Free Republic

Quo usque tandem.... I know, I know… I am borrowing heavily from Cicero here. But it seems to me that the Vatican Catilina is not going to enjoy the rest of his disgraceful pontificate, which we hope will be short anyway. The rather explosive news is now everywhere: a seven-page document gravely accusing Francis of incompetence and tampering with doctrine is being circulated within the Vatican, and has been very fittingly leaked to the press. We do not have the translation, but there can be no doubt that the content is brutal. From what I can see the grievances concern...

"Socci: With Papally-Mandated "Catholic Divorce" destroying a Sacrament, Schism Looms Large on the Catholic Horizon" "Newsweek" recently had a photo of Pope Francis on their front-cover with the headline: “Is the Pope Catholic?”. Subtitle: “Of course he is. You just wouldn’t know it from his press clips.” Indeed, it is a legitimate question, seeing that the Argentine Pope has prayed in a Mosque and said in an interview to Scalfari: “There is no Catholic God.” The anxiety in the Church is now becoming enormous after the 8th of September. In fact with two Motu Proprios on the nullity of marriage,...

Rorate Caeli just translated an article that appeared in L'Ossevatore Romano on September 8. It was written by Msgr. Pio Vito Pinto, the head of the Commission for the reform of the canonical process--in other words the point man for the recently announced annulment reforms. What he writes is stunning. And chilling. The three main points are these: +The annulment reforms are not merely procedural reforms to introduce more fairness and efficiency in the process, but a full-scale revolution in thought and practice towards the marriage validity question, designed to radically increase the number of annulments. +It is Christ, acting...

Just days before Pope Francis lands in America for a three-city tour, a Vatican official stressed the Holy See approves of Obama’s highly controversial Iran nuclear deal, believing it will bring peace to the world.Archbishop Paul Gallagher, who serves as the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states, addressed the 59th General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna on Monday, and explained that the Vatican wholeheartedly supports America’s nuclear deal with Iran.“We hope that the full implementation of [the nuclear deal] will ensure the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program under the [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] and will...

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic was in the Vatican on Friday [Sept. 11, 2015] where he met with the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis.The Roman Catholic Church "is not rushing to declare Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac a saint," Francis said during his meeting, according to Nikolic. Nikolic told Tanjug late on Friday that he "had a very open discussion with the pope about Stepinac" during which he told him that the Croatian Catholic cardinal had played "a very bad role" in the Second World War. "He (Stepinac) should at least not have remained silent as someone was killing more...

Lawmakers are expected in the coming days to receive protocol guidance ahead of Pope Francis’s Sept. 24 address to a joint session of Congress. The guidance comes amid fears that the first-ever papal address to Congress could spark a State of the Union-like atmosphere given the pontiff’s politics, where one half of the chamber stands to cheer on the pope while the other sits on its hands, grim-faced. Francis is famous for making political audiences uncomfortable, and his calls for global leaders to reduce inequality and to act on climate change might sound like an address by President Obama to...

"Catholic Divorce - Head of Vatican Commission Admits in Official Paper: Surge in Number of "Annulments" Intended" Since Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus and its companion document Mitis et misericors Iesus were published on September 8, there has been little reference to the article published by L'Osservatore Romano on that same day to explain the thinking behind the reforms of Canon law. This is a pity, as this article was written by no other than the head of the Commission for the reform of the canonical matrimonial process, the Dean of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, Msgr. Pio Vito Pinto:...

The preparations for the pope's imminent visit are developing into quite a "dog-and-pony" show, with all the tee shirts, caps, cardboard cut-outs, etc. Lots of excitement is afoot - so much so that many are becoming oblivious to the storm that is about to erupt at the Ordinary Synod of the Family this coming October. Some of us are raising the alarm. Ladies and gentlemen, there is real possibility - if not probability - for schism to result from this synod. This tocsin is also being sounded by Cardinals. Cardinal Reinhard Marx is on record of favoring the distribution of...

T o much fanfare in the press, Pope Francis has started a "dialogue" about the Catholic Church's marriage practices. The part that has received the most attention is whether civilly divorced and civilly remarried Catholics should be admitted to Holy Communion, without having to abandon their second marriage, which the church recognizes as continuing adultery. This issue will be addressed by the bishops of the Catholic Church at a "Synod on the Family" over this year and next. Unfortunately, the pope's favorite theologian and the pope himself have initiated this discussion in a befogging cloud of pessimism. The pope is...

ROME, September 8, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- The public confusion over whether the Vatican’s upcoming Ordinary Synod on the Family will somehow endorse divorce has been cleared up by Pope Francis, as he said definitively today that marriage is “indissoluble,” meaning that it is permanent until death. In his decrees released today on annulments -- declarations that a marriage was invalid from the beginning – the Holy Father moved to make it easier and faster to determine nullity of a marriage and eliminated the cost for such deliberations. But in doing so he also reaffirmed that as far as God and...

