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In a new “apostolic letter” published in Italian and signed simply “Francesco,” Francis has in his motu proprio (on his own impulse) laid down “new norms” for the swift removal of bishops by Vatican decree. Presented by the Vatican and the media alike as a measure directed at bishops who shield “pedophiles” (i.e. homosexuals who prey on boys) or fail to act against them promptly when their crimes are discovered, the letter is actually far broader in scope than that — and far more ominous. The tipoff comes in the first two paragraphs (my translation). Paragraph 1 provides that a...

One Of The Best Things You Can Do For Yourself & Others Is Think About and Preach Hell I have been reading some meditations on Hell by Venerable Luis de la Puente. I have found them to be most helpful, and if I may, I would like to explain some of them to you in the hopes that it will help you and yours. Hell, as with heaven, has been depicted in such a way as to make it seem banal. What is your conception of hell right now before you read this? Fire? Burning? Demons poking you with sticks?...

The stunning introduction to today’s official Vatican Radio report on Pope Francis’ morning homily reads: “Pope Francis warned on Thursday against an excessive rigidity, saying those within the Church who tell us ‘it’s this or nothing’ are heretics and not Catholics. His remarks came during the morning Mass on Thursday celebrated at the Santa Marta residence.” The specific section of the homily referred to in the opening is as follows: This (is the) healthy realism of the Catholic Church: the Church never teaches us ‘or this or that.’ That is not Catholic. The Church says to us: ‘this and that.’...

FULL TITLE: About those “20 Minutes of Action”: 20 Things We’d Better Tell Our Sons Right Now About Being Real Men Dear Sons, When you’re the mother of four sons, the Stanford rape case — it’s not about somebody else… it’s about us. Let’s be real clear, boys — I’m never writing you a letter like the father of Brock Turner, defending any sexual assault of a horrifically traumatized young woman as merely as “20 minutes of action.” Rape is not “20 minutes of action” — it’s a violent act with lifetime consequences and it’s time for parents to take...

LOS ANGELES, June 7, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Archbishop José Gomez tore apart the “seamless garment” argument that intrinsic evils and social ills are morally equivalent in the Los Angeles archdiocesan newspaper June 3.  Advocates of the “seamless garment” approach to moral issues and social justice, promoted by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, often use it to suggest a moral equivalency between issues like abortion, poverty, and immigration.  “The hard truth is that not all injustices in the world are ‘equal,’” wrote Gomez. “We can understand this perhaps better about issues in the past than we can with issues in...

The Southern Baptist Convention lost more than 200,000 members in 2015—the ninth straight year of decline for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. Membership stands at 15.3 million, down from 15.5 million in 2014, according to denomination statistics released on Tuesday. Baptisms also fell by more than 10,000 to just a little more than 295,000. Baptisms are an important measure for the Nashville-based denomination because of its strong commitment to evangelism. …

During Pope Francis’s first Angelus address after ascending to the chair of Peter, he approvingly cited Walter Cardinal Kasper’s book Mercy: The Essence of the Gospel and the Key to Christian Life (2012), saying that he had read it recently and it had done him “much good.” Since that papal audience, Francis has spoken frequently about God’s mercy, even calling an Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy and issuing a book-length interview, The Name of God is Mercy: A Conversation with Andrea Tornielli (2016). Cardinal Kasper has also played a prominent role in discussions about how to extend mercy in the...

The dazzling critique by an Australian scholar on the post-synodal exhortation. “We have lost all foothold, and fallen like Alice into a parallel universe, where nothing is quite what it seems to be” by Sandro Magister ROME, June 7, 2016 - Keep an eye on the author of the volume above, the first critical version of a masterpiece by Saint Basil the Great lost in the original Greek but come down to us in an ancient Syrian version attested to in five manuscripts, published two years ago by the historical publisher Brill, active in Holland since the 17th century. The...

Moscow, June 3, Interfax - The Interreligious Council of Russia expresses concerns over mass abortion practice in the country. The Council consisting of leaders and representatives of Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism pointed out in its special statement that Russia holds one of the leading places in the world on the number of abortions - "the number of the violently aborted lives in mothers' womb on various estimations totals to a million or even exceeds a million." The authors of the document are convinced that "human life starts from the moment of conception, which corresponds to views of our religious...

Vatican Radio reports on the issuance of a new motu proprio letter from Pope Francis that aims to deal with episcopal enablers of clerical sex abuse: In a new Apostolic Letter, issued motu proprio, Pope Francis has established new norms providing for the removal of Bishops (or those equivalent to them in Canon Law) from their offices in cases where they have “through negligance, committed or omitted acts that have caused grave harm to others, either with regard to physical persons, or with regard to the community itself.” The Apostolic Letter “Come una madre amorevole” (As a Loving Mother) also...

