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[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Eleganti: Meetings with leftist celebrities are degrading the papacy Pope Leo XIV's 40-minute audience with the 'Godmother of Punk' reflects a troubling pattern of popes courting cultural elites while doctrinal clarity fades, Bishop Marian Eleganti warns.On July 31, 2026, Pope Leo XIV met with American rock musician, poet, and artist Patti Smith, known as the “Godmother of Punk,” during a 40-minute private audience at the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. Both are from Chicago. The meeting was attended by Father Antonio Spadaro. There are several official photos and a video of the encounter.This harmless encounter – I...

How to be a DhimmiIn late July, some 60,000 migrants surged into the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco. The migrants were mainly young males. And since 99 percent of Moroccans practice Islam, most were almost certainly Muslim. Ceuta is not a Spanish colony. It’s an “autonomous city” integral to the Spanish state, with Spanish sovereignty dating back to 1580. It’s thus a (hoped for) gateway to the European Union, and a priority target of “undocumented” immigration.Spanish police pushed most of the migrants back across the border. They left behind – as the Wall Street Journal noted –...

Pope Leo appoints pro-female ordination, pro-LGBT consultors to religious life dicasteryAmong the 15 new councilors are several figures who have publicly supported heterodox positions associated with the synodal reforms of Pope Francis. Pope Leo XIV has appointed new consultors to the Vatican’s religious life dicastery, including advocates of LGBT ideology and “women’s ordination,” greater liturgical experimentation, and structural changes to Church governance.On August 6, Pope Leo appointed 15 new consultors to the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, headed by Prefect Sister Simona Brambilla. The appointments include two bishops, five priests, two religious brothers, and...

[Catholic Caucus] Texas Bishop Expands Latin MassBishop Michael Sis of San Angelo, West Texas, will expand access to the traditional Latin Mass with a new monthly celebration at St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Midland, beginning August 30.Rev. Ryan Rojo, the diocese’s Vocations Director and Director of Seminarians, announced the development on X.com.The Mass will be celebrated on the last Sunday of each month at 3 p.m.Rev. Rojo promised that this is “just a beginning”: “The diocese discerns a path forward to provide for our people.”He added that other diocesan priests will learn to celebrate the Roman rite in the coming...

[Catholic Caucus] Leo XIV' New Consultors for Dicastery for Religious Life Are Liberal, Synodal "Reformers"On August 6, Pope Leo XIV appointed 15 new consultors to the Dicastery for Religious, headed by Prefect Sr Simona Brambilla. The new consultors comprise two bishops (Alfonso Vincenzo Amarante and Kevin Otieno Mwandha), five priests, including one abbot (Ignasi Fossas, Damián Astigueta, Maurizio Bevilacqua, Benjamin Earl and Flavien Mambueni), two religious brothers (Antoine Kazindu and Emili Turú), and six religious sisters (Chiara Lorenzato, Maria Nirmalini, María Rosaura González Casas, Mary Lembo, Patricia Murray and Maria do Disterro Rocha Santos).Leo XIV has again appointed liberal, synodal...

Indian Catholics remain jailed for defending parish from Hindu mob during MassA group of Catholics in India have been jailed for three months and were denied bail again this week after trying to stop Hindu activists from disrupting Holy Mass.Ten Catholics from the Bandaria parish in the Indian Diocese of Udaipur were denied bail again this week and remain incarcerated three months after being arrested and charged with wrongful restraint, illegal conversion, rioting, attempted murder, and breach of peace, after defending their Mass site from a group of Hindus who forced their way inside during Mass. Father Arvind Amliyar, the...

[Catholic Caucus] Letters from 22 women documenting Rupnik’s abuse add to allegationsOne former sister said the superior of the community had ‘forced’ the women to write letters to Fr. Marko Rupnik describing their relationship with him and what he had done to them as well as forgiving him.Previously undisclosed letters from 22 women alleging abuse by Father Marko Rupnik are part of the record of the ongoing canonical criminal trial of the disgraced priest.In the letters, “22 women described alleged spiritual, psychological and sexual abuse by Father Rupnik while he was their spiritual director,” OSV News reported Thursday. The letters...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop says Catholic Church must ‘offer refuge’ to ‘queer people in our congregations’The ‘Queer Commissioner of the German Bishops' Conference’ said parishes must become ‘safe places’ for ‘queer people,’ arguing the Church has fostered ‘prejudice, mistrust, and rejection.’ A German bishop has accused the Catholic Church of failing “queer people” by allowing “prejudice, mistrust,” and “rejection,” calling on the Church to “repent.”On August 2, Bishop Ludger Schepers, auxiliary bishop of Essen and the “Queer Commissioner of the German Bishops’ Conference,” made the criticism in a public statement published by German news outlet Kirche+Leben, one week after the attack...

Priest says migrants who swarmed Spanish city are ‘saints’Prominent Spanish priest Fr. Ángel García said the Moroccan migrants who stormed Spain’s border are ‘not causing any disturbances’ and downplayed the death and destruction due to the surge.Father Ángel García, the founder of the Messengers of Peace, told reporters that the mass influx of migrants who illegally crossed into Spanish territory from Morocco last week are “saints.”Speaking to reporters following a meeting with the mayor-president of the small, autonomous Spanish city of Ceuta, García called the 50,000–60,000 migrants who rushed into the Spanish territory between July 30–31 “saints,” per Spanish media....

Spanish Archdiocese Distances Itself After Priest Calls for Conversion of MoroccoThe Archdiocese of Pamplona and Tudela, Spain, has distanced itself on August 5 from comments by one of its priests after he called for the "reconquest of Morocco and its conversion to Christianity" following the invasion into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.In a statement, the archdiocese said Rev. Javier Aizpún's remarks were "strictly personal opinions" that "neither represent nor are shared in any way by this diocesan Church."The controversy stemmed from a post on X.com in which Aizpún, parish priest of San Juan Evangelista in Huarte and a canon of...