VATICAN CITY — On a sunny morning earlier this year, a camera crew entered a well-appointed apartment just outside the 9th-century gates of Vatican City. Pristinely dressed in the black robes and scarlet sash of the princes of the Roman Catholic Church, Wisconsin-born Cardinal Raymond Burke sat in his elaborately upholstered armchair and appeared to issue a warning to Pope Francis. A staunch conservative and Vatican bureaucrat, Burke had been demoted by the pope a few months earlier, but it did not take the fight out of him. Francis had been backing a more inclusive era, giving space to progressive...

A view of the facade of St. Peter's Basilica from the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, Feb. 14, 2015. Credit: Lauren Cater/CNA.Vatican City, Sep 2, 2015 / 12:22 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A media firestorm arose in Spain after a transsexual woman, who considers herself a man, asked to be the godfather of her nephew – leading a diocese's bishop to turn to the Vatican for an answer. After writing to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith about the issue earlier this month, Bishop Rafael Zornoza Boy of Cádiz and Ceuta was told that since transsexual persons are not consistently...

Important - Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith responds: Transsexual cannot be Godparent The Bishop of Cádiz and Ceuta, Spain, Bp. Rafael Zornoza, was the object of intense media persecution in his country after he refused the request of a lady (now claiming to be a "man") from being the "godfather". In early August, it seemed that he had caved in. As Breitbart reported on August 8, "A Spanish bishop has caved in to pressure and allowed a transsexual man to become a godfather. The Bishop of Cádiz and Ceuta will now allow Alex Salinas, who was born...

Huge news. This was under embargo till noon, Rome time, which must be honored. [UPDATE: The Bollettino is now available HERE]The Year of Mercy begins 8 December 2015 until 20 November 2016.It is about to be announced that the Holy Father has sent a letter to Archbishop Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization about the upcoming Extraordinary Year of Mercy.In this letter the Pope says that he is granting to all priests the faculty to absolve from the sin of abortion.  He writes: “I have decided, notwithstanding anything to the contrary, to concede to all priests for...

August 28: Pope Francis reportedly sent an encouraging letter to lesbian founder of publishing house for children’s books. Today’s Il Giornale reports, “The Pope blesses gender ideology books. To the author he writes: “Go ahead.” The report continues, “Pope Francis still amazes, writing a long letter to the author of the books that the mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, wanted to ban from its schools. After the Synod on the family that threatens to split the church, the Pope again lines up in defense of the same-sex couples.” Francesca Pardi, founder with her partner Maria Silvia Fiengo of the publishing...

Pope Francis has sent his blessing to a lesbian author of children's books dealing with same-sex families, wishing her and her wife well in their work, it emerged on Friday. As Vatican officials scrambled to clarify that the message was simply a standard courtesy which did not signal any change in Church teaching on the subject, the author told AFP she had been pleasantly surprised to have received such a positive response. Francesca Pardi, who writes and publishes books such as "Why you have two mummies", wrote to Francis in June after the publishing company she runs with her wife...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sweeping into office in 2009, President Barack Obama captured near rock-star status around the world among millions who saw him as the embodiment of a new sense of social purpose. Now, that baton has largely been passed to Pope Francis, whose visit to the White House next month will put his common cause with Obama on vivid display. Obama has made no secret of his affection for the outspoken pope, calling him a "transformative leader" whose influence has transcended the Roman Catholic community. The pope has embraced many of the issues Obama has sought to advance, including...

The Palestinians are seeking to raise their flags at UN headquarters in New York, in a resolution proposing to allow non-member observer states—the Palestinians and the Vatican—to display their flag with the 193 member states—just in time for Pope Francis’ visit next month. Supporters of the idea hope the UN General Assembly will adopt a resolution on the flag-raising shortly before the pope arrives. They’re betting that the United States or other allies of Israel will not block the plan and risk offending the Holy See on Francis’ first US visit. But the Vatican on Tuesday asked the Palestinian UN...

"This is a Machiavellian Pope. His encyclical is a very good issue for us progressives.” ~Tom Hayden, 60s radical, former environmental advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown The echo chamber from the anarchists at Occupy Wall Street chanting ‘down with the 1%’ reverberates in the pontifical palaces at the Vatican. Although the ‘60s radicals are greying, they are still around wreaking havoc. In 2011, they dusted off their Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, armed with Molotov cocktails, drugs, and revolutionary rage, and headed for lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park. Make no mistake, the Occupy Wall Street (Occupy) movement was fomented by socialists from...

In 1977, I wrote a book entitled Welcome Number 4,000,000,000! It was a sequel to Human Dignity & Human Numbers (1971). Both books dealt with the “population explosion,” that era’s supposed crisis issue. We were running out of resources of every kind. We would all be starving in a quarter of a century. Drastic policies for cutting down populations were proposed and often put into effect. Babies were not welcome. Everything was panic. The “green” movement began in this hectic atmosphere: “Save the earth, not the people!” Such predictions of impending catastrophe were all wrong. Disaster did not occur. In...