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Pope Francis may believe that the current economic system is driving the world towards the “idolatry of money” but that won’t stop the Holy Father from getting some corporate dollars. The pope rented out the Sistine Chapel to Porsche for a private concert for 40 high paying tourists. The Catholic church did not reveal how much they would get from the event, but insists that the proceeds will go to the pope’s various charities. The event is part of a 5 day tour around Rome arranged by the Porsche Travel Club that costs about €5,000 ($6,400) a person. According to...

Seeing as this only has 500 views on Youtube, maybe most folks haven’t seen this, yet. Reader MFG sent this to me this morning. I find this interview disconcerting on many levels. First, his initial glad-handed chuminess is way over the top and appears just overtly insincere. Then he attempts constantly to minimize the divisions in the Synod and gives an unreserved approval of the attempt to redefine Church Doctrine with regard to the groinal issues so sacred to the modernists (adulterers receiving the Blessed Sacrament, regularizing and “solemnizing” divorce through reception of the Blessed Sacrament, gift-bearing sodomites, the whole...

FULL TITLE: AP confirms: "Outed" Forte exclusively responsible for "Gayspel", only ONE Father had even mentioned issue in Synod Hall Bruno "Outed" Forte From Nicole Winfield's Associated Press article on Synod special secretary Abp. Bruno "Outed" Forte. We post it here for the record of the history of the most embarrassing document in Catholic history, and its most infamous passage, where Forte sneaked his own "New Gospel": Erdo has already "outed" the official who wrote the section on gays, Monsignor [Archbishop] Bruno Forte, appointed by Pope Francis as the special secretary to the synod. Forte is an Italian theologian known...

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...