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[Catholic Caucus] The strange birth of the Novus Ordo After several decades of liturgy wars, few are unaware of the turbulent history of the post-conciliar liturgy since the New Order of Mass (Novus Ordo Missae) was promulgated 50 years ago, on April 3, 1969, by Pope Paul VI with his apostolic constitution, Missale Romanum. The Novus Ordo was produced in a mere five dizzying years by a committee of bishops, guided by an assemblage of experts. The process itself was a novelty, starkly contrasting with the gradual and organic growth (over more than 1,500 years) of the liturgy it replaced.The...

Hagia Sophia: Greek president appeals to Pope Francis to put pressure on Turkey The president of Greece called Pope Francis Monday urging the pope to advocate for the preservation of the status quo regarding Hagia Sophia, which is due to be reverted to a mosque this week.In a phone call July 20, Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou told the pope that Turkey’s decision “deeply hurts those who consider this top symbol of Christianity to belong to humanity and the world’s cultural heritage,” according to a statement from the president’s office. She said that the move should be “explicitly and unequivocally condemned” by...

Vatican’s COVID-19 Commission echoes globalist environmental concerns, sidelines sacraments Such pacifist talk looks pretty from the outside, but it is reminiscent of the disarmament movement during the Cold War. July 17, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican is adding its voice to that of globalist institutions such as the United Nations and the World Economic Forum in view of “collective action” for the rebuilding of society — or rather, the building of a new society with many utopian undertones. The U.N. and the Davos WEF, together with Prince Charles of England, recently announced global reflections that will lead to a “Global Reset”...

This date in 1300 saw the execution in Parma, Italy of Gerard Segarelli, the founder of the order of the Apostolic Brethren who are perhaps better known for Segarelli’s apocalyptic successor, Fra Dolcino. Despite the tendency of his follower to eclipse his star, Segarelli was himself a formidable religious reformer in a time flowering with expressions of popular piety that regularly confounded the prelates. Joined as Dolcino and Segarelli are in this fascinating period, Executed Today aptly welcomes back Dr. Jerry Pierce to talk Segarelli. He’s already shed some light on Dolcino in these pages...

Back in the day, the advocates of relativism wrapped themselves in the mantle of pluralism. The pretense is over, the new orthodoxy has arrived. Remember back just a few years ago, when academia and other societal elites told us that there were no moral absolutes. Every person could decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong. There were even entire school courses built around this premise. One popular program was called Values Clarification. Academia challenged the idea that education should center on the pursuit of truth since truth was relative and individualistic. I heard Francis Schaefer speak on...

[Barf Alert] Vatican on Hagia Sophia: Don’t Blame Islam VATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) - A Vatican representative is insisting that Turkey's conversion of Hagia Sophia to a mosque should not be seen as "Islamic aggression" even as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan fired a shot across the Vatican's bow in an Islamic supremacist speech. "It is the product of the same logic to demand the Vatican be converted into a museum and insist that Hagia Sophia remain as a museum," Erdoğan declared on Turkish television Monday after Turkey's top court annulled President Kemal Atatürk's 1934 decision to turn Hagia Sophia into a museum as...

Vatican archbishop retweets image of naked adults surrounded by naked children The image from a film about marriage shows a naked man and woman lying on the ground surrounded by naked children ITALY, July 16, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – A prominent Vatican archbishop, infamous for commissioning a homoerotic mural to be painted in his Cathedral, retweeted today an image of a naked man and woman lying on the ground surrounded by naked children. Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, chancellor of the new John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences in Rome and the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, retweeted a post...

Eduardo Verástegui called Trump the 'best pro-life president ever.'WASHINGTON, D.C., July 15, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) ― A pro-life Mexican movie star has given an icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe to President Donald Trump. Eduardo Verástegui, star of the 2006 film Bella, was at the White House last week with other leaders in the Spanish-speaking community for the signing of the Executive Order on the Hispanic Prosperity Initiative. Verástegui, who is a practicing Catholic, told EWTN White House correspondent Owen Jensen that he had brought Trump a meaningful gift. “I brought the president a beautiful image of Our Lady of Guadalupe...

CNA Staff, Jul 14, 2020 / 05:36 pm MT (CNA).- A man in St. Louis has been charged with four counts of fourth-degree assault after police say he threw punches at people praying and defending a statue of St. Louis during a recent protest. Terrence Page, 34, admitted to News 4 that he threw the punches, saying, “Real change doesn’t happen unless you take those risks.” He said he thought there were KKK members defending the statue, and argued that “their presence alone is terrorism, because they instill fear.” The incident took place June 27 near the Apotheosis of St....

In 2016, I signed the “Never Trump” pledge and did my part, as a “keyboard warrior,” especially on the Facebook posts of The Christian Post, to persuade fellow Christians not to support Donald Trump. I have a Ph.D. in church history studying the Puritans and am the pastor of a Reformed church and Mr. Trump struck me as a decline from the kinds of leaders Puritans would expect. Many CP readers may remember my incessant campaigning against Trump four years ago. I argued that he had a checkered past, that he was unlikely to support the causes which Christians should...

