Free Republic

The Catholic Church’s Enemies are Feasting on the “Fruits” of Vatican II Sixty years later, Catholics can no longer ignore its rotten pastoral “fruits” of Vatican II. Robert Morrison examines how ambiguity, false ecumenism, and Rome’s post-conciliar trajectory have fueled confusion, weakened Catholic identity, and emboldened the Church’s enemies.One of the most important things about Vatican II, that both its defenders and critics can agree upon, is that it had a “pastoral” focus. Paul VI made this clear at various times, including during his August 6, 1975 general audience:“Differing from other Councils, this one was not directly dogmatic, but disciplinary...

The Society of Saint Pius X and the Ordination of New Bishops: the end of the post-conciliar eraFr. Davide Pagliarani, the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X, has announced that the SSPX plans to proceed with the ordination of bishops this coming July. This plan has been harshly criticized by many Catholics who do not share the heterodox opinions that the Society was founded to oppose. I do not attend SSPX masses and cannot be described as an admirer of the Society (perhaps they do not admire me either). However, I cannot see any serious objections to...

Yeshua the Hope for Israel Returns to Israel - Zechariah 12:10-14/ Revelation 19:11-21 A Song and a YouTube Video which sings about Zech. 12:10- 14

As sons and daughters of Israel today from all around the world, along with evangelical believers in the Messiah and global supporters of Israel's right to exist, we soberly reflect on Holocaust Remembrance Day. What is absolutely astounding is that after such horrific mass genocide of the children of Israel by Nazi Germany, the nation of Israel, eighty years later, is now established as one of the leading nations in the world and is now the sole superpower in the Middle East. Israel is a sign to the world in these last Days that the G-d of Israel has not...

The Orthodox Church begins with the human condition. Humanity turns from God, who is Life. The result is not a legal sentence imposed from without, but corruption arising from within. Death enters human existence as the intrinsic consequence of separation from God. Scripture names the problem plainly. “The wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23 (LSB) Death is not something the Father needs to be paid. It is what follows when creatures cut themselves off from the source of life. The question salvation answers, therefore, is not how God can be persuaded to forgive, but how humanity can be rescued...

Dear friend, maybe you were raised to believe - as I was - that Jesus (our Lamb and Savior) was crucified on Good Friday. If one does the math... Friday can never work (see charts below). The "Sign of the Prophet Jonah" states it all; The ONLY sign that the Lord would give to the Messiah rejecting leadership of Israel and nation was the sign of the most rejected event and individual of the Bible, Jonah and the whale (Jonah 1:17). The ONLY sign that the Lord would give to the Messiah rejecting leadership of Israel and nation was the...

The Bible is more concerned with the theological meaning of circumcision than its ethnic significance. First commanded to Abraham, circumcision in the Bible does not constitute the brit (covenant) itself, but is the most permanent ot (sign) of someone who undertakes to live in covenant with God. Without this commitment, circumcision carries only surgical meaning; and without circumcision, the Bible’s commandments that were intended to be suffused with higher religious dimension lose their value. The circumcision of the flesh is also a picture of the greatest circumcision need – that of the heart... Only God can perform a circumcision of...

Msgr. Gherardini on the SSPXReading his biography, one can hardly understand why a professor of theology and philosophy like Monsignor Brunero Gherardini was attacked so vehemently.[1] Born in 1925 in Prato (Tuscany), he died at the venerable age of 92—in 2017—in Santa Marinella (Rome). Throughout his entire life dedicated to serving the Church, Gherardini followed a consistent intellectual and spiritual path that led him to key positions within the famous Pontificia Universitas Lateranensis (Pontifical Lateran University) and the Pontificia Academia Sancti Thomae Aquinatis (Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas). There he taught courses in ecclesiology, ecumenism, and other fundamental theological...

[Catholic Caucus] Has the Merciful Approach to Anti-Catholic Errors Worked for the Church?For centuries, the Catholic Church boldly condemned error to safeguard truth and souls. But beginning with Vatican II, a dramatic shift took place—away from doctrinal clarity and toward a new “pastoral” approach rooted in mercy over judgment. From Pius IX’s Quanta Cura to today’s Synod on Synodality, this article examines whether that shift preserved the Church… or helped unleash the very crisis now engulfing it.Blessed Pius IX began his 1864 encyclical “condemning certain errors,” Quanta Cura, with a paragraph that made it perfectly clear that he understood the...

[Catholic Caucus] EXCLUSIVE: Dutch bishop says Church in Netherlands has collapsed, warns Germany may be nextDue to heterodox ‘reforms’ after Vatican II, just 2% of Catholics in the Netherlands now attend Sunday Mass, down from 96% in some parts of the country, Bishop Robert Mutsaerts told LifeSiteNews.Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Bishop Georg Baetzing –former German bishops' conference presidentsDutch Bishop Roberts Mutsaerts has warned the Catholic Church in Germany that it will suffer a collapse like the Church in the Netherlands if its continues with the heretical Synodal Way.In an exclusive interview with LifeSiteNews journalist Andreas Wailzer, Bishop Mutsaerts, the auxiliary bishop...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal says Church cannot “continue to exist” without women’s ordination Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich has said he cannot see how the Catholic Church can endure in the long term if women continue to be excluded from ordained ministry.Speaking at a symposium in Bonn, he said, according to Kath.Ch: “I cannot imagine how a Church can continue to exist in the long term if half of the people of God suffer because they do not have access to ordained ministry.”The Archbishop of Luxembourg made the remarks during a conference examining synodality and curial reform, where he reflected on how his...

