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Pope Francis’ documents, according to the judgment of some theologians, constitute some generic indications of a pastoral and moral nature, devoid of significant magisterial quality. This is one of the reasons such documents are discussed in a freer way than has ever happened with other pontifical texts. Among the most penetrating analyses of these texts, the study of a philosopher from the University of Perugia, Flavio Cuniberto, should be noted. His book, Lady Poverty. Pope Francis and the Refoundation of Christianity (Neri Pozza, Vicenza, 2016), is dedicated in particular to the encyclicals Evangeli Gaudium (2013) and Laudato si (2015). The...

Prominent Catholic philosophers and a world expert on the Church Fathers have joined the growing chorus of voices expressing deep concerns over the implications of Pope Francis’s controversial exhortation Amoris Laetitia. “What was certain before has become problematic,” due to the pope’s signature ambiguity, wrote Dr. Jude P. Dougherty, the dean emeritus of the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America, in a column at The Wanderer. The seeming “internal waffling” going on inside the Church over the issue of Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried is undermining the Church’s moral authority, Dougherty wrote, at a time...

The story surrounding the somewhat controversial papal advisor and ghostwriter of Amoris Laetitia, Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández, continues. As we had reported, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, in the June 2016 issue of Herder Korrespondenz, recently refuted as being potentially heretical Fernández’ 2015 claim that the pope himself could very well reside also in places other than Rome. This story was then also reported on by Dr. Sandro Magister in Italy and by Guiseppe Nardi in Germany. Yesterday, 13 June, Archbishop Fernández came back with a reply, by giving an interview to La Stampa‘s journalist and papal friend, Andrea Tornielli. In his...

Letting Go of Our Obsession with Having the Perfect Body Msgr. Charles Pope • June 14, 2016 • The Pope’s recent remarks about the obsession with having the perfect body were intended as a commentary on the rejection by some of the dignity and quality of life of the disabled. I will be writing more on that topic tomorrow. Today, however, permit me some musings on the obsession that many of us have with achieving the perfect body ourselves.Let me start by saying (with all the good humor I can summon) that I do not have a perfect body....

In Breitbart's report on this bizarre blogpost, author Thomas D. Williams notes: "In his post, the bishop made no attempt to explain how a 29-year-old Muslim who never stepped foot in a Catholic Church would have been motivated to carry out his deed by a supposed Catholic “contempt” for homosexuality." READ ARTICLE REMNANT COMMENT: Such reckless irresponsibility on the part of a Catholic bishop at a time like this is nothing short of dangerous. Bishop Bob Lynch should be forced to retire for trying to politicize this horrific tragedy even before the police and FBI have discovered the facts of...

Mistakes, gaffes, memory lapses, urban legends. A list of errors in the discourses of Francis. The most disastrous in Paraguay ROME, 13 June, 2016 – “As Benedict XVI said, the tolerance must be zero”: thus Pope Francis in his interview with “La Croix” of last May 16, concerning the sexual abuse of minors. But if one searches through all the writings and discourses of pope Joseph Ratzinger, the formula “zero tolerance” is simply not to be found. Nor is any equivalent formula. And yet it returns in the annals of the Vatican like a mantra, most recently a few days...

“[Jesus] asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ And they told him, ‘John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.’ And he asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Christ.’ And he srictly charged them to tell no one about him” (vv. 27b-30) - Mark 8:27—30 Peter the Apostle is often presented in the four Gospels as the spokesman for the disciples. Apparently, he was willing to say what was on everyone’s mind, no matter how little thought had been put into it....

Last Friday, Steve Skojec reported on the eloquent and piercing response written by the German-speaking professor, Josef Seifert, as published by Professor de Mattei’s website Corrispondenza Romana. It seems that more and more conservative Catholics are taking heart and seeing it necessary to raise their own voices in opposition to the direction in which Pope Francis is now trying to take the Catholic Church. Now we have learned that another well-known U.S. philosopher and former dean of the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, Jude P. Dougherty, published a similar critique on 1 June in the Catholic...

If You Don’t Know the Bad News, the Good News Is No News Msgr. Charles Pope • June 13, 2016 • Following up on Sunday’s Gospel, I would like to propose the following reflection. There was a woman who was so moved by Jesus’ mercy that she wept for joy and showed extravagant, grateful love. Are we that way? Too often we are not. And as Jesus pointed out, a big reason for that is that we do not understand the magnitude of our sin. We miss the greatness of God’s mercy; we lack gratitude for what He has...

St. Anthony of Padua, Servant of the Gospel By: Jeanne Kun "Let Works of Mercy Be Our Delight"> Stories abound about the extraordinary events coloring the life of St. Anthony of Padua, the “wonder-worker.” Fish are said to have listened to him preach, their heads attentively raised out of the river, when the hard of heart refused to heed his words. A donkey knelt reverently before the Blessed Sacrament, convincing heretics who had challenged Anthony on Christ’s presence in the host. A severed foot was reportedly rejoined to its owner’s leg when Anthony blessed it. Statues depicting Anthony with the...

The following paragraph is a citation from an email I received recently from a devout Catholic lady here in St. Louis who sometimes visits my church for Mass. She has given permission for this slightly edited version of her remarks to be made known to others who may be concerned about the grass-roots-level fallout from Amoris Laetitia. Her experience may well be symptomatic of situations that will now arise more and more frequently as the result of the Apostolic Exhortation’s tendentious guidelines for the pastoral “accompaniment” of divorced and remarried Catholics. >>I’m especially concerned about the turmoil Amoris Laetitia will...

What Christians Should Do in the Wake of Orlando (in response to what the Left says we must do). Time magazine was quick to employ a homosexual Christian — a contradiction in terms — to tell us "What Christians Must Do in the Wake of Orlando" (http://time.com/4366465/christians-after-orlando), and true to form, it was quick to blame Christians for causing "deep, lasting pain in LGBT people’s lives," even asserting that "Unless you’ve long been a vocal advocate for LGBT people, you’ve likely contributed to that suffering—intentionally or not." (In contrast "gay clubs" were described as providing "a unique place of refuge,...

"No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other." (St. Matthew 6: 24) *** (1) Either John Paul II and all the Popes who came before him are right, by emphasizing the "absoluteness" of the Church's moral law and by classifying as a "very serious error" that the doctrine of the Church is only an "ideal"... >>It would be a very serious error to conclude... that the Church's teaching is essentially only an "ideal" which must then be adapted, proportioned, graduated to...

Why Was Christ Crucified Between Two Thieves? Msgr. Charles Pope • June 12, 2016 • There is a bit of puzzlement at the following question: Why was Christ crucified between two thieves? It might make one wonder why one would ask this question at all. Perhaps one could also ask why the Passion was on a Friday, or, why Jesus died at 3:00 PM instead of 4:00 PM. These sorts of questions could go on forever.Nevertheless, some of the best insights come from pondering seemingly insignificant questions. Seldom do the Gospel writers and the Holy Spirit provide a detail...

Always Remember- A Homily for the 11th Sunday of the Year Msgr. Charles Pope • June 11, 2016 • Every now and then some will suggest that the Church should speak less of sin and instead emphasize positive things. After all, it is said that one can attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. In that vein, we in the Church have been collectively de-emphasizing sin to a large degree for more than forty years. And in spite of the saying, our churches have been getting emptier and emptier. Maybe this is because people are just a little...

Explaining disasters While the loss of life stemming from tragedies is heartbreaking, we can’t fully understand God’s plan Msgr. Charles Pope May 29, 2016 Question: Given God’s mercy, how do we explain devastating earthquakes and other natural disasters? It certainly tests our faith!— Gerald Olesen, Fortuna, California Answer: Part of the answer we must accept is that we cannot really know the full answer since there is so much we don’t see or understand. This was the basic answer God gave Job, who asked the meaning of suffering in his own life. In effect, God challenged Job to explain...

Vatican Places Roadblock in Path of New Traditional Diocesan Orders In my last column on this subject I discussed the new apostolic letter whose language is broad enough to warrant the immediate removal of any bishop deemed “divisive” — i.e., too conservative — by the Vatican. In support of my suspicion in this regard I cited the string of conservative bishops whose removal Francis has ordered since March of 2014, while liberal prelates around the world are left alone and even honored and promoted (e.g., the infamous appointment of Cardinal Danneels to the disastrous “Synod on the Family”). Another Vatican...

For more than three years now, Francis has been torturing Catholic ears and disturbing Catholic minds with an endless series of heterodox sermons and twisted “meditations” on Scripture, most of them delivered in the chapel of his digs in the five-star hotel at Casa Santa Marta. The daily spectacle has become almost comical: · Jesus only pretends to be angry with his disciples; · the child Jesus “probably had to beg forgiveness” from Mary and Joseph for his “little escapade” at the Temple; · Saint Paul declared “I boast only of my sins” (apparently confusing Saint Paul with Martin Luther);...

In a recent article for the Italian news platform “Corrispondenza Romana”, renowned Catholic philosopher Josef Seifert strongly criticizes Pope Francis for statements in his recent Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia. Seifert, a longtime ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy for Life and a close associate of St. John Paul II, explains that he criticizes the document because instead of invoking joy – as stated in the exhortation title – the papal document would actually make Jesus and his mother cry. Many of the passages which seem merciful turn the teachings of the Church on their heads, according to Seifert. “In my...

A scandal beyond compare took place on June 6 at TV2000, the television station of the Italian Bishops' Conference CEI. During the broadcast "Il diario di Papa Francesco" (The Diary of Pope Francis) a "Christian LGBT" appeared as a guest. The inappropriate label, which wants to suggest a reconciliation of Christianity and homosexuality, was used for the first time in early May in Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference. "The concept of choice is as incorrect as if the newspaper of the bishops were written by Christian abortionists'" said Nuova Bussola Quotidiana (NBQ). "The concept of choice...