Free Republic

Last Friday, Father Adolf Mohr (86) of Rheinbollen, Germany, died from cancer. After his retirement he returned to the Old Latin Rite of his youth. In his will he expressed the wish to be buried in this rite. His parish priest guaranteed him in writ that his wish would be respected. But Trier Bishop Stephan Ackermann forbad the requiem. Ackermann is considered a radical who likes to speak about mercy. Fr Mohr's funeral will be on Friday, against his wish, in the new rite. Please help to prevent this disrespect of a priest's llast will. Protest now by writing in...

Citing the “new paradigm” of Pope Francis one year after his election to the throne of Peter, the archbishop of Lucca in Tuscany suggested to an interviewer this week on the Italian state television network, RAI, that the time has come for the Church to become more open to homosexuality and same-sex civil unions. “All diversity is wealth,” Archbishop Benvenuto Castellani said in reply to a question from an interviewer about Church acceptance of homosexuality. The archbishop’s frank remarks are part of a shift in public pronouncements on homosexuality from many Church leaders under Pope Francis in the wake of...

The responses to the Vatican questionnaire on the family are a clear signal that certain changes concerning the church’s teaching on sexual morality are imperative, according to Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier, Germany. Interviewed by the Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz, Ackermann, 50, said the responses showed “quite clearly” that for the majority of the faithful the church’s teaching on moral sexuality was “repressive” and “remote from life.” Declaring a second marriage after a divorce a perpetual mortal sin, and under no circumstances allowing remarried divorced people ever to receive the Sacraments, was not helpful, he said and added, “We bishops will...

The Bishop of Trier would completely change sexual ethics of the Catholic Church: New marriage after divorce is no "permanent mortal sin." Homosexuality for the bishop no longer "unnatural". Trier (kath.net) Catholics who hold to the teaching of the Catholic Church, currently have it difficult and can expect no support from their pastors in Germany. Several German-speaking bishops have, it appears, firmly resolved to remake the moral teaching of the Catholic Church again. Compared to the Rhein Main Presse the Bishop of Trier, Stephan Ackermann said, now that it no longer fits the times when "a new marriage after divorce...