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Many bishops protected priests who were child molesters for years, transferring them from parish to parish and allowing them to prey upon new children rather than turning them over to police. In the Catholic Church today, protecting the image of Islam appears to be job one: you can be a cleric who speaks out against the Church’s official positions (such as those on contraception and female priests) and in many quarters of the Church you’ll be hailed as a hero. But the highly dubious proposition that Islam is a religion of peace has become a kind of superdogma that the...

In his column of April 28, Phil Lawler notes that over the past fifty years — meaning since the end of the Second Vatican Council, 52 years ago — not a single new parish has opened in the Archdiocese of Boston, but on the contrary some 125 parishes have either closed or been consolidated with other parishes. During the same period, he further notes, the number of Catholic priests has fallen from 2,500 to 300 — a staggering drop of 90%! And most of those, I would add, are probably over the age of 60. Yet the Catholic population of...

Rate this item 12345 (3 votes) “We who are here together and in peace believe and hope in a fraternal world. We desire that men and women of different religions may everywhere gather and promote harmony, especially where there is conflict. Our future consists in living together. For this reason we are called to free ourselves from the heavy burdens of distrust, fundamentalism and hate. Believers should be artisans of peace in their prayers to God and in their actions for humanity! As religious leaders, we are duty bound to be strong bridges of dialogue, creative mediators of peace.  –...

How do we know that Pope Paul VI consulted with Saul Alinsky? In The Rite of Sodomy Randy Engel wrote that Saul Alinsky met Pope Paul VI while Pope Paul VI was still Archbishop of Milan: “It was said of the new Archbishop of Milan that he didn’t hear church bells, he heard factory whistles. “It is not surprising therefore that on one of his visits to the Archbishop’s residence, Jacques Maritain, the once great Thomastic philosopher, brought with him, Saul David Alinsky, the “Apostle of the Permanent Revolution.” Montini [then Archbishop of Milan, later Pope Paul VI] was so...

Reconnecting the church “with the energy of the Second Vatican Council,” may be the pope’s greatest achievement, Cardinal Donald Wuerl of the Archdiocese of Washington said in an exclusive interview with America as the fourth anniversary of the pope’s election approaches on March 13. According to Cardinal Wuerl, the pope is changing the papacy and “completely refocusing the role of bishop.” He said Pope Francis has “picked up where we left off” on Vatican II themes of collegiality and synodality and has refocused the church on “a moral theology that rests on scripture and Jesus’ command to love” and on...

This month marks the second anniversary of the martyrdom of 21 Coptic Christians at the hands of Islamic terrorists. Their crime? Loving Christ enough to die for Him. Would Roman Catholics do the same? What motivates martyrs, if not love? Michael Matt asks the question: Is it because the New Order no longer speaks of Holy MOTHER Church that so few of her sons seem willing to die for her anymore? What have we lost? What was life in the Church like just 40 years ago? Growing up Catholic...and remembering what we lost. Scapulars. Meat-less Friday. Ember Days. Midnight Masses....

A new book by a priest who led the vanguard of dissent on birth control in Canada reveals for the first time his decades living as an active homosexual. Father Gregory Baum, a laicized priest married to a former nun for 30 years, admits in his forthcoming autobiography The Oil Has Not Run Dry that his wife did not mind the fact that he had a gay priest-lover on the side. "Shirley did not mind that, when we moved to Montreal in 1986, I met Normand, a former priest, with whom I fell in love," Baum writes in Chapter 32....

We can’t really say everything old is new again. It’s really just more of the same. But we can certainly look behind the headlines to a little bit of recent Catholic history and discover that most of the daily list of horrors coming out of the Vatican and upper levels of the episcopate are nothing new at all. They are, at most, natural developments of what has been going on for 50 years. One might say, the logical results of them

As the vast majority of readers of this space are perfectly well-aware, the current crisis in the Church concerning Francis in general, and Amoris Laetitia in particular, is part and parcel of the conciliar revolution. As I wrote in the previous post, the documents of the Council – by turning on its head the constant teaching of the Church on such matters as religious liberty, ecumenism, the Church’s relationship with the Jews, etc. – actually set the stage for Amoris Laetitia to do the same with regard to adultery, marriage and family, Holy Communion, and even the very concept of...

We begin the new year, as always filled with expectations. Along with these expectations we are also filled with fears, considering the rough waters of confusion we are now submerged in. Confusion, seeing as there is hardly anything left stable in the world and the situation is infinitely worse for us in the Church. At one time the confusion of the world was crushed against the rugged stability of the Church of God. Men need a steadfast rock to build upon and inside the Church they found that stable composedness which gave them the confidence necessary to brave the struggles...

