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One year ago to this day, four Cardinals submitted five yes-or-no questions to Pope Francis asking him if his 2016 exhortation on marriage and the family — Amoris Laetitia — conforms to perennial Catholic teaching on marriage, moral absolutes, conscience, and the sacraments.  The Pope has refused to answer their questions, despite the moral and pastoral chaos that ensued throughout the whole of Christendom as priests, bishops, and cardinals interpreted his teachings in completely contradictory ways. Some allowed civilly-divorced-and-remarried Catholics living in habitual adultery to receive Holy Communion. Some did not.  Today, on the first anniversary of the dubia, has...

The Roman Pontifical Institute for Marriage and Family, founded by John Paul II to defend the indissolubility of Christian marriage and to fight abortion, has been abolished in its present form by Pope Francis through a recent motu proprio. The institute will now be called "John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences". It had incurred Francis' wrath because of its defense of Catholic doctrine during the Synod of the Family, although Francis excluded the institute from the work of the Synod. Now, Francis wishes that the institute propagates his controversial document Amoris Laetitia that relativizes the...

Pope Francis told a group of newly ordained bishops that “authentic discernment” cannot be reduced to repeating “rigid” moral formulas to persons whose situations “can’t be reduced to black and white.” Discernment, the pope said, “can’t be reduced to repeating formulas such as ‘high clouds send little rain’ to a concrete person, who’s often immersed in a reality that can’t be reduced to black and white.” He cautioned bishops against being “imprisoned by nostalgia for being able to give just one answer to apply in all cases,” adding that discernment is an “antidote against rigidity, because the same solutions aren’t...

After Dubia Cardinal Carlo Caffarra's death on the first day of the Apostolic Journey to Colombia, Pope Francis let the journalists, who accompanied him, know, that he would not accept any question regarding Caffarra during the press conference in the plane on his way back to Rome. The Italian blog Anonimi della Croce writes, that Francis was afraid of the question why he did not answer the doubts ("dubia") of the four Cardinals concerning his controversial document Amoris Laetitia.

The response to the Nashville Statement continues with some scholars now saying it damages the church's already negative reputation with homosexuals, and lacks pastoral wisdom even though they agree with the document theologically.Writing on his website Sunday, New York Times bestselling author Preston Sprinkle, who is currently a full-time speaker, noted that although he stood with the authors and signers of the Nashville Statement — a document published last week by the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission that promotes the long-held Christian view of marriage and sexual ethics — it falls short on important...

Levels of sin? While all sin is offensive to God, Church teaches the difference between mortal and venial sin Msgr. Charles Pope 9/21/2016 Question: I think the Catholic notion of mortal and venial sin is flawed. All sin is serious, and since it offends God, it is an infinite offense. The Catholic distinction leads to ignoring many sins and only focusing on some. All sin is a grave offense against God.— John Malvine, Boulder, Colorado Answer: It should first be noted that the distinction between mortal and venial sin is found in Scripture. The First Letter of John says, “There...

During the Angelus of Pope Francis on Sunday, August 13, a banner appeared carrying the text "Gay and lesbian pilgrims greet Pope Francis". According to the Communist Italian paper Il Manifesto it belonged to a group of [dissidenting] "Catholic" homosexualists who undertook a march from Siena to Rome. Vatican security did not intervene to remove the provocation.

Bishop Antônio Carlos Cruz Santos, “Homosexuality, if it is not a choice and not a disease, it is a gift given by God.” “Our prejudices can not perceive the gift of God, just as it happened to the blacks, who were not seen as people because of prejudice.” — Bishop Antônio Carlos Cruz Santos on homosexuality — Antônio Carlos Cruz Santos, the Bishop of Caicó, Brazil. Bishop Antônio Carlos Cruz Santos, just the other day gave a homily about homosexuality.  He begins it by lamenting the “high suicide rate among homosexuals” and proceeds to tell the sad story of a...

Who knows our sin? While Scripture could be taken to mean saints in heaven are aware of details of our sin, it is unlikely Msgr. Charles Pope Question: Do the souls in heaven know our sins, or is that knowledge reserved to God alone?— Peter Tate, Long Beach, California Answer: We are in the realm of speculative theology when it comes to answering questions like this. However, it does not seem to pertain to God’s justice that he would reveal our sins to others (even the saints in heaven), especially our more hidden sins. We are not to reveal to...

Explaining disasters While the loss of life stemming from tragedies is heartbreaking, we can’t fully understand God’s plan Msgr. Charles Pope May 29, 2016 Question: Given God’s mercy, how do we explain devastating earthquakes and other natural disasters? It certainly tests our faith!— Gerald Olesen, Fortuna, California Answer: Part of the answer we must accept is that we cannot really know the full answer since there is so much we don’t see or understand. This was the basic answer God gave Job, who asked the meaning of suffering in his own life. In effect, God challenged Job to explain...

