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Bernie Sanders issued a global call to action at the Vatican on Friday to address “immoral and unsustainable” wealth inequality and poverty, using the high-profile gathering to echo one of the central platforms of his presidential campaign. The Democratic senator from Vermont cited Pope Francis and St. John Paul II repeatedly during his speech to the Vatican conference commemorating the 25th anniversary of a landmark teaching document from John Paul on social and economic justice after the Cold War. […] “We don’t choose to politicize the pope,” Sanders told attendees, “but his spirit and courage and the fact, if I...

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders arrived in Rome on Friday to attend a Vatican conference steeped in his lifelong passions of economic and social justice, briefly departing New York just days before its critical primary to show solidarity with the teachings of Pope Francis. Sanders made the trip hours after Thursday night's Brooklyn debate with rival Hillary Clinton and said the opportunity to address the Vatican conference was too meaningful to pass up. The roughly 24-hour visit will precede a crucial New York primary against the former secretary of state on Tuesday.

It’s a somewhat obscure apocalyptic novel, much overlooked since its publication in 1907, and yet it comes with a recommendation that just about any best-selling author would covet: the spiritual leader of the whole world says it’s a good read. And not just the current pope, the previous one too.Pope Francis raised eyebrows in 2013 and again in 2015 when he recommended Robert Hugh Benson’s Lord of the World to the faithful as a book that depicts a “globalization of hegemonic uniformity.” Similarly, then-Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, referred to the Universalism depicted in Lord of the...

Pastoral Discernment and Dead Members “Alive” - Francis' Exhortation mortal_sin_cfn Francis' Apostolic Exhortation: Pastoral Discernment and Dead Members “Alive” “In the case of divorcees who have remarried, we posed the question, what do we do with them? … let us open the doors a bit more... Why can’t they be godfathers and godmothers ? … Things need to change, our standards need to change.” - Pope Francis By John Vennari www.cfnews.org The Vatican has sent a letter to the world’s bishop with instructions on how to prepare the faithful for Francis’ post-Synodal Exhortation. Francis’ document, said to run about 200...

Pope Francis has just published his long-awaited Apostolic Exhortation on the Family, Amoris Laetitia. In it, he repeats many of the problematic and controversial statements of the previous 2014 and 2015 Synods of Bishops on the Family. Among these, one finds the law of gradualism with regard to sinful relationships, the claim that there are “seeds” of goodness in such relationships that are objectively contrary to God’s laws, and a general tone of not speaking of sin at all with regard to those ways of living that put the soul of the persistent sinner gravely at risk of not attaining...

Twelve Things that Caught My Eye about Pope Francis’s New Document on Love and Marriage and Family By KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ April 8, 2016 For search-engine optimization, I thought about titling this post: “What Pope Francis Has to Say to Kim Kardashian about Her Dad Caitlyn.” I didn’t, but I imagined had Pope Benedict XVI issued the document Pope Francis did on marriage and family and society and accompaniment and reconciliation, the headlines might have read a lot differently, even with the same text. (I also never would use that title because while it might work on Google it’s not...

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has accepted an invitation from the Pope to the Vatican. Mr Sanders, who is Jewish, accepted an invitation to Rome for a conference at the end of next week. The Vatican visit is four days before the primary contest in New York, a competitive battle between him and front-runner Hillary Clinton.

In his general audience Wednesday, Pope Francis launched an appeal to the nations of the world to open their hearts and their doors to migrants who are standing “at the border,” in an apparent reference to the many migrants camped at key border positions trying to enter Europe.

March 16, 2016 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- On March 16, speaking publicly on a rare occasion, Pope Benedict XVI gave an interview to Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference, in which he spoke of a “two-sided deep crisis” the Church is facing in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. The report has already hit Germany courtesy of Vaticanist Guiseppe Nardi, of the German Catholic news website Katholisches.info. Pope Benedict reminds us of the formerly indispensable Catholic conviction of the possibility of the loss of eternal salvation, or that people go to hell: The missionaries of the 16th...

The Vatican committee that approves elevations to sainthood will meet Tuesday to consider a recommendation that Mother Teresa of Calcutta becomes Saint Teresa, the Holy See announced on Monday. With the long-awaited decision seen as a formality, Pope Francis is expected to sign a decree approving the canonisation of the 1979 Nobel peace prize winner and set a date and venue for it to happen.