Sr. Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad, a Swedish religious sister, will be canonized by Pope Francis on Sunday Pope Francis will on Sunday officially recognize the sanctity of Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad, who readily risked her life in the midst of the Second World War, opening the doors of the Roman convent where she was the superior to take in persecuted Jews. Piero Piperno, 87, owes his life to this Swedish woman who, after having been a nurse in New York, embraced Catholicism and joined the Order of the Brigittine Sisters. Piperno, who was 15 years old when Mother Elizabeth took in his...

On May 11, the administration of Mercy High School in San Francisco announced that a Jewish woman who was finishing up her fourth year as an English teacher at the Catholic school would now be accepted as a man and could keep her job.The Mercy Sisters who run the school offered counselors to help the students of the all-girls school accept the biologically female teacher’s new gender identity as a man. In a letter to parents, the school explained how important quality relationships are for the school: “[W]e strive to witness to mercy when we honor the dignity of...

A representative of the Holy See, in an intervention at the World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva last week, welcomed Sustainable Development Goal 3 and all its targets, despite target 7 calling for “universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services.” These terms are defined as including abortion and contraception by many powerful governments and agencies. Monsignor Jean-Marie Musivi Mupendawatu, secretary to the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Care Workers told the WHA that the Holy See commended the report on health in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes the United Nations’ Sustainable Development...

About a dozen pastors, including the Rev. Jim Velazquez of Temple Baptist Church of Santa Fe, complained during a gathering outside the state Capitol this week that under the Obama administration some Christians are being forced to comply with transgender-friendly policies that go against their religious beliefs. Baptist Pastor Franklin Raddish of Capitol Hill Independent Baptist Ministries in South Carolina helped lead what was billed as a Bible study session Thursday morning that drew about 13 people, most of them clergy. The event was a shot at President Obama’s May 13 order that directs public schools nationwide to allow transgender...

Two weeks ago the latest controversial interview with Pope Francis hit the press, this time in France with the daily newspaper La Croix. Contrary to the teaching of previous popes, such as Leo XIII in Libertas and Pius XI in Quas Primas, Pope Francis said, “States must be secular. Confessional states end badly. That goes against the grain of History.” In the same interview, Francis suggested a comparison between Christianity and Islamic adherents’ use of conquest to impose their beliefs. “It is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam,” he said. “However, it is...

The mantra of progressivism over the past century has been the unstoppable 'progression' of human society, government, and technology towards a supposed utopian future free from war, disease, and poverty - a future where humans are masters of their own universe, unshackled from anything and everything holding us back and united as citizens of the world. Yet no "progressive" (be they communist, socialist, technocrat, or humanist) stops to ask if this is a possible or even worthwhile goal.  No one of that political persuasion questions whether their philosophical outlook is the right one to have nor why it is justifiable...

Dear Mr. Matt: Thank you for your greetings. I wrote an answer to The Remnant‘s Open Letter, which I send to you in the attachment and you can publish. God bless abundantly you and your apostolate for the Catholic faith. With cordial greetings in Jesus and Mary, + Athanasius Schneider Dear Mr. Christopher A. Ferrara: On May 9, 2016 you published on “The Remnant” website an open letter to me regarding the question of the Apostolic Exhortation “Amoris laetitia”. As a bishop, I am grateful and at the same time encouraged to receive from a Catholic layman such a clear...

A Consideration of the Human Tendency to be Stubbornly Unrepentant Msgr. Charles Pope • June 2, 2016 • One of the consistent observations that God makes of our human family, and we, the individual members of it is that we are stiff-necked (cf Ex 32:9; 33:3; Deut 9:3; 10:16; 2 Chron 30:8; 2 Kings 17:14; Jer 7:26, and many, many other texts). That is to say we tend to be stubborn, prideful, and difficult to correct. And when reproved we easily become resentful and tend to harden our hearts.One of the more humorous and true things God ever said...

Even jokes have their limits. During his show May 26, Conan O’Brien invited actress and recent Judiaism convert Natasha Leggero onto his show. Leggero praised her new religion for treating abortion as “cool” enough to have on “every Jewish holiday.” After all, she reasoned, it’s good to have a back-up to fall on, just like AAA for cars. Besides performing as a stand-up comedian, the 42-year-old created and stars in Comedy Central’s Another Period and has acted in films including Let’s Be Cops, Neighbors and He’s Just Not That Into You. After discussing her recent marriage, Leggero informed Conan that...

June 1, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – A feminist organization in the Spanish province of Valencia are asking the government to prosecute a cardinal who denounced the influence of the “gay empire” and gender ideology. Cardinal Antonio Cañizares, former prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and current archbishop of Valencia, recently told the faithful in a sermon, “The family is being stalked today, in our culture, by endlessly grave difficulties, while it suffers serious attacks, which are hidden from no one.” “We have legislation contrary to the family, the acts of political and social forces, to which are added movements...