The U.S. Catholic bishops are getting ready a nationwide call to prayer and action, with an official launch date of Aug. 18, to mobilize Catholics to address the rising abortion rate and the increased availability of an abortion-inducing drug. "Every abortion involves the death of a child and harm to the mother. Now with easier access to abortion pills, the abortion rate is tragically climbing, along with increased health risks," Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, president of the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Bishop Daniel E. Thomas of Toledo, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop says ‘homosexuality is not a sin’ at pro-LGBT conferenceBp. Raúl Vera López told a pro-LGBT Catholic gathering in Mexico that homosexuality is ‘a thing of nature’ and called for LGBT-identifying Catholics to 'exercise leadership' in the Church.TORREÓN, Mexico (LifeSiteNews) — A Mexican Catholic bishop told a pro-LGBT gathering that homosexuality “is not a sin” and declared that “without the LGBT community, the Church is not complete.”From July 30 to August 2, in Torreón, northern Mexico, the Fourth National Meeting of Red Católica Arcoíris México – a gathering of nearly 100 representatives from local pro-LGBT groups – took...

Has Leo gone TOO FAR? Pope Leo calls mosque 'holy place of God'Pope Leo visited a mosque and called it a “holy place of God.” Can you imagine Pope Benedict saying that? Pope Pius XI? The question writes itself: Has the papacy finally gone too far?John-Henry Westen examines a growing pattern that has left traditional Catholics stunned. The same pope who participated in a Pachamama ritual in 1995 now calls a mosque, a place that denies the divinity of Christ, a holy place of God. The same pope who walked a pregnant migrant through an open border symbol at Lampedusa...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Schneider: ‘Nothing more dangerous for religion’ than liturgical ‘interference’The Church's 'apostolic rule' is that 'antiquity was retained, novelty was rejected,' according to Bishop Schneider.Bishop Athanasius Schneider warned in a sermon this weekend that “nothing is more dangerous for a religion” than “interference with the liturgy.”The auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, defended the importance of upholding the Church’s sacred tradition, including its traditional liturgy, during a visit to the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest in Limerick, Ireland.He emphasized that it is a perpetual precept of the Catholic Church to remain faithful to its tradition, both “doctrinally...

WINTER HAVEN, Fla. — A Winter Haven pastor is facing more than 20 criminal charges, including allegations involving a minor as well as four felony counts accusing him of engaging in sexual activity without disclosing his HIV-positive status, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Grady Judd is scheduled to hold a 10 a.m. news conference Tuesday to release additional details surrounding the arrest of 42-year-old Timothy Chaneyfield, whom investigators identified as the pastor of St. James United American Free Will Baptist Church in Winter Haven. The charges announced by the Sheriff’s Office include three counts of lewd battery...

Canada has long prided itself on being a nation of tolerance, diversity, and freedom. Yet one of its latest military directives raises a troubling question: How tolerant is a society that increasingly excludes Christianity from public life?The Canadian Armed Forces has reportedly issued guidance instructing military chaplains to avoid using religious-specific language--including references to God--during public ceremonies and official events. The irony is difficult to ignore. Chaplains exist precisely because they are ministers of faith. Asking them to leave God out of public prayers is rather like asking a physician to avoid mentioning medicine.Even more striking is the fact that...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Leo approved Cardinal Roche’s document supporting Latin Mass restrictions: report A Spanish outlet reported that Pope Leo requested a document affirming Pope Francis’ claim that the Novus Ordo is ‘the sole expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.’Pope Leo XIV supports the Latin Mass-suppressing document Traditionis Custodes and specifically requested Cardinal Arthur Roche’s document on the liturgy backing Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) restrictions, according to a Spanish publication.La Razón reported Sunday that it has been “able to confirm” Cardinal Roche distributed this year’s consistory document on the liturgy “at the request of Leo XIV and,...

[Catholic Caucus] More Extraordinary Gaslighting: Cardinal Roche on the Traditional Latin Mass Yet AgainAn analysis of the Cardinal’s spurious claims made in the new London Tablet interviewVATICAN CITY, 31 July 2026 — Repeating a lie may convince a man of what he wishes to believe, but it doesn’t make it any more true.In a new widely circulated interview with The Tablet, Cardinal Arthur Roche, Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, has once again claimed that the traditional Roman liturgy is readily available for Catholics who wish to attend it, and that if anyone...

Florida AG warns bishops: Catholic schools could lose vouchers over COVID mandatesFlorida Attorney General James Uthmeier says Catholic schools must honor parents’ religious objections to mandated shots or risk losing access to state scholarship dollars.Florida Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier warned the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops July 31 that Catholic schools could jeopardize their eligibility for state-funded scholarships and vouchers by denying religious exemptions from vaccination requirements.“Ironically, they won’t offer religious exemptions as prescribed by state law,” Uthmeier wrote in an announcement of his letter to the bishops. “This is troubling and may disqualify them from state scholarships and...

Catholic Star Wars: The SSPX Excommunication as You’ve Never Seen ItOne of the year's biggest Catholic controversies in a witty, self-deprecating parody (think exiles, empires, liturgical battles, etc.). Whether you agree or disagree, this take explores why so many faithful Catholics feel like they're the rebels in their own Church. A fortnight ago, I attended the illicit episcopal consecrations in Écône to bid farewell to the SSPX as newly separated brethren (again). I did so because I was in the neighbourhood and I could; more so as an observer than participant, because I was loth to incur the wrath and...