Free Republic

Op-ed: "Is the Married Permanent Diaconate a Trojan Horse to attack the sacred priesthood?" The Pan-Amazonian synod has realised the fears of certain Fathers of the Second Vatican Council that the creation of the married permanent diaconate would undermine and eventually abolish the sacred Tradition of priestly celibacy in the Latin Church. The Final Document of the Amazonian synod proposes that permanent deacons are ordained priests: “…we propose to establish criteria and dispositions on the part of the competent authority, in the framework of Lumen Gentium 26, to ordain as priests men who are apt for it and who...

The Canadian television station Salt and Light has decided to use the account of a third epoch in the history of the Church developed by the famous theologian Karl Rahner, S.J. (1904-1984) as a way of describing the current pontificate. As Fr. Thomas Rosica, C.S.B., director of Salt and Light and top English-language officer of the Holy See Press Office, puts it in an interview with America: I really believe, with the coming of Pope Francis, that this is that third epoch that Karl Rahner talked about in “The Three Great Epochs of the Church.” In our recent Salt and...

Supporters of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of Society of St Pius X, branded the future Pope Benedict XVI and the late Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner "heretics" during the Second Vatican Council, reports The Tablet.A previously undiscovered letter written by Karl Rahner to his brother, Fr Hugo Rahner SJ, during the council in November 1963 has revealed that the French Intégristes - followers of Lefebvre - accused him and Fr Joseph Ratzinger as "heretic[s] who deny the existence of hell and are worse than Teilhardt de Chardin and the Modernists".The letter, part of an exhibition in Munich, states that Rahner consoled...

Karl Rahner’s Girlfriendby John VennariFather Karl Rahner, the progressivist Jesuit who “set the direction for the Second Vatican Council,”1carried on a secret 22-year “romance” with German writer Luise Rinser. This revelation came to light in 1994 when Rinser published her autobiography which contained her half of the correspondence between herself and Rahner, a correspondence that lasted from 1962 to Rahner’s death in 1984. The book was entitled Gratwunderung, loosely translated as “a walk on the edge”. Published in Germany, it has not yet been translated into English.   The Jesuits have never denied the truth of the Rinser-Rahner relationship, but...