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Author Mary Eberstadt told students at the University of Notre Dame Tuesday that a 50-year-old document on contraception is critical to understanding the state of contemporary culture. Eberstadt, a senior researcher at the Faith and Reason Institute, spoke at Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics and Culture, explaining that the prophetic message of Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae has become a reality.“Contraceptive technology, as Paul VI foresaw, opens a Pandora’s box of mischief in which the stronger have the advantage,” Eberstadt told Notre Dame students March 20.“For some while now, it’s been apparent that the sexual revolution that began...

The Grumblings in the Wilderness Have Much to Teach Us (Lesson Three) Msgr. Charles Pope • March 20, 2018 • We have been surveying several incidents in which the ancient Jewish people grumbled against Moses and God. We have done so not merely to survey their sins but to learn of our own tendencies to do the same. What makes grumbling so obnoxious is that it comes so soon after astonishing blessings and demonstrations of God’s love for us and His will and power to save us. Trust, it would seem, is something very difficult for us to learn.Lesson...

Members of Feminist Group In Favor of Female Cardinals Invited to Youth-Synod Preparations Maike Hickson March 20, 2018 0 Comments On 8 March, Mary McAleese, the former President of Ireland, caused a stir at a women’s conference in Rome. In her opening remarks at the event, held on the occasion of International Women’s Day, McAleese — who is notably pro abortion and an advocate of the LGBT movement — called the Catholic Church  “one of the last great bastions of misogyny”, and claimed that a hierarchy that is “homophobic and anti-abortion is not the church of the future.” She also lamented that women...

Francis Bootlicks Leftwing Fake "Youth" With a usual “speak boldly, do not be ashamed”, Pope Francis addressed a pre-synodal meeting of 300 selected leftwing radicals which he invited to represent "the youth". During their first meeting on March 19 in Rome, he asked them to say what they “feel”. Francis called on the Church to listen to "the young people" which he himself did not chose among Catholics but rather among atheists and nihilists. This way, Francis attempts to understand what "God" wants from the Church "today". Not surprisingly Australia’s delegate Angela Markas told the pre-synodal meeting that she wants...

March 19, 2018 (Lepanto Institute) – Caritas Internationalis, which is the Vatican-run confederation of Catholic international aid and development agencies, is on the board of directors of The Sphere Project, whose central purpose is to promote a standard handbook for aid and development work. The handbook strongly advocates for the use of contraception, including so-called "emergency" contraceptives for victims of rape. The Sphere Project says that it is: a voluntary initiative that brings a wide range of humanitarian agencies together around a common aim – to improve the quality of humanitarian assistance and the accountability of humanitarian actors to their...

Moral Theologian: Francis Is Leading the Church Into "Spiritual Catastrophe" The so called "new paradigm” drawn from Amoris Laetitia, suggests that some Catholics are not required to submit to the divine and natural laws, Christian Brugger, a father of five children who taught moral theology and served as a theological consultant to the US bishops, writes on ncregister.com (March 19). Brugger appeals to the bishops to resist this “new paradigm” whose logic "will surely be applied to contraceptive acts, homosexual behavior, and to other traditionally rejected behaviors”. He believes that only such an intervention can avert what otherwise will be...

The Grumblings in the Wilderness Have Much to Teach Us (Lesson Two) Msgr. Charles Pope • March 19, 2018 • In yesterday’s post we pondered how the Jewish people, despite having witnessed signs and wonders during the plagues in Egypt, failed to trust in God and to call upon Him confidently when they saw the Egyptian army in pursuit. Today we consider how they grumbled about the food that God provided for their sustenance. Lesson 2: They Grumbled against the Very Food of SalvationThe Hebrew word often translated as grumbling or murmuring is lō·nū or liyn. Its root meaning...

It is confirmed. Next April 7, the Saturday of Easter Week, a very special conference will be held in Rome. The intention of which will be to show the Catholic Church the way to go, after the uncertain journey of the first five years of the pontificate of Pope Francis.The reckoning of this five-year period, in fact, is rather critical, to judge from the title of the conference:“Catholic Church, where are you going?”And even more so if one looks at the subtitle: “Only a blind man can deny that in the Church there is great confusion.” This is taken from...

Catholic college students are threatening, harassing, and targeting a Resident Advisor (RA), including with a cartoon depicting him being anally raped, for posting a bulletin board affirming Catholic teaching on marriage. “I couldn’t even go brush my teeth for several nights without facing a mob in my hallway,” the RA, Michael Smalanskas, told LifeSiteNews. Providence College, where this is taking place, is run by the Dominican order’s Province of St. Joseph – well-known in most places for its orthodoxy. However, in response to repeated vandalism of the bulletin board and other student employees threateningly congregating outside the Catholic RA’s door...

The conversation has become predictable. A friendly acquaintance — a neighbor, a fellow parent, our real estate agent — asks about my work. I say I’ve been writing a book about the pope, and the acquaintance smiles and nods and says “Isn’t he so wonderful?” or, “That must be an inspiring thing,” or, “I have a friend who would love to read it.” And then eventually I find myself saying, uncomfortably, “Well, they should know that it’s not entirely favorable.”

