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Remembering John Paul II's angry outburst during World Pride 2000The Vatican has not changed one iota of its formal teaching on the immorality of homosexual acts.But the Bishop of Rome's attitude towards gays and lesbians has taken a 180 degree turn since the election of Pope Francis in 2013.With just a few words -- "Who am I to judge?" -- the first pope to be born in the New World added another verse to "Born This Way", the 2011 hit single by Lady Gaga!And since Francis made that now-famous remark, doctrinal hardliners within the Church and other social conservatives (and...

Bishop Schneider: Pachamama worship in Rome was ‘prepared by Assisi meetings’ These words are helpful in light of the new papal encyclical on ‘fraternity.’ October 6, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – In a recent interview, Bishop Athanasius Schneider discussed the link between the inter-religious meetings that have taken place since 1986 with the active participation of Popes in Assisi and the worship of the Pachamama statues in the Vatican Gardens in the presence of Pope Francis. While the latter is worse – since the idolatry took place in the presence of a Pope – the prelate explained, the multiple inter-religious gatherings in...

Pompeo Shames Francis Citing John Paul II Vatican mute on China at religious freedom symposium ROME (ChurchMilitant.com) - In a feat of consummate diplomatic éclat, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo chastened Pope Francis on China, referring repeatedly to the "bold moral witness" of Pope John Paul II against communism.  Pompeo meets Italy's prime minister Giuseppe Conte in Rome "Every serious scholar of the Cold War now acknowledges that Pope John Paul II played a pivotal role in igniting the revolution that brought down the Iron Curtain," Pompeo declared, addressing the symposium on Advancing and Defending International Religious Freedom Through...

[Catholic Caucus] No More Hero Popes: New Allegations That Benedict XVI Failed to Properly Address High-Ranking Vatican Abuser Growing up during the pontificate of John Paul II, it was easy to fall in love with the figure of the pope. His warm, sincere smile, his grandfatherly presence, his constant words of encouragement, and his admonitions to create a culture of life were all extremely attractive to a young, conservative Catholic like me.My pastor, a kind, elderly man (may he rest in peace) who incorporated great reverence into his Masses at an otherwise run-of-the-mill post-conciliar parish, sent me to World Youth...

[Catholic Caucus] Meet the new faculty at the John Paul II Institute Those who are dismayed by the dramatic transformation of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Rome can find no comfort in the newest faculty appointments. Longtime faculty members such as Livio Melina and Stanislaw Grygiel have been fired and the Institute’s mission has been redefined under the leadership of Archbishop Paglia, the new Grand Chancellor. Fr. Maurizio Chiodi has joined the faculty this fall. He’s scheduled to teach a seminar called “Conscience and Discernment: Text and Context of Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia.” Thus,...

[Catholic Caucus] John Paul II Institute. The Revolt of the Professors Has a Leader, Ratzinger By now it is evident. The point of no return was marked on August 1 by the meeting between Benedict XVI and Livio Melina, made pblic four days later by Catholic News Agency and ACI Stampa, complete with an official photo and with these words calibrated one by one at the residence of the pope emeritus:“[Benedict XVI] wanted to receive Prof. Mons. Livio Melina at a private audience. After a long discussion of the recent events at the Pontifical Institute John Paul II, he granted...

[Catholic Caucus] Vatican ‘struggling to put out fire’ of public scandal over JPII Institute purge ROME, August 15, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — The “firefighters for the new direction” being taken at the John Paul II Institute in Rome are “struggling” to put out a blaze of public scandal, as controversy sparked by a recent purge of professors threatens to reach the door of the Pope’s residence at Santa Marta. In a new letter published by respected Italian journalist, Aldo Maria Valli, an informed source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the “violent upheaval in the teaching staff” and “drastic change in the curriculum and orientation of academic research” has sent “shockwaves” through the Church,...

[Catholic Caucus] A Day of Reckoning for the Church James Grein files multimillion-dollar lawsuit against New York and Vatican for McCarrick abuse James Grein, the primary victim of laicized rapist Theodore McCarrick (formerly the cardinal and archbishop of Washington, D.C.), revealed for the first time on Wednesday that he disclosed to Pope John Paul II himself the abuse he suffered at the hands of McCarrick. "Yes, this is the first time I've said that," Grein told Church Militant on the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral, where he and his lawyer, Mitchell Garebedian, held a press conference on the first day the state of New York is...

[Catholic Caucus] John Paul II Institute: Fired Professor Speaks Out “I cannot hide my pain, caused by the fact that the Institute founded by John Paul II was abolished two years ago,” Professor Stanisław Grygiel told AldoMariaValli.it (August 1).For him the recent dismissal of the Institute’s Catholic professors is an act consistent with this decision.Grygiel recounts that John Paul II invited the first professors a few months before the start of the Institute to his apartment, “to meditate with us on the situation in which not only the Church but also the world found itself.”He qualifies it as incomprehensible that...

Newly unearthed documents show that Pope John Paul II was seen as the main enemy of PolandÂ’s communist-era rulers, according to a report The Polish-born pope was identified as the main enemy of the communist system by the 4th Department of the former Security Service (SB), public broadcaster Polish RadioÂ’s IAR news agency reported on Thursday, citing findings by a team of journalists who have accessed an archive of previously unknown documents in the United States. The ill-famed 4th Department monitored and tracked opposition activists, among them journalists, lawyers, healthcare employees and industrial workers. According to the director of Polish...

