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[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Roche is Sad and WorriedThose who visit the Dicastery for Divine Worship say that Cardinal Roche has been looking downcast lately; they find him sad and worried. And no wonder. His career as a bishop, now drawing to a close in the shadows of old age, has been a series of failures. His pontificate in Leeds was disastrous in many respects, including financially. That is why—and this is no secret—the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales asked Pope Benedict in 2012 to find him another position where he could do no harm to souls or banks. And...

Exclusive: Diocese of Charlotte reacts to first Sunday after altar rail banIn the Diocese of Charlotte, Bishop Michael Martin’s pastoral letter of December 17, 2025 ordered that altar rails, kneelers and prie-dieux be removed from public Masses by Friday, January 16.As the first Sunday Masses without altar rails unfolded this weekend, reports from across the diocese indicated anything but uniform compliance. While some parishes removed temporary kneelers and adjusted Communion lines, others made no immediate changes, awaiting Vatican clarification on a dubia submitted by more than 30 priests. The result has been a patchwork of responses indicating deep frustration with...

[Catholic Caucus] Consistory Done Like Middle School - Leo XIV Is ResponsibleJournalists Raymond Arroyo and Robert Royal, and canon lawyer and priest Gerald Murray of New York talked on January 16 about the consistory of January 7-8. A short sequence, video below.Robert Royal commenting on Cardinal Grech’s contribution on synod:I think you hear that and you say, what in God’s name can that possibly mean? This is the gobbledygook we’ve been listening to for years about synodality and all this confusion. I mean, one of the things I’ve heard from sources is that many of these cardinals have said, "Look,...

– In the narrow, sun-baked streets of Mogadishu, faith is a secret kept behind locked doors and whispered prayers. The city hums with the clatter of market stalls and the wail of distant sirens, but inside dimly lit homes, Christians gather in silence, clutching Bibles that must never be seen. Last year, an article about the underground Christian community there captured the attention of millions online, with some moved to prayer and others to outrage. The article, “Serving the Hidden Church in Somalia,” was originally published in May. It received the usual responses on our Facebook, Instagram, and X accounts...

[Catholic Caucus] Schism fears arise as Catholic Church in Germany aims to put laity on ‘same level’ as bishops'This Synodal Conference will have decision-making power and be able to introduce changes to doctrine by majority vote,' reported Italian journalist Nico Spuntoni.As Pope Leo XIV meets with his Apostolic Nuncio for Germany, Monsignor Nikola Eterovic, on Saturday, the very real possibility of schism with the Catholic Church in Germany looms.“It’s alleged the German Church wants to put the German laity on the same level as the bishops and also let them control the cash,” according to a report in the Italian...

[Catholic Caucus] Roche’s Consistory Manifesto: The Liturgical Revolution Still Demands Its VictimsEvery few months the postconciliar machine produces another document that pretends to be calm, pastoral, historically informed, even reverent toward “Tradition.” Then the mask slips. The target is always the same. The old Mass must not merely be regulated, not merely “balanced,” not merely “integrated.” It must be starved, shamed, and finally buried.Cardinal Arthur Roche’s consistory report is that pattern distilled. It is written for cardinals, packaged as a neutral overview, and built around the same three moves the regime has used for decades. First, a selective timeline where...

[Catholic Caucus] Ten Reasons Why Cardinal Roche’s Document is Only Good for Lining Your Parrot Cage WithCardinal Roche’s defense does not represent continuity with the Catholic tradition but represents a rupture disguised as historical inevitability.The document that, according to an article by Diane Montagna, was presented by Cardinal Arthur Roche to the Extraordinary Consistory of January 2026 purports to defend “sound tradition” while simultaneously advocating a theory of perpetual liturgical reform.If Roche’s treatment of the concept of Catholic Tradition is sound, then I am a time traveller from the planet Zorg.Upon examination, the theological foundations of this two-page document, which...

CHRISTMAS BIBLE-ART EPISODE #33 of 33 YOUNG JESUS TEACHING IN THE TEMPLE L U K E CHAPTER 2 Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find...

[Catholic Caucus] Extraordinary Consistory: what is its true meaning?The Extraordinary Consistory of January 2026 was not a mere consultative moment, but a strategic turning point: beneath the appearance of dialogue and “synodality,” a parliamentary model of the Church is being consolidated that relativizes the Petrine primacy and makes the neo-modernist drift allegedly irreversible, while Pope Leo XIV appears increasingly as an arbiter of power balances. The extraordinary Consistory of January 2026 should not be read as a simple consultative moment, but as a decisive step in the attempt to refound the Church on procedural and parliamentary bases, foreign to its...

