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A high profile Vatican consultant has publicly departed from Catholic teaching on homosexuality, saying God made “LGBTQ people … who they are.” Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest who is the editor at large of America Magazine as well as an adviser to the Vatican's Secretariat for Communications, made the comment to the pro-homosexual organization PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) on August 18.  Martin spoke on the occasion of PFLAG honoring him with its 2017 Flag Bearer Award for making what it called “lasting contributions to the safety and/or equality of people who are LGBTQ, their families, and...

The threat of confrontation mounted in Venezuela as the president, Nicolás Maduro, installed a controversial new assembly despite overwhelming international condemnation and a planned opposition protest to block it. The 545-member constituent assembly was inaugurated on Friday, five days after it was elected in a vote that has been dogged by allegations of fraud and vote-rigging. The new body is made up entirely of pro-government loyalists after the opposition boycotted the vote as unconstitutional. In its opening session, the assembly elected Venezuela’s former foreign minister Delcy Rodríguez as its president, and the country’s former vice-president Aristobulo Isturiz as its first...

They “plotted to have two suicide bombers set off explosive vests and then open fire on passers-by with automatic rifles.” They “hoped to finance their plot by selling to the Vatican a video showing proof of life of a priest who was kidnapped by IS in Syria.” Nothing a little “dialogue” won’t fix. Maybe Pope Francis could travel to Düsseldorf, slip these poor dears a few bucks, and explain to them how true Islam and the proper understanding of the Qur’an reject every form of violence.

Bread used to celebrate the Eucharist during Roman Catholic masses must not be gluten-free - although it may be made from genetically modified organisms, the Vatican has ruled.

Pope Francis told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Thursday that the United States of America—and Russia, China, North Korea and Bashar al Assad's Syria—have “a distorted vision of the world"--("una visione distorta del mondo," as reportetd in Italian by La Repubblica).

While world leaders debate the fate of an infant on a ventilator, a New York hospital wants to throw him a potential lifeline — if both the US and UK governments will allow it. The Guardian reports this morning that New York Presbyterian and Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center have volunteered to admit Charlie Gard to administer experimental treatment to reverse his life-threatening condition, if the FDA approves it. Alternately, they will ship the necessary drugs to the UK if they promise to administer it: The US hospital said it would treat Charlie with an experimental drug pending approval...

Vatican police 'break up drug-fuelled gay orgy at home of secretary of one of Pope Francis's key advisers' Raid at flat belonging to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the FaithOccupant of flat was allegedly secretary to Cardinal Francesco CoccopalmerioCoccopalmerio heads Pontifical Council for Legislative texts and is a key adviser to the Pope Vatican police have broken up a gay orgy at the home of the secretary to one of Pope Francis's key advisers, it has been reported.The flat belonged to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is in charge of tackling clerical...

In a sordid new sex scandal, Vatican police raided the apartment of a 50-year-old priest, breaking up a gay orgy fueled by drugs and alcohol. During last week’s blitz, Msgr. Luigi Capozzi, assistant to Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, was arrested by the Vatican gendarmerie and sent briefly to a Roman clinic for drug detox. The priest, a native of Salerno, is currently on retreat at an unspecified convent in Italy. Capozzi’s apartment where the raid took place is in the palace of the Sant’Uffizio within the Vatican City, where a number of high-ranking prelates...

Vatican police have broken up a gay orgy at the home of the secretary to one of Pope Francis's key advisers, it has been reported. The flat belonged to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is in charge of tackling clerical sexual abuse. Reports in Italy claim the occupant of the apartment is allegedly the secretary to Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio - a key aide to the 80-year-old Pope.

Vatican police have broken up a gay orgy at the home of the secretary to one of Pope Francis's key advisers, it has been reported. The flat belonged to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is in charge of tackling clerical sexual abuse. Reports in Italy claim the occupant of the apartment is allegedly the secretary to Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio - a key aide to the 80-year-old Pope.

For the second time in a week, Pope Francis has removed a conservative Vatican powerhouse who opposed his warming of Roman Catholic orthodoxy.The Vatican announced Saturday that the Pope would not be renewing the five-year appointment of Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, basically the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog. Muller, a 69-year-old was appointed by fellow German Pope Benedict XVI. As Cardinal Ratzinger, Benedict had also headed that Congregation under Pope John Paul II.The ouster of Cardinal Muller is one of this Pope’s most important decisions yet since his 2013 election...