Pope Francis has restored priestly faculties to 94-year-old Fr. Ernesto Cardenal, who had been suspended a divinas in 1984 for holding a cabinet position in Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, in violation of canon law. “The Holy Father has graciously granted the absolution of all canonical censures imposed on Rev. Father Ernesto Cardenal, accepting the request he had recently made to him through the Pontifical Representative in Nicaragua, to be readmitted to the exercise of the priestly ministry,” said a February 18 statement from the Apostolic Nunciature of Nicaragua. He was suspended a divinas by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1984...

Father Karol Wojtyła, who later became Pope John Paul II, is pictured in the early 1950s surrounded by young people. Father Wojtyła would regularly go on mountain excursions with a group of young married couples and students that called itself Środowisko, meaning environment or milieu. (Archival Collection of Adam Bujak)Karol Wojtyła, the man who became St. John Paul II, regularly escaped from two of the worst totalitarian regimes in history: German Nazism, and later, Soviet Communism. By “escaped,” I do not mean that he ran away. Rather, as a priest and bishop, he escaped only by going deeper.As the...

As a young man studying to be a priest in the 1980s, Robert Ciolek was flattered when his brilliant, charismatic bishop in Metuchen, N.J., Theodore E. McCarrick, told him he was a shining star, cut out to study in Rome and rise high in the church. Bishop McCarrick began inviting him on overnight trips, sometimes alone and sometimes with other young men training to be priests. There, the bishop would often assign Mr. Ciolek to share his room, which had only one bed. The two men would sometimes say night prayers together, before Bishop McCarrick would make a request —...

When Popes Collide by Christopher A. Ferrara April 13, 2018 An astonishing aspect of the ecclesial crisis that Pope Francis has provoked with Amoris Laetitia (AL) is the diametric opposition of his program to the teaching of the very Pope he has canonized. Never before in the history of the Church has a Pope blatantly contradicted the teaching of one of his own predecessors on a matter of faith and morals. AL announces the utter novelty — and therefore, the utter falsity — of the moral teaching that the Sixth Commandment represents an “ideal” one cannot expect the divorced and...

Both the Neo-Catholic World and certain Traditionalists are in shock this morning after reading that the German bishops will allow Protestant spouses of Catholics to receive Holy Communion. As National Catholic Register reporter, Edward Pentin, writes: At their spring conference in Ingolstadt, the German bishops’ conference agreed that a Protestant partner of a Catholic can receive the Eucharist after having made a “serious examination” of conscience with a priest or another person with pastoral responsibilities, “affirms the faith of the Catholic Church,” wishes to end “serious spiritual distress,” and has a “longing to satisfy a hunger for the Eucharist.”  However,...

Pope Francis has called for a "radical paradigm shift" and a "bold cultural revolution" at ecclesiastical universities, in a new apostolic constitution issued on January 29. The new 87-page document, entitled Veritatis Gaudium ("The Joy of Truth") replaces the apostolic constitution Sapientia Christiana, issued by St. John Paul II in 1979. Pope Francis writes that the older document "urgently needs to be brought up to date" in light of changes in society and in academic life. (The new papal document applies specifically to universities and other academic institutions that offer degrees and courses of study approved by the Holy See....

Taking up the themes I addressed in that document, I would now like to speak directly to every woman, to reflect with her on the problems and the prospects of what it means to be a woman in our time. In particular I wish to consider the essential issue of the dignity and rights of women, as seen in the light of the word of God. This "dialogue" really needs to begin with a word of thanks. As I wrote in my Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, the Church "desires to give thanks to the Most Holy Trinity for the 'mystery...

“The real revolution there happened under John Paul II, not Francis, which hasn’t really yet been understood,” said Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia.While apologists for recently canonized Pope John Paul II scramble to defend the late Pontiff for the apparent exploitation of the Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family that bears his name, a closer look at their rationale is guaranteed to raise eyebrows. However, the stunned reaction might not be at the audacity of their claims, but the coherence of their explanations.Let’s unpack this.Archbishop Paglia taps into one of Pope John Paul II’s most ubiquitous themes: consciousness, or “awareness”...

All of which amounts to a concern that the commission is being used as a cover: to look at the scientific and historical character of the document, but with the ultimate goal of presenting the Pope with enough information for the encyclical’s dissenters to say: “Times have changed — Humanae Vitae needs to be interpreted in the light of conscience, according to the complexity of people’s lives today.” Before his death on Sept. 6, Cardinal Carlo Caffarra had privately expressed similar grave concerns about the commission. Like others, he believed the opening of the archives was a ploy to obtain...

The subject head of the document, carried under the words, “Special Importance,” read: “Regarding Senator Kennedy’s request to the General Secretary of the Communist Party Y. V. Andropov.” According to the memo, Senator Kennedy was “very troubled” by U.S.-Soviet relations, which Kennedy attributed not to the murderous tyrant running the USSR but to President Reagan. The problem was Reagan’s “belligerence,” said the memo, and made worse by Reagan’s stubbornness. “According to Kennedy,” reported Chebrikov, “the current threat is due to the President’s refusal to engage any modification to his politics.” That refusal, said the memo, was exacerbated by Reagan’s political...