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[Catholic Caucus] The Evidence Suggests The Francis-Scalfari Connection is No Accident Since the news broke early this week that the nonegenarian atheist socialist editor of Italy’s La Repubblica, Eugenio Scalfari, claimed that Pope Francis told him during one of their many conversations that he did not believe Jesus was God, the Catholic commentariat has been engaged in a rhetorical battle to the death over who to believe, whether it’s true, and what it all means.For those willing to look objectively at the matter, it becomes clear that the confusion is the result of an intentional strategy on the part of the...

This story was updated at 2:25 p.m EST to include a brief statement from the Vatican, which does not deny what Scalfari reported about Pope Franics, only saying it "cannot be considered as a faithful account of what was effectively said, but represent more a personal free interpretation of that which he [Scalfari] heard." (See below.) In the latest edition of La Repubblica, Pope Francis' longtime atheist friend and interviewer, Eugenio Scalfari, claims that the Pope told him that once Jesus Christ became incarnate, he was a man, a "man of exceptional virtues" but "not at all a God." The...

ROME, October 9, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Atheist Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari has claimed that Pope Francis does not believe that Jesus Christ is truly God and man. The Pope has granted Scalfari numerous interviews throughout his pontificate, despite repeated claims from the Vatican press office that his reports are unreliable. In La Repubblica newspaper on Wednesday, Scalfari wrote: “Those who have had the chance, as I have had different times, to meet him [Pope Francis] and speak to him with the greatest cultural confidence, know that Pope Francis conceives Christ as Jesus of Nazareth, a man, not God incarnate. Once...

The Catholic Church is heading toward an “internal papal schism” whereby Pope Francis effectively leads two opposing factions, Capuchin theologian Father Thomas Weinandy has warned. These are divided, he said, into one loyal to the papacy yet critical of this pontificate, and the other supportive of him due to his tolerance of ambiguous teaching and pastoral practice. “This is the real schism,” observed Father Weinandy, a former chief of staff for the U.S. bishops' doctrinal committee, in a commentary published today in The Catholic Thing. It is a situation “ever growing in intensity,” he added. A member of the Vatican’s...

[Catholic Caucus] Opening Amazon synod, Francis warns against being 'smothered by ashes' defending status quo Vatican City — Opening a monthlong gathering of Catholic bishops expected to consider controversial issues such as the ordaining of married priests on a regional basis, Pope Francis Oct. 6 warned the 185 prelates taking part against being "smothered by the ashes of fear and concern" in defense of the church's status quo. In a homily for the opening Mass of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon region, which will continue through Oct. 27, the pontiff said that while Catholic prelates are called to...

The Pope’s Pitiful Reign of Error The upcoming Pan-Amazon Synod is shaping up to be a disaster of historic proportions I picked up a copy of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper which reads less like a Catholic periodical than a back issue of the Nation. The sheer BS and left-wing propaganda of its contents are stunning: “Climate Change is a Challenge for Society as a Whole” (that was its front-pager); “The Theology of the Noun” (called the “Holy Father’s extemporaneous discourse,” which is too impenetrably flaky to even summarize); “The Green Alphabet of Pope Francis”; “Protect Forests to Ensure...

[Catholic Caucus] Rome Roundtable: Catholic Experts Sound Alarm Over Current Papacy Panelists touch on controversial themes of Amazon Synod ROME (ChurchMilitant.com) - On the eve of the Amazon Synod, 10 Catholic lay leaders warned of the revolutionary designs against the Catholic faith, many of them rooted in the current pontificate. Hosted by the international pro-life group Voice of the Family, the roundtable, titled "Our Church — Reformed or Deformed?" took place Oct. 4 at the Hotel Massimo D'Azeglio, and featured a number of Catholic luminaries, including John-Henry Westen of LifeSiteNews, author Dr. Taylor Marshall, Italian Vaticanistas Roberto de Mattei and Marco Tosatti,...

[snip] [T]he Vatican's own prosecutors and police have raided the powerful Vatican Secretariat of State [snip] the raid was conducted in connection to suspicious transactions at the Vatican Bank. [snip] Vatican Bank didn't even rise to the level of "probity" of the formerly Nazi-infested Bank of International Settlements!   Another big surprise there, given the Vatican bank's connections to the Loge Propaganda Due scandal, Michelle Sindona, Banco Ambrosiano and Roberto Calvi (remember him?) and all the other wondrous financial goings-on during the marvelous era of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, Iran-Contra, the whole Inslaw-PROMIS scandal (which, among many...

Robert Ellsberg speaks on whistleblowing, truth-telling and the Pentagon Papers Oct 2, 2019 by Heidi Schlumpf JusticePolitics The autumn of 1969 has been on Robert Ellsberg's mind lately, as the 50th anniversary of a life-changing request from his father approaches. A half century ago, as a 13-year-old, Ellsberg agreed to help his dad photocopy documents from a government report he had worked on. Those documents, which came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, revealed the United States' role in the build-up to the Vietnam War and the lies told to the American public and to Congress about U.S. actions...

