Free Republic

The SSPX Excommunication Reveals the Synodal Church’s Final Break with Catholic TraditionIf the Synodal Church is the future Rome now demands, what becomes of immutable Catholic truth? The Vatican's punishment of the Society of St. Pius X marks something far more significant than a canonical dispute over bishops. It reveals a Church increasingly unwilling to tolerate Catholics who simply hold fast to what the Church always taught.In her recent Substack article, A Textbook Case of the Displacement of Judgment: The Diocese of Cubao on the SSPX, an author writing by the name of Katharia evaluated a pastoral letter from the...

‘It’s a trap!’ How the Latin Mass will be used to domesticate Trads in the Synodal ChurchOnce everyone is put into their cage, a hybrid Novus Ordo Mass in Latin could be announced.Editor’s note: This essay is reprinted from the Radical Fidelity blog on Substack.Long before the SSPX consecrations and the consequent excommunications, I and others — unlike Trad. Inc. — warned with monotonous regularity that the overarching issue is not the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) alone, but the new Vatican II religion issuing from Rome.We have stated repeatedly that there could be no compromise over the liturgy while adhering...

A systematic dissection of the Vatican’s legal framework reveals what independent canonists and traditionalists view as a deep-seated crisis of consistency within modern Catholic governance. When the theological and legal arguments used against the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) are laid bare alongside the treatment of the Eastern Orthodox amd protestants, the structural defense provided by Rome (that it is merely maintaining public order and guarding the sacred nature of the sacramental contract) it effectively implodes under the weight of its own internal contradictions. What remains is a system that appears to onlookers not as a defense of immutable...

Stonewall Pride Mass draws Catholics for message of faith, inclusion, hopeWorshippers pray at a Pride Mass organized by Out at St. Paul's, the LGBTQ+ ministry of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan, at the Stonewall National Monument in Christopher Park in New York, steps away from the Stonewall Inn, June 25, 2026.Surrounded by rainbow flags and packed shoulder to shoulder with more than 150 worshippers, Christopher Park in New York's Greenwich Village became an open-air sanctuary at the start of New York's Pride weekend. Catholics, allies and visitors gathered for the 2026 Annual Pride Mass on June 25 at the...

Cardinal Robert McElroy is offering a different explanation for his decision to remove Monsignor Stephen Rossetti as an exorcist for the Archdiocese of Washington, saying the move was not prompted by the priest’s controversial comments about UFOs but by concerns over the public nature of his ministry. According to LifeSiteNews, McElroy addressed the issue during a June 29 interview with Catholic News Service at the Pontifical North American College, which was published on July 8. The cardinal said his decision “wasn’t touching on the question of UFOs,” despite earlier statements from the archdiocese that cited Rossetti’s remarks about UFOs as...

Homosexual Jesuit praises Pope Leo for continuing Francis’ LGBT support'One of the first things Pope Leo did was he said, ‘No, I have no intention of going backwards when it comes to the LGBTQ community,' Fr. Bryan Massingale said.An avowed homosexual Jesuit priest who is known for his pro-LGBTQ activism within the Catholic Church praised Pope Leo XIV for continuing Pope Francis’ “welcoming overtures and advances” to homosexuals, lesbians, transgender and non-binary people. Fr. Bryan Massingale, a theology professor at Jesuit-run Fordham University in New York City who is proudly openly gay, said in a recent video interview that he...

Priest in Cdl. Tobin’s diocese urges Church to ‘lift up LGBTQ people’ after celebrating ‘Pride Mass’Father Alexander Santora, pastor of Our Lady of Grace Church in Hoboken, New Jersey, ignored Catholic teaching on homosexuality while encouraging the Catholic Church to embrace 'pride.'Father Alexander M. Santora, the pastor of Our Lady of Grace Church in Hoboken, New Jersey, who recently celebrated the parish’s ninth annual blasphemous “Pride Mass,” wrote an article reflecting on how his parish has “lifted up” so-called “LGBT Catholics,” encouraging other parishes to follow suit.In a June 18 op-ed for the Daily Journal headlined “My church lifts up...

Your plastic driver's license is getting a digital upgrade. Twenty states and Puerto Rico now offer some kind of digital driver’s license. The technology allows you to share a minimum level of information to prove identity by tapping your phone on a reader or scanning a QR code . Some states allow digital IDs and drivers licenses to be added directly into your mobile wallet. Others offer a state-backed mobile app. But privacy experts have concerns around digital security and government data collection, warning that frictionless identification could lead to things like increased surveillance pricing. PBS News’ Tim McPhillips spoke...

Eight years after Vatican-China deal, persecution of faithful Catholics intensifiesThe Vatican's secret deal with China has empowered the Chinese Communist Party's war on religious freedom that Rome needs to address.“Nobody has any illusion about the Chinese Communists Party’s determination to eliminate all religion.”~Bishop James E. Walsh, Maryknoll Missionary to China, 1948, imprisoned for 12 years by the CCP.(Elizabeth Yore) — The Patriotic Chinese Catholic Association was established in 1957 by the authority of Mao Zedong, and under the control of the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the CCP with the goal to bring Catholicism into alignment...

