Free Republic

REVEALED: How Leo XIV presents Vatican II as a rupture with the Catholic pastLeo XIV’s presentation of the nature of the Catholic Church is often difficult, and sometimes impossible, to reconcile with what the Church has always taught about herself.Earlier this year, Leo XIV began “a new cycle of catechesis which will be dedicated to Vatican Council II and a rereading of its Documents.” [1] This weekly catechesis, delivered at the Wednesday audiences, will, he said, be a “valuable opportunity to rediscover the beauty and the importance of this ecclesial event.” [2]Between January 14 and February 11, Leo XIV provided...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Marx implements Fiducia Supplicans ‘blessings’ for ‘couples of all gender identitiesMarx is calling on priests and full-time staff in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising to implement his ‘blessing’ guidelines for homosexuals, gender-confused people, and the divorced and ‘remarried.’Following Pope Francis’ Fiducia Supplicans, Cardinal Reinhard Marx has introduced heterodox guidelines for the “blessing” of homosexual and other “couples” in sinful relationships in his archdiocese.According to a report by Die Tagespost, Marx has called on priests and full-time staff in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising to implement the controversial guidelines “Segen gibt der Liebe Kraft,” which allows...

<p>On April 16, during the visit of Pope Leo XIV to Bamenda, Cameroon, Fon Fru Asaah Angwafor IV, the tribal leader of the Mankon community, spoke about polygamy. He made the remarks during an interreligious peace meeting in the cathedral.</p>

Italian bishop backs imam’s presentation of Islam inside Catholic parish churchArchbishop Giovanni Intini attended an April 15 event at an Italian parish where local Imam Khaled Bouchelaghem delivered what journalist Andrea Zambrano called an ‘Islamic catechism. An imam delivered a presentation of the Islamic faith inside a Catholic parish church in Brindisi, Italy, with the participation of the local bishop.On April 15, the parish of San Lorenzo in Brindisi, southern Italy, hosted an event titled “Do You Know Islam? Let us explore together the pillars, the meaning of life, and the celebrations of the Islamic faith,” in which Imam Khaled...

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...

[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] 28,000 German Catholics sign petition against pro-LGBT school curriculum endorsed by bishops German Catholics have handed over a petition with 28,000 signatures demanding the retraction of pro-LGBT guidelines for Catholic schools endorsed by the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK).The Catholic initiative Certamen launched a petition in response to the heterodox document called “Created, Redeemed, and Loved: Visibility and Recognition of the Diversity of Sexual Identities in Schools,” published by the DBK last year. The petition calls for the document’s withdrawal and has garnered 28,000 signatures, and was handed over to Bishop Heinrich Timmerevers last Sunday. Timmerevers serves as chairman...

[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] The structure of a ‘Synodal Church’ would cause a definitive rupture: here’s whyChanging the structure of the Church to a synodal model would shift its guidance from the Holy Spirit to a mere natural basis.Successive disturbing news filtering from the Vatican causes observers to paraphrase the saying of the Bard of Avon: “There is something rotten in the state of… the Vatican.” Cardinal Parolin’s recent refusal to join President Trump’s Board of Peace is very revealing. His rejection is in line with the goal of present leaders in the Vatican to reorganize the structure of the Church along...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Leo’s silence on the LGBT agenda is fueling sexual revolution in the ChurchPope Leo XIV’s public affirmations of marriage contrast with private audiences and appointments that embolden advocates of changing Church teaching on sexual morality.Editor’s note: In Part 5 of his essay, Father Enoch relates more recent developments regarding the promotion of the homosexual agenda within the Church and concludes his essay. Click here for Part 1, here for Part 2, here for Part 3, and here for Part 4.To purchase his book The Trojan Horse, click here.(LifeSiteNews) — On this same issue of homosexuality as presented...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Leo XIV protects Francis’s legacy in key Vatican office overseeing appointment of bishopsBy retaining Francis-era prelates in the Dicastery for Bishops and elevating Sr. Simona Brambilla, Pope Leo is continuing the trajectory of his predecessor in shaping Church leadership.Pope Leo XIV has appointed Sr. Simona Brambilla as a member of the Dicastery for Bishops, and confirmed a very broad roster of cardinals and prelates elevated under Pope Francis.On February 14, the Pope appointed Sr. Simona Brambilla, M.C., who serves as prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, as a member...