[Catholic Caucus] Open letter to Pope Leo XIV: The heresy of Modernism lives on through Vatican IILegal scholar Raymond Marcin has urged the Pope to reject Vatican II’s path, calling it a covert revival of what St. Pius X condemned as the ‘synthesis of all heresies.’Editor’s note: Below follows the full text of an Open Letter to Pope Leo XIV by Emeritus Professor of Law at the Catholic University of America Raymond B. Marcin.(LifeSiteNews) — Your Holiness, The purpose of this letter is to express a concern regarding the path that our Catholic Church has been following for six decades...

CHRISTMAS BIBLE-ART EPISODE #32 of 33 YOUNG JESUS TEACHING IN THE TEMPLE L U K E CHAPTER 2 Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find...

[Catholic Caucus] Attack on the Traditional Mass and on Orthodoxy in the consistory - Roche and Tucho Fernandez Via Messa in Latino; the Roche report against the Mass at the end, made available by Diane Montagna:Nico Spuntoni for Il GiornaleJanuary 13, 2026Almost a week has passed since the extraordinary Consistory, and curiosity remains about what the Pope and the cardinals said behind closed doors in the new Synod hall. As Il Giornale had anticipated on December 16, the four topics brought to the twenty working tables were a re-reading of the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, the Synod and synodality, an...

CHRISTMAS BIBLE-ART EPISODE #31 of 33 JESUS GROWS INTO ADULTHOOD M A T T H E W CHAPTER 2 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Tasked with Promoting and Protecting Catholic Faith tells Hierarchy to Stop Obsessing over Doctrine and NormsI think the first consistory of 2026 has already been thoroughly denounced for what it was—a clown show—and that not much more needs to be said about it.However, as part of yet another episode of You Can’t Make this Crap Up, I would like to highlight some lesser-reported comments by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, aka “Cardinal Soft Porn,” which seem to have slipped through the media cracks. Keep in mind that this man leads the very serious Vatican body (Dicastery for the...

Bishop Eleganti: True ‘universal brotherhood’ is rooted in Jesus, not religious pluralismJesus died for all people. For Christians, this establishes a qualitatively different relationship than Islam has with all people, regardless of their faith and worldview.Editor’s Note: The following article is from a speech given by Bishop Marian Eleganti at the Rome Life Forum, December 4, 2025.(LifeSiteNews) — On January 25, 1986, Pope John Paul II announced the first multi-religious World Day of Prayer for Peace, which took place on October 27 of the same year. It was attended by 150 representatives of various religious groups, including the Dalai Lama...

CHRISTMAS BIBLE-ART EPISODE #30 of 33 KING HEROD SLAUGHTERS THE INNOCENTS M A T T H E W CHAPTER 2 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are...

CHRISTMAS BIBLE-ART EPISODE #29 of 33 THE HOLY FAMILY FLEES TO EGYPT H O S E A CHAPTER 11 “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and OUT OF EGYPT I CALLED MY SON. But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me.” M A T T H E W CHAPTER 2 When [the Magi] had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for...

CHRISTMAS BIBLE-ART EPISODE #28 of 33 THE HOLY FAMILY FLEES TO EGYPT H O S E A CHAPTER 11 “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and OUT OF EGYPT I CALLED MY SON. But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me.” M A T T H E W CHAPTER 2 When [the Magi] had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for...

Cardinal Zen Denounces “Bergoglian Synodality” as “Ironclad Manipulation” at Extraordinary ConsistoryFull text of Cardinal Joseph Zen’s intervention at the two-day meeting of cardinals convened by Pope Leo XIV.(Cardinal Joseph Zen and his personal secretary with Pope Leo XIV.) ROME, 9 January 2026 — In his intervention at the Extraordinary Consistory of Cardinals held at the Vatican on January 7–8, Cardinal Joseph Zen delivered a searing critique of the Synod on Synodality, denouncing its process as an “ironclad manipulation” and warning that its continual invocation of the Holy Spirit is “ridiculous” and verges on “blasphemy.”Delivered behind closed doors in the presence...

CHRISTMAS BIBLE-ART EPISODE #27 of 33 ADORATION OF THE MAGI M A T T H E W CHAPTER 2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” The star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming...