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The man leading a papal investigation into the Order of Malta has said the Vatican has authority to investigate the dismissal of a senior Knight on the grounds they are a religious order, challenging a claim that the Holy See has no right to interfere, given the Knights are a sovereign entity. In a letter seen by The Tablet, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi explained that the sacking of Albrecht von Boeselager as Grand Chancellor had taken place on the grounds of “refusal of obedience” as a religious and therefore comes under the remit of the Vatican. The eleventh-century Knights of Malta...

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said in a live television interview on Sunday that a “fraternal correction” of Pope Francis regarding his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love) is “not possible at this time” because the document poses “no danger to the faith.”

At Holy Name Cathedral yesterday, to kick off National Immigration Week, Cardinal Blase Cupich had two "migrants" speak from the altar. One of them was the Syrian Muslim, Feras Shawesh.

We begin the new year, as always filled with expectations. Along with these expectations we are also filled with fears, considering the rough waters of confusion we are now submerged in. Confusion, seeing as there is hardly anything left stable in the world and the situation is infinitely worse for us in the Church. At one time the confusion of the world was crushed against the rugged stability of the Church of God. Men need a steadfast rock to build upon and inside the Church they found that stable composedness which gave them the confidence necessary to brave the struggles...

I came to faith at the age of eight and to this day I still remember the sacred feeling I had, the incredible conviction with which I felt full of, and the sense of acceptance and forgiveness I felt from God and other Christians.  The following Sunday night, partaking of communion, I held the tiny plastic cup of grape juice as a woman might hold her newly received engagement ring with all awe and wonderment.  I still pointedly remember looking at the object in my young hand and believing with absolute certainty that all my sins had been washed away....

Is It Time to Restore the Full Psalter to the Liturgy of the Hours? Msgr. Charles Pope • January 8, 2017 • One of the great gifts of reading the Liturgy of the Hours (also called the Breviary) faithfully over the years faithfully is that the Scriptures become deeply impressed upon the mind, heart, memory, and imagination. This is especially true of the psalms that are repeated every four weeks, all year long, every year.But there are significant omissions in the modern Breviary. This is true not merely because of the loss of the texts themselves, but that of...

We can always depend upon our Pope to disappoint. He uses the Feast of Epiphany to lash out at traditional Catholics: “Longing for God draws us out of our iron-clad isolation, which makes us think that nothing can change. Longing for God shatters our dreary routines and impels us to make the changes we want and need. Longing for God has its roots in the past yet does not remain there: it reaches out to the future. Believers who feel this longing are led by faith to seek God, as the Magi did, in the most distant corners of history,...

In Matt. 16:18 Jesus said: “You are Peter and upon this rock I shall build my Church.” It’s unlikely that at that time Jesus was thinking of any franchising opportunities for His Church by including a fast food restaurant. When He gave Peter the keys to the Kingdom, He didn’t give him keys to a McDonald’s. Well folks, if you have not heard about this yet, McDonald’s has just opened one of its newest franchise locations just steps away from where the center of all Catholicism sits. Just before 2016 came to a close, McDonald’s started serving up its world-famous...

Today's interview, from Raymond Arroyo's World Over Live, is a great indication on where the center of gravity is now moving within the ranks of the knowledgable Catholic faithful. The interview was with author and apologist Robert Royal and canon lawyer and priest Gerald Murray. I think it's fair to say that all (including Arroyo) were highly critical of Francis and the recent direction of his pontificate in the wake of Amoris Laetitia.

The Journey of Faith – A Homily for the Feast of Epiphany Msgr. Charles Pope • January 7, 2017 • There are so many wonderful details in the Epiphany story: the call of the Gentiles, their enthusiastic response, the significance of the star they seek, the gifts they bring, the dramatic interaction with Herod, and their ultimate rejection of Herod in favor of Christ.In this meditation, I would like to follow these Magi in their journey of faith to become “Wise Men.” As magi, they followed the faint stars, distant points of light; as wise men, they follow Jesus,...

Recall from my Christmas Eve post how the pope seems to be meddling in the internal governance of the Order of Malta. Many of us suspected that this was a direct jibe at Cardinal Burke for his prominent role in the issuance of the dubia. Father Z's blog quotes from the Tablet that in turn alleges that Pope Francis did not want the condom-dealing chancellor evicted from his post at the Knights of Malta. Some are snooting and snorting that the Order of Malta defied the pope, not considering that in matters of internal governance the pope has no authority...

