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Guests at the White House reception for Pope Francis on September 23 will include several gay and transgender persons, a controversial nun, a radical preacher and a gay Episcopal bishop. Several of the invitations to the event, which is part of the pope's three-city tour of America September 22-27, were offered by Vivian Taylor. Taylor, 30, considers himself transgender, which means he identifies as a sex different from his biology. Taylor has male anatomy but dresses and presents himself as female. Until March of this year he was the Executive Director of Integrity USA, a homosexual and transgender activist wing...

VATICAN CITY — On a sunny morning earlier this year, a camera crew entered a well-appointed apartment just outside the 9th-century gates of Vatican City. Pristinely dressed in the black robes and scarlet sash of the princes of the Roman Catholic Church, Wisconsin-born Cardinal Raymond Burke sat in his elaborately upholstered armchair and appeared to issue a warning to Pope Francis. A staunch conservative and Vatican bureaucrat, Burke had been demoted by the pope a few months earlier, but it did not take the fight out of him. Francis had been backing a more inclusive era, giving space to progressive...

When Pope Francis arrives in the U.S. for the World Meeting of Families later this month, he will find a Catholic public that is remarkably accepting of a variety of non-traditional families, according to a new Pew Research Center survey that provides an in-depth look at American Catholics’ views on family life, sexuality and Catholic identity.Nine-in-ten U.S. Catholics say a household headed by a married mother and father is an ideal situation for bringing up children. But the survey shows that large majorities think other kinds of families – those headed by parents who are single, divorced, unmarried or...

A study by the Public Religion Research Institute released in August on the beliefs of American Catholics has found that despite the Church's teachings, they support same-sex marriage and abortion just as much as the general population. What is more, a large percentage of Catholic respondents mistakenly believed Pope Francis has backed gay marriage. A profile on American Catholics shared by PRRI noted that they make up roughly one in five, or 22 percent of all American adults, with 59 percent of Catholics categorized as white non-Hispanic, while 34 percent identifying as Hispanic. When asked about whether gay and lesbian...

As corporations and governments face increasing pressure to cut ties with scandal-plagued Planned Parenthood, let’s not forget the obvious: Catholic colleges ought to do the same.What, you ask? Catholic colleges have ties to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider and alleged purveyor of aborted human parts? How is that even possible?It’s a good question. There’s no excuse for colleges that value their Catholic identity to be linked with the corrupt—and corrupting—organization.But in her recent Crisis Magazine article titled “Catholic Colleges Collude with Planned Parenthood,” Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Anne Hendershott reminded readers of several instances of Catholic college ties...

Two opposing interpretations of the Second Vatican Council divide the Catholic Church. This divide is more complex than the casual observer tends to appreciate. Within the complex divide, however, is a clear, simple divide: the familiar quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns. Each of the two parties is marked by a definite taste in liturgy, music, architecture, and art. The Eucharist being “the source and summit of the Christian life,” it should come as no surprise that the central object of disagreement between the Catholic Ancients and the Catholic Moderns is the Mass. In the Roman rite, it can...

Police in Belfast are investigating a photo posted to social media on Monday in which a group of masked men yielding baseball bats, axes and stakes stand before a wall of graffiti that threatens to crucify Catholics. “Taigs will be crucified,” the shocking message reads, using a derogatory term for Irish Catholics. The letters “VTOT” are written below, with a cross. They are believed to stand for “Village Team on Tour,” the name of a loyalist gang in South Belfast. The graffiti was discovered on Monday, when the photo was first shared on social media. It has been widely viewed...

The Supreme Court decision allowing gay “marriage” in the United States has upset all right minded Christians, and rightly so. It is pretty clear that the Supreme Court has rubber stamped a widespread rejection of Christian morality by a large segment of the American people. Not only has the Supreme Court ratified same sex “marriage” but they have overturned majority opinions of the people, set themselves up as arbiters of human morality, trampled on states’ rights, ignored not only historic Christian teaching, but the understanding of marriage held by all people at all times and in all cultures down through...

The New York Times has a consistent position on art that offends religions. 1. Mohammed cartoons will not appear 2. Works mocking Christianity and Judaism will Briefly New York Times editor Dean Baquet pretended after the Hebdo and Garland attacks that there was some consistent policy about not offending religious people. Then it began once again featuring materials that offend Catholics. After a lot of squirming, the New York Times offered these criteria A. It's impossible not to offend anyone, so we won't offend Muslims, but we will offend Catholics "There's no simple, unwavering formula we can apply in situations...

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case to determine whether the Constitution requires states to issue same-sex marriage licenses and requires other states to honor same-sex marriages performed in those states. A primary argument by the plaintiffs is that gay marriage is covered under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and that if straights can marry, then so can gays. The counterargument is that marriage is a privilege and not a right, a union of one man and one woman sanctioned over millennia by virtually every culture and country over time as the stable...

