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It seems Walter Kasper's racist remarks on Africa and Africans have caused an understandable shock wave throughout the assembly. They reflect a racist, xenophobic, and anti-African mindset that has removed the Church in Africa from any participation in the Synodal administration and governance, or in the committee formed to help draft the final relatio. Other than that, Synod Fathers are being strongly pressured by the allies of the racist German cardinal, who are in the minority, to modify as little as possible the partial relatio: as Tosatti explains below, that was one of the main reasons why the racist manipulators...

FULL TITLE: AP confirms: "Outed" Forte exclusively responsible for "Gayspel", only ONE Father had even mentioned issue in Synod Hall Bruno "Outed" Forte From Nicole Winfield's Associated Press article on Synod special secretary Abp. Bruno "Outed" Forte. We post it here for the record of the history of the most embarrassing document in Catholic history, and its most infamous passage, where Forte sneaked his own "New Gospel": Erdo has already "outed" the official who wrote the section on gays, Monsignor [Archbishop] Bruno Forte, appointed by Pope Francis as the special secretary to the synod. Forte is an Italian theologian known...

Officially speaking, the draft report was a synthesis of the interventions from more than 200 bishops, a starting point for small working groups to propose amendments, elaborations, additions and subtractions to the drafting committee preparing a final report that will be released on Saturday. But conservative cardinals have said their views were not reflected in the draft, they blasted the report as "unacceptable" and said it was in sore need of an overhaul. ... In fact, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said he recalled only one speech out of about 265 about gays during the debate.

Dolan, during an appearance on ‘CBS This Morning’ on Wednesday, said the Vatican report released Monday stating that ‘homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community’ is just a first draft that ‘needs some major reworking.’ The archbishop of New York tamped down the importance of a groundbreaking Vatican declaration that signaled a new openness toward same-sex couples. “All of this is almost like antipasto to help the holy father arrive at a fresh, new way to teach the timeless teaching on marriage and family,” Dolan said in an interview with “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday, dismissing...

Pope Francis leads the synod of bishops in Paul VI's hall at the Vatican October 6, 2014. Pope Francis opened a global Roman Catholic assembly on Sunday showing his apparent irritation with Church leaders who have waged a sometimes bitter public battle between progressives and conservatives on family issues. A recently released midterm report from the Synod of Bishops on the family, which defended the traditional definition of marriage but used positive language towards same-sex couples in some situations, has garnered controversy among some bishops who say it does not accurately reflect the assembly's views. "In regard to homosexuality, there...

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- A fight for the soul of the Catholic Church has broken out, and the first battlefield is a document on family values that pits increasingly alarmed conservatives against more progressive bishops emboldened by Pope Francis' vision of a church that is more merciful than moralistic.

Will today be remembered as the first day that led to the Church’s prophesied schism? Quite likely yes. By many accounts people are waking up to see that the Family Synod of October 2014 is an officially Vatican-orchestrated work of manipulation. The mid-way report was released, October 13th, a day of great spiritual significance. This report has been called an “earthquake” by one Catholic reporter, and “one of the worst official documents drafted in Church history” by John Smeaton, co-founder of Voice of the Family. He went on to say: “We urge Catholics not to be complacent or give in...

As if we didn’t know it before, today we learned why the Secret Synod was conducted in secret, with the faithful not being permitted to see the texts of the participants’ addresses or even to know which bishop or cardinal was advancing which position. The Secret Synod was conducted in secret because evil advances in shadows. Many others, and not just traditionalists, have already expressed outrage over the disastrous “Relatio post disceptationem,” which appeared on the Vatican website today, October 13. This is the anniversary of Pope Leo’s vision of Satan’s attack on the Church (leading to his composition of...

In a candid interview Monday, Cardinal Raymond Burke voiced the concerns of many of his brothers in the Synod hall and lay Catholic activists throughout the world that the public presentation of the Synod has been manipulated by the organizers in the General Secretariat. He strongly criticized yesterday’s Relatio post disceptationem, or “report after the debate,” which the Catholic lay group Voice of the Family had called a “betrayal,” saying it proposes views that "faithful shepherds ... cannot accept," and betrays an approach that is "not of the Church." He called on Pope Francis to issue a statement defending Catholic...

ROME (CNN) - Under furious assault from conservative Catholics, the Vatican backtracked Tuesday on its surprisingly positive assessment of gays and same-sex relationships. In a report Monday, the Vatican had said that gays and lesbians have "gifts to offer" the Christian community and acknowledged that same-sex couples can give "precious support" to one other. The statement, an interim report from a closely watched meeting of Catholic clergy here, was widely praised by liberals. It is believed be the first time the Vatican has said anything positive about gay relationships. One longtime Vatican journalist called the statement a "pastoral earthquake." But...

