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September 25, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — The “Higher Committee to Implement the Document on Human Fraternity” signed in Abu Dhabi in February by Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb of Al-Azhar University, Cairo, met in New York last week in the shadow of the United Nations yearly national assembly for the second time in two weeks. Its most spectacular act was the unveiling of the design for the “Abrahamic Family House,” to be built on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, as a multi-faith complex giving equal space to a synagogue, a church, and a...

ROME — The Vatican published the list of participants in its upcoming pan-Amazon Synod Saturday, which includes as “special invitee” Jeffrey D. Sachs, who is among the world’s foremost proponents of population control. In his 2008 book Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, Sachs argued for legalizing abortion as a cost-effective way to eliminate “unwanted children” when contraception fails. Abortion, he wrote, is a “lower-risk and lower-cost option” than having unwanted children born into the world. The “legalization of abortion reduces a country’s total fertility rate significantly, by as much as half a child on average,” he wrote approvingly,...

Catholic Missionaries Compare Greta Thunberg to Virgin Mary The Maryknoll missionaries have thrown their support behind 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, comparing her to the Virgin Mary. “Christians getting their knickers all in a twist over the passionate, articulate & knowledgeable witness of Greta Thunberg because of her age seem to overlook the age of the Virgin Mary at the time of the Annunciation,” the group wrote on Twitter.

The unintended consequence of widespread birth control — on individuals, families and society — cannot be denied. Loneliness has become an “epidemic” in the world today, says scholar Mary Eberstadt, author of the 2013 book “Adam and Eve After the Pill." “Fifty years after the embrace of the pill — undeniably, because of the embrace of the pill — loneliness is spreading across the materially better-off countries of the planet." She expands on the themes of her new article, describing the “prophetic power” of “Humanae Vitae” (“On Human Life”), Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical letter on birth control and married...

[Catholic Caucus] How the Pope’s Man in Washington Is Protecting Monsignor Rossi Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the papal nuncio to the U.S., is running interference for the corrupt Shrine rector. The other day I saw a recent photo pop up on Twitter of Monsignor Walter Rossi standing next to a group of friends and allies — Donald Wuerl (the disgraced former archbishop of Washington, D.C.), Callista and Newt Gingrich, and Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the pope’s representative in the United States. The last figure interested me the most: Why would the pope’s man in Washington be lending his prestige to a cleric...

[Catholic Caucus] Pan-Amazonian Synod Participants Include Former UN Head, Liberation Theologians The appointments appear to align with the synod’s expected emphases on environmental concerns, and on indigenous spirituality. VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has personally invited Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston and Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego as well as ex-United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to take part in the Amazon Synod next month, according to a full list of participants published Sept. 21 by the Vatican.  The two U.S. prelates are among 185 members to be invited to the Oct. 6-27 event, whose other participants include every bishop of...

SACRAMENTO, September 17, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The California legislature has voted in a resolution that blames "religious groups" who hold to biblical understandings of sex and gender as responsible for "disproportionately high rates" of suicide among homosexuals and transgenders. Assembly Concurrent Resolution 99 declares that homosexuality and transgenderism are “part of natural variations that occur in sexual orientation and gender identity” and condemns counseling services that help people resolve unwanted gender confusion or same-sex attraction. “The stigma associated with being LGBTQ often created by groups in society, including therapists and religious groups, has caused disproportionately high rates of suicide, attempted...

NEW YORK - Pope Francis’s landmark agreement with the Muslim world, signed earlier this year during his visit to Abu Dhabi, was heralded at the annual prayer service on the eve of the United Nations General Assembly as “an antidote to hatred, violence, extremism and blind fanaticism.” “The Declaration is an appeal to all people of goodwill to put aside particular and egotistic interests, be they individual, national or continental, to break down the walls in our minds and to cross the borders in order to promote and build up justice and peace,” said Bishop Paul Hinder, who serves as...

The Prince of Wales is the highest-ranking royal who could have attended the occasion The Prince of Wales will travel to Rome to attend the ceremony where John Henry Newman is to be declared a saint. Clarence House confirmed today that Prince Charles is going to be present in St Peter’s Square on 13 October 2019 when Pope Francis canonises Cardinal Newman, making him the first English non-martyr saint since the reformation. As the Queen no longer travels abroad, the Prince of Wales is the highest-ranking royal who could have attended the occasion. Following the canonisation ceremony, the prince will...

Gay ‘Married’ Ex-Priest Serves on Canon Law Tribunal for Delaware Diocese Jack Anderson a 'defender of the marital bond' in Wilmington WILMINGTON, Del. (ChurchMilitant.com) - A gay ex-cleric who "wed" a fellow former priest is serving on a diocesan marriage tribunal in Delaware. In a bombshell report published Sunday, investigative journalist George Neumayr revealed that one-time priest Jack Anderson is serving as a defender of the marital bond for the diocese of Wilmington. Neumayr uncovered the scandal while investigating Anderson's relationship to pro-gay Pennsylvania Bp. Joseph Bambera, who after seminary served with Anderson on the Scranton diocesan marriage tribunal. Ex-priest Jack Anderson's profile naming...

