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Two religious leaders plan to join a lawsuit filed by a synagogue in Boynton Beach, Florida against a state law banning abortion at 15 weeks gestation. The two leaders, one Unitarian and one Buddhist, will argue that the law violates the state Constitution’s right to privacy and freedom of religion (via NBC): The retired Unitarian Rev. Harris Riordan and the Buddhist minister Maya Malay confirmed they will file a lawsuit in state court next week, echoing arguments from Rabbi Barry Silver. Silver intends to file his own amended complaint next week along with Rabbi Arthur Wascow, the founder and director...

Archdiocese publishes synod reportThe Archdiocese of Louisville’s report on the local synod listening process — part of Pope Francis’ Synod on Synodality — is now available at www.archlou.org.The report, “Journeying Together,” reflects themes prevalent in church and society, such as issues related to clericalism, the experience of LGBTQ+ Catholics, the engagement of young people in church and polarization in society.“This synthesis reveals pain and challenges within our Church along with opportunities for healing and growth,” writes Archbishop Shelton J. Fabre in a cover letter that accompanies the document. “It also reflects the great enthusiasm with which participants entered into this...

Guest article: “The Old Liturgy and the New Despisers of the Council” The following article was written by an anonymous diocesan priest in Germany and published under the title "Die alte Liturgie und die neuen Konzilsverächter: Als Kardinal Frings fassungslos war" at Katholisches.info. It partly draws its content from my article at OnePeterFive, "Daringly Balanced on One Point: The New Papal Letter on Liturgy" of June 29, with much additional valuable content. It has been translated for Rorate.--PAKA few days ago, in a blistering article, Mr. Felix Neumann, editor of a radical modernist website, attacked those who remain faithful...

NEW YORK – In a June 23 letter to Congress four U.S. bishop conference chairmen commended the Senate for passing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act regarding gun violence and urged them to continue to work together to “confront a culture of violence.” It’s the second letter U.S. bishops have sent to Congress on the topic in 20 days, after mass shootings in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas; and Tulsa, Oklahoma resulted in 36 deaths, and renewed a national conversation on U.S. gun laws and culture. Concerning the bipartisan legislation, the letter identified several key provisions that “particularly heartened” the bishops....

[Episcopal News Service] The U.S. Supreme Court on June 24 upheld a Mississippi law that outlaws abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, effectively overruling Roe v. Wade, the almost 50-year-old opinion that guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote, in his 79-page majority opinion. In the past, the Supreme Court has held that the “due process” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees “some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution,” Alito wrote, “but any such right must be...

Buddhist and Catholic, priests and theologians practice ‘double belonging’‘Religions need each other to understand themselves,’ said one Buddhist-Catholic practitioner.(RNS) — In a dimly lit Roman Catholic church in Manhattan, a dozen or so congregants sit as the Rev. Michael Holleran leads them in contemplative prayer. There is some singing, and some prayers said aloud throughout the hour-and-a-half-long worship service. Every so often Holleran rings a bell three times, meant to awaken worshippers from “sleep and into a consciousness of God’s presence.”But the core of the session is the repetition of a word of each participant’s own choosing — many choose...

[Catholic Caucus] Francis Runs Away From Next ConsistoryFrancis will make an August 28 visit to L'Aquila, an unknown city, 90 km north-east of Rome, for the city’s annual Celebration of Forgiveness that has only local importance.The baffling trip takes place one day after the August 27 creation of 21 homosexualists as Cardinals when he was scheduled to encounter the cardinals of the whole world (August 28-29). For Francis who is praising dialogue more than practicing it, this would have been the first such meeting in seven years.It's evident that Francis wants to avoid the meeting because the damage he has...

Neo-Cardinals Remind Viganò of Caligula’s HorsePreviously, Cardinals were chosen for their virtues, personal holiness, erudition, wisdom, and fidelity, Archbishop Viganò wrote in a June 2 statement.But for Francis, he said, appointing cardinals is like filling civil positions. Francis’ selection criteria are “corruptibility, blackmailing, and belonging to a political group.”Viganò explains that corrupt leaders require corrupt subordinates because their collaboration is based on complicity and lack of moral concerns when carrying out orders.“An authority based on blackmailing surrounds itself with blackmailable people” with the goal that next conclave will not elect a pope but “a vaccine salesman or a propagandist for...

[Catholic Caucus] The Council and the Eclipse of God by Don Pietro Leone: CHAPTER VIII: THE COUNCIL’S VIEW OF MAN IN HIMSELF (part 1) We have divided Chapter VIII into three parts, the text being exceedingly rich in content: part 1 – The Nature of Man and The Anguish of Man; part 2 – The Dignity of Man; part 3 – The Deification of Man. With the reading of this Chapter it seems we have arrived at a watershed moment. In this analysis of the Council’s documents it becomes clearer that there was deliberate intent (whether malicious or philosophically...

[Catholic Caucus] The 'message' of McElroy's red hatPapal advisor Fr. Antonio Spadaro said Sunday morning that the pope’s appointment of San Diego’s Bishop Robert McElroy as a member of the College of Cardinals is “a strong and clear message for the Church in the United States.” The appointment came as a surprise, apparently even to McElroy, who said in a May 29 statement that he was “stunned” by the papal nod.Indeed, the cardinal-elect is not the metropolitan of a major archiepiscopal see, nor the prefect of a Vatican dicastery. Francis has previously appointed as cardinals the bishops of smaller sees,...