Meanwhile, even as – as some people claim – there are within the Church those who wish to bring her down. There are – as is patently clear to anyone with a brain – there are outside the Church those who wish to bring her down.Rather, chop off her head.I saw this at Tempi (Italian HERE): La bandiera nera sventola sull’Obelisco di San Pietro: la rivista dello Stato islamico festeggia la “crociata fallita”The black flag waves over the Obelisk of St. Peter: the magazine of the Islamic State celebrates the “failed crusade” The “crociata” in this case refers to the...

In a dramatic shift in tone, a Vatican document said on Monday that homosexuals had "gifts and qualities to offer" and asked if Catholicism could accept gays and recognize positive aspects of same-sex couples. Roman Catholic gay rights groups around the world hailed the paper as a breakthrough, but Church conservatives called it a betrayal of traditional family values. The document, prepared after a week of discussions at an assembly of 200 bishops on the family, said the Church should challenge itself to find "a fraternal space" for homosexuals without compromising Catholic doctrine on family and matrimony. While the...

ROME (CNN) – Using strikingly open language, a new Vatican report says the church should welcome and appreciate gays, and offers a solution for divorced and remarried Catholics who want to receive Communion. “Regarding homosexuals, it went so far as to pose the question whether the church could accept and value their sexual orientation without compromising Catholic doctrine,” said John Thavis, a former Rome bureau chief for Catholic News Service. The Rev. James Martin, an author and Jesuit priest, called the report's language on gays and lesbians "revolutionary." “Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community. Are...

Wed Oct 8, 2014 - 10:59 am EST Pope Francis distances himself from ‘very conservative’ bishops John-Henry Westen Follow John-Henry By John-Henry Westen catholic , pope francis , synod on the family ROME – In an interview released on the opening of the Synod on the Family, Pope Francis distanced himself from “very conservative” bishops, adding however that he enjoys "debating" them as long as they are "intellectually well-formed."In an interview with the pope, published October 5, reporter Joaquín Morales Solá at Argentina’s La Nacion newspaper asked if he was “worried” about the recent book by five cardinals opposing Kasper’s...

A shockingly blunt title indeed. But as entirely predictable events unfold in the New Synod Hall—wherein, we are told, all things will be made new—why should we bother with nuance? After all, we have a Pope who is no friend of nuance and whose intentions could not have been more crudely expressed over the past eighteen months of astonishing insults and denigration of practically all the elements of apostolic and ecclesiastical tradition. Francis has clearly been preparing for this moment since the day of his election, if not before, and now it has arrived in all its inglorious splendor. Beneath...

The secular-progressive media is hell-bent on trying to shape an image of Pope Francis as a fellow liberal-progressive, just like them. Give him more time, the media suggests, and he’ll soon be allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion, allowing gays to marry within the Church, ordaining gays, ordaining women, endorsing the HHS mandate, praising Planned Parenthood, and who knows what else.It’s an incessant, incestuous, exasperating image that liberals in the media are pushing with abandon. Almost every one of Francis’ actions or statements is contorted to try to remake the man, and thus his Church, in their (the...

Will the Pope write him back and explain how “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence”?

One of the wisest clerics in the traditional Catholic world, Father Claude Barthe, wrote a short note for the highly regarded French Catholic periodical L'Homme Nouveau on the Holy See communiqué on the meeting between Cardinal Müller and Bishop Fellay yesterday. He paid attention to the key words, as well as to words that are missing, and how they represent a high point in the evolution of relations between the Apostolic See and the Society of Saint Pius X. Father Barthe, by the way, is the main chaplain of the remarkable Populus Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage to Rome, taking place a...

Cardinal Walter Kasper, a close influence on Pope Francis, says it is up to parents to decide how many children to have ahead of global gathering of Roman Catholic bishops to discuss the family A leading reformist Cardinal close to Pope Francis has hinted at the possibility of a reinterpretation of the Roman Catholic Church’s blanket ban on artificial contraception. Cardinal Walter Kasper said it was “the responsibility of the parents” to decide how many children they should have. He also said that so-called natural family planning, which is promoted by the Church as an alternative to contraception, also...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis has ordered a review aimed at simplifying the Church's procedures for annulments, the Vatican said on Saturday, a move that could make it easier for Catholics to end marriages. A statement said Francis had appointed an 11-member commission of canon lawyers and theologians to propose reform of the process, "seeking to simplify and streamline it while safeguarding the principle of the indissolubility of marriage". An annulment, formally known as a "decree of nullity," is a ruling that a marriage was not valid in the first place according to Church law because certain pre-requisites, such...