A young Greek boy awaiting a heart transplant had his wish come true shortly after being visited by First Lady Melania Trump. The first lady visited the boy at a pediatric hospital in Rome on May 24, after she and her husband, President Donald Trump met with Pope Francis at the Vatican, reports CNN. "Upon landing in Belgium, I learned a young boy and his family who had been waiting for a heart transplant was informed that the hospital has found a donor," the first lady said in a statement. "I read a book and held hands with this special...

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life, has doubled down in defending a new member appointed by Pope Francis to the Academy who has argued that abortion should be legal until “18 weeks after conception.” Paglia said that while the appointee’s pro-abortion stance is “not my personal position, and much less the Academy,” he nevertheless defended the recent selection of pro-abortion University of Oxford Professor Nigel Biggar.

The Vatican is under fire from pro-life organizations for not one but two appointments to its pro-life Academy who are noted abortion activists. Lifenews.com has already reported on Pope Francis’s decision to name Nigel Biggar, a philosopher who supports abortion, to the Pontifical Academy for Life. Biggar was one of 45 ordinary members appointed to the pro-life academy this month, according to a Vatican announcement. Also concerning is Kathleen Foley, MD, who headed the Open Society Institute’s Project on Death in America. The Pontifical Academy for Life promotes protections for human life at all stages and supports research on moral...

A screenshot of former President Barack Obama blatantly leering at a youngish female's buttocks is one of the visual aids in the Vatican Sex Ed program titled "The Meeting Point: Project for Affective and Sexual Formation." Released last July, 2016, in Rome at the World Youth Day celebration, the lesson plans and details of this rather unusual approach to a religion's sex education for teens have drawn outrage and even a petition for removal. Deemed inappropriate and vulgar, this controversial effort on the part of the Vatican seems to have fallen on a code of silence as the American Life...

First of all, today is the Feast Day of the Blessed Trinity, and so we would wish all of you a Happy Feast Day, and in particular we would wish the Eternal Father a Happy Father's Day! For those who are unaware or need to be reminded, belief in a Trinitarian God, that is Three Persons, One God, comes to us from our elder brothers and sisters in the faith, the Jews. The belief in the Trinitarian God as described is the universally accepted criteria to receive and accept the designation as a true Christian. So we Catholics should be...

Nigel Biggar has said: 'It’s not clear that a human foetus is the same kind of thing as an adult'Pope Francis has appointed 45 new ordinary members of the Pontifical Academy for Life, according to a statement on the Vatican website. They include Nigel Biggar, who has said that he thinks the limit for legal abortion should be 18 weeks. In a dialogue with fellow philosopher Peter Singer in 2011, reported by Standpoint magazine, Biggar said: “I would be inclined to draw the line for abortion at 18 weeks after conception, which is roughly about the earliest time when there...

In 1992, the Vatican under Pope John Paul II published the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which stated, among many other things, that “homosexual tendencies” are “objectively disordered.” One of the principal theologians who shaped the document was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would succeed John Paul II as Pope Benedict XVI. He too would take a hard-line stance against homosexuality. Two decades later, Pope Francis has signaled what many believe to be a softening on the matter.In 2013, when asked about gay priests, he famously replied, “Who am I to judge?” He has continued to call for the Catholic Church to treat LGBT people with dignity and...

So far you’ve seen the opinions of both a few Christian and a few non-Christian researchers, and you can take or leave their opinions as you will. But now we’re going to look at the actual messages of these “alien” entities, from what contactees and abductees themselves say the aliens are telling them, and let’s see what you think. I want to preface by saying that there have been historical changes in the aliens’ points of origin. In the 1950s, the entities typically told the contactees of the day that they were from Mars and Venus. But we’ve since sent...

We don't usually cover straight-up news as such here on the floss, but this particular item was so out there -- and so geeky at the same time -- I just couldn't let it fall through the cracks. For the first time ever, Vatican astronomers have admitted the possibility -- even the probability -- of intelligent life on other planets. Vatican official Father Gabriel Funes, a respected astronomer in his own right, released an article titled, literally, Aliens Are My Brother, detailing various extraterrestrial scenarios as they relate to Christian theology. He compares the potential multiplicity of life forms in...