‘It is extremely concerning that there may now be some further delay in allowing the return to public worship,’ wrote Father Michael J. Kane, pastor of St. Augustine’s Catholic Church in Coatbridge. ‘It is deeply distressing that Catholics cannot receive the Sacraments.’COATBRIDGE, Scotland, July 7, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) ― A Catholic priest has published an objection to the Scottish government’s continuing ban on public church services. Father Michael J. Kane is the pastor of St. Augustine’s Catholic Church in Coatbridge, a town about 10 miles east of Glasgow. In a June 26 open letter to Member of Scottish Parliament (MSP) Fulton...

Gunmen on motorbikes fired into the crowded market in Kompienga town around lunchtime on Saturday, eyewitnesses and residents said. Local media earlier reported 20 killed, while quoting sources as saying the death toll could be considerably higher. AFP news agency quoted local residents as saying 30 died. The government blamed the attack on "terrorists", a phrase usually used to describe al-Qaeda and Islamic State-linked jihadists Burkina Faso has been battling in recent years. Despite occasional government claims of success against the Islamist militants, the insecurity in the north and east of Burkina Faso has dramatically escalated. Jihadists have often targeted...

Fulani Militants Kill Thirty in Nigeria Militants Attack Five Villages in Three Days 05/14/2020 Washington, D.C. (International Christian Concern) International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that Fulani militants conducted a major attack, beginning late in the evening on May 11, on the community of Gonan Rogo in Kaduna State, Nigeria, as well as four other villages. Despite the government lockdown to curtail the spread of COVID-19, Fulani militants continued to move freely and attacked five villages in Kajuru local council area of Kaduna State during three successive days, leaving 30 people dead. In a press release on May 12, the...

Uganda: Muslim father burns his daughter and vows to kill her for becoming Christian MAY 26, 2020 8:00 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER If the roles were reversed, this would be the focus of international news coverage, but you will only hear about this incident here. In any case, Sheikh Hussein Byaruhanga Husain is not an “extremist.” The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law. It’s based on the Qur’an: “They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved so you would be alike. So do not take from among them allies until they emigrate for the cause of Allah....

Allegedly, on July 5 a paragraph of a pre-written speech by the Pope where he supported freedom in Hong Kong was not read by Francis. To avoid further wild speculations, the Vatican may publish the text of the 2018 China deal.On July 5, a mysterious incident that would have pleased a Dan Brown happened in the Vatican. Speeches by the Pope are distributed to journalists “embargoed,” meaning that media can quote them only after the Pope had pronounced them. In the past, journalists who violated the embargoes lost their credentials with the Vatican. Allegedly, the embargoed text in Italian of...

The next pope: are we facing the nightmare of a Parolin pontificate? Vatican officials are anxious to get their hands on an advance copy of The Next Pope, a survey of 19 leading contenders to succeed Pope Francis scheduled for publication next month. The author, Edward Pentin, discusses these papable cardinals in today's episode of Holy Smoke.The full list is still under wraps, but inevitably we talk about Cardinal Robert Sarah, the African-born apocalyptic visionary whom liberals most fear. (If you doubt that, read this despicable and semi-literate hatchet job on Sarah by Christopher Lamb in The Tablet.) Equally inevitably,...

Dueling Protests Follow Suspension of Indiana Priest Fr. Theodore Rothrock: leftists 'serpents in the garden' CARMEL, Ind. (ChurchMilitant.com) - Protests and counterprotests are erupting over the suspension of a faithful Indiana cleric, days after his denunciation of radical leftist groups. On Sunday, supporters and critics of Fr. Theodore Rothrock faced off outside St. Elizabeth Seton Catholic Church in Carmel. One contingent shouted "Black Lives Matter!" while the other cheered, "Go, Fr. Ted!" Father Rothrock was suspended last week after condemning anarchist groups. "Black Lives Matter, Antifa and the other nefarious acolytes of their persuasion are not the friends or allies we have been led to believe," he warned in his...

sday, the Jesuit periodical America sounded a dark note: “Are Nigeria’s Christians the target of a genocide? That is the conclusion of a number of religious freedom analysts and Nigerian clergy.” Yet the venerable Leftist Catholic magazine’s warning was veritably dripping with irony, for the same publication has for quite some time been vilifying and smearing people who did speak out against the persecution of Christians in Nigeria and elsewhere...America magazine is not actually being as inconsistent as it may seem at first glance. Even though America’s Kevin Clarke identifies Boko Haram as made up of “Islamic militants,” it is...

Pope Francis says God opens heaven's doors to non-believers who "obey their conscience," shattering a widely-held assumption about Christian beliefs and reinforcing his image as the most progressive pontiff in history. "You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don't believe and who don't seek the faith," Francis wrote Friday in an open letter published in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. Francis was responding to questions from the paper's 91-year-old founder Eugenio Scalfari, reports Britain's The Independent.

Analysis: Pope's Hong Kong omission complicates all the narratives On Sunday morning, journalists covering the Vatican beat got word from official Vatican communications channels, strongly suggesting Pope Francis would be using his remarks to the faithful at the Angelus to address the ongoing crisis in Hong Kong.When he’d prayed the traditional noonday prayer of Marian devotion, however, mention of the troubled island city was conspicuous by its absence, and journalists were scrambling for an explanation. The omission is serious: either Pope Francis decided for some reason—on his own and at the very last minute—to skip the appeal, or someone convinced...