Free Republic

I. The Church is a mystery. It is the mystery of God's presence among us, our Savior, God, who does not want the death of sinners, but be converted and live. The conversion requires our collaboration. II. The Church is infallible in its divine nature; but it is run by people who can make mistakes and even make mistakes. We must distinguish the office of the person. The latter remains a certain amount of time in office and then out-either by death or other circumstances, but the office remains. Pope Francis today has the papal ministry and the primacy of...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A heart that clings to the letter of the law is closed to the Holy Spirit and God's truth, Pope Francis said at morning Mass. Such hardened hearts often were behind the persecution of innocent men and women seeking to follow God's will, the pope said April 11 in his homily during Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives. The history of the church "tells us of many people who were judged and killed, although they were innocent -- judged according to the Word of God, against the Word of God," he said. "Let's...

Content Advisory: The following discussion assumes arguendo that any of this matters. The other day I confided to my brother that I think I'm going to lose all of my "Facebook friends" because of Donald Trump. You could have bet me a million dollars against that being the cause even a few weeks ago. For years I've just assumed my whimsical, yet annoying, evangelization on behalf of Catholic Tradition and the Traditional Mass would be the cause. But no. This post, I suppose, is an endorsement of Donald Trump for president, but I'm not intending to say he's the only...

While I was traveling a Friendly Roman Observer did some analysis of how the small groups or circuli minores are coming down… for the Kasperite (non) Proposal (boo!) or for the doctrine of the Church. I’ll share it here, somewhat edited. The small group reports from this the third and final week are HERE. There were 13 small groups in five languages. Regarding the Kasperite Proposal (to allow civilly divorced and remarried Catholics to go to confession and Holy Communion without requiring of them sexual continence), the breakdown is more or less as follows: 4 groups in favor of Kasperitism...

The following intervention was made by Dr. Anca-Maria Cernea, President of the Association of Catholic Doctors of Bucharest (Romania), at the Ordinary Synod on the Family on Friday. Your Holiness, Synod Fathers, Brothers and Sisters, I represent the Association of Catholic Doctors from Bucharest. I am from the Romanian Greek Catholic Church. My father was a Christian political leader, who was imprisoned by the communists for 17 years. My parents were engaged to marry, but their wedding took place 17 years later. My mother waited all those years for my father, although she didn’t even know if he was still...

Since the beginning of the pontificate of Pope Francis – or could we coin a new phrase? The “periphery of Pope Francis”? – I have been saying that his aim is to weaken the Roman Curia. HERE and HERE and HERE are examples. Today Francis addressed members of the Synod, et al., on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Synod of Bishops. I think this speech (HERE) may be a turning point of some kind. I don’t know what kind, yet.

As Rome’s Synod of Bishops on the Family closes its second week in a swarm of media attention and some very different interpretations, it might be a good time to remember one simple point. The point is this. The Church can be truthful without being merciful. But she can’t be merciful without being truthful. Our task as bishops at the synod this month, and frankly what God asks from every Christian all the time, is to speak the truth with patience, humility and love. Truth without compassion wounds and repels; mercy without truth is a comfortable form of lying. Thus,...

Vatican City (AsiaNews) – The teachers of the law "reduced God's horizon and make God's love teeny tiny”, they did not understand the gratuity of salvation and this is why "Jesus was somewhat harsh on these doctors of law”, said Pope Francis during Mass celebrated this morning at Casa Santa Marta, focused on the commandment of love and the temptation of wanting to be controllers of salvation. “Woe to you, scholars of the law! You have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter.” Those were Jesus’ words in the...

Absolutely Stunning Candlelight Marian Procession for the Synod I’m exhausted by the Synod. I’m exhausted by the debates about the SSPX. And yet, this video combines both themes in a way that is so radically uplifting, so completely moving that I finished it in tears. This. This. This. This is what Catholicism is supposed to look like. You want to call them schismatics? You’re wrong, but go right ahead. The institutional Church gives us an endless parade of perverse clerics trying to tear down Christ’s teaching, while the SSPX gives us this. You can say whatever you want about the...

Whatever one might say of the sacrilegious "Kasper proposal" (the very embodiment of what Saint Thomas Aquinas warns us not to do in the Lauda Sion - not throw the Blessed Sacrament away...), at least it has a very tenuous link to some structure one might identify as a "couple". The Tennis Court Oath was made by the Progressive Bishops in Rome a few months ago, and the Revolution is in full swing, in the Jacobin phase -- they will not let go of their chance to strike deep, fast, strongly, and in all directions, and nothing is a coincidence....

