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[Catholic Caucus] Francis, in interview: Actually, the Traditional Mass was not abolished, I just wanted a “constructive reordering” of Summorum Pontificum… From an interview granted by Francis to Spanish Catholic radio COPE:[Q.] I don’t know if Pope Francis is a man who likes to bang his fist on the table. Would it be possible that the last blow on the table has been the pontifical document limiting the celebration of the ‘Tridentine Masses’? And I also ask you to explain to my audience what the ‘Tridentine Mass’ is, what is it about the Tridentine Mass that is not mandatory....

Across Kentucky, pro-abortion billboards are popping up with messages that try to justify the killing of unborn babies in abortions to Christians. WTVQ reports the billboards are a project of the Kentucky Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, and they are located in Louisville, Nicholasville and Paducah. The messages include “Abortion: a personal decision between you and God,” “Good people have abortions. God knows and loves you,” and “Walk in my shoes before you judge my abortion.” The Rev. Diane Snowa, a board member of the pro-abortion group, said they want to counteract the Christian belief that abortion is a sin....

With the United Methodist Church’s recently announcing its General Conference would be rescheduled, further examples of the denomination’s rift over human sexuality are rising to the surface. The implementation of the church’s teachings and official doctrine, or lack thereof, continues to cause discomfort as camps with vastly different beliefs await an expected separation. One such case comes from the Illinois-Great Rivers Annual Conference (IGRC), which covers the state except for its northernmost portion. IGRC’s Vermillion River District Committee on Ordained Ministry (DCOM) has recently unanimously approved Isaac Simmons, an openly gay man and publicly practicing drag queen, as a candidate...

Pope’s pick says ‘clericalist mindset is changing’Sr Nathalie Becquart (CNS/Paul Haring)A French sister who could be the first woman to cast a vote in the Synod of Bishops says her appointment as an undersecretary is evidence the “clericalist mindset is changing”. Source: Crux.Sr Nathalie Becquart told journalists on Wednesday that Pope Francis has been underlining the importance of including women in the decision-making processes, helping move the Church from a clericalist attitude towards a more synodal one.“How can we somehow end with a clerical Church, where there have been abuses, of power and other kind of abuses,” she asked, during...

Viganò skewers McCarrick Report on EWTN: ‘Bergoglio is to the deep church as Biden is to the deep state’ Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò responded to the Vatican’s recently released McCarrick Report which tries to pin the lack of adequate response to McCarrick on Viganò himself November 12, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – In an interview with EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo this evening, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former papal representative to the United States, responded to the Vatican’s recently released McCarrick Report which tries to pin the lack of adequate response to McCarrick on Viganò himself.  Asked by Arroyo about the report claiming Viganò “did...

Francis’s new encyclical reads like a UN mission statement. To celebrate the memory of Saint Francis of Assisi, to whom his pontificate is consecrated, Pope Francis has honored us with a long encyclical entitled Fratelli Tutti, or “All Brothers.” I doubt that this text will become a bestseller among the faithful, though all Catholics are urged to pay heed to such pronouncements. For those who, like me, are not Catholic, these texts are still worth analyzing as reflections of the spirit of the times and the intellectual atmosphere at the Vatican. Fratelli Tutti, unsurprisingly, confirms the pope’s solid positioning on...

Op-Ed: "A Marx-inspired Pope who is setting the Church adrift: Now even the secular press cannot deny the obvious" Chiesa e Post ConcilioOctober 5, 2020[Translated Op-ed] There is a joke going around: the Chinese are a bit embarrassed about being received in the Vatican because Bergoglio is too much of a Communist. A cliché, indeed, but every cliché reveals a bit of truth and more than a bit here we have a load of it:  there must be a reason: if the Argentine Pope has been adopted by the left as the last hope of repainted Marxism; if he...

VATICAN CITY — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives in Rome Wednesday morning for talks with his Italian and Holy See counterparts — but unlike his visit to the Vatican last year, he won’t be meeting Pope Francis. The Vatican has reportedly told U.S. diplomats the Holy Father preferred not to meet the Trump administration’s top diplomat in order not to be seen influencing the U.S. presidential election. Although Pompeo met Pope Francis in a private audience last October, it is usually rare for foreign ministers to be granted the privilege. Instead, they meet their Vatican counterparts, and on...

Lou Holtz, former football coach at Notre Dame University, spoke at the Republican National Convention, slamming Democratic nominee Joe Biden as “Catholic in name only” for his radical pro-abortion policies. Notre Dame, a supposedly Roman Catholic university run by catholic clergy, issued a statement disavowing his comments. Over the years, Notre Dame has shown a decidedly radical liberal bent in its teachings and actions. It has taken an agnostic view toward abortion, despite the Vatican’s strong condemnation of the practice. And when it comes to political candidates who profess their catholicism, who run on their religious affiliation and support unfettered...

U.S. Bishops’ Immigration Chief Says Jesus Was Part of a ‘Refugee Family’ The chairman of the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration said Jesus Christ was the member of a refugee family, while applauding a judge’s block of President Trump’s executive order on refugee resettlement.