[Catholic Caucus] Louisiana Bishop Threatens to Kick Out Seminarians Associated With Whistleblowers Bp. Douglas Deshotel: 'Anyone in formation known by me to be associated with ... SSPD shall be dismissed from formation' LAFAYETTE, La. (ChurchMilitant.com) - A bishop is decreeing he will not ordain any seminarian who is associated with a lay group that is investigating and exposing corruption in his diocese. Within days of a report showing Bp. Douglas Deshotel of the diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, is knowingly leaving a priest in ministry he admits should "not be alone with children," he issued a decree threatening all men in formation to disassociate...

Pope Francis has accused Britain of placing greed over humanity by refusing to hand over a disputed island archipelago in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius. In an unusually muscular foreign policy intervention, the pope suggested that Britain’s failure to heed a United Nations vote calling on it relinquish sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory was uncivilised. “Not all things that are right for humanity are right for our pocket, but international institutions must be obeyed,” the pope told journalists as he left Mauritius at the end of a three-nation tour of Africa. “If there is an internal dispute or...

ROME - On a day remembered for the terrorist attacks against the United States, Pope Francis met with members of a committee of Muslim leaders and Vatican officials promoting a new era of dialogue and world peace. The first meeting of the committee working to fulfill the goals of the “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together” was held Sept. 11 in the Vatican residence where the pope lives. “The date was chosen as a sign of the will to build life and fraternity where others sowed death and destruction,” said a communique by the Vatican press...

In June, Eritrean authorities seized health facilities that were previously run by the Catholic Church. The church slammed the move which it said impacted the less privileged most. Reports indicate that a latest round of seizures have taken place, this time education institutions are at the center of the seizures. A BBC report said seven secondary schools run by religious organisations had been captured by government. An order to hand over the running of the schools was given to the Catholic Church and other Christian and Muslim groups on Tuesday morning, the report said. As in the case of the...

About a thousand representatives of world religions and other organizations gathered in Germany in late August to advance globalism and a planetary uniting of religions to promote the United Nations’ so-called masterplan for humanity known as UN Agenda 2030. Critics expressed alarm that self-proclaimed religious leaders were embracing dangerous world “order” ideas totally at odds with liberty and Christianity. The implications are massive. The controversial 10th World Assembly of Religions for Peace, backed by George Soros and the globalist-controlled German government and other powerful forces, aimed to unify the world’s religious organizations behind key elements of the establishment’s agenda —...

Pope’s Inaction on Nicaragua Deemed ‘Shameful’ While Catholics suffer persecution, Francis remains silent Pope Francis' relative silence and apparent inaction in the face of mounting persecution of the Church by the government of Nicaragua has recently been characterized by a Miami Herald article as "shameful," "inexplicable" and "anemic." Anemic? Of course. Shameful? Certainly. Inexplicable? More like business as usual.  Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega has held a central place in his country's politics since the 1970s, when he was a leading figure within the communist Sandinista rebellion that (with Soviet Union backing) was waging a guerilla war and terror campaign against the country's more or less conservative government. When the government collapsed in 1979, Ortega...

"In the same week as the awful attack on the mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand... more than two hundred Christians were killed in Nigeria. There was hardly any mention of the latter in the news. There were no marches for martyred Christians, no tolling of church bells ordered by governments, no 'Je suis Charlie' t-shirts... no public outrage at all." — Fr. Benedict Kiely, Crisis Magazine, September 4, 2019 NASA's satellites observed the Amazon fires, prompting world leaders to pledge to protect the rainforest. But the burning, chopping and murder of Christians is not tracked by satellites and their suffering...

Pope Francis' unexpected announcement this past Sunday that he would appoint 13 new cardinals to the College of Cardinals strengthens his grip on the Catholic Church and solidifies a liberal majority to select the next pope. ... While three of the Cardinals designated will be honorary, 10 new ones will be created Oct. 5 at a consistory and will become active members of the College of Cardinals, increasing its number of electors to 128, exceeding the current limit of 120. ... Since assuming the seat of St. Peter in 2013, Francis has been assiduously stacking the College of Cardinals with...

American conservatives who loathe his outreach to migrants and China, his denunciation of free-market capitalism, his environmental concerns and his relaxation of church rules on the death penalty and sacraments for civilly remarried Catholics. Some have gone so far as to accuse Francis of heresy. The pope’s most outspoken conservative critics in the U.S. include Cardinal Raymond Burke, who Francis ousted as a Vatican supreme court justice, and former White House adviser Steve Bannon. Well-funded, right-wing Catholic media amplified their disapproval. Wealthy Catholics are putting money behind initiatives to discredit Francis’ allies with the goal of electing a conservative, doctrine-minded...

Did billionaire speculator George Soros, President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, and Obama/Clinton adviser John Podesta conspire to overthrow the conservative Pope Benedict XVI and replace him with a radical, Pope Francis? Did they use America’s intelligence agencies, and our nation’s diplomatic machinery, political muscle, and financial power to coerce and blackmail “regime change” in the Roman Catholic Church? Far from being some wild conspiracy theory, there is sound prima facie evidence to indicate that this is a serious effort to expose a political scandal of the highest order, involving flagrant, criminal abuse of...