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[Catholic Caucus] Irreversible—the Dictatorship of What Has Happened. When History Becomes a “Magisterium”Irreversible—the Dictatorship of What Has Happened. When History Becomes a “Magisterium”: Notes on a Statement by Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich. Functional “Facts-Based Politics” Instead of the Holy Spirit. An article by Armin Schwibach (kath.net; original in German)Rome (kath.netet/as) “Irreversible”: With these words, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich described the process of synodality initiated by Pope Francis in an address in October 2015: the fait accompli of a political land grab within the Church. In an interview with the Kurier on September 20, 2026, the Luxembourg cardinal and former Jesuit explained that...

The Church in Crisis — and How We Must Not Save Her: Twelve Issues (Bishop Robert Mutsaerts) The Church in Crisis — and How We Must Not Save HerTwelve Issues, Uncomfortable Truths, and a Catholic Way ForwardBishop Rob MutsaertsAuxiliary of 's-Hertogenbosch, NetherlandsSeptember 16, 2026 I have good news and bad news for you. The bad news is that the Catholic Church is in crisis. The good news is that she has been here before. Indeed, anyone with even a passing familiarity with Church history sometimes gets the impression that crisis is one of the few genuinely enduring Catholic traditions. We...

[Catholic Caucus] The Pain of a Seminarian A young seminarian writes to us and tells us about things happening in the synodal Church. It is so sad that someone who dedicates his life to God at such a young age feels this unease. In our brief chat, we encourage him to maintain his faith and love for the Church. We remind him that Our Lady has promised that in the end Her Immaculate Heart will triumph, and that he shouldn't let his guard down because we need holy priests. He agrees, although he says that many things in the Church...

Breaking: Pope Leo’s Vatican asks Catholics to ‘esteem’ other faiths The Vatican has asked Catholics to 'esteem' other faiths in its latest document on interreligious dialogue and 'fraternity.'The Vatican has asked Catholics to ‘esteem’ other faiths in its latest document on interreligious dialogue and “fraternity.”The document, signed by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF); Cardinal Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity; and Cardinal George Jacob Koovakad, Prefect of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, appeared this morning.Entitled “A Journey of Hope: Sixty Years of Interreligious Dialogue and Fraternity...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Leo promotes synodality bishop who has ‘courage to make a different church’ Pope Leo XIV appointed a Bolivian bishop who has said Communion for active homosexuals and women’s ordination to the diaconate remain open questions amid the synodality process.Pope Leo XIV appointed a synodality enthusiast who accepts as “open questions” the possibilities of Holy Communion for unrepented active homosexuals and the “ordination” of women to the diaconate.The Vatican announcement was issued Monday that Bishop Pedro Luis Fuentes Valencia, C.P. was named Military Ordinary for Bolivia, ending four years in which the Passionist prelate had governed the same...

Leo’s Archbishop Says “The Church Is Called to Disappear” and Muslim Saints “Intercede” for Us. Leo’s Pastor of St. Peter’s Basilica Finds the Devil “Quite Likable.” He Adds “Spice” to People’s Lives! Rome’s interfaith chief says other religions “broaden the horizon of truth,” invokes a pluralist “City of God,” and turns Nehemiah into a mascot for religious dialogue.There are careless phrases, and then there are phrases that tell you how a man sees the Church.“The Church is called to disappear so that the Kingdom may grow.”That sentence belongs to Father Mario León Dorado, the 52-year-old Spanish Oblate whom Leo XIV...

[Catholic Caucus] 10 Italian bishops attend national conference on LGBT ‘pastoral ministry’ The meeting presented initiatives already operating in several Italian dioceses.Italy’s Catholic bishops gathered to discuss the integration of LGBT-identifying people and their families into ordinary diocesan life.On September 4, nearly 200 pastoral workers and around 10 bishops gathered at the General Curia of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in Rome for Italy’s first national conference dedicated to “pastoral ministry with homosexual and transgender people.”The meeting, titled “Good Practices in Pastoral Ministry with Homosexual and Transgender People,” presented initiatives already operating in several Italian dioceses, while also examining the...

[Catholic Caucus] Kraków was John Paul II’s diocese. Now a trans activist helps plan its future 'I am changing the Church from inside,' said the trans activist, a formerly married father of one. Pope John Paul II’s Polish diocese is embracing gender ideology, even going so far as to welcome a gender-confused “trans” activist into its synodal process.The Archdiocese of Krakow released its Report of Synodal Work, marking the conclusion of the first stage of the Second Pastoral Synod. Both were influenced by 54-year-old trans activist Maria Minakowska (born Marek Jerzy Minakowski). The document proposes creating pastoral “safe havens” for...

[Catholic Caucus] Synod reports call for ‘gender equality’ in Church governanceThe Synod documents emphasize the implementation of ‘gender equality’ and ‘co-responsibility’ in workplaces and the participation of consecrated laywomen in the election of bishops and chaplains.The Synod issued two new reports this week that include promoting “gender equality” across all positions within the Catholic Church.On September 8, the General Secretariat of the Synod published two final reports proposing changes to relations between bishops, consecrated religious, ecclesial associations and the Holy See, including a recommendation that diocesan faithful participate in preparing the reports bishops submit before their official visits to Rome.The...

[Catholic Caucus] They Won’t Let Bishop Schneider Offer the Latin Mass in St. Peter’s Cardinal Burke was allowed to celebrate the Latine Mass in St. Peter's Basilica for the Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage in 2025. For this year's event, Bishop Athanasius Schneider will celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass at St. Mary Major instead. Rome’s decision to deny him the Altar of the Chair raises uncomfortable questions about the Church’s current treatment of Catholics attached to Tradition.The Vatican’s move to deny Bishop Athanasius Schneider permission to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) in St. Peter’s Basilica for this year’s Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage...