Richmond, Va., Jan 17, 2020 / 11:30 am (CNA).- The Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia will no longer hold a bishops's consecration at a Catholic parish in Williamsburg, after an internet petition objecting to the event drew national attention. “It is with great sadness that I have received a letter from Bishop-Elect Susan Haynes stating that, due to the controversy of the proposed use of St. Bede Catholic Church for her consecration of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia, she has decided to find another location for the ceremony to take place,” Bishop Barry Knestout of the Catholic Richmond diocese...

It’s “Certain”: Francis Will Abolish Celibacy in South America – And Elsewhere The semi-official IlSismografo.blogspot.com (January 16) announces that it is “certain” that Francis will abolish celibacy in early February via his Amazon Exhortation.The measure will first regard the nine countries which have a part of the Amazon basin, IlSismografo writes.They are: Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Guyana, Bolivia, Suriname and French Guiana.IlSismografo pretends that Francis impending decision was “authorized” by the Amazon Synod.Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Amazon Synod was an authentic Robber Synod to which Francis invited a selected group of ignorant Pachamama bishops with...

One of the perks (such as it is) of working for a Jewish organization is receiving unsolicited books and manuscripts in the mail. Most — like "new age" Jewish ritual guides, Middle-East manifestoes and novels channeling their authors' neuroses through Biblical narratives — don't interest me. Occasionally, though, a freebie escapes the circular file. Like the copy (there were actually two, a few weeks apart, one hardcover, the other soft) I received of "Hope, Not Fear: A Path to Jewish Renaissance" by Edgar M. Bronfman and Beth Zasloff.

...Why two black pastors are suing Coca-Cola William Lamar, the senior pastor at D.C.’s historic Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, is tired of presiding over funerals for parishioners who died of heart disease, diabetes and stroke. So on Thursday, he and another prominent African American pastor filed suit against Coca-Cola and the American Beverage Association, claiming soda manufacturers knowingly deceived customers about the health risks of sugar-sweetened beverages — at enormous cost to their communities. The complaint, filed in D.C. Superior Court Thursday on behalf of the pastors and the Praxis Project, a public health group, alleges that Coke and...

Kasim Hafeez's pro-Israel activism on university and college campuses today, is a far cry from when he was a student himself. "I was the campus anti-Semite," he confessed, looking back to his days as a Politics student at Nottingham Trent, UK. Hafeez, 32, is a British Muslim of Pakistani origin whose full time job now, is working as the Outreach Coordinator for Christians United for Israel. But some ten years ago, he was busy making noise on his own campus, in the opposite direction: "If Israel even sneezed in the wrong direction we were protesting. We held events with speakers...

When they are in fashion, fads are never recognized as fads. Those under their influence and promoting them feel that they have come across An Important New Truth, or (if Orthodox) An Important But Neglected Part of Our Tradition. Recognizing them as fads or, (worse yet for Orthodox) as deviations from genuine Tradition, would only serve to dismiss them from serious consideration. Thus fads never ’fess up. I suggest that the latest interest in Universalism, the belief that everyone will eventually be saved, is the latest fad (or, if preferred, that it is currently fashionable). Evidence of this may be...

Protestant pastors are increasingly polarized about Islam, as a growing share label the Muslim faith violent while a sharply rising minority calls it spiritually good. Although a majority considers Islam dangerous, a small but increasing segment believes Islam is similar to Christianity, according to a new survey by Nashville-based LifeWay Research. Two-thirds of Protestant pastors agree Christianity and Islam should seek to coexist in America. The softening of some pastors' views toward Islam is a key finding of a LifeWay Research survey of 1,000 Protestant pastors. Seventeen percent of pastors characterize Islam as similar to Christianity, nearly double the 9...

For evangelicals who lament last Friday’s Supreme Court decision, it’s been a hard few days. We aren’t asking for emotional pity, nor do I suspect many people are eager to give us any. Our pain is not sacred. Making legal and theological decisions based on what makes people feel better is part of what got us into this mess in the first place. Nevertheless, it still hurts. There are many reasons for our lamentation, from fear that religious liberties will be taken away to worries about social ostracism and cultural marginalization. But of all the things that grieve us, perhaps...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIGDjl-IdGQ Protestant theologian Bryan Fischer says God will use ISIS To punish the West For "gay rights" just as used idolatrous Babylon to punish the children of Israel, and invokes the recent attack on Charlie Hebdo as an example.

Pope Francis’ appointment of Fr. Timothy Radcliffe to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace this past weekend was most disconcerting. Any openly dissident priest who advocates for Catholic acceptance of gay relationships and identity, women’s ordination, and the “Eucharistic” nature of sodomy — a sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance — should not be given a platform of any kind. In a sane world, they would be disciplined. Since the Radcliffe appointment, I’ve spent a good bit of time looking at the reaction of Catholics on various websites and social media. Many are perplexed. Some are outraged....