Lost in the celebrations over universal gay marriage, like abortion, being deemed a right found in the “penumbras and emanations” of the Constitution is the chilling effect the ruling has on religious liberty. In a telling exchange between the Obama administration’s Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. and Justice Samuel Alito, detailed by Tom Blumer at Newsbusters.com, in which Verrilli admitted that churches could lose their tax exemptions if they refuse to perform gay weddings: Justice Alito: Well, in the Bob Jones case, the Court held that a college was not entitled to tax­exempt status if it opposed interracial marriage...

The decision by the Milwaukee Art Museum to acquire and prominently display a controversial portrait of Pope Benedict XVI fashioned from 17,000 colored condoms has created outrage among Catholics and others who see it as profoundly disrespectful, even blasphemous. Many suggest that if a piece were as offensive to other faith traditions or communities it would not be tolerated, much less embraced. Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki blasted the decision as insulting and callous. The museum acknowledged it has fielded about 200 complaints. A handful of patrons dropped their memberships; one longtime docent tendered her resignation; and at least one donor...

There are many reasons the Roman Catholic Church is the true Church of Jesus Christ, however, some of those reasons are necessary for discussions with those outside the Catholic Church. Jesus prayed for unity of believers and unity begins with understanding. The understanding of the Church’s beliefs is essential in working toward that unity. Here are some key reasons to keep in mind when speaking to non-Catholics: 1.) Authority- Jesus gave specific instructions regarding dealing with members of the Church who were in sin. Matthew 18:15-18 says “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between...

Most non-Catholics and many Catholics think the Pope is always infallible according to Catholic teaching. This is not true; he must be speaking on a matter of Faith and Morals and then only Ex Cathedra God created poverty. This proposition, while demonstrably true, is guaranteed to bring guffaws and cries of outrage from the religious Left, but it is true nonetheless. It hearkens back to the curse of Man in Genesis: “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis was about to take a major step backing the science behind ­human-driven global warming, and Philippe de Larminat was determined to change his mind. A French doubter who authored a book arguing that solar activity — not greenhouse gases — was driving global warming, de Larminat sought a spot at a climate summit in April sponsored by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Nobel laureates would be there. So would U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs and others calling for dramatic steps to curb carbon emissions. fter securing a high-level meeting at...

It takes a big ego to run for president. How else could you keep a straight face while telling everybody: “I’m the best person in the entire country to be the next president of the United States?” But if it takes a big ego to fun for president, it takes an even bigger ego to run against — the Pope! Meet Rick Santorum. Desperate to find one issue that separates him from the rest of the Republican pack of clowns, Roman Catholic Santorum has decided to attack Pope Francis for daring to speak out on climate change. In a radio...

One would think that Catholic priests like Chicago’s Rev. Michael Pfleger, an early supporter of Barack Obama and his push for gun control, would not be bearing false witness against one of his neighbors. Yet there he was standing in front of Chuck’s Gun Shop in suburban Riverdale, Illinois, to blame it, and other legal businesses like it, along with the National Rifle Association, for the murder spree in the gun-controlled progressive worker’s paradise of Chicago. Standing with the camera-shy Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence president Dan Gross in front of the gun shop,...

The most anticipated papal letter for decades will be published in five languages on Thursday. It will call for an end to the ‘tyrannical’ exploitation of nature by mankind. Could it lead to a step-change in the battle against global warming?Pope Francis will call for an ethical and economic revolution to prevent catastrophic climate change and growing inequality in a letter to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics on Thursday. In an unprecedented encyclical on the subject of the environment, the pontiff is expected to argue that humanity’s exploitation of the planet’s resources has crossed the Earth’s natural boundaries, and that...

[The following are just excerpts from the first 5 sections of an extensive very revealing multifaceted 2014 Pew Research survey. My focus is mainly on the Protestant and Catholic views. Complete Report PDF] Religion in Latin AmericaWidespread Change in a Historically Catholic RegionLatin America is home to more than 425 million Catholics – nearly 40% of the world’s total Catholic population – and the Roman Catholic Church now has a Latin American pope for the first time in its history. Yet identification with Catholicism has declined throughout the region, according to a major new Pew Research Center survey that...

Take a look at this list of countries: Belgium, Canada, Spain, Argentina, Portugal, Brazil, France, Uruguay, Luxembourg and Ireland. Name two things that they have in common. They don’t share a continent, obviously. Or a language. But in all of them, the Roman Catholic Church has more adherents, at least nominally, than any other religious denomination does. And all of them belong to the vanguard of 20 nations that have decided to make same-sex marriage legal. In fact, countries with a Catholic majority or plurality make up half of those where two men or two women can now wed or...