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The media in Fargo, North Dakota were scandalized when a nearby Minnesota priest informed the parents of Lennon Cihak that he would not be confirmed in the local Catholic church after he posted a picture on Facebook supporting gay marriage (or a No vote on the traditional-marriage ballot initiative). Naturally, the liberal parents – who agree with their son – were shocked, shocked that the church would stand for something. “You kind of know the Catholic beliefs, but I never thought they would deny somebody confirmation because you weren’t 100 percent. I guess that’s what shocks me,” Shana Cihak said....

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 21, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – As Catholic Relief Services responds to criticisms over its partnerships with pro-abortion anti-poverty groups, LifeSiteNews has discovered that the aid organization also has a history of hiring employees with strong ties to pro-abortion and pro-contraception organizations. One CRS employee lists the pro-abortion Pro-Choice Resources and Institute of Women and Ethnic Studies as former employers on her LinkedIn resume, while another was hired by the Catholic aid organization directly from the pro-abortion Population Services International. Former CRS employee Charisse Glassman was convicted of assault after driving her car into a crowd of March for...

As part of a survey to understand why they have stopped attending Mass, a few hundred Catholics in the Trenton Diocese were asked what issues they would raise with Bishop David O’Connell if they could speak to him for five minutes. O’Connell would have gotten an earful. Their reasons ranged from the personal ("the pastor who crowned himself king and looks down on all") to the political ("eliminate the extreme conservative haranguing") to the doctrinal ("don’t spend so much time on issues like homosexuality and birth control"). -snip- Respondents also said they were troubled by the church’s views of gays,...

This article from the New York Times trumpets the news that Catholic priests worldwide are rebelling against Vatican teaching forbidding women from being ordained. Guess what? The 'rebellion' consists of about 150 priests in the US and about 300 in Austria and some in Australia. Errr, that would be what percentage of the 400-500,000 priests worldwide? I'm sure the Vatican is extremely worried. The galling thing about this push for women priests is that it comes from the very men who have been engineering an artificial crisis in the priesthood for the last few decades. When I was in England...

Betrayal -- that's what living a cafeteria lifestyle means, so it's hard to feel too sorry for proud, self-proclaimed "cafeteria Catholic" Maria Shriver who is experiencing the reality of betrayal from her cafeteria husband. In 2008, Shriver told the world, via the Washington Post's religion blog, that she chooses what she wants from Church teaching: "Even though I consider myself a Catholic in good standing, I disagree with a lot of the teachings of the Church....I don’t believe that if someone’s divorced they shouldn’t get Communion; I don’t believe that people who are gay shouldn’t be accepted into the...

Those disaffected Anglicans in England and Wales who think they can take up Pope Benedict’s offer and switch to Rome with a “pick and choose” attitude should think again, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols has said. Many Anglicans unhappy with women’s ordination and gay clergy cannot just convert to Roman Catholicism as a way out, but must accept Catholic doctrine wholeheartedly, he said. “Nothing is envisaged in this provision that the Pope has put in place is a kind of minimalist approach to picking bits of the Catholic faith that I like and then seeing myself as it...

Rich Harlow, writing in The Boston Globe, revels in the wit and wisdom of former Catholic priest, James Carroll, whose new book, Practicing Catholic, apparently could have been titled Practicing, Part-time Catholic: "Practicing Catholic" could just as easily have been titled "Conscience of a (Theological) Liberal." It distills its religious outlook from its author's personal history: his Catholic youth, ordination, his excitement over Vatican II's reforms and disillusion with the church's backpedaling therefrom, and finally his decision to trade the priest's collar for the writer's pen. As a Catholic of Carroll's persuasion, I find the intellectual ammo he brings to...

~EXCERPT~ Hillary Rodham Clinton has run away with the votes of Roman Catholic Democrats in nearly all the primaries, often beating Barack Obama by two to one or better, exit polls show. In New York, she received 66 percent of the Catholic vote to his 30 percent. “I didn’t go to bed until 1 in the morning waiting on the results,” said Joe Quinn, a Catholic who is a building superintendent on the Upper West Side. “I slept very well, let me tell you.” Does it matter whom Catholics like Mr. Quinn voted for in the Democratic primaries? By November,...

A progressive group of U.S. nuns has called on Congress to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney because of their roles in the war in Iraq. “The National Coalition of American Nuns is impelled by conscience to call you to act promptly to impeach President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for ... high crimes and misdemeanors,” the group wrote in a letter written on behalf of its board members. The letter says that impeachment is warranted for their “deceiving the public under the false pretense that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction” and “destroying” the reputation...

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island, June 15, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Catholic Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of the Diocese of Providence in Rhode Island is under fire from an activist group that claims his recent column in the diocesean newspaper criticizing Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani for his position on abortion violated the Church’s tax-exempt status. Americans United for Separation of Church and State has asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate Tobin to determine whether he violated the Church’s tax-exempt status. The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, the group’s executive director, said in a news release that Tobin “appears to have violated federal tax...

