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Pope Francis on Friday advised priests who hear troubled confessions from parishioners to not hesitate to call on the services of an exorcist. A good confessor has to be very discerning, particularly when he has to deal with "real spiritual disorders," the 80-year-old pontiff told priests at a Vatican training seminar on the art of hearing believers recount their sins. Disorders could have their roots in all manner of circumstances, including supernatural ones, he suggested. In such circumstances the confessor "must not hesitate to refer to exorcists... chosen with great care and prudence." It is not the first time the...

Apostasy?? More than a month ago, a Bergoglian bishop reportedly said: "Whoever wants to discover what Jesus wants from him, he must ask the Pope, this Pope, not the one who came before him, or the one who came before that. This present Pope". I had hoped to hear some retraction from this cleric ... after all, each of us can and often does misspeak, and we hope to be forgiven for it. Or some correction of those (perhaps just childishly impetuous) words, administered by the Roman Pontiff himself. But there has, I think, been nothing (if any reader is...

The Universal Prayer Msgr. Charles Pope • March 16, 2017 • To my mind, one of the most remarkable prayers ever written was one attributed to Clement XI, who was pope from 1700-1721. Many have never heard it. The prayer is called “universal” because of its sweeping themes. Upon completing it one might well ask if anything at all was left out!If you are looking for a prayer to set on your night stand, this is surely a good one. I often pray this when my mind is dull. I admire its beauty and style; it is deeply personal...

OUTVETS has been re-admitted after the parade council was threatened and bullied by gay activistsMass Resistance and the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts have received multiple reports from within the Allied War Veterans Council — organizers of Boston's Saint Patrick's Day Parade — that the homosexual group OUTVETS was admitted to the 2017 parade only after numerous threats of violent protests disrupting the parade, potentially causing injuries and worse, were directed at Council members on social media. Reports were also received that the Boston Police found these threats to be credible, and told Council members that they could not guarantee...

Fr. Don Miller, OFM Image: Statue of Saint Clement Mary Hofbauer near Church of the Visitation of Our Lady in Hluboké Mašůvky, Znojmo District | photo by Jiří Sedláček Saint Clement Mary Hofbauer Saint of the Day for March 16 (December 26, 1751 – March 15, 1820)  Saint Clement Mary Hofbauer’s Story Clement might be called the second founder of the Redemptorists, as it was he who carried the congregation of Saint Alphonsus Liguori to the people north of the Alps.John, the name given him at Baptism, was born in Moravia into a poor family, the ninth of 12...

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland has urged Irish people and those of Irish descent celebrating St. Patrick’s Day to remember the plight of migrants. Archbishop Eamon Martin — St. Patrick’s modern-day successor as archbishop of Armagh — used his message for the March 17 feast to recall that St. Patrick was first brought to Ireland as a slave by traffickers. The archbishop said that “as Irish people, we cannot think of Patrick without acknowledging the enormous humanitarian and pastoral challenges facing growing numbers of people who find themselves displaced and without status in our world.” “This is...

March 17, 2017 Friday of the Second Week of Lent Reading 1 Gn 37:3-4, 12-13a, 17b-28aIsrael loved Joseph best of all his sons,for he was the child of his old age;and he had made him a long tunic.When his brothers saw that their father loved him best of all his sons,they hated him so much that they would not even greet him. One day, when his brothers had goneto pasture their father's flocks at Shechem,Israel said to Joseph, "Your brothers, you know, are tending our flocks at Shechem.Get ready; I will send you to them." So Joseph went after...

An upcoming gathering of canon lawyers, theologians and scholars will explore the extraordinary question of the mechanisms for deposing a pope. Titled "Deposing the Pope: Theological Premises, Canonical Models, Constitutional Challenges," the conference is inspired by the recently published book by Laurent Fonbaustier, "The Deposition of the Heretical Pope." The pope is not judged by anyone — unless he deviates from the Faith.Tweet Sponsored by several French universities, including the Sorbonne, the itinerary will include 15 speakers offering talks on topics like "Conciliarism and the Deposition of a Pope Through the Prism of Gallicanism," "The Downfall of the Pope: Between...

Since it is Lent, who better to stop by and chat with Brigitte Quinn but his Eminence, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York. Dolan sat down with Quinn, a nice Irish girl (by marriage) he noted, and talked about Lenten sacrifices, St. Patrick’s Day and the parade which is tomorrow. By the way, if you’re wondering if Cardinal Dolan is giving up anything for Lent, he is: Beer! Diet root beer is his substitute. BQ: It was only in 2015 that the first LGBT group marched and you caught a little flack for that. CD: Nooo. We caught quite...

Christian families and communities that don’t embrace some form of the Benedict Option aren’t going to make it through this time of testing Veteran journalist Rod Dreher has just produced a potent study of what ails America—and is proposing that the best solution may be (as his new book is titled) “The Benedict Option.” As the book’s promotional materials describe it: Now is a time of testing, when believers will learn the difference between shallow optimism and Christian hope. However dark the shadow falling over the West, the light of Christianity need not flicker out. It will not be...

