Free Republic

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal McElroy: Synod could end link between diaconate and priesthood to allow ‘female deacons’McElroy said Synod members discussed ‘perhaps ending the transitional diaconate,’ which he claimed ‘could make it easier’ to introduce so-called ‘women deacons,’ according to Crux.San Diego’s Cardinal Robert McElroy has revealed that participants of the Synod on Synodality discussed ending the so-called “transitional diaconate” in order to more easily accommodate having “female deacons.”Addressing the annual Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ Religious Education Congress last week, McElroy renewed his previous calls for the promotion of women to the diaconate. His talk – only segments of which have...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Strickland reaffirms that unrepentant homosexuals, adulterers cannot receiveBishop Strickland warned in a new letter that the Church cannot offer Communion to people who persist in grave sin, including homosexuality, adultery, contraception, other sexual impurity, abortion, and living as the opposite sex.TYLER, Texas (LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, issued a new pastoral letter today, September 12, 2023. Below is the full text.My Dear Sons and Daughters in Christ:I write to you today to discuss more fully the second basic truth that I spoke of in my first pastoral letter issued on August 22, 2023: “The...

Cardinal McElroy criticizes EWTN, says San Diego Diocese won't publish contentSan Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy sharply criticized the Eternal Word Television Network, the conservative Catholic U.S. media conglomerate, in an interview with Spanish magazine Vida Nueva published on March 24. Vida Nueva asked McElroy about the decision of newly installed Bishop Fernando Prado of San Sebastián, Spain, to ban diocesan television from carrying content produced by EWTN. Prado wrote that he made the decision "trying to support the communion of the diocese with the Successor of Peter.""I would not have EWTN on diocesan media either," McElroy responded."EWTN worries me because...

An American bishop has taken the extraordinary step of charging another American prelate—a cardinal, in fact—with heresy. In a provocative article posted by First Things, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, has suggested that an American cardinal is guilty of heresy and has separated himself from communion with the Catholic Church. Although he does not mention Cardinal Robert McElroy by name, Bishop Paprocki opens his essay by quoting two passages from a recent article that the cardinal published in America magazine. “Until recently,” Bishop Paprocki remarks, “it would be hard to imagine any successor of the apostles making such heterodox...

One of the leading voices of the Catholic Church in Africa has criticised the appeals of two US clerics to change the Church's teaching on homosexuality. Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier responded by quoting Popes Francis and Benedict XVI to both Cardinal Robert McElroy and Jesuit Father James Martin. In a Twitter response to Martin, the Archbishop Emeritus of Durban wrote: "The biggest irony of the decade? A month after his death, then-Cardinal Ratzinger, in these words from 1986, urges bishops to be constantly vigilant against "programmes that in fact try to put pressure on the Church to change its teaching,...

BALTIMORE (RNS) — America’s newest cardinal called on his fellow bishops to challenge lawmakers who want to cut Ukraine aid, urging prelates to speak out against leaders of a Republican majority in the next Congress angling to reduce U.S. support for the country as it battles Russian invaders. Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego, who was elevated by Pope Francis in August, offered his challenge Wednesday (Nov. 16) after bishops heard a presentation on the situation in Ukraine by Ukrainian Catholic Archbishop Borys Gudziak, who oversees the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia. Gudziak detailed the horrific devastation wrought by Russia’s...

Baltimore, Md., Nov 16, 2022 / 14:08 pm The U.S. Catholic bishops showed their support for the Ukraine war effort at their fall meeting in Baltimore Wednesday, pledging solidarity and continued humanitarian aid following an impassioned speech on the war against Russia by Ukrainian Catholic Archbishop Borys Gudziak. Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego, who was named to the College of Cardinals by Pope Francis this May, urged the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to stand by Ukraine. Referring to rumblings that the U.S. Congress might decrease the nation’s commitment to the war effort in Ukraine, McElroy called...

[Catholic Caucus] The Rehabilitation of Disgraced Cardinal Roger MahonySan Diego Bishop Robert McElroy was elevated to cardinal last weekend, a significant snub to Jose Gomez, the archbishop of Los Angeles, a much larger see than San Diego whose head typically receives a red hat. As if Gomez hadn’t been humiliated enough, McElroy chose Cardinal Roger Mahony, the disgraced former archbishop of Los Angeles, as one of the concelebrants at his first mass as cardinal. During the previous pontificate, Gomez had tried to sideline Mahony for his monstrous role in protecting molesting priests. Gomez said that Mahony would “no longer have...

New San Diego cardinal says political divisions are flowing into ChurchROME – The only American in Pope Francis’s new crop of cardinals has pushed back against characterizations that he is somehow in rivalry with other local prelates who didn’t receive the red hat, saying such depictions are the result of a problematic polarization in U.S. Catholicism.Speaking to Crux during a sit-down interview in Rome, Cardinal-Designate Robert McElroy of San Diego, who will get his red hat from Pope Francis on Saturday, said one of the most problematic trends in American Catholicism is “polarization along ideological lines, mostly within the Anglo...

[Catholic Caucus] Corrupt Cardinal, Corrupt PontificateThe hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church is partially responsible for why bishops, including the pope, are not investigated or accountable to any external oversight body. As a consequence, one should not be surprised that only 7 out of 150 bishops credibly accused of abusing minors or vulnerable adults have actually been laicized. In the United States, with less than 200 dioceses, “more than 130 U.S. bishops” have been accused of “failing to adequately respond to sexual misconduct in their dioceses.”The question of holding bishops accountable who engage in or cover up abuse has become...

