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It seems Walter Kasper's racist remarks on Africa and Africans have caused an understandable shock wave throughout the assembly. They reflect a racist, xenophobic, and anti-African mindset that has removed the Church in Africa from any participation in the Synodal administration and governance, or in the committee formed to help draft the final relatio. Other than that, Synod Fathers are being strongly pressured by the allies of the racist German cardinal, who are in the minority, to modify as little as possible the partial relatio: as Tosatti explains below, that was one of the main reasons why the racist manipulators...

The conclusions of the Synod's small groups. - Thanks to the collective revolt of the Synod majority [Update: Notice that these relationes (reports) have only been published after a collective revolt of the bishops against the dictatorship of Cardinal Baldisseri.] Marco Tosatti sets the tense scene in the Hall this Thursday: "An additional [act of] censorship, and the Synod Fathers rise up. / The General Secretariat of the Synod announced the decision of not publishing the relationes of the Circuli Minores. Erdo took the floor, distancing himself from the relatio [post disceptationem] published under his name, and saying that, if...

A recently released midterm report from the Synod of Bishops on the family, which defended the traditional definition of marriage but used positive language toward same-sex couples in some situations, has garnered controversy among some bishops who say it does not accurately reflect the assembly's views. "In regard to homosexuality, there was noted the need for welcoming, with the right degree of prudence, so as not to create the impression of a positive valuation of that orientation," read a summary of the remarks some bishops had toward the report, Catholic News Service reported. "It was hoped that the same care...

Over at The Weekly Standard, Heather Mac Donald has penned an outstanding cover story chronicling the ongoing collapse of sexual-revolution values on college campuses. It turns out that sexual “liberation” has not led to sexual fulfillment, but instead to a landscape littered with broken hearts, long-lasting psychic pain, and a consequent desperate effort to create and enforce a bizarre “neo-Victorian” sexual ethic grounded not in any real morality, but instead in an effort to use institutional power to shift the emotional, psychological, and legal consequences of sexual regret and ambiguity to men and — as much as possible —...

The global face of Christianity has changed dramatically in the last one hundred years. So much so, that everything that seemed so permanent about “the way the world was” no longer holds. Information courtesy of PewForum, here’s where things stand:

Ferguson must be a moral wake-up call to white parents, not just another warning to black parents.I and many other faith leaders came to Ferguson, Missouri, on Sunday and Monday because of Michael Brown—an 18-year-old black teenager who, though unarmed, was shot and killed by a white police officer on August 9. My first thoughts when I heard the news were about my 16-year-old son Luke. I knew how unlikely it would be that this would ever happen to my white son in America. Coming to Ferguson was about Michael Brown. But Ferguson has also become a parable for our...

THE confusion we are seeing envelop Rome today in the wake of the Synod document released to the public is, really, no surprise. Modernism, liberalism, and homosexuality were rampant in seminaries at the time many of these bishops and cardinals attended them. It was a time when the Scriptures where de-mystified, dismantled, and stripped of their power; a time when the Liturgy was being turned into a celebration of the community rather than Christ’s Sacrifice; when theologians ceased studying on their knees; when churches were being stripped of icons and statues; when confessionals were being turned into broom closets; when...

Q. Does the Jewish temple need to be rebuilt before Jesus returns? A. With the constant turmoil always threatening stability in the Middle East, many Bible commentators are speculating louder than ever about whether the Jewish temple will be rebuilt in the months and years to come. Entire Christian ministries are established to assist in the building of the temple to hasten the return of Jesus. For many, such an event will signal the start of the final events of earth’s history. However, in the same way many Christians misplace the focus from spiritual Israel to the literal Jewish nation,...

Bishops at the 2012 Synod. Credit: David Kerr/CNA. Rome, Italy, Oct 15, 2014 / 12:48 am (CNA).- The start of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family has triggered a wave of activism from well-funded LGBT activist groups in the U.S. who are targeting “outspoken” Catholic bishops in hopes of changing Catholic practice and moral doctrine. “Most important is the opportunity to create a precedent for change,” the Human Rights Campaign said in its pamphlet on the synod. The LGBT group has announced an activist effort targeting eight bishops in a pamphlet that labels them as “the best of the worst...

Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, O.F.M., of Durban, speaks at the Holy See press office Oct. 14, 2014. Credit: Bohumil Petrik/CNA. Vatican City, Oct 14, 2014 / 03:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After a media frenzy and lively internal debate were both raised by the publication of the midterm relatio of the Synod of Bishops, its secretariat issued a statement clarifying its merely provisional nature. “The General Secretariat of the Synod … reiterates that it is a working document, which summarizes the interventions and debate of the first week,” said an Oct. 14 declaration of the Holy See press office on behalf of...