As part of our Lenten penance, we are listening to James Martin SJ’s Jesus: A Pilgrimage in the refectory at lunch. It has been not too bad, the bits I have heard; until today. So many blasts from the past: Jesus “discovering” his “call”, “embracing his vocation” as at the wedding feast at Cana. It was the same old tired Christology-from-below (to put it at its best) that triumphed in the 70s and 80s. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun. But then it turned a great deal worse, in one brief phrase: Martin referred to Jesus as “a fully...

March 15, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — His name is Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, and he hails from Pope Francis’ homeland of Argentina. He was ordained in 1968 as a priest in the diocese of Rome, then as a bishop in 2001. He has an anti-capitalist worldview and is opposed to traditional doctrine. He is the chancellor of two Vatican dicasteries: the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Sources in the Vatican say he has a rather vicious streak, and we experienced it firsthand when our Rome correspondent interviewed Sorondo after a Feb. 27-March 1 conference on “Biological...

Lent is a season of conversion. During this time, it’s common to encounter readings, orations, and teachings from the saints in the Mass and the Breviary that direct us to “turn away” from sin and error and “turn to” God. An example is Joel 2:12-14, which happens to be the First Reading of the Mass on Ash Wednesday:Now, therefore, saith the Lord. Be converted to Me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and mourning. And rend your hearts, and not your garments and turn to the Lord your God: for He is gracious and merciful, patient...

Learning the Lessons of Lazarus and the Rich Man Msgr. Charles Pope • March 15, 2017 • The well-known story of Lazarus and the rich man was read at Mass this morning (Thursday of the Second Week of Lent). On one level the message of the story seems plain enough: neglecting the poor is a damnable sin. However, there are other important teachings: about death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell. Those teachings are hidden in the details, but the subtlety is part of the story’s beauty. Let’s take a look at some of the teachings, beginning with the obvious one....

March 16, 2017 Thursday of the Second Week of Lent Reading 1 Jer 17:5-10Thus says the LORD:Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings,who seeks his strength in flesh,whose heart turns away from the LORD.He is like a barren bush in the desertthat enjoys no change of season,But stands in a lava waste,a salt and empty earth.Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,whose hope is the LORD.He is like a tree planted beside the watersthat stretches out its roots to the stream:It fears not the heat when it comes,its leaves stay green;In the year of drought...

Image: The mural, commissioned by Archbishop Paglia for his cathedral Church in Terni-Narni-Amelia, depicts homoerotic themes, trangender persons, prostitutes, drug dealers and other material highly inappropriate for a church setting.Last week on the 1P5 podcast, I talked to Joseph Sciambra about the revelation that Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, Pope Francis’ newly-appointed head of the Pontifical Academy for Life and Grand Chancellor of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, had commissioned an openly homosexual artist to paint a homoerotic mural in his cathedral Church in 2007.Reactions to that story are now coming in from Catholic leaders, including former members of Paglia’s freshly-gutted Pontifical Academy...

Nineveh Plein is the area in North Iraq where more than 120.000 Christians had to escape in face of ISIS offensive in August 2014. They went to Erbil, capital of Kurdistan Region of Iraq and they have been living now in refugee camps for more than two years. Christianity has been present in the Nineveh Plain – where Mosul, Qaraqosh and Bashiqa are located – since the first century. Now, the return of Christian communities to their home in the Nineveh Plain is a concrete problem. “If we don’t go back home, from where Daesh banished us, Christianity in Iraq...

VATICAN, March 14, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – The father of the population control movement, Paul Ehrlich, told a Vatican conference that he thinks Pope Francis is "the person in the world [who] has done more" than others to "initiate work" to fight climate change. Ehrlich was a speaker at the Biological Extinction conference, sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Pro-life Catholics expressed concern over Ehrlich being invited to present. He holds many views contrary to the Catholic Church's teaching, including support for forced abortion and sterilization.Ehrlich has made inflammatory statements about the hierarchy...

Since the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI in February of 2013, speculations have never fully ceased as to whether he was pressured to do so, after all, in order to make way for a more progressive-leaning pontiff. Archbishop Luigi Negri has now given new fuel to this debate in a recent 6 March interview, as reported by John-Henry Westen at LifeSiteNews: An Italian archbishop close to Pope Benedict XVI says the former pope decided to resign as a result of “tremendous pressure.”Archbishop Luigi Negri, who says he has visited Pope Benedict “several times” since his resignation in 2013, is the...

Fr. Don Miller, OFM Image: Saint Vincent de Paul and Saint Louise de Marillac | Relief in Saint Vincent’s chapel in the church of San Carlo al Corso church in Milan | sculpture by Giovanni Pandiani Saint Louise de Marillac Saint of the Day for March 15 (August 12, 1591 – March 15, 1660)  Saint Louise de Marillac’s Story Born near Meux, France, Louise lost her mother when she was still a child, her beloved father when she was but 15. Her desire to become a nun was discouraged by her confessor, and a marriage was arranged. One son...