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Pope Francis hints at new ‘understanding’ of papacy during meeting with Anglican leadersThe Pontiff’s speech to the Anglicans held a revolutionary possibility: namely, a decision by Francis to use the papacy itself as an ecumenical bargaining tool, in a manner which could appear to undermine the authority wielded by the Pope.Pope Francis greets Canterbury's Justin Welby, May 2, 2024.VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis hosted leaders from the Anglican Communion at the Vatican Thursday, and while speaking about the “controversial” role of the papacy, the Pontiff raised the possibility of a new “understanding” that could result from ecumenical relations and...

[Catholic Caucus] New Synod documents reveal discussion themes for study groups formed by Pope FrancisA new document from Synod on Synodality leaders outlined study groups to explore key synod themes.VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Leaders of the Synod on Synodality have published two new texts, highlighting Pope Francis’ plans to implement a more permanent effect of the multi-year synod by the format of study groups for key synod themes.At a press conference today, a panel of speakers comprised of the Synod on Synodality’s leading members presented two lengthy documents, showing the results of the General Secretariat of the Synod’s recent workings...

[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] The Time of Magical ThinkingLast year's Synod on Synodality was a moment of Magical Thinking, bearing no resemblance to historic Christianity.Joan Didion’s 2005 bestseller, The Year of Magical Thinking, left her readers a bit shaken. The rending account of her husband’s death was cast in a demimonde of disturbing shadows. For quite a time it tossed her into a twilight existence of strange disconnections and fantasy expectations. Hence her tantalizing title. Her mourning bore no resemblance to reality, only a loose pastiche of semi-mad concoctions. Didion’s book came immediately to mind when reviewing the results of last October’s...

[Catholic Caucus] Synodal Witchcraft"In Africa, we understand marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and anything short of that is witchcraft.”This statement, made by Cameroonian Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya at a recent meeting of the Synod on Synodality, was largely ignored by the media; but its significance cannot be overestimated.Doubtless out of consideration for his host, the archbishop did not want to say, "In Africa, any so-called marriage between two men or two women would be considered witchcraft"—but that is obviously what he meant. In Cameroon, homosexuality is popularly associated with witchcraft, and transgenders can be arrested...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Francis did all the heavy lifting during the Synod by holding his own 'Uber-Synod'One of the main events during the Synod on Synodality occurred outside of its official proceedings: Pope Francis conducted his own synodal gatherings – an ‘uber synod’ – to push his personal agenda, which undermines the Deposit of the Faith. Pope Francis held a personal meeting with Whoopi Goldberg, who praised the Pontiff for his personal support of the LGBT agenda. Pope Francis also took special time to praise the notorious LGBT activist Sister Jeannine Gramick, who was condemned for her actions by the...

Archbishop Aguer: Feminist thinking predominates in final Synod on Synodality reportFor those of us who know Sacred Scripture and the history of ecclesial institutions, governance by laypeople, including women, would represent a fundamental change that causes alarm for the future.(LifeSiteNews) — The final report of Session XVI of the Synod on Synodality has been made public. It indicates that the successors of the apostles are no longer its exclusive protagonists or members; laypeople, including women, have been incorporated with their voices and votes. This is absolutely unusual and contrary to the Tradition of the Church. Things have been rearranged in...

[Catholic Caucus] The Synodal Way Won Me OverI have not written on matters of faith in a long time. “Why?” I’m sure no one has asked. I will inflict an answer upon you regardless. It’s simple. I’ve been undergoing a spiritual transformation. I have received a re-catechization and am now awakened. No longer burdened by traditional ideologies, I am forever changed, and it is my wish to pass on this possibility to all. Whoopee? you might say. To which I reply, Whoopi!That is correct. I have been forever improved and perfected by the Vatican’s synodal way. It has been a...

Schismality And if a house be divided against itself,that house cannot stand. - Mk 3: 24-25"It is not to be excluded that I will enter historyas the one who split the Catholic Church.” If Der Spiegel had attributed the sinister quote above to any pope other than the present one we would have laughed it off as far and away the most ludicrous hatchet job ever perpetrated by the corporate media against the Church and the papacy. Alas, in its 23 December 2016 edition the renowned German magazine alleged that the boast was made to a small group of his...

[Catholic Caucus] German bishop asks priests to ‘bless’ homosexual unions, citing Pope Francis and Synodal WayBishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann of Speyer encouraged pastors to conduct ‘blessings’ of homosexual and other sinful relationships and said that no one ‘has to fear sanctions’ for doing so in his diocese.SPEYER, Germany (LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann of the Diocese of Speyer, Germany, has called on priests in his diocese to grant “blessing ceremonies” for homosexual unions as well as adulterous and sinful relationships outside of marriage.In a November 2 letter to the clergy and staff of the diocese, the bishop invoked the German Synodal...