CATHOLIC MPs, including the Deputy Premier, John Watkins, and the Nationals' Adrian Piccoli, ignored warnings from the Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, and received Communion at Mass yesterday. Mr Watkins and Mr Piccoli last week voted to support embryonic stem cell research despite Cardinal Pell warning they faced "consequences" in their religious lives for supporting the research. The MPs received Communion as Cardinal Pell stepped up his warning to MPs who backed the stem-cell bill, telling them they should seriously consider receiving the sacrament. "Certainly, every Catholic politician who voted for this bill should think twice and examine his or...

Providence, RI (LifeNews.com) -- A Catholic bishop has issued public comments rebuking Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, who is Catholic, for his pro-abortion position. Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island described Giuliani's position on abortion as "pathetic," "confusing," and "hypocritical." The critique came in his weekly column 'Without A Doubt' that runs in 'The Rhode Island Catholic' newspaper. In his column Bishop Tobin exposes the hypocrisy of the "personally opposed, but ... " position employed by many Catholic politicians. "Rudy's explanation is a classic expression of the position on abortion we have heard from weak-kneed...

Schwarzenegger: "I am a Catholic and a very dedicated Catholic, but" I support Research on Human Embryos TORONTO, June 1, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Speaking at a press conference at the MaRS Discovery District research centre in Toronto yesterday, actor-turned California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger defended his support for embryonic stem cell research seen as controversial in light of his self-professed Catholic faith. "I always said that you should not have your religion interfere with government policies or with the policies of the people," said Schwarzenegger. "I am a Catholic and a very dedicated Catholic, but that does not interfere with my...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, May 29, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Bay Area adoption/foster care agency, Family Builders, partnering with the City and County of San Francisco, has launched a controversial ad campaign in the hope of attracting more homosexual couples to adopt children. Two of the posters that form the core of the campaign feature homosexual couples together with their adopted children. The signs either use the slogan "Family Planning," with the phrase beneath, "Our family was no accident-we planned for it," or the slogan "Intelligent Design," with the phrase, "Before we started our family we considered all the options."...

CHICAGO, May 28, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – DePaul University in Chicago, one of the largest and most important Catholic universities in the US is hosting the second “Out There” conference on homosexuality and Catholic education. The conference, whose full title is the Conference of Scholars and Student Affairs Personnel Involved in “LGBTQ” (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer) issues on Catholic Campuses, is being organized through the DePaul Women’s and Gender Studies department. It is scheduled for October 19-20, 2007 and is calling for submissions for papers and workshops. The first Out There conference was held at Jesuit-run Santa Clara...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Frances Kissling stepped down earlier this year as the head of what most Catholics consider a heretical organization. She resigned her position as the president of Catholics for a Free Choice, a leading abortion advocacy group, and now she's challenging the Catholic Church on excommunication.The topic became the subject of international debate in recent weeks when Pope Benedict XVI spoke on it. He told reporters on the way to rallies in Brazil that pro-abortion Catholics in Mexico City who had voted to legalize abortion there had excommunicated themselves by their actions. Taking the pontiff head on,...

WASHINGTON (May 18, 2007)—The 18 Democrats who recently criticized Pope Benedict XVI when he answered questions about Mexico’s legalizing abortion both misrepresented the Pope’s remarks and defied freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The position was noted by Sister Mary Ann Walsh, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Director of Media Relations in a May 18 statement, which follows. Response to 18 Democrats Sister Mary Ann Walsh, RSM Director of Media Relations United States Conference of Catholic Bishops In an unfortunate May 10 statement, 18 of the 88 Catholic Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives criticized Pope Benedict...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Two leading pro-life groups are calling on a group of 18 pro-abortion Catholic politicians to resign after they released a statement blasting Pope Benedict XVI. They took issue with his comments that pro-abortion elected officials have automatically excommunicated themselves and shouldn't receive communion. The Pope made the comments during an in-flight meeting with news reports on his way to Brazil last week. Led by pro-abortion Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, the eighteen members of the House said the penalty of excommunication "offend(s) the very nature of the American experiment and do(es) a great disservice to...

Father John Malloy, the outspoken pastor of Saints Peter & Paul church in San Francisco, will be leaving the parish next month. Fr. Malloy has inspired Catholics across California with his candid criticism of pro-abortion politicians, theological dissidents and inaccurate reporting on life issues in the secular press. After reading a Jan. 7 column in the San Francisco Chronicle about Nancy Pelosi’s calculated use of her faith to net an upward bump in national polls, Fr. Malloy responded with a letter to the editor published by the Chronicle on Jan. 9: “What a joke! If Nancy wants to reclaim her...

Tegucigalpa, May 18, 2007 / 06:27 pm (CNA).- In statements to Carlos Polo, director for Latin America of the Population Research Institute, Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, said he agrees that Communion should be denied to politicians who publicly support abortion. In an interview with Time magazine, Cardinal Maradiaga was asked, “Do you agree with the Pope’s statement that pro-choice Catholic politicians merit excommunication?” The cardinal responded by saying: “It is canon law that everyone who works for abortion is excommunicated. It’s not something the Pope invented. If you favor abortion, you are outside the communion of...