Was it Cromwell that said, “It is time to investigate history and learn what is really at stake at this moment in time.” That being said, it is time to investigate relevant secular history and learn what is really at stake at this moment in time. You have to wonder what impact Saul David Alinsky had on Pope Paul VI, on the Second Vatican Council, and on contemporary modernist Catholicism – especially in the United States of America. Pope Paul VI, before being elected pope, spent two weeks consulting with Saul David Alinsky “on the Church’s relationship to local Communist...

Today, October 11, 2016, marks the 54th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. While regular readers of this space are well-versed in matters concerning Vatican II, the Council it remains a source of confusion for many if not most in the Church, and that includes any number of those in Catholic media. With this in mind, I’d like to take the opportunity to provide some basic but critically important information, in an easy-to-read Q&A format, for the benefit of those who are struggling to come to grips with the reality of the Council’s place in the life...

Affirmation today of the dogma that outside the Church there is no salvation (extra ecclesiam nulla salus) is usually immediately qualified with “but…” The qualification is meant as a sign by whoever affirms the teaching that he does not really fall within the parameters set by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, eighteenth-century godfather of liberalism, in his most important book, The Social Contract: “Whoever dares to say outside the Church is no salvation should be driven from the state.” That declaration flowed naturally from Rousseau’s liberal conception of freedom as being free to do whatever is humanly possible, including what Christians know to...

The Apostles’ Creed (updated version): I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, and the peaceful nature of Islam. Amen. Or, anyway, that’s how it ought to read according to Monsignor Stuart Swetland, President of Donnelly College in Kansas City. No, Msgr. Swetland didn’t actually propose a revision to the Apostles’ Creed, but he does seem to be saying that Catholics have a religious obligation to affirm that Islam is a religion of peace. In a long statement following up on a radio debate with Robert Spencer on Relevant Radio’s...

Today marks the 50th anniversary of one of the first doctrinal documents to be released by the old Holy Office under the new appellation "Doctrine of the Faith", the circular letter Cum Oecumenicum Concilium. The Latin text can be found in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 58 (1966), pp. 659-661. Signed only 7 months after the end of Vatican II by Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, the last Secretary of the Holy Office (1959 - 1965) and Pro-Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1965 until January 1968, it demonstrates the rapidity with which open heresy spread even more in...

Pope Francis’ documents, according to the judgment of some theologians, constitute some generic indications of a pastoral and moral nature, devoid of significant magisterial quality. This is one of the reasons such documents are discussed in a freer way than has ever happened with other pontifical texts. Among the most penetrating analyses of these texts, the study of a philosopher from the University of Perugia, Flavio Cuniberto, should be noted. His book, Lady Poverty. Pope Francis and the Refoundation of Christianity (Neri Pozza, Vicenza, 2016), is dedicated in particular to the encyclicals Evangeli Gaudium (2013) and Laudato si (2015). The...

Soon after the publication of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, three priests of the Diocese of Novara (Piedmont, Italy) tried to celebrate the Traditional Mass exclusively (we reported on these developments here and here). In an interview released a few days ago, Father Alberto Secci tells his story, and presents us with the wonderful account of his life after Summorum. Yes, there is a life for diocesan priests celebrating the Sacraments according to the ancient use exclusively. And it can be beautiful, and powerful, and glorious, despite the normal difficulties of life. "Can you imagine what would happen if all...

Radicati Editorial: "Thank God We Did Not Obey Those Forcing the New Mass Upon Us" The New Mass, Source of Pious Naturalism Editorial: Radicati nella fede, June 2016 Newsletter of the Catholic community of Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy Thank God we did not obey. We are going to shock you, but some provocations are beneficial and useful. Thank God we did not obey those, who, in order to keep us within “ordinary pastoral care” (while allowing us reluctantly an occasional Traditional Mass) asked us not to be closed to the Council’s New Mass. Thank God we did not obey:...

Cardinal Caffara of Bologna made minor waves recently by declaring that, owing to the contradictory interpretations already being made of the document, Francis’ post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia is “objectively unclear.” He further states that whenever one happens upon a novel pronouncement of the Magisterium that is unclear in nature, a faithful soul has the duty to accept the Doctrine and practice as lived by the preceding Magisterium: “Chapter 8 is, objectively, unclear,” said Cardinal Carlo Caffarra when speaking about Amoris Laetitia, since it causes “‘conflict of interpretations’ ignited even among bishops.” The comments were made last week in an interview...

As many of you know, Bishop Fellay, Superior General of the SSPX met with Pope Francis last month. A few days afterwards, on April 7, 2016, Msgr. Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Vatican’s Ecclesia Dei Commission, gave an interview to La Croix newspaper in which he said: “The difficulties raised by the SSPX regarding questions of Church-State relations and religious liberty, the practice of ecumenism and dialogue with non-