[Catholic Caucus] More Anti-Catholics Receive Red HatFrancis announced on May 29 that he will create 21 new cardinals at an August 27 Consistory.This will bring the number of electors in the College of Cardinals to 131 (before: 117). Among those awarded is the extremist Archbishop Roche and the homosex-activist McElroy (San Diego).All 21 New CardinalsArchbishop Arthur Roche, 72, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine WorshipArchbishop Lazzaro You Heung sik, 70, Prefect of the Congregation for the ClergyArchbishop Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, LC, 77, Governatorate of Vatican City StateMarseille Archbishop Jean-Marc Aveline, 63, FranceEkwulobia Bishop Peter Okpaleke, 59, Nigeria [formerly in Ahiara...

Francis Urges ‘Visible Unity’ With AnglicansFormer queen's chaplain: Rhetoric of 'ecumenical flattery' won't workVATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) - Pope Francis has reiterated his call for union with Anglicans, despite irreconcilable differences between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion on women's ordination and same-sex marriage. Pope Francis meets members of ARCIC on Friday The pontiff told members of the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission on Friday that "visible unity between us" was the goal Jesus "desires and indicates to us," and such unity "is a unity to be welcomed with humility" and "as a grace of the Spirit." "Ecumenical dialogue is a...

[Catholic Caucus] "In black and white": Archbishop Aguer on tradition versus relativism"In black and white": Archbishop Aguer on tradition versus relativismPublished at InfoCatólica on March 30, 2022. Translated for Rorate.The title that heads this note does not refer to the cinema before the invention of technicolor, but to the astonishing criticism of current ecclesiastical officialdom that is directed against the members of the Church who love the great Catholic Tradition, and who recognize that homogeneity is what should characterize the development of ecclesial realities: dogma, liturgy, law, institutions. I have often quoted St. Vincent of Lerins and the formulas...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinals, theologians gather to plan how US church can support Pope FrancisCardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago celebrates Mass March 25 in Chicago. Cupich was among about 70 cardinals, bishops and theologians gathered privately March 25-26 for conversations focused on how the U.S. church can better support Pope Francis. (NCR screengrab)Chicago — A group of about 70 cardinals, bishops and theologians gathered privately for two days here from March 25-26 for conversations focused on how the U.S. Catholic Church can better support the agenda of Pope Francis.Through a series of keynote presentations and panel discussions centered on tracing the...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope recalls mother’s initial disapproval of his Jesuit vocationCWN Editor's Note: On March 25, Pope Francis received 80 parents of Spanish Jesuits and recalled that “although initially his mother did not share his vocational choice, she wanted to accompany him along with his father on the long journey made by bus,” the Vatican newspaper reported. The future Pontiff was an archdiocesan seminarian went he entered the Jesuit order in 1958. In his talk, the Pope encouraged parents to welcome their children’s choices. The Pope also referred to three of the Society’s superiors-general—Father Wlodimir Ledóchowski (who governed the Society...

Jesuit Cardinal Hollerich of Luxembourg and Bishop Bätzing of Limburg have both called for changes to the Church’s teaching on homosexuality in recent interviews.VATICAN CITY — Cardinal George Pell has called on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) to publicly reprimand two of Europe’s most senior bishops for what he said was their “wholesale and explicit rejection” of the Church’s teaching on sexual ethics. In a statement released March 15, Cardinal Pell asked the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation to “intervene and pronounce judgment” on comments made by Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the relator general of the Vatican Synod on...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Brandmüller: Demands of German Synodal Way ‘Clearly Contradict the Catholic Faith’In a March 3 essay entitled ‘Quo Vadis, Germania,’ Cardinal Walter Brandmüller explained what he saw as the historical ‘roots of the crisis’ VATICAN CITY — The Synodal Way of the Church in Germany is on the “wrong track that is lost in nothingness,” rooted in the heresy of modernism that theologians have yet to properly address, and is destined to fail, Cardinal Walter Brandmüller has said.In a commentary published March 3 on the German-speaking website Kath.net and titled “Quo vadis, Germania” (“Where are you going, Germany?”),...

Despite Age, Surgery, the Pope is Still Energetic, His Nephew SaysROME (CNS) — Pope Francis will turn 85 years old Dec. 17. And according to his nephew, Jesuit Father José Luis Narvaja, he is still rarin’ to go.“I see him doing very well, with so much strength; really, he doesn’t seem to be 85,” the Argentine priest told the Italian Catholic magazine, Famiglia Cristiana, for its Dec.12 issue.Father Narvaja, who is the son of the pope’s youngest sister, the late Marta Regina Bergoglio, said he visited his uncle, the pope, right after his colon surgery in July. Even then, “he...

In a gathering at First Unitarian Church of Dallas, faith leaders with Just Texas announced Wednesday (Aug. 25) that 25 churches had achieved the Reproductive Freedom Congregations designation since first launching the effort in 2016. Another 70 are in process.Clergy members hold hands during the blessing of a Whole Woman's Health clinic in Austin, Texas. Participants included the Rev. Jim Rigby of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, from center left in black; the Rev. Katey Zeh, CEO of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice; and the Rev. Mark Skrabacz, retired from San Gabriel UU Fellowship - Georgetown. Photo courtesy...

Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. ( Jude 3-4)The Church has always come under intense attack since her inception. Those attacks come, both from without, in the...