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David Quarrey presents his diplomatic credentials to President Rivlin, who invites Queen Elizabeth II to visit the region The first openly gay British ambassador presented his credentials to President Reuven Rivlin during an official ceremony in Jerusalem last week. David Quarrey introduced his spouse, Aldo Oliver Henriquez, to Rivlin during the event at the President’s Residence. Rivlin welcomed the ambassador, who took up his post in July, and told him of his hopes in using Quarrey’s diplomatic experience for confidence-building measures in the region. “During your term here, we will celebrate the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, which perhaps marks...

On Marriage and the Family : “We Have to See the Manifold Ways of How People Live Together” - Archbishop Heße Calls For More Realism in the Moral Teaching on Sexuality The Archbishop of Hamburg, Stefan Heße, has called upon his Church to have more realism with regard to the moral teaching on sexuality. “We have to look upon the manifold ways and forms of living in which people live, as they now exist,” said the 48-year old to the Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger on Saturday. He, “of course,” also sees “same-sex couples entering the Metropolitan Cathedral of Hamburg, and nobody asking...

The preparatory document for the Catholic Church’s Family Synod “poses a very real danger to the family”, says Voice of the Family http://voiceofthefamily.info , an international coalition of pro-life and pro-family organisations. The document, known as the Instrumentum Laboris (Latin for “working tool”), will be discussed by bishops from around the world, when the second round of the Church’s Synod on the Family is held in the Vatican this October. Matthew McCusker of Voice of the Family has authored an in-depth analysis (executive summary and full text) of the document. John Smeaton, co-founder of Voice of the Family, said: “The...

The website of the German Bishops' Conference, katholisch.de, reported yesterday on the first case of a practicing homosexual permitted to remain in a position at a Catholic Church institution despite a flagrant and public violation of the Church's moral law. The woman who heads a Caritas Day Care Center in Bavaria, had been asked in April to leave her position due to her announcement that she was going to “marry” a woman. The decision has now been rescinded, according to Fr. Hans Lindenberger, head of the Caritas in Munich, Germany. Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who is the Archbishop of the Diocese...

A Catholic priest who participated in May’s closed-door meeting with the aim of urging “pastoral innovations” at the upcoming synod on the family in October suggested that acts the Church considers intrinsically evil — contraception and homosexual activity — cannot be considered so, given the individual’s experience.

Police released a surveillance video Saturday of a man suspected of vandalizing a mural in the Mission District. Around 11:10 p.m. on June 29, police responded to the corner of 24th Street and Bryant Street regarding a building fire, police said. Upon arrival, police discovered the mural had been burned. Por Vida Mural Torched A San Francisco Mission District mural celebrating LGBT and Latin street life was torched on June 29. (CBS) The mural belongs to the Galeria De La Raza and is titled “Por Vida” or “For Life.” The mural was unveiled by San Francisco’s Galeria de la Raza...

If “actions speak louder than words,” as the saying goes, the message of Pope Francis on homosexuality is increasingly confusing. On the one hand, he has reiterated the Church’s teaching that marriage is reserved for one man and one woman, and has even repeatedly condemned gender ideology, the intellectual underpinning of the LGBT movement. However both in his deeds - most notably his choice of advisors and prelates to elevate to higher positions - and omissions he has left an impression in many minds that seems very different from the Church’s tradition. It is not only Catholic conservatives who have...

For my non-Catholic readers you may find that title surprising, for some of my Catholic readers you may find it scandalous. However I suspect most of you will know exactly what it means. As you know by now, the Supreme Court of the United States of America in a 5-4 vote decided that two men or two women have the constitutional right to enter into a legal marriage. What a lie. What utter poppycock. As for the comments by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' President, you're a little late. You did this. You and your colleagues and your...

“The joys and hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the women and men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ” ("Gaudium et Spes," no. 1). With this now-famous line, the Second Vatican Council opened its “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” (1965). This passage immediately came to mind this morning as I heard of the U. S. Supreme Court decision (Obergefell v. Hodges) that upheld the constitutional right to same-sex marriage. My personal response was...

LONDON, June 26, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- An LGBT group for Catholics supported by Britain’s most influential cardinal will participate as a registered group at a major ‘gay pride’ event this weekend. Westminster Cardinal Vincent Nichols says LGBT Catholics Westminster is hoping it will serve as an “opportunity for evangelization,” but also notes that they “arranged independently” to march in the event. The group’s leader, ex-priest Martin Prendergast, has been in a homosexual civil partnership with Julian Filochowski, the former head of Cafod, since 2006. Cafod is the official bishops’ conference charity for overseas development. Prendergast has claimed on film that...