Press conference at the Vatican Press Office on Oct. 15, 2014. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA. Vatican City, Oct 15, 2014 / 01:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As the synod fathers' small groups continue to meet, it seems increasingly clear that the Synod of Bishops' concluding document, the 'relatio synodi', will be substantially different than the midterm relatio which was released Monday. The relatio synodi is called to mirror the concerns and proposals raised during the small group discussions this week, in which bishops have been grouped according to language. After the issuance of the midterm report, the synod fathers raised their concern...

Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto, special secretary of the current Synod of Bishops. Credit: Alan Holdren/CNA. Vatican City, Oct 15, 2014 / 11:17 am (CNA/EWTN News).- An incorrect translation into English of the original midterm report of the Synod on the Family may have spurred controversial interpretations of the document itself. The document's original version was written in Italian, which Pope Francis directed to be used as the official language of the synod. In prior synods the official language had been Latin, esteemed for its precision and lack of ambiguity. The point of controversy occurs at paragraph 50 of the...

The midterm report on the deliberations of the Synod on the Family has appeared and there is a fair amount of hysteria all around. John Thavis, a veteran Vatican reporter who should know better, has declared this statement “an earthquake, the big one that hit after months of smaller tremors.” Certain commentators on the right have been wringing their hands and bewailing a deep betrayal of the Church’s teaching. One even opined that this report is the “silliest document ever issued by the Catholic Church,” and some have said that the interim document flaunts the teaching of St. John Paul...

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- A fight for the soul of the Catholic Church has broken out, and the first battlefield is a document on family values that pits increasingly alarmed conservatives against more progressive bishops emboldened by Pope Francis' vision of a church that is more merciful than moralistic.

Pastor Knew He Had AIDS When He Had Affairs, Church Says MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Oct 14, 2014 By PHILLIP RAWLS and JAY REEVES The sun and clouds are reflected off a glass on the entrance of the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church where a portrait of pastor Juan D. McFarland hangs on the wall. After listening to his sermons for 24 years, parishioners of the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church probably thought they knew the Rev. Juan D. McFarland. But from the very pulpit where he preached about God's love and service to the community, he delivered some stunning revelations: He had...

The Holy Father has been very good in lecturing priests and telling us what to do. We are to go out into the world and “make a mess.” We are to “smell like the sheep.” We are to welcome all with compassion, forgiveness and mercy. We are to be good and kind pastors who administer the sacraments with care and concern. We are to seek out the poor, castigate the rich, side with the unfortunate, heal the sick, support the immigrants and reach out to the lowly. We are to welcome the divorced and remarried, not judge those with same...

What exactly happened at the Vatican's Extraordinary Synod on the Family yesterday? At the conservative NewsBusters site, Ken Shepherd observed that, if you look to "many liberal media reporters" for the answer, you will find them "giddy as schoolchildren" at the synod's midterm report on its discussions about gays and divorced Catholics. That's an advocacy journalist critiquing the work of people that he clearly considered to be advocates. A check of Twitter bears this out: Did the earth really move? It sure did for Josephine McKenna of Religion News Service (author of that last tweet), whose own story on the...

October 14, 2014 The Great Catholic Cave-In That Wasn’t The Times’s wishful thinking notwithstanding, the synod of bishops hasn’t thrown out Church teaching. GEORGE WEIGEL For the better part of a half century, the New York Times, and similarly situated purveyors of news and opinion, have eagerly awaited the Great Catholic Cave-In: that blessed moment when, at long last, the Catholic Church, like many other Christian communities, would concede that the sexual revolution had gotten it right all along and would adjust its teaching and practice to suit. A Times “breaking story” on October 13, under the headline “Vatican Signals...

The second reason the current Synod on the Family will inevitably seem chaotic is the unique situation of the Church in this period of history. In my last installment, I explained that a certain degree of chaos is integral to the synodal process, and in the third and final installment I will explain why the very concept of marriage produces a chaotic response in the modern world. But today let us consider how the Church’s unusual situation leaves the synod fathers fumbling around for solutions they cannot quite grasp. The reason lies in the rather odd condition of the Church...

In a candid interview Monday, Cardinal Raymond Burke voiced the concerns of many of his brothers in the Synod hall and lay Catholic activists throughout the world that the public presentation of the Synod has been manipulated by the organizers in the General Secretariat. He strongly criticized yesterday’s Relatio post disceptationem, or “report after the debate,” which the Catholic lay group Voice of the Family had called a “betrayal,” saying it proposes views that "faithful shepherds ... cannot accept," and betrays an approach that is "not of the Church." He called on Pope Francis to issue a statement defending Catholic...