That sincere dialogue among men and women of different faiths may produce the fruits of peace and justice...

It appears that a children's book titled Dear Pope Francis is to be released on March 1. Rorate Caeli obtained and posted a section of the book that is not only disturbing, but provides a snapshot into the mind of Francis concerning the ancient Mass of the Church. This is the excerpt: "Dear Pope Francis, Were you ever near the pries as the altar boy? Greetings from Alessio (Italy, age 9)" "Dear Alessio, yes, I was an altar boy. And you? What part among the altar boys do you have? It's easier to do now, you know: You might know...

The Pope and the Baby Killer In 2010, after I had lived in Italy about two years and had begun to understand the byzantine complexities of this country's politics, Emma Bonino decided to run for the office of governor of the region of Lazio. Once I found out what kind of person she was, I was seized with the urge to buy a crate of spray paint and go around Rome writing, "10,000 bambini assassinati non abbastanza per Emma 'la Bicicletta' Bonino," on all her posters. "10,000 murdered babies not enough for Emma 'the bicycle' Bonino." I thought of it...

A few days ago, Pope Francis and his spokesman Federico Lombardi directly contradicted the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church on contraception, including directly contradicting the clear words of Pope Paul's 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae. Various "Catholic" individuals and groups quickly lined up to support Francis, including the often heterodox Filipino Catholic Bishops Conference. But a surprisingly large and strong set of Catholics--beyond the expected set of minority traditionalists--has now risen up to resist, as if Francis, after years of this this sort of thing, has now crossed an obvious line. Who knew that line would be you know where....

Dear Pope Francis: I write this letter to you as a priest to the Bishop of Rome and as a son to a father. I write with a heavy heart, and I know that heaviness of heart is shared by many of my Catholic brethren both clergy and laity. I watched the early news one morning last week to find that one of the headlines proclaimed that in an interview on the flight from Mexico to Rome you indicated that the Church's teaching on contraception may be undergoing a change. As in the past, I went to the official translation...

I wanted to briefly mention a few observations of discussions about the Holy Father's latest plane interview. 1. Astoundingly, when Catholics raise concerns about Pope Francis suggestion to women that they can use birth control pills and condoms to prevent perfectly healthy babies from being conceived because of a remote chance of birth defects, I am still seeing Catholics claim the press is misinterpreting what is being said. I will not cite the dozens of examples, suffice it to say that the Father has accountability for his own words and actions. His contradiction of Humane Vitae was as clear as...

Despite their staunch opposition to contraceptives, Philippine Roman Catholic bishops expressed their full support Saturday to Pope Francis' remarks suggesting artificial contraception can be used by women threatened by the Zika virus. The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines also backed the pope's uncompromising position against abortion, even in cases when a pregnant woman carries an unborn child afflicted with a deformity. "We, your bishops, reiterate church teaching: no matter that the child in the womb may be afflicted with some infirmity or deformity, it can never be moral to bring a deliberate end to human life," Archbishop Socrates Villegas,...

From the canonist Ed Peter’s fine blog In The Light Of The Law. He doesn’t have a combox over there and doesn’t mind if we use his stuff here. DO, however, go over there to his place regularly. Emphases are from Peters, comments mine: Misunderstanding the (alleged) 'Congo contraception' caseEven by the standards of his reign, the presser Pope Francis conducted on his return flight from Mexico has provoked an unusual number of questions. [No kidding. You should see my inbox, too!] I wish to address only one of those here.Preliminarily, I note that the burden is not on the...

In a February 8 interview with one of Italy's most prominent dailies, Corriere Della Serra, Pope Francis praised Italy's leading proponent of abortion - Emma Bonino -- as one of the nation's "forgotten greats," comparing her to great historical figures such as Konrad Adenauer and Robert Schuman. Knowing that his praise of her may be controversial, the Pope said that she offered the best advice to Italy on learning about Africa, and admitted she thinks differently from us. "True, but never mind," he said. "We have to look at people, at what they do." At 27, Bonino had an illegal...

The Pope's pregnant receptionist has been found dead in her apartment on the outskirts of the city. Miriam Wuolou, a 34-year-old of Eritrean origin, was seven-months pregnant when her body was discovered. She had worked at Pope Francis' home and a priests' guesthouse called Santa Marta for years.