The New Testament PapyriThis is part 10 of my 12-part series on the archaeological evidence for the Bible. This week we discussed the New Testament papyri discoveries and how they've changed our view of the Early Church.(Click here for last week's video, which was on the Dead Sea Scrolls)A bit of a correction; the Great Library of Alexandria was destroyed before the time of Christ, in about 48 BC by Julius Caesar. After some confusion, I had to double check this and apparently there was a SECOND smaller library built in its place that was destroyed by fire during the...

Socci: Do the hierarchies in the Church still have the Catholic Faith? Antonio Socci "Libero"       March 10, 2018 The parish priest of Cisterna in Latina,  Don Livio Fabiani caused a bit of sensation with his words at the funeral of the two children killed by their father. Yet perhaps – for Catholics – the homily of Cardinal Giuseppe Betori, Archbishop of Florence, at the funeral of the Fiorentina’s Captain, Davide Astori, who died two Sundays ago of a heart attack, ought to be a source of more amazement. These two tragedies have made us face sudden death, the...

Pope Francis' modus operandi Five years into the Bergoglio pontificate, Rorate is (finally!) far from alone in our reporting and analysis of Pope Francis. Several books exposing the behavior and methods used by Jorge Bergoglio have been, or are in the process of being, published.  Ross Douthat, the lone conservative columnist at the New York Times, has one such book in the works, which will be released next week. Mr. Douthat had a column in the Sunday New York Times (largely an excerpt from his forthcoming book) exposing the myth that Francis would grow the Church (Mass attendance has been down under...

The Grumblings in the Wilderness Have Much to Teach Us. Here is Lesson One. Msgr. Charles Pope • March 18, 2018 • Here in the last full week of Lent prior to Holy Week we do well to ponder the grumblings of the ancient Hebrew people in the desert, for their grumblings are often ours as well. We are reading these passages in the Office of Readings just now, so it is the mind of the Church that we should meditate on them. The ancient Hebrews grumbled in many ways, and it will take us several days to consider...

The Cross Always Wins - A Homily for the 5th Sunday of Lent Msgr. Charles Pope • March 17, 2018 • To the world and to those what are perishing, Sunday’s Gospel is utter madness, utter foolishness. Christ in effect declares that dying (to this world) is the only way to true life. While the world’s so-called wisdom holds that the way to life is through power, prestige, possessions, and popularity, Jesus says that in order to find true life, one must die to all that. This seems to be a paradox. The true gospel (not a watered down,...

By Philip Cottraux Stephen Hawking passed away at the age of 76 this week. A theoretical physicist, professor of mathematics at Cambridge University (a position once held by Isaac Newton), and author of the best-selling book A Brief History of Time, he was a legend in the scientific community. When Hawking spoke, the world listened. At one time, he seemed to be ambiguously deist (open to the possibility of God, but not as a loving Creator). But by the end, he was a devout atheist. In light of his death, the media has proudly displayed some of his most notorious...

Vatican Reveals Full Text of Benedict XVI’s Letter to Msgr. Viganò The Vatican released on Saturday the full text of Benedict XVI's letter to Msgr. Vigano showing that two paragraphs were concealed. The Vatican said it had no intention to censor the letter but chose to leave out parts of it as the letter was confidential. The story as it developed. Edward Pentin See updates to this report below:  March 13: The Holy See has yet to release the full text of the letter Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI sent to Msgr. Dario Vigano, the prefect of the Secretariat for Communications, on...

Students from Catholic schools in the Philippines will march with LGBT groups this week to press for the passage of a bill designed to end discrimination on the basis of gender and sexuality.They will attend nationwide rallies with gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders in major cities across the country on March 17 to show support for the proposed law in the Senate."We can no longer stay silent on the issue of discrimination," said Mikee De Vega, president of the student council at Manila's De La Salle University."As student leaders from Catholic schools, love and acceptance is at the core of...

The end has not quite been written on the story of the “personal” and “confidential” letter written February 7 by Benedict XVI to the prefect of the secretariat for communications, Dario Edoardo Viganò, and partially made public by him on March 12.Not only was there a key passage in it that was purposefully omitted in the press release sent out by Viganò himself:> The Double "Foolish Prejudice." The Complete Text of the Letter by Benedict XVINot only had the beginning of this paragraph been manipulated to make it illegible in the photo of the letter released by Viganò’s secretariat:> Vatican...

Continuing from my previous article, “Addressing Mass Rumors”, let us examine the practical aspects of the speculated Hybrid Missal.To re-summarize, Pope Francis is supposedly cooking up a new “traditional” version of the Roman Missal that will incorporate elements from the Novus Ordo Missae, including its three-cycle Lectionary and some saints from its calendar. Furthermore, it has been reported that this Hybrid Missal is coming soon and will be imposed on those who offer the traditional Mass (with an initial exception for the Society of St. Pius X).For starters, let us recall that this gossip of an impending Hybrid Missal began...