressed concerns about the document. Furthermore, the Congregation for the...

In a year that will be, I am afraid, rich in absurdities and completely nonsensical statements Cardinal Mueller has made a rather desperate, completely illogical, and ultimately not very intelligent attempt to take Francis’ chestnuts out of the fire without burning him, or himself. The cardinal manages the astonishing feat of stating both that there is no contradiction between Francis’ Amoris Laetitia and the teaching of the Church, and that it is wrong for the Cardinals to ask him to say so. If Francis believes that there is no contradiction, then it should be no problem at all for him...

According to Stanze Vaticane, the blog for the Italian TV channel TGCom24, Card. Gerhard Ludwig Müller has rejected any correction of Pope Francis concerning those explosive sections of Amoris Laetitia (especially Chapter 8, ¶¶ 302-305) which prompted the four cardinals to present their dubia to Pope Francis. Those passages of Amoris clearly open the door to Holy Communion for the divorced and “remarried” in “certain cases” — as bishop after bishop is now declaring — while appearing to reduce exceptionless negative precepts of the natural law (including “Thou shalt not commit adultery”) to “general rules” and mere “objective ideals” rather...

Al Franken is running for president in 2020 and will select Jill Stein for running mate. The Franken/Stein ticket for 2020.

The exact circumstances of this shooting in Anniston, Alabama, are a little uncertain. It happened on 22 October, 2016, just before 8:59 p.m. One source says that Malachi Hicks, the robbery suspect, was running away when he was shot by the employee's parent, who was armed with a model 1911 in .45 ACP. The Anniston Police Chief, Shane Denham had this to say. From annistonstar.com: Denham said Hicks was apparently lying in wait as employees were closing the restaurant for the evening. Hicks was armed with a .22 caliber pistol, Denham said. “He forced his way into the back...

The president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, announced Sunday night that Russian President Vladimir Putin is willing to hold direct talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians; al-Sisi added that he believes that Israel is becoming more and more convinced of the need for peace.Egyptian President Abel Fattah a-Sisi announced Sunday night that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him that Russia is ready to host direct negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.Speaking during an interview with various Egyptian newspaper editors, the Egyptian president said that Israel is becoming more and more convinced of...

Christian marriage, as a reflection of the union between Christ and his Church, is fully realized in the union between a man and a woman who give themselves to each other in a free, faithful and exclusive love, who belong to each other until death and are open to the transmission of life, and are consecrated by the sacrament, which grants them the grace to become domestic church and a leaven of new life for society. Some forms of union radically contradict this ideal, while others realize it in at least a partial and analogous way. The Synod Fathers stated...

In the first paragraphs of Amoris Laetitia we encounter an affirmation that sets the entire gist of what Francis wishes to convey in this document: it is time to develop ‘various ways of interpreting some aspects of that teaching’ to ‘seek solutions better suited to its culture’ in family ministry. This hypothesis attempts to justify the crucial affirmations made in the chapters that follow, opening the doors to all kinds of subjectivism regarding the most serious issues. As a result, it is virtually impossible to recognize, in all of this, the sacred doctrine left by Christ to his Church. What...

New details have emerged about the letter 45 theologians sent to every Catholic patriarch and cardinal asking them to petition Pope Francis to fix a list of erroneous propositions in Amoris Laetitia. The group’s spokesman Dr. Joseph Shaw, a University of Oxford academic and chairman of the Latin Mass Society, told LifeSiteNews that the list of signatories is not in any way limited to theologians who are viewed as liturgical traditionalists, thus showing that there is wide concern about Amoris Laetitia across the world of Catholic academia. Upon the announcement of the existence the letter, Shaw said, “Numerous propositions in...

The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano has published a front-page essay by Rocco Buttiglione, the Italian political leader and adviser to St. John Paul II, supporting the argument of Amoris Laetitia that Catholics who are divorced and remarried might, under some circumstances, be allowed to receive Communion. Buttiglione argues that the Catholic Church has always recognized the possibility that individual circumstances determine whether or not someone is in a state of sin. He writes: The path that the Pope proposes to divorced and remarried is exactly the same that the Church proposes to all sinners: Go to confession, and your confessor,...

Last week saw the release of an important interview (PDF link) given by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna and one of Pope Francis’ most trusted theological advisers and spokesmen, to the Roman Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica. The topic was the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia (AL): This interview has already made waves round the world, mainly because of His Eminence’s insistence on three points: first, that an apostolic exhortation such as AL is indeed an authoritative magisterial document, containing teaching that Catholics must assent to; secondly, that all previous teachings on marriage and the family must now be interpreted...

This is the 4th and final list of notable quotes from Cardinal Sarah’s book, God or Nothing. Today we publish excerpts of Sarah’s clear teaching on moral issues. I strongly suggest reading all four reports if this is the first that you have read. Each report covers different issues. - Cardinal Sarah: “Those who want to eradicate poverty make Christ a liar – they are mistaken and lying” - Cardinal Sarah: ambiguities on doctrine - can lead to dangerous opinions. - Cardinal Sarah: ‘separating magisterial teaching from pastoral practice is… heresy, a dangerous schizophrenic pathology’ Purchasing and reading the book,...

Bishop Schneider called it “very urgent” that the pope “states more clearly, in a very unambiguous manner — in such a manner which will not leave any space for misinterpretations — [on] the issues of family and the sacredness of marriage.” The film contains an impressive lineup of international life and family advocates who decided that the time had come to voice their concerns for the good of the Church, of souls, and of nations.

Monsignor Michel Schooyans, a top adviser to Pope St. John Paul II who was also close to Pope Benedict XVI, has issued a dire warning about the current trajectory in the Catholic Church. In a paper, published on LifeSiteNews, Professor Schooyans, a member of several Pontifical Academies and Councils, writes that “the Synod on the Family has revealed a profound malaise in the Church.” The retired professor from Belgium, now 86, speaks of the “crisis” in the Church, saying, “it is futile to close our eyes: the Church is challenged in its very foundations.” (Click here to read Professor Schooyans'...

On the official website of the German section of the Fraternity of St. Peter, the head of the German District, Father Bernhard Gerstle has published a polite critique (http://petrusbruderschaft.de/pages/archiv/distriktsoberer/mai-2016—amoris-laetitia.php) of the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia. In his short 19 May commentary of one page, there are to be found some strong objections against the message of Amoris Laetitia which very well now could, in Gerstle’s eyes, give a doubtful opening toward the already wide-spread practice (praxis) of allowing “remarried” divorcees to receive Holy Communion. In the aftermath of this official statement, the Fraternity also has received permission to print and...