Does TV Mass 'count'? The Church teaches that missing Mass is a grave sin, but there are reasons obligation wouldn’t apply Msgr. Charles Pope 1/4/2017 Question: I am 87 years old, live in a retirement community and can no longer drive. I attend the Mass that is offered here once a month and receive holy Communion when it is distributed each week by extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist. I watch Mass on TV. But someone told me that I am not meeting my obligation to go to Mass by watching it on TV. They say it doesn’t count. Is this...

The year 2017 will mark the tenth anniversary of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum published on 7th of July 2007. This text, which was written by Benedict XVI and came into force on the 14th of September of the same year, reminded Catholics that the traditional missal had never been abrogated and gave, at least theoretically, a greater degree of freedom concerning the celebration of the ancient liturgy. Theoretically…

Father Antonio Spadaro, the Italian Jesuit who has been identified as “the Pope’s mouthpiece,” frequently uses his Twitter account(s) to belittle all those who have questions about Amoris Laetitia. But this gem from yesterday might have a boomerang effect: >>Theology is no #Mathematics. 2 + 2 in #Theology can make 5. Because it has to do with #God and real #life of #people…<< This is wrong, and wrong in revealing ways. Is Spadaro suggesting that when we speak about “real life,” the rules of scientific logic don’t apply? Imagine how you would feel if someone said: “You can talk all...

Virtually every priest who has worked in Africa knows that this is a serious pastoral issue Every now and then someone says something interesting on Twitter. Just yesterday Cardinal Napier, the Archbishop of Durban, reminded us all of something we ought not to forget. (see post below) Cardinal Napier describes a real and pressing question: polygamy is widespread in Africa, and Catholics in the West cannot ignore this. Catholic teaching and practice must be such that they are able to be inculturated in a wide variety of settings. An initiative might go down well in Berlin or Vienna, but how...

Remember him? It's Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, General Secretary of the Phony Synod, who, in the process of stage-managing that fraud upon the Church, was exposed for literally stealing copies of the Five Cardinals Book in which Cardinal Burke and four other cardinals defended the Church's traditional teaching on the impossibility of admitting public adulterers in "second marriages" to Holy Communion. It was Baldisseri who ordered the book removed from the mailboxes of Synod fathers at the same time he and the rest of his cabal were manipulating the Synod to undermine the very teaching the Five Cardinals were defending. The...

The Order of Malta, like the Vatican, is a sovereign body. For one to investigate the other is simply incoherent Imagine that the UK Foreign Office recommended the creation of a commission to investigate the dismissal of the Canadian Finance Minister. It would, to say the least, raise some legal questions. But that is pretty much what the Vatican’s Secretariat of State did shortly before Christmas, when it suggested the Pope appoint a team to investigate and report on the sacking of the Grand Chancellor of the Order of Malta. There is certainly some controversy about the recent dismissal of...

A Daring Image of the Reason for the Incarnation Msgr. Charles Pope • January 5, 2017 • Saints can be daring in their words. For example, St Athanasius said that God became man so that man might become God (De inarnationis c. 54, 3). And St. Thomas Aquinas said that pride is such a serious sin that, as a remedy for it, God permits other sins to humble us (Summa Theologica II IIae, 162,6).These are daring—even dangerous—assertions if they are not properly understood. And of course they can be properly understood. We do not become gods, but we do...

A newly released document from the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Christian Unity promotes the upcoming January 18-25 ‘Week of Prayer for Christian Unity’ with the theme ‘Reconciliation: The love of Christ compels us.’ Encouraging commemorations in all dioceses of the world, the Pontifical Council notes the theme is drawn from the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. In 2017, it says, “Lutheran and Catholic Christians will for the first time commemorate together the beginning of the Reformation.” The text also states that “Catholics are now able to hear Luther’s challenge for the Church of today, recognizing him as a ‘witness...

Was it Cromwell that said, “It is time to investigate history and learn what is really at stake at this moment in time.” That being said, it is time to investigate relevant secular history and learn what is really at stake at this moment in time. You have to wonder what impact Saul David Alinsky had on Pope Paul VI, on the Second Vatican Council, and on contemporary modernist Catholicism – especially in the United States of America. Pope Paul VI, before being elected pope, spent two weeks consulting with Saul David Alinsky “on the Church’s relationship to local Communist...