The 60-Year Battle for Tradition: In Defence of the SSPXWhen writing about the last sixty years battle in the Church for the preservation of the traditional Catholic faith, no history would be complete without recalling the stand taken by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the community he founded, the Society of St Pius X (“SSPX”).This is all the more so given the recent announcement that the SSPX is considering consecrating more bishops to replace those now ageing and dying.Let me begin by saying that I am not a regular attender at the SSPX Masses, so I have no particular...

[Catholic Caucus] Prevost’s Augustinian Creed: “We Believe in God, Mother of Life”Meanwhile, Cardinal Hollerich presses women’s ordination, Bishop Bonny prepares married priests, and the Augustinian paper trail shows the synodal religion that formed Leo XIV.Some weeks in the postconciliar Church are useful because they strip away the incense, the bureaucratic fog, and the pious throat-clearing. This was one of them. In Bonn, Jean-Claude Hollerich said the question of women in ordained ministry remains open. In Antwerp, Johan Bonny said he wants married men ordained for his diocese by 2028 and wants a church office “equally accessible” to men and women....

[Catholic Caucus] Catholic podcaster Anthony Stine calls Pope Leo’s participation in Pachamama ritual ‘an act of apostasy’Stine cited two moral theologians who say active participation in a Pachamama rite is ‘intrinsically and gravely evil,’ given that it ‘expresses a belief in the false creed symbolized.’Traditional Catholic podcaster Anthony Stine decried Pope Leo XIV’s recently surfaced participation in a pagan Pachamama ritual as “an act of apostasy.”Photo and book documentation unearthed by Father Charles Murr shows then-Father Robert Prevost, OSA, kneeling in what is described in a photo caption as a “Celebration of the Rite of Pachamama (Mother Earth).” Other photos...

[Catholic Caucus] New archbishop of Vienna suggests ignoring Church law for divorced and ‘remarried’ peopleAbp. Josef Gründwidl proposed disregarding canon law for people in sinful sexual relationships and changing ‘centuries-old traditions’ to involve women in Church ‘decision-making processes.’Archbishop Josef Grünwidl of Vienna, Austria, has suggested that Church teaching could be neglected in certain cases, e.g., women in “leadership” and divorced and civilly “remarried” couples, if it benefits the “salvation of souls.”Grünwidl, the recently consecrated archbishop of Vienna, gave a homily during the Spring Plenary Assembly of the Austrian Bishops’ Conference on March 11 at the parish church in Pischelsdorf, Styria....

The Connection Between Zionism, Religious Liberty, and Anti-Catholic BigotryIs it now forbidden to question Zionism without being branded “antisemitic”? Drawing on the words of World Zionist leader Nahum Goldmann himself, this investigation exposes a growing effort to redefine dissent as hate—while tracing the deeper roots of the conflict to Vatican II, religious liberty, and a decades-long struggle over the soul of Catholic teaching. What emerges is a striking paradox: in the name of tolerance, Catholics are increasingly told which beliefs they are no longer allowed to hold.Over the past few years, Zionist political figures and pundits have increasingly instructed Americans...

[Catholic Caucus] Vatican II Is NOT BindingStop Quibbling About ObedienceIn his Opening Speech to Vatican II on Oct. 11, 1962, John XXIII made it clear that Vatican II was about tone and not doctrine:[The Council must present] “the sacred patrimony of truth received from the Fathers [and] transmit that doctrine pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion, which throughout twenty centuries, notwithstanding difficulties and constraints, has become the common patrimony of men.”From the looks of things, the Council failed. If Nostra Aetate isn’t an “attenuation or distortion” of truth handed down from the Apostles to the Fathers and, through...

[Catholic Caucus] Catholic laity can identify heresy in Church leaders without waiting for Rome: here’s whyFrom St. Isidore to St. Cajetan, Catholic tradition holds that obvious heresy condemns itself. The faithful need neither secret knowledge nor Vatican trials to recognize it.(Padre Peregrino) — This was originally called He is to Be Accused by His Subjects at my main site but has been updated. This is a continuation of my weekend series, reproducing on Substack past favorites from my normal website.I do not want this blog to turn my readers into “heresy hunters” since recognizing heresy is not enough to obtain...

Priest: ‘Too many in the Church’ would rather condemn the SSPX instead of abortion, sodomyThe Vatican/SSPX dispute is an unfortunate situation for sure. But is it an intrinsically evil act to ordain bishops without the Pope's approval?I get most all of my news regarding the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals from an old married couple at the nursing home. When I pop in they are almost always glued to the TV, watching sports.On a recent visit I was somewhat surprised when the topic of religion came up before athletics. Before we started in about the Chiefs’ backfield or the Royals’...

Fr. Ripperger: Abomination of desolation refers to Catholic Church becoming ‘compromised’The Book of Daniel refers to the abomination of desolation as tied up with the abolition of a public 'daily sacrifice.'Exorcist Father Ripperger shared in an explosive recent interview that Scripture’s reference to the “abomination of desolation” taking its place in “the temple” is “actually a reference to the Catholic Church being compromised.”Fr. Ripperger explained the reference in an interview with podcaster and former U.S. Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan while refuting Protestants who mistakenly believe that the Book of Daniel’s reference to the “temple” in which the abomination of desolation...