ROME — Pope Francis has publicly endorsed an essay that appeared in 2017 criticizing relations between Evangelicals and Catholics in the United States as an “ecumenism of hate.” On Thursday, La Civiltà Cattolica journal released the transcript of a meeting between Pope Francis and a group of 24 Jesuits on September 5, 2019, during his recent trip to Mozambique in which the pope suggested that certain Evangelical Protestants in the United States “cannot really be defined as Christian.” “Two important articles in Civiltà Cattolica have been published in this regard. I recommend them to you. They were written by Father...

Burke Discloses Why Francis Persecutes Young Religious Communities It is "no coincidence" that Francis is targeting flourishing religious communities that have many vocations, Cardinal Raymond Burke told LaNuovaBq.it (September 24).Burke explains, “Those who are promoting a ‘new Church’ do not want vocations, they discourage them in order to justify their own position which attacks celibacy.”These people want "new models of ministry" instead of the Catholic priesthood. Burke calls this a "Protestant approach."He reminds that the [bankrupt] German bishops openly declare that their goal is "to revolutionise the whole Church.”

September 25, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — The “Higher Committee to Implement the Document on Human Fraternity” signed in Abu Dhabi in February by Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb of Al-Azhar University, Cairo, met in New York last week in the shadow of the United Nations yearly national assembly for the second time in two weeks. Its most spectacular act was the unveiling of the design for the “Abrahamic Family House,” to be built on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, as a multi-faith complex giving equal space to a synagogue, a church, and a...

ROME — The Vatican published the list of participants in its upcoming pan-Amazon Synod Saturday, which includes as “special invitee” Jeffrey D. Sachs, who is among the world’s foremost proponents of population control. In his 2008 book Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, Sachs argued for legalizing abortion as a cost-effective way to eliminate “unwanted children” when contraception fails. Abortion, he wrote, is a “lower-risk and lower-cost option” than having unwanted children born into the world. The “legalization of abortion reduces a country’s total fertility rate significantly, by as much as half a child on average,” he wrote approvingly,...

Catholic Missionaries Compare Greta Thunberg to Virgin Mary The Maryknoll missionaries have thrown their support behind 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, comparing her to the Virgin Mary. “Christians getting their knickers all in a twist over the passionate, articulate & knowledgeable witness of Greta Thunberg because of her age seem to overlook the age of the Virgin Mary at the time of the Annunciation,” the group wrote on Twitter.

Pope Francis Doesn’t Understand Islam “Is the pope Catholic?” used to be a punch line. Now, sometimes, you almost have to wonder. Of course, I’m not suggesting that Pope Francis is a secret apostate or a Masonic agent. It’s just that he seems dissatisfied with certain Church teachings.What apparently rankles him most are Catholic claims to exclusivity. For example, the belief that all men are saved through Christ can be looked upon as an impediment to interreligious harmony. Francis, for whom interreligious harmony is a top priority, seems to see it that way. Many of his statements seem to suggest...

The unintended consequence of widespread birth control — on individuals, families and society — cannot be denied. Loneliness has become an “epidemic” in the world today, says scholar Mary Eberstadt, author of the 2013 book “Adam and Eve After the Pill." “Fifty years after the embrace of the pill — undeniably, because of the embrace of the pill — loneliness is spreading across the materially better-off countries of the planet." She expands on the themes of her new article, describing the “prophetic power” of “Humanae Vitae” (“On Human Life”), Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical letter on birth control and married...

[Catholic Caucus] How the Pope’s Man in Washington Is Protecting Monsignor Rossi Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the papal nuncio to the U.S., is running interference for the corrupt Shrine rector. The other day I saw a recent photo pop up on Twitter of Monsignor Walter Rossi standing next to a group of friends and allies — Donald Wuerl (the disgraced former archbishop of Washington, D.C.), Callista and Newt Gingrich, and Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the pope’s representative in the United States. The last figure interested me the most: Why would the pope’s man in Washington be lending his prestige to a cleric...

[Catholic Caucus] Pan-Amazonian Synod Participants Include Former UN Head, Liberation Theologians The appointments appear to align with the synod’s expected emphases on environmental concerns, and on indigenous spirituality. VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has personally invited Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston and Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego as well as ex-United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to take part in the Amazon Synod next month, according to a full list of participants published Sept. 21 by the Vatican.  The two U.S. prelates are among 185 members to be invited to the Oct. 6-27 event, whose other participants include every bishop of...

Pope Francis made a strong new push for globalism on Thursday, calling for a supranational, legally constituted body to enforce United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and implement “climate change” policies. Speaking to members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, the Pope said: “When a supranational common good is clearly identified, there is need for a special legally constituted authority capable of facilitating its implementation.” “Think of the great contemporary challenges of climate change, new slavery and peace,” he told members of the Pontifical Academy, who are meeting this week at the Vatican for a...

SACRAMENTO, September 17, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The California legislature has voted in a resolution that blames "religious groups" who hold to biblical understandings of sex and gender as responsible for "disproportionately high rates" of suicide among homosexuals and transgenders. Assembly Concurrent Resolution 99 declares that homosexuality and transgenderism are “part of natural variations that occur in sexual orientation and gender identity” and condemns counseling services that help people resolve unwanted gender confusion or same-sex attraction. “The stigma associated with being LGBTQ often created by groups in society, including therapists and religious groups, has caused disproportionately high rates of suicide, attempted...