[Catholic Caucus] Brazilian bishop’s Mass includes heretical creed featuring ‘goddess,’ ‘sexual diversity’ A Mass for Brazil’s ‘Cry of the Excluded’ event featured the radical ‘Creed of the Ecclesial Base Communities,’ which denounces ‘rules governing love’ and a ‘hierarchical Church.’A heterodox creed recited during the annual “Cry of the Excluded” Mass celebrated by Bishop José Valdeci Santos Mendes of Brejo, Maranhão, Brazil, last week, which featured leftist language, included a reference to a “God/Goddess.”As first reported by EWTN News, during the September 7 Mass (the video for which has since been deleted from YouTube), the “Creed of the Ecclesial Base Communities”...

Bishop Schneider: Synodality is a ‘code word to undermine Catholic doctrine’ Bishop Athanasius Schneider pointed out that the word ‘synodality’ is purposely ambiguous and is used in a 'cunning' attempt to promote moral relativism within the Church.Bishop Athanasius Schneider warned that “synodality” is a “cunning code word used to undermine Catholic doctrine.”In an interview published Thursday with AdVaticanum that discussed Our Lady’s title of Co-Redemptrix, the suppression of the Traditional Latin Mass, and interreligious contact, the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan gave his view on the meaning of “synodality.” Schneider suggested that the meaning of “synodality” has deliberately been kept...

[Catholic Caucus] Gaudium et Spes: The birth of the Conciliar Church of ManThe document repeatedly praises the modern world while claiming that the Church has 'profited' from humanity, as if the Mystical Body of Christ has nothing more to teach.On September 2, Leo XIV began a new series of catecheses on Gaudium et Spes, the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.Following his talks on Sacrosanctum Concilium, which focused on the liturgy, Leo is signaling his intention to galvanize the faithful to the false post-conciliar religion.His audience this week delivered few surprises and followed the...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Strickland: Why do Church leaders keep supporting LGBT agenda?Why do so many in the Church, even in the highest offices, refuse to name the sin of sodomy, instead dressing it up in words like 'hospitality'?Certainly Scripture condemns pride, injustice, and the neglect of the poor. The prophets make that abundantly clear. But Sacred Scripture also plainly presents Sodom as a city that had rejected God’s design for human sexuality and had embraced grave sexual immorality.For 2,000 years the Church has understood that lesson. The word “sodomy” comes from the city of Sodom and the story in the...

Dr. Kwasniewski: Worst crisis in Church history is happening right now It is manifestly the case that the modern(ist) crisis is far worse than all the earlier ones put together.On June 8, 2026, a journalist named Wouter J. Suenens published an article at The Catholic Herald entitled “The Traditional Latin Mass does not need the SSPX.” In this article he claimed that the crisis through which the Church is passing today is just one of many in her history, and not even the worst. On this basis he maintains that the Society of St. Pius X is guilty of poor...

[Catholic Caucus] An Interview with Don Pietro Leone in which he discusses his latest book: Vatican II and the Eclipse of God - A Critique of the Council 'In this final version I have been forced to level the charge of atheism against the Council'.CARL HEINRICH BLOCH - THE MOCKING OF CHRIST, 1880"Our Lord is attacked; eternal life is endangered. We have seen the consequences in these postconciliar years. An entirely reprehensible spirit of insubordination has entered the Vatican, a “fertility goddess” is venerated in St. Peter's. This belongs to a context and cannot be passed over in silence."Interview with...

[Catholic Caucus] NEW BOOK: Publication of 'Vatican II and The Eclipse of God. A Critique of the Council' by Don Pietro Leone Rorate Caeli is delighted to report that “Vatican II and the Eclipse of God” ‘A Critique of the Council’ by Don Pietro Leone has finally been published. Readers will recall that Rorate had the honour of posting instalments of this very important work over a period of two years. (See note)* Since then, the author has added further analysis to the original texts. Below is the link to Loreto Publications and a short presentation of the book. Readers...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Strickland asks whether Vatican II surrendered to modernism Bishop Joseph Strickland pointed out that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger once described Gaudium et Spes as a kind of ‘counter syllabus’ in opposition to Pope Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors. Bishop Joseph Strickland questioned in a recent video address whether the Second Vatican Council compromised with the modern world.Strickland highlighted the dangers of modernism as well as Pope St. Pius X’s warnings against this “synthesis of all heresies.” The bishop pointed out that in 1910 the saintly pope required priests, bishops, and others “entrusted with teaching the Catholic faith” to...

[Catholic Caucus] Latest Book by Fr. Claude Barthe Compares & Contrasts the Traditional & New Sacramental RitesIn 1969, A Short Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae was published with the signatures of two powerful cardinals, Bacci and Ottaviani. Nicknamed The Ottaviani Intervention, it quickly become a classic, and has never gone out of print. But... where was its companion volume? You know, the one about the other six sacraments? For, indeed, the reform of the Mass was accompanied by a profound overhaul of all the other sacraments—baptism, confirmation, marriage, holy orders, penance, and extreme unction (the last two renamed...

Newly Published Study of Vatican II Implementation Breaks New Ground in Historical Research, Answers Crucial QuestionsPeople today often ask questions like: “What in the world happened at the time of Vatican II, that the Church seemed in such an unholy hurry to change? Why were the changes so drastic and so sudden? What were the causes, the motives, the expectations, the assumptions about reform and its expected fruits? Who were the main actors? Was it planned out or random? Who benefited (cui bono)? How responsible were the bishops for it, versus the middle managers, versus the laity?” and so forth....