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President Donald J. Trump is using every tool at his disposal in order to get his America First message across to the American people in the face of massive censorship of conservative speech by Big Tech. To that end, the 45th President opened a Twitch account, a relatively new streaming service used mostly by gamers to livestream video game play, first reported by Reuters. Twitch is owned by Amazon, which, like most of its Silicon Valley counterparts, is not known for its friendliness towards conservatives. The Jeff Bezos-owned giant has been known to ban and censor conservative books from its...

Amazon Synod: Brazilian Bishops Supporting Infanticide? Troubling document promoting tribal infanticide disappears from Brazilian bishops' website At Tuesday's synod press briefing, Italian journalist Giuseppe Rusconi, who writes at www.rossoporpora.org, asked a pointed question about infanticide practiced among some Amazonian tribes, leading to a defensive retort from Peruvian Cdl. Pedro Barreto, who denied the practice exists. Rusconi discovered documents posted on the Brazilian bishops' website that acknowledged infanticide is practiced among Amazon tribes, and included a statement endorsing permission for tribes to continue this practice, out of "respect" for their culture. The next day, that document was removed from the website. Rusconi granted...

Vatican cardinal surprised when asked at synod press conference about Amazonian infanticide VATICAN CITY, October 8, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― A Peruvian cardinal reacted forcefully when a journalist raised the question of infanticide among aboriginal peoples in the Amazon region.  Cardinal Pedro Ricardo Barreto Jimeno, S.J., Archbishop of Huancayo, said that the journalist’s claim that around 20 communities of Amazonian indigenous people still put babies to death surprised him.  “I have [just] heard that at this moment that there are Amazonian peoples practicing infanticide,” Barreto said.  “This cannot be affirmed so easily because it indicates a situation of savagery. I...

Amazonic Notes #2: It's all decided on married priests Obviously. And this is why this whole expensive charade was assembled. Today, one of the main architects of the German-Austrian Synod on the Amazon region, Erwin Krautler, who was a bishop in the area for many years (years during which the majority of the population, tired of a political church, became Evangelical), said in the press conference following the session that there is “no other option” but to ordain married men as priests in the Amazon, because being unmarried is a "foreign concept" to the indigenous communities. As liberal journalist...

The Catholic Church is heading toward an “internal papal schism” whereby Pope Francis effectively leads two opposing factions, Capuchin theologian Father Thomas Weinandy has warned. These are divided, he said, into one loyal to the papacy yet critical of this pontificate, and the other supportive of him due to his tolerance of ambiguous teaching and pastoral practice. “This is the real schism,” observed Father Weinandy, a former chief of staff for the U.S. bishops' doctrinal committee, in a commentary published today in The Catholic Thing. It is a situation “ever growing in intensity,” he added. A member of the Vatican’s...

[Catholic Caucus] Müller Accuses: From This Synod They Have Driven Out Jesus The Synod on the Amazon has begun. “But it will have consequences for the universal Church,” warns Cardinal Gerhard Müller, in a lengthy interview with Matteo Matzuzzi for the newspaper “Il Foglio,” released on the very day of the opening of the work. “If one listens to the voices of some of the protagonists of this assembly, one understands easily that the agenda is entirely European.”European, and above all German. Also in Germany, in fact, there has been launched a “synodal path” that will take its cue from...

[Catholic Caucus] Synod’s day one features ecology, married priests, an Amazon rite and blowback Pope Francis walks in procession on the occasion of the Amazon synod at the Vatican, Monday, Oct. 7, 2019. Pope Francis opened a three-week meeting on preserving the rainforest and ministering to its native people as he fended off attacks from conservatives who are opposed to his ecological agenda. (Credit: Claudio Peri/ANSA via AP.) ROME - During the two-year run-up to the event, Pope Francis’s Oct. 6-27 Synod of Bishops on the Amazon was expected to generate strong ecological consensus, firm support for indigenous cultures and...

[Catholic Caucus] ‘I don’t see it:’ Two US bishops respond to charges of American ‘schism’ WASHINGTON D.C. October 7, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) -- EWTN news host Raymond Arroyo asked U.S. Bishops Michael Sheridan and Joseph Strickland in a joint interview last week about whether U.S. Catholics who are troubled by Pope Francis’ teachings and statements are schismatics or part of a “plot” to “get” the pope. Regarding accusations by Rev. Antonio Spadaro that some American Catholics are fomenting schism in the Church, Bishop Strickland of Tyler, Texas said, “I don’t see it.” “I see people of real committed faith in...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope opens synod urging bishops ‘not to kick the Holy Spirit out of the hall’ ROME - Pope Francis launched his high-stakes summit on the Amazon into orbit Monday, opening things up by blasting ideologies that disrespect native and indigenous cultures and urging bishops and other participants not to “kick the Holy Spirit out of the hall” as the Oct. 6-27 event unfolds.“Ideology is a dangerous weapon,” the pope said, opening the first working session of the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon.“It’s reductive and leads us to exaggerate our pretense to intellectually understand [a culture] without admiring...