McElroy To Get Flaming Red Hat Given what we know about Pp. Francis, this is not surprising. It's another sign.Now let's see what +McElroy has written defending a book written by his good friend, J. Martin, SJLBGTQ....The coordinated attack on Building a Bridge must be a wake-up call for the Catholic community to look inward and purge itself of bigotry against the L.G.B.T. community…chastity is not the central virtue in the Christian moral life. Our central call is to love the Lord our God with all our heart and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Many times, our discussions in...

[Catholic Caucus] Gay Church Worker Who Resigned After Hate Crimes Speaks at Vatican ConferenceA gay church worker who resigned due to right wing hate crimes recently addressed a Vatican conference on the relationship between Amoris Laetitia and LGBTQ people.Aaron Bianco gave his talk at a conference organized by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life and the Pontifical Gregorian University. In 2018, Bianco resigned from his position as pastoral associate at a southern California parish after enduring repeated hate crimes, including death threats, slashed tires, and anti-gay graffiti on the church. He since became a theology professor at the...

San Diego’s Bishop Says Catholic Church Does Not Condone Religious Exemption to COVID VaccinesSan Diego Bishop Robert McElroy said Thursday the Catholic church supports COVID-19 vaccinations and priests must “caringly decline” any requests from parishioners seeking a religious exemption.“Such a declaration is particularly problematic because the Holy See has made it clear that receiving the COVID vaccine is perfectly consistent with Catholic faith, and indeed laudatory in light of the common good in this time of pandemic,” wrote McElroy in a letter on Wednesday to priests.The Diocese of San Diego said there have been reports from California and around the...

Bishop Rebukes Bishopa Pro-abort politicians are unworthyGALLUP, N.M. (ChurchMilitant.com) - A New Mexico prelate is protecting brother bishops who believe pro-abortion Catholic politicians should be denied Holy Communion.In an article for First Things on Tuesday, Bp. James Wall of the diocese of Gallup rebuked San Diego bishop Robert McElroy — ripping his essay that argued pro-life bishops are politically motivated and weaponizing the Eucharist.Bishop Wall wrote:But while I don't presume to know what's in the mind and heart of my brother bishops, I am not motivated by political ends, nor are those with whom I have discussed the subject. Our...

As Earth Day approaches, US bishops call Catholics to do their partIn the days leading up to Earth Day, several U.S. bishops took to church pulpits and Zoom rooms to call Catholics to do their part in ushering in the societal changes needed to counter climate change and other ecological calamities — and not just on days like Earth Day.Three bishops over four days spoke out on the need for more than technology and policy to stunt rising global temperatures and slow destruction of ecosystems and species, saying there must be changes in lifestyles and even how living a good...

Bishop McElroy: Some bishops making abortion a political 'litmus test'Washington D.C., Feb 1, 2021 / 01:30 pm MT (CNA).- The bishop of San Diego on Monday accused “some bishops” of making the issue of abortion a “litmus test” for Catholic politicians during the Biden presidency. With the inauguration of Joe Biden as just the second Catholic president in United States history, “some bishops want to recast the presence and tone of the conference in the public order,” said Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego at an online event on Monday.These bishops, he said, “argue that abortion is not merely a...

Catholic bishops sign statement to LGBT youth: ‘God created you, God loves you.’A group of U.S. Catholic bishops, including a cardinal and an archbishop, have signed a statement of support for L.G.B.T. youth, telling them, “God created you, God loves you and God is on your side.”“As we see in the Gospels, Jesus Christ taught love, mercy and welcome for all people, especially for those who felt persecuted or marginalized in any way; and the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that LGBT people are to be treated with ‘respect, compassion and sensitivity,’” reads the statement, released by the Tyler...

Bishops for Biden San Diego’s Robert McElroy emerges as another one. Should Biden win the presidency, he will be the “second practicing Catholic” to hold that office, the media informs us without irony. Neither John F. Kennedy, with his prodigious womanizing, nor Biden, with his open hostility to Church teaching, justify that label. If anything, Biden has promised not to practice his faith. Like JFK, Biden believes in the strict separation of church and state, though not in the separation of religion from campaigning. Needing to win the Catholic vote, Biden has been playing up his Catholic roots, tattered as...

[Barf Alert] Homily for ordination of Aux. Bishop Bejarano: ‘Our mission  must not be one of recovery but of transformation’ SAN DIEGO — Bishop Robert W. McElroy delivered the following Homily at today’s ordination of the Most. Rev. Ramón Bejarano as Auxiliary Bishop of San Diego, at The Immaculata. The theme of the Good Shepherd lies at the heart of today’s Gospel. There is no image more captivating in all of the Gospels, so demanding in its utter surrender of self to the good of God’s people, so human in its expression of a care which is permanent, nurturing and...

[Barf Alert] San Diego Bishop: Climate Change Death Toll ‘Larger’ Than Abortion Bp. Robert McElroy seeking to influence Catholic vote SAN DIEGO (ChurchMilitant.com) - Abortion and climate change were compared several times in a recent speech by San Diego Bp. Robert McElroy, who insisted Catholics must not be single-issue voters. Playing his part to influence the Catholic vote in the upcoming California presidential primaries, McElroy claimed both abortion and climate change are "core life issues" — while alleging the latter ends more human beings' lives.  Abortion kills "more than 750,000 unborn children" but "the long-term death toll from unchecked climate change is...