When Pope Francis travels to Paraguay in July, one of the meetings he will have will include a married gay man. It is the first known public meeting that the pope will have with a gay or lesbian person who is legally married. What’s more, the individual is a leading gay activist: Simón Cazal, executive director of the Paraguayan LGBT rights group SOMOSGAY (“We Are Gay”). Cazal married another gay activist, Sergio López, in Argentina in 2012. Simón Cazal (left) with his husband, Sergio López, at their civil marriage ceremony in Argentina. Buzzfeed.com broke the story about this meeting, noting...

On May 29, 2015, not long after the controversial private Rome meeting organized by liberal members of the German, French, and Swiss Bishops' Conferences, one of its participants and speakers, Prof. Schockenhoff, has given an interview in Germany to the radio of the Archdiocese of Cologne, called domradio.de. In it, he made two important statements. First, he is cautious about the possibility of bringing about a liberal reform at the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Family; secondly, he restated his revolutionary position concerning the acceptance of same-sex relationships. When asked what his expectations about the upcoming Synod are, Schockenhoff...

Addressing the crisis of culture during his first visit to Canada’s national capital, Cardinal Raymond Burke stressed that defending human life and promoting natural marriage is the foundation of any truly human culture. The West’s preoccupation with death and destruction will not be “transform[ed]” until the “truth about the conjugal union [is proclaimed] in its fullness,” he said. “The defense and promotion of human life and of marriage and the family is at the foundation of a Christian culture, and indeed, of any viable human culture,” he told about 330 people gathered at Ottawa’s Conference and Event Center to celebrate...

Can anyone imagine what Mike Wallace (given his politically incorrect tendencies) and CBS News would endure via social media had this special come out today, given how many of what are now deemed stereotypes have come to fruition?

Introducing Caitlyn Jenner: Bruce covers Vanity Fair as ‘her’ By Maggie Coughlan Meet “her.” Bruce Jenner has revealed a new female identity on the cover of the July issue of Vanity Fair. “Call me Caitlyn,” the cover reads, revealing the former Olympian’s preferred name. In the image taken by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz, Jenner, 65, poses in a cream-colored body suit with her hands behind her body. Jenner reflects on the decision to transition from male to female in the cover story penned by “Friday Night Lights” author Buzz Bissinger.

In a post of mine three weeks ago, I touched upon several avenues by which the smoke of Satan is entering into the Catholic Church. In this post, I'll deal with several of these avenues. First we look at the various partnerships that the Vatican has struck with those opposed to the teachings of Jesus Christ (fifth bullet point). Caritas is reputedly the main social organization inside the Vatican. Yet as the Lepanto Institute and other organizations have pointed out, Caritas has been funding and even directing socialist organizations in their promotions of abortion, contraception, marxism etc. Lepanto has discovered...

Ireland has gone further than paganism and “defied God” by legalising gay marriage, one of the Church’s most senior cardinals has said. Cardinal Raymond Burke, who was recently moved from a senior role in the Vatican to be patron of the Order of Malta, told the Newman Society, Oxford University’s Catholic Society, last night that he struggled to understand “any nation redefining marriage”. Visibly moved, he went on: “I mean, this is a defiance of God. It’s just incredible. Pagans may have tolerated homosexual behaviours, they never dared to say this was marriage.” A total of 1.2 million people voted...

The grave effects of Ireland’s May 22 referendum in favor of a same-sex “marriages,” not only for the secular world, but also especially for the Catholic Church, are showing themselves already. None other than the leading cardinal who has promoted the liberal agenda for the two-part Synod of Bishops on the Family, Cardinal Walter Kasper, has now come out publicly and with force, telling the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that the Church needs to address more fully the question of same-sex couples. This topic was at the last Synod “only a marginal topic, but now it becomes central,” Kasper...

CFN Intro: One cannot help but wonder if Pope Francis is a calculating enemy of the faith, or hideously incompetent due to his modernist mindset. Neither of the two are praiseworthy qualities. Francis continually manifests himself as a destroyer, particularly by his benevolent promotion of those who attack the most basic precepts of Catholic morality and natural law. Oremus - j. vennari

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Racing both a U.S. Supreme Court decision on gay marriage and legislative deadlines, Texas Republicans pushed ahead Tuesday toward putting the state at the forefront of resistance if same-sex weddings are ruled constitutional. Nearly every Republican in the Texas House is backing a measure that would prohibit state and local officials from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Less than three weeks remain in Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's first session, and the bill must clear the House by midnight Thursday to advance. If signed by Abbott, the bill would aim to defy the Supreme Court if...