The Four Cardinals Plead for an Audience Why It Will Never Happen by Christopher A. Ferrara June 20, 2017 The Corrispondenza Romana website has just published the full text of a letter from Cardinal Carlo Caffarra to Pope Bergoglio dated April 25, 2017. Cardinal Caffarra is one of the four cardinals who presented to Pope Bergoglio the famous and never-answered dubia concerning the disastrous Amoris Laetitia (AL). He is also the cardinal whom Sister Lucia warned about the coming “final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan” over “marriage and the family” — the battle now raging throughout...

Do you remember the two shocking synods in October of 2014 and 2015? Lots and lots of controversy as it became increasingly clear that something completely crooked was going on. One of the leading behind the scenes characters was Washington D.C.'s Cdl. Donald Wuerl, who kept pushing the ridiculous notion that you can change the practice of something without causing a change in the doctrine — sort of like they don't really have anything to do with each other. Sure they don't. Among various cardinals and archbishops, Wuerl was out front in describing the synods as what he termed a...

Question: "Is eternal security a "license" to sin?" Answer: The most frequent objection to the doctrine of eternal security is that it supposedly allows people to live any way that they want and still be saved. While this may be "technically" true, it is not true in reality. A person who has truly been redeemed by Jesus Christ will not live a life characterized by continuous, willful sin. We must draw a distinction between how a Christian should live and what a person must do in order to receive salvation. The Bible is clear that salvation is by grace alone,...

In all my years in the priesthood, the topic of Fatima, as so many people like Fr. Gruner and the Fatima Crusader, and many other authors too many to count, have made the central focus on the Consecration of Russia to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart with a close secondary focus on the Third Secret. Neither of which will get any body to Heaven. My priestly function and Jesus Christ's mission center on the salvation of souls. Therefore, the more important part of what Our Lady had to say to the three seers in 1917 at Fatima was just to one...

[Header Synopsis] Churchgoing Christians who support same-sex marriage are more likely to think pornography, cohabitation, hook-ups, adultery, polyamory, and abortion are acceptable. And it’s reasonable to expect continued change in more permissive directions.

Reflecting on the image of the Good Shepherd, Pope Francis said his is the only voice that leads us to safety and friendship with God, and cautioned against the false wisdom of those who confuse and deter us from this path. “It is not always easy to distinguish the voice of the Good Shepherd. There is always the danger of the thief, the robber and the false shepherd,” the Pope said May 7. “There is always the risk of being distracted by the clamor of many other voices,” he said, and invited faithful “to not allow ourselves to be diverted...

One of the most important questions in the history of the universe is “Why did Jesus have to die?” (After beginning this piece, I discovered that The Christian Post recently published “Why Did Jesus Die?”) This is especially the case as we are in the throes of what many are referring to as the “post-truth” era, where “Everybody Wants to Rule Their World.”... The facts of Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection all are, of course, central to Christianity. For millennia, each of these events has been celebrated, studied, and sermonized. Most everyone—from the fervently faithful to the lukewarm to...

The Anatomy of a Sin Msgr. Charles Pope • April 3, 2017 • The first reading from Monday’s Mass (Monday of the 5th Week of Lent) is the story of Susanna, an extraordinary moral tale from the Book of Daniel. The full passage (which is quite lengthy) can be found here: Daniel 13:1-62. Interestingly, it is missing from Protestant bibles, which use a truncated version of the Book of Daniel. It is not well-known among Catholics, either, because it is only read once each year, at a weekday Mass.The story is of a beautiful young woman, Susanna, who is...

Is the Catholic Church’s traditional sexual morality too rigid? Cardinal Christoph Schönborn’s flock is certainly being led to think so. In December, the website of the Archdiocese of Vienna led by Schönborn published a new presentation of the Ten Commandments. It included a commentary on the Sixth Commandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” that could be interpreted to justify everything from masturbation to pornography and prostitution. The article concludes — openly invoking Pope Francis’ solicitude for sinners — that refusing communion to the divorced and remarried “seems very questionable from a theological point of view.” Says the article on the...

Ready for some casuistry? Should the Catholic Church allow a man and a woman to receive the sacraments in the following case? A woman living with a married but divorced man tells him that she no longer wants to live in sin; the man threatens to kill himself, and she, following her confessor’s advice, stays with him? In an interview with Edward Pentin, Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio offers this example and says: yes. He refers to his recent book on Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia in which he speaks of this case: Think of a woman who lives with a married...