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Multi-faith committee set up to spread Pope Francis’ claim that God wills ‘diversity of religions’ ugust 22, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – A multi-faith “higher committee” was announced this week to implement the “Human Fraternity” document signed by Pope Francis and a Grand Imam in February that stated, among other things, that a “pluralism and diversity” of religions is “willed by God.”  Prominent members of the committee that has been set up in Abu Dhabi include Pope Francis’ personal secretary Monsignor Yoannis Lahzi Gaid, Bishop Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and Judge Mohamed Mahmoud...

Join Freepers throughout the world to pray for PRESIDENT TRUMP and VICE-PRESIDENT PENCE and for AMERICA: All Levels of Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, Health Care Systems and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. —1 John 5:14 Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. Please join us as we pray today for a revival of TRUTH in our nation.

Archbishop of Canterbury Hosts Muslim Gabfest as Peers Push Abortion on Northern Ireland Truant archbishop marks World Emoji Day as babies are slaughtered LONDON (ChurchMilitant.com) - The archbishop of Canterbury and his fellow bishops in the Church of England are being slammed for skipping the critical House of Lords vote that resulted in the imposition of abortion on Northern Ireland. None of the 26 bishops who serve as voting members of Parliament were present or voted during the debate on July 17 and 18

While it may seem that religion is more deeply involved in politics today than in past generations, in truth, politics has become a theological struggle. It is not unreasonable to see contemporary American politics as a struggle between a fully Biblical religion and one that takes it point of departure from the second century heretic Marcion of Sinope. Historically, American civilization attempted to be fully Biblical. From the explicitly religious basis of much of colonial America (Congregationalism in New England, Anglicanism in the South), the new American nation thrived and grew with formal disestablishment of religious bodies which had a...

Pope Francis’ biographer: Pope Benedict’s circle opposes Francis, must be controlled August 13, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Austen Ivereigh, the British journalist and biographer of Pope Francis, has stated that the circle surrounding Pope emeritus Benedict — which he said includes the Vatican's former doctrine head Cardinal Müller — must be brought under "control" since it is a source of "scandal and of division." Ivereigh made these comments in an August 10 interview to the Chilean newspaper La Tercera, in which he speaks about his upcoming book on Pope Francis, titled The Wounded Shepherd. Speaking about those who he holds as resisting Pope Francis,...

“Amoris laetitia” is at the center of the controversy over the John Paul II Theological Institute The architects and executors of the new Institute want the place to have a more sympathetic focus on the much-debated Apostolic Exhortation than they believe it has heretofore received from former faculty and administrators. Somehow, the post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris laetitia, is at the center of the controversy over the present circumstances and future direction of the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences. At the end of the first essay in this three-part series examining the affair at the...

Australian Plenary Echoes Fatima’s Last Battle The Australian Church has undertaken a radical and dangerous approach to charting her future, in the form of Plenary 2020, which was instigated by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference in 2018. The opinions of thousands of barely-catechised Catholic laypeople and all manner of non-Catholics have been collected and collated and will be presented to the bishops in an effort to illustrate the need for some of the Church’s fundamental teachings to be updated. And perhaps unsurprisingly, in light of the Fatima message, it is the doctrines on marriage, sexuality and the family, as well...

Democracy Dies in Darkness Morning Mix ‘Stop hate and racism, starting with yourself’: Catholic archbishop hits out at Trump Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller blesses a member of his congregation during his installation service at St. Mark The Evangelist Church in San Antonio in 2010. (KIN MAN HUI/AP) (Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News/AP) Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller blesses a member of his congregation during his installation service at St. Mark The Evangelist Church in San Antonio in 2010. (KIN MAN HUI/AP) (Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News/AP) By Timothy Bella August 7, 2019 at 6:20 AM EDT Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller of San Antonio, one...

[Catholic Caucus] Swiss bishop warns against ‘destruction of the priesthood and of the sacred character of the Church’ August 6, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Bishop Marian Eleganti, the auxiliary bishop of Chur, Switzerland, delivered a video message on his Kath.net blog defending the sacred character of the priesthood, which is not a “profession like any other.” Eleganti points out that the mission of the priest is threefold: “to govern, to preach, and to sanctify.” Any attempt at separating these three offices of the priesthood, he adds, would lead to “the destruction of the priesthood and of the sacred character of...

The “seeker-friendly,” or “seeker-sensitive,” movement currently taking a host of evangelical churches by storm is an approach to evangelizing through application of the latest marketing techniques. Typically, it begins with a survey of the lost (referred to by a leading church in this trend as the “unchurched,” or “unchurched Harry and Mary”). This survey questions the unchurched about the things their nearby place of worship might offer that would motivate them to attend. Results of the questionnaire indicate areas of potential changes in the church’s operations and services that would be effective in order to attract the unchurched, keep them...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Benedict meets privately with dismissed JP II Institute prof, expresses solidarity ROME, August 5, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI met with Monsignor Livio Melina, who was recently dismissed from the embattled Pontifical John Paul II Institute in Rome. The meeting, which took place last week, comes at a time when professors are being dismissed from the institute, new statues are being adopted, and courses key to the legacy of John Paul II are being abandoned.  Benedict XVI met Msgr. Melina on Friday having invited him to a private audience. Sources told CNA that Benedict...