Austrian diocese with ‘Rainbow Ministry’ officially supports LGBT ‘pride’ paradeThe Diocese of Gurk-Klagenfurt openly expressed its support for the Pride Parade in Villach, which took place on July 4.An Austrian Catholic diocese has officially supported a local LGBT “pride” parade.“On the eve of the Pride Parade in downtown Villach, the team from the diocesan Rainbow Ministry hosted a prayer service at St. Michael’s Chapel in Villach Sankt Martin,” the diocese said on its website.During the service, it was emphasized that “You are you!”, implying that no repentance was needed from people who engage in same-sex relations or who identify as...

Écône: A Sign of Contradiction? - by Côme de Prévigny Écône: A Sign of Contradiction?by Côme de Prévigny*It has been repeated with evident satisfaction over the past few days: "The matter is settled. The schism is consummated. There is nothing more to expect from the SSPX." Very well. Granted. We should have turned the page by now. And yet the file stubbornly refuses to close and continues to occupy a prominent place in the news.The extraordinary shockwave that has shaken social media and Catholic circles reveals, on the contrary, an affair far from resolved. Episcopal consecrations without a pontifical mandate...

Police Confronts UK Street Preacher for THIS 😱🤯‼️

Priest attends brother’s homosexual ‘wedding,’ calls it ‘amazing,’ ‘special’Fr. Rico Passero, the pastor of a Catholic church in Ontario, said that he ‘MC’d the reception’ and praised what he called ‘an EPIC wedding weekend.’A Canadian Catholic priest from Ontario posted on social media that he attended his brother’s homosexual “wedding,” which he described as “amazing” and “EPIC.”Fr. Rico Passero, who is listed as the pastor at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Grimsby, Ontario, made the Facebook post.“What an EPIC wedding weekend last week. It took me some time to finally receive some amazing photos from the Midnight in Eden wedding...

Pope Leo’s newspaper publishes article claiming ‘there is no devil,’ original sin in Book of GenesisL'Osservatore Romano published an article by theologian Marinella Perroni claiming Genesis contains no devil and no original sin, arguing that tradition exegesis ‘is reduced to sex.’A new essay in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano examining the Book of Genesis argues that the narrative does not deal primarily with the devil and original sin, in contrast with the traditional interpretation.On July 4, L’Osservatore Romano – the official newspaper of the Holy See – published an article by Italian theologian Marinella Perroni, according to whom in the...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Leo appoints German bishop who endorsed homosexual ‘blessings,’ claimed sodomy ‘not sinful’Pope Leo named Bishop Christian Würtz the new ordinary of Eichstätt, though Würtz approved documents of the heretical Synodal Way that denied Catholic teaching on homosexuality and other issues. Pope Leo XIV on Tuesday named Monsignor Christian Würtz, an auxiliary bishop in the Diocese of Freiburg, who has a history of supporting homosexual “blessings” and contradicting the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, as the next bishop of Eichstätt.Würtz, 55, was among the 38 German bishops in 2023 who voted in favor of a document endorsing “blessings” for...

Reports indicate regular or increased attendance at SSPX chapels worldwideSnapshots of Mass attendance on Sunday indicate that the Vatican’s threat of excommunication to the faithful who ‘adhere’ to the SSPX ‘schism’ did not discourage attendance at its chapels.Multiple reports indicate that since Cardinal Víctor Manuel “Tucho” Fernández issued a decree of excommunication against the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) for their episcopal consecrations, attendance at SSPX chapels has remained steady or increased.Re-posting pictures taken outside SSPX chapels this past Sunday as proof, the Mason-Dixon Latin Mass Society shared on Sunday that “SSPX chapels today are standing room only” and...

Cardinal, bishops support expanding Latin Mass access after SSPX consecrationsCardinal Kurt Koch said that ‘we have to rethink’ Pope Francis’ restrictions on the Latin Mass, and a bishop in Norway vowed to continue and possibly expand the TLM in his diocese.Since the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) consecrated four bishops without a papal mandate and the subsequent decree of excommunication by the Holy See, some Catholic bishops and a cardinal have said that the Vatican should rethink the restrictions of Traditionis Custodes, while at least one ordinary has promised to expand access to the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) in...

“We know how to get through this.”Écône Diary: Thursday 2nd July, the Feast of the Visitation The momentous day of Wednesday, 1st July, the Feast of the Precious Blood, concluded with Second Pontifical Vespers of the Precious Blood of Jesus and Benediction. The American Rector of Saint Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Virginia, the newly-consecrated Bishop Michael Goldade, gave a short sermon in which he shared how touched the newly-consecrated bishops were by the fidelity, prayers and sacrifices of the faithful, clergy and religious.After invoking the life-giving abundance of the Catholic Church, he continued:Today we see such wreckage. If the Catholic...

A Lifelong Catholic's Appeal to Bishops: Aren't We Trying to Square the CircleA Catholic from New Zealand sent a letter to the bishops of his country some time ago, hoping for a response. Having received nothing, not so much as a polite acknowledgment, he sent the letter to me and asked if I might publish it. I am pleased to do so, as this humble layman speaks for a million others who could have written the same thing. Until the bishops choose to unstop their ears and listen to the cry of the poor, the Church’s decline will be credited...

Sir Keir Starmer announced in September that all UK citizens are to have mandatory ID to prove their right to live and work in the country. People in India, who have had digital IDs for years, tell Sky's Sam Coates how they work their country.