[Catholic/Anglican Caucus] Fr. James Martin praises Pope Leo for celebrating Mass with altar girlsMartin’s claim that it is un-controversial to have female altar servers is contradicted by many arguments, including irrefutable theological principles and practical considerations.Dissident Jesuit priest James Martin has praised Pope Leo XIV for including two female altar servers at a Mass he celebrated at a parish in Rome this past weekend.“The use of female altar servers has proven controversial in some US dioceses, and among some bishops, but, apparently, not in the Diocese of Rome or for its bishop,” Martin said on social media Monday.Martin’s remarks come...

[Catholic Caucus] Leo XIV Approves Beatification Process for Bishop who Allowed Indigenous Youths to Touch his Private PartsHis diary celebrates “blessed nudism,” recounts sleeping naked beside adolescents, and normalizes sexualized touching as “natural curiosity” — yet Leo still advances his cause.Venerable by decree, scandal by his own penOn 22 May 2025, Leo XIV authorized the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints to promulgate a decree recognizing the “offering of life” of Alejandro Labaka Ugarte, Capuchin, Apostolic Vicar of Aguarico, killed in Ecuador in 1987. That authorization is exactly what moves a cause forward in the Church’s official machinery, placing the...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Eleganti urges Church leaders to ‘admit their own failures since Vatican II’Pope Leo XIV has already celebrated the very changes of Vatican II that Bishop Eleganti has lamented: those of the liturgy and of ecumenism.Bishop Marian Eleganti exhorted the Church and Pope Leo XIV to “finally admit their own failures since the Second Vatican Council,” including those of the Novus Ordo Mass, and of ecumenism.In an exclusive statement to LifeSiteNews, Eleganti returned to the last point of a recent statement in which he said that the faithful who “criticize the horizontalism and anthropocentrism in the Novus Ordo...

[Catholic Caucus] Letter to Pope Leo XIV: How Can You Embrace All Christians Except the Society of St. Pius X?As you know, one of the foundations of the Synodal Church is an inclusivity that embraces all Christians. But if the Synodal Church accepts all Christians, how can it also decide to cast off the SSPX if it consecrates bishops to continue its work?Your Holiness,God is in charge of His Church and will always provide for those who truly want to serve Him as faithful Catholics. As such, although we write with concern about the recent news from Cardinal Víctor Manuel...

[Catholic Caucus] The Long Shadow of Vatican II: Ambiguity as Ecclesial CancerOn February 8, Bishop Bernard Fellay of the Society of Saint Pius X delivered a sermon in which he spoke of the necessity for the Society to consecrate new bishops. The purpose of this piece is not to address the merits or challenges of that decision, but rather to focus on some of the problems he identified as plaguing the Church today and how these flow from a reading of the Second Vatican Council that has led to profound confusion—confusion that was aggravated by Pope Francis. The Second Vatican...

[Catholic Caucus] Since 1988, Who Changed—Rome or the SSPX?Have Rome or the SSPX actually changed since the 1988 episcopal consecrations—or has only one side moved? This in-depth analysis compares Archbishop Lefebvre’s unwavering view of immutable Tradition with Rome’s evolving theology on synodality, moral teaching, and “living tradition,” raising a question every serious Catholic must confront.Between now and the eventual consecration of bishops for the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), there will be various newsworthy developments, and even more speculation about possible developments, much of which will turn out to be incorrect. As interesting as all of that will surely...

Guest Article: The Crisis of Modern EcumenismThe modern ecumenical movement, particularly in its post-conciliar manifestation, has adopted a dangerous illusion: that the various Christian denominations represent equally valid paths to God, differing merely in accidental rather than essential characteristics. This irenic approach, pursued with increasing fervour since the Second Vatican Council, fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the Church established by Christ; the Catholic Church, built sub Petro et cum Petro. Pope Pius XI, in his 1928 encyclical Mortalium Animos, provided a prophetic critique of this very tendency, warning against a false irenicism that would compromise the integrity of Catholic...

[Catholic Caucus] How the Church CHANGED overnight: controversy of Vatican IIFr. Charles Murr opens up about the spiritual and institutional unraveling that followed the Second Vatican Council, recalling how ambiguity, failed leadership, and compromises with modern ideologies destabilized the Church from within. He argues the true crisis came not from the Council’s texts but from their misinterpretation and misuse by poorly formed clergy. The aftermath of Humanae Vitae, he says, marked a collapse in episcopal authority, as public dissent went unpunished and relativism infiltrated moral theology. Liturgical experimentation and the loss of sacred discipline further unmoored Catholics from tradition. Fr....