Francis, cardinals urge Amazon synod to consider new ideas, including married priests Vatican City — Openness to new ways of thinking emerged as the primary theme of the Vatican's Synod of Bishops for the Amazon region on its first day of business, with Pope Francis and the cardinals leading the three-week event telling the participating prelates not to be resistant to new ideas. Clearly enunciated among those new ideas: the possibility of ordaining married men to address the severe lack of Catholic ministers across the nine-nation region, and finding a way for the church to offer women there some kind...

A Reflection on the theology underlying the “Instrumentum Laboris” for the up-coming Amazon Synod. This essay is written in reminiscence of the prophet Jeremiah whose warning to the people, priests and kings and princes of Judah went largely unheeded. (Jeremiah 1:17-19)While much has been written concerning individual aspects or problems with this document, mainly concerning married priests, laymen and women leading liturgical services, the politicization of the Faith and some individual practices of the local tribes, little has been said about the actual theological underpinnings of the synod.While Cardinal Walter Brandmüller has labeled  the  “Instrumentum” heretical, if not  apostasy, and...

The Pope’s Pitiful Reign of Error The upcoming Pan-Amazon Synod is shaping up to be a disaster of historic proportions I picked up a copy of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper which reads less like a Catholic periodical than a back issue of the Nation. The sheer BS and left-wing propaganda of its contents are stunning: “Climate Change is a Challenge for Society as a Whole” (that was its front-pager); “The Theology of the Noun” (called the “Holy Father’s extemporaneous discourse,” which is too impenetrably flaky to even summarize); “The Green Alphabet of Pope Francis”; “Protect Forests to Ensure...

Protesters accuse interfaith event at São Paulo cathedral of left-wing activism SÃO PAULO - An interreligious ceremony held at the cathedral of São Paulo to support the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon was accused by critics as a cover for left-wing activism inside the Church.The Sept. 30 event was organized by the inter-religious coalition Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns Front for Justice and Peace. It was attended by Cardinal Odilio Scherer, the Archbishop of São Paulo, as well as Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the president of the Pan-Amazon Ecclesial Network, who will be the relator general for the synod.Leaders of other...

[Catholic Caucus] Francis Reaches a New Ridiculous Low: Pagan Rituals on Vatican Hill Pagan fertility ritual in the Vatican gardens Nearly two thousand years ago, Saint Peter,the first bishop of Rome, was martyred on Vatican Hill, across the Tiber from the historical center of the City. The great shrine and Basilica dedicated to the Prince of the Apostles rose on top of it as Catholics were freed from oppression, and gradually, over the course of the centuries, as the main papal places of worship and administration faded away, in the Lateran and the Quirinal, the buildings surrounding the Vatican...

[Catholic Caucus] Amazon Synod seeks to abandon Jesus’ command to convert, baptize all nations: Michael Matt Note: On Oct. 4, 2019, Voice of the Family, a coalition of pro-life and pro-family organizations, hosted a roundtable discussion in Rome to address critical questions for the Church and for the family on the eve of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon region. Read LifeSiteNews’s report on this event here. Below is the full address given by Michael Matt of The Remnant. October 4, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Over the past half-century, there has been a paradigm shift in the Catholic Church’s attitude...

[Catholic Caucus] Schönborn: Francis Wants to Abolish Celibacy, Uses Amazon Bishops As Pretext Pope Francis considers abolishing celibacy, said Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn to the Austrian Bishops' KathPress.at (October 2).What the Amazon representatives will say during the [manipulated] Amazon Synod will be "decisive", according to Schönborn.He admitted that “regional regulations” could have a global role model effect.

Pre-Synod Report: Breaking Apart How can it be put back together? n the run-up to the synod, we are going to bring you a series of reports to help you better understand the stakes. The Francis papacy has had the effect of bringing every dissident and unfaithful cleric out into the open, feeling as though they now have license to say and do whatever they please. There's probably some truth to that.  Much of what some folks here in Rome privately call an "operational schism" has been in effect for decades, just below the surface, but detectable to the more discerning. The changes, and...

[Catholic Caucus] Doubling Down Amazon Synod organizers touch on hot-button issues in first press conference Ecology, indigenous spirituality, roles of women, environmentalism — all were brought up at today's Holy See press conference on the eve of the Amazon Synod.  Brazilian Cdl. Claudio Hummes, personally chosen by Pope Francis to lead the synod, summed up the controversial aspects, saying the Church "must listen to the cry of the earth and that of the poor." Among those voices, he says, are those of Amazonian women, leaders in their communities, who wish to have a more institutionalized role in the Church — code language for women's ordination.  On...

Vatican’s former doctrine head: Ban on female deacons, priests an infallible Catholic ‘dogma’ October 3, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The Vatican’s former head of the congregation tasked with preserving the Catholic Church’s doctrine from error has stated that it’s an infallible teaching of the Church that must be held by all the faithful that women cannot receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders in each of its three degrees – deacon, priest, bishop. Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, stated that it’s an “error” for anyone who claims to be Catholic to “demand”...

A U.S. congressional committee has requested a trove of internal Facebook documents that the company’s critics say will demonstrate how the social media giant unfairly leveraged its market dominance to crush or absorb competitors. The request by the House Judiciary Committee comes amid a flurry of new antitrust investigations of technology giants, including ones by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general. At issue here is a cache of internal Facebook documents unearthed in a case brought by Six4Three, a defunct startup whose founders have waged a bitter four-year legal battle with the social network. In a nine-page Sept....