The sodomite mafia that we've long suspected in the Vatican is raising its filthy head on the eve of the Synod to destroy the family. Father Oko's work on the infiltration of the priesthood in Rome and in Poland must be held up as a warning of what was to come. The dossier of three hundred pages handed over by Benedict XVI to Jorge Bergoglio gathers dust but the truth will come out along with coming out of these sodomite moles into the light where they can no longer hide. „Jestem gejem. Dumnym i szczęśliwym księdzem gejem”. Coming out księdza...

Despite the fact the New Evangelization has been an ongoing emphasis by the Catholic Church for over forty years, it has failed to stem the disastrous losses of the faithful in the U.S. Since 2000, 14 million Catholics have left the faith, parish religious education participation of children has dropped by 24%, Catholic school attendance has dropped by 19%, baptisms of infants has dropped by 28%, baptism of adults has dropped by 31% and sacramental Catholic marriages have dropped by 41%. Something is desperately wrong with the Church’s approach to the New Evangelization. Of Mass and Men One reason the...

I’ve been thinking about how homosexualists target Christian businesses for destruction. Approach a florist or a bakery or, now, a pizzeria and tell the owner that this is for a homosexual “wedding” and then hammer them with law suits. Enough already. It’s time for everyone to calm down. We need a new approach. Think about this. When some homosexual couple comes to your Christian business for services at their immoral event, don’t panic. Go ahead and take their business! Then explain what is going to happen next. Tell them that the food and services will be just fine. And then...

Pope Francis has again forcefully emphasized the Catholic church's need to be merciful, pointedly asking who Christians that do not allow someone to renter the church community think they are. Speaking Tuesday during his daily homily at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, Francis asked bluntly: "Who are you who shuts the door of your heart to a man, a woman who wants to improve, to return back into the people of God, because the Holy Spirit has stirred his or her heart?" The church, the pontiff said, is "the home of Jesus and Jesus welcomes -- but not only welcomes, [he]...

I want the Church to go out into the streets,” Pope Francis told a cheering crowd gathered for World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro in July 2013, four months after he was elected pope. “¡Hagan lío!” he exhorted them, in the spirit of creative destruction: Make a mess! Take care, he added, not to become “closed in on” yourselves. On other occasions, he has urged priests to leave “the stale air of closed rooms” and has characterized traditional Catholics as “self-absorbed.” An extrovert, Francis attaches a positive moral value to extroversion — and, as if it followed by some...

A childhood friend of Pope Francis has claimed that he intends to overturn the centuries-old ban on Catholic priests from getting married and that he told a divorcee 'living in sin' that she could receive Holy Communion. The Pope considers the law on priestly celibacy 'archaic' and 'not part of the doctrine of the Church', according to the confidante. The friend also claimed the Argentinian-born pope also vowed to reform another Catholic rule which bars divorced people in new relationships from taking the Holy Communion, MailOnline can reveal.

Father Tomlinson was talking to a mother last week who told him she teaches her children, “Think before you speak.” I am pretty sure that all of our parents said that to us at some point in our lives, but, at some later point, we began to ignore that and just started reacting to whatever we heard or were told. Fr Tomlinson’s conversation partner had more to say when she said she also taught her kids that the word THINK can be used as an acronym for questions to ask yourself before saying something: T- is it true? H –...

Almost always, it begins with a warm invitation, from nice people. You work with them. They live on either side of you. They are the parents of your children's friends. Most of the millions of Catholics who have defected to one form of Protestantism or other in the last thirty years did not intend to apostatize, when they agreed to "Come go to church with us!" The individual Catholic frequently does not recognize the profound implications of the invitation. What is being proposed is a grave sin against faith, apostasy, exceeding in moral weight adultery, because faith is a gift...

Some Papal Quotes that somehow and in some way beyond my meager intellect are in continuity with each other, or something. First Quote Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441. ex cathedra (infallibly defined): “The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so...

British Catholic journalist Damian Thompson, described as either a “blood-crazed ferret” or “intrepid defender of the faith” given your point of view, has apparently coined a new term: Romophobe. Unfortunately, the Urban Dictionary declares the word to mean a fear of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo (and as fan myself, I say, “You should be afraid – very, very afraid!” But Damian Thompson uses it to refer to the hysterical critics of Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church who made themselves look positively irrational during the surprisingly (surprising for whom, exactly?) successful state visit of the Roman Pontiff. That...