Synod Final Document: a Program of SubversionThe Relatio Synodalis does not state directly the liceity of adulterous or otherwise immoral sexual relations; it does not state directly the ordination of women; it does not state directly that celibacy must be abolished. But it is the most extensive and deep program of subversion of the Catholic Church ever written. It is a base imitation of the strategies of the “21st Century Socialism.” Perhaps one can feel the hand of Arturo Sosa Jr. in it?The concerns raised by the document are infinite. But I will focus just on some of the central...

[Catholic Caucus] Rearranging the Synod Table ChairsThe Synod was a series of fixations on matters of utter inconsequence, rather like the deck hands busily arranging chairs on the Titanic before its final plunge into the sea.There was a time, not so very long ago, when the raging controversy among Catholics was about how best to receive Holy Communion. Would greater reverence be shown when receiving Our Lord on the tongue, which had been the custom for centuries, or in the hand, which not a few innovators were proposing as somehow more fitting? How quaint it all now seems up against...

[Catholic Caucus] The synodal expectations gameAfter a month of meetings in Rome, it’s finally now halftime in the synod of bishops’ synod on synodality, with delegates departing Rome to bring the good news about synodality back to their home countries.As they head out, they will be taking with them the assembly’s interim report document, published Saturday after considerable debate and amendment from the initial draft version produced by the synodal secretariat’s writing committee.Debate over that text, and the significance of the language used, or not used, in some passages has become the subject of much post-session synodal debate. How significant...

[Catholic Caucus] Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit? The #SchismaticWay is Done for NowFirst, let’s remember one thing: the outcome of the synod on Synodality has already been determined. Remember what happened with the Family Synod of 2016? According to Archbishop Forte, Pope Francis had a predetermined outcome and pushed it through against the will of the bishops, then “drew out the conclusions” in the infamous footnote. So all of this month is just a lot of smoke before the synod in October of 2024, and the Pope’s actions afterwards.So no one needs to spend time reading through this final document...

[Catholic Caucus] The Greatest Catholic Event Since Vatican II?Several voices – mostly close to Pope Francis and the organizers of the Synod on Synodality – declared the assembly, before the fact, the most significant event in the life of the Catholic Church since Vatican II. The official organizers, however, sought to rein in expectations, perhaps because the Synod has deliberately been structured to put the “nice” stuff first – conversation, listening, mutual respect – reserving the harder sayings for next October’s meeting. Then again, several of the officially selected speakers suggested, as one of them put it, “When we reach...

[Catholic Caucus] The Synod on Synodality, St. Thérèse and the Unspoken Reality of PerditionCOMMENTARY: The Catholic Church’s primary role remains: It is an instrument of the salvation of souls.From what can be gathered from the publicly restricted discussions at the Synod on Synodality, delegates talked a great deal about welcoming and inclusion, about some potentially radical changes in Church governance, and specific issues such as women’s ordination, homosexuality and immigration. The focus, therefore, appears to have so far been primarily on the temporal, on matters clearly pertaining to this world and mostly according to merely worldly perspectives, both regarding the...

Pope Francis ‘scandalized the faithful’ from the outset of the SynodROME (LifeSiteNews) — Well-known Catholic laity addressed the scandals of the recent Synod on Synodality at a press conference in Rome this morning.The Catholic laymen and women who addressed media in Rome included LifeSiteNews’ co-founder and editor-in-chief John-Henry Westen, The Remnant newspaper’s Michael Matt, Ugandan MP Lucy Akello, Kenyan Alice Muchiri, French journalist Jeanne Smits, child advocate attorney Liz Yore, and British barrister (trial attorney) James Bogle. They provided LifeSiteNews and other media with statements serving as guides to their remarks.While relieved that the report released by the Vatican on...

Cardinal Müller: Synod is about ‘preparing us to accept homosexuality,’ women’s ordination‘All is being turned around so that now we must be open to homosexuality and the ordination of women. If you analyze it, all is about converting us to these two themes,’ the cardinal said.Synod on Synodality is being tightly controlled and used to prepare Catholics to accept homosexuality and women’s ordination, Cardinal Müller said, blasting pro-homosexual ideology as “the spirit of the Antichrist.”The former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith made his latest scathing comments about the synod and heterodoxy in the Church in...

Synod on Synodality report pushes female deacons and lay governance but avoids giving firm answersThe much anticipated final report from the Synod on Synodality has been released, avoiding giving direct answers on controversial issues, but pushing a continued ‘synodal’ approach to general Church life.VATICAN CIY (LifeSiteNews) –– The concluding document from the Synod on Synodality’s October 2023 meeting has been released, with no definitive stance taken in terms of attempts to alter Church teaching on LGBT issues or female ordination, yet containing a host of subtle but significant calls for changes to the manner of the Church’s governance and daily...

[Catholic Caucus] As synod nears close, participants urge people to lower expectations for resultsROME – Participants and spiritual advisors in this month’s Synod of Bishops selected by the Vatican to brief the media have said faithful should lower their expectations for big changes on hot-button topics, insisting that while differences in opinion and perspective exist, there has been no ideological influence in the discussion.Asked about skepticism in the lead-up to this month’s gathering during an Oct. 27 press briefing, British Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe, who led the synod’s spiritual retreat before it opened on Oct. 4 and who has given...