[Catholic Caucus] John Paul II Institute: Fired Professor Speaks Out “I cannot hide my pain, caused by the fact that the Institute founded by John Paul II was abolished two years ago,” Professor Stanisław Grygiel told AldoMariaValli.it (August 1).For him the recent dismissal of the Institute’s Catholic professors is an act consistent with this decision.Grygiel recounts that John Paul II invited the first professors a few months before the start of the Institute to his apartment, “to meditate with us on the situation in which not only the Church but also the world found itself.”He qualifies it as incomprehensible that...

What Is Better, Catholic or Protestant? Francis: “Both of Them Together” The Youth Pastoral Office of Magdeburg diocese, Germany, will organize an October 2020 “ecumenical pilgrimage” for young people to Rome.The motto of the journey is “With Luther to the Pope”. A similar trip was already taken in 2016.The pilgrimage is co-organized by the regional Protestant State church, although the Protestants repudiate pilgrimages.On the trip's webpage Mit-Luther-zum-Papst.de, the tour operator, Hans Höffmann, remembers what Pope Francis said to the participants of the 2016 pilgrimage when asked by a youngster: "What is better, Catholic or Protestant? Francis answered in German: "Both...

[Catholic Caucus] George Weigel (!) Denounces Roman Thuggery On the evening that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope, I was with Father Gruner taping a TV show at a studio in the periphery of Rome, during which I had nothing but praise for the new pontiff.  How little I knew.  I had no idea then that this pontificate would turn out to be vastly worse than even this early dire prediction — published on the very day of Bergoglio’s election.So bad is the current pontificate that the novelty-plagued pontificate of John Paul II looks staunchly traditional by comparison.  Indeed,...

John Paul II Institute’s identity ‘seriously threatened’: Vice-president ROME, Italy, August 1, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The vice-president of the beleaguered John Paul II Pontifical Institute has spoken candidly to media about the threat posed by new changes to the college which was re-purposed by Pope Francis in 2017.  Fr. José Granados, DCJM (Disciples of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary) spoke to Catholic News Agency (CNA) yesterday about what critics are calling the “destruction” of the institute.  “It seems to me that the identity of the Institute is seriously threatened, so it is necessary to present, with respect but...

[Catholic Caucus] The Bane of Liberal Catholicism Exhibit A: Death Penalty, Abortion and Holy Communion In an article published at uscatholic.org by Stephen Schneck, one finds a prime example of how what is now portrayed as “mainstream” Catholicism in America no longer bears any resemblance to the Faith of our fathers.Schneck, a retired academic whose work at Catholic University involved the promotion of American-style political liberalism, recounts how none other than the disgraced Cardinal Wuerl looked at him “pointedly” when administering Holy Communion to him at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Schneck imagines the pointed glance...

[Catholic Caucus] Viganò: ‘Christ is Absent’ From Amazon Synod Working Document Warns Instrumentum Laboris reflects 'post-Christian Catholic theology' ROME (ChurchMilitant.com) - Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is sounding alarm over the upcoming Amazon Synod. Speaking to Dr. Robert Moynihan, founder and editor-in-chief of Inside the Vatican, Abp. Viganò said earlier this week that the Instrumentum Laboris — the synod's working document — is an alarming sign that post-Christian ideology is gathering strength inside the Church. "Where is the Christian message here?" he asked. "In fact, the figure of Christ is absent. The Synod working document testifies to the emergence of a post-Christian Catholic theology,...

What might a truly Catholic Amazon Synod look like? July 29, 2019 (The Catholic Thing) — On Friday, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller — former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) — published a second commentary on the Synod for the Amazon, to be held in Rome this October. It follows an earlier critique of his, both of them blistering about the radical nature of what is largely a German "paradigm," not only for the rainforests of South America, but for the whole Church. The good Cardinal begins by noting something that has been widely reported but not...

[Catholic Caucus] Pro-contraception priest invited to teach at new John Paul II Institute in Rome  ROME, July 30, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — An Italian moral theologian who has argued that “responsible parenthood” can obligate a married couple to use artificial birth control has been invited to teach at the newly established John Paul II Institute in Rome, LifeSite has confirmed. Two informed sources in Rome told LifeSite that Fr. Maurizio Chiodi, a professor of moral theology at the Northern University of Milan and new member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, has been invited to teach at the new institute, but his...

[Catholic Caucus] The Vandals sack RomeÂ….again An exercise in raw intellectual vandalism has been underway in Rome since July 23: what was originally known as the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family has been peremptorily but systematically stripped of its most distinguished faculty, and its core courses in fundamental moral theology have been cancelled. Concurrently, academics known to be opposed to the teaching of Humanae Vitae on the appropriate means of regulating fertility and the teaching of Veritatis Splendor on intrinsically evil acts are being appointed to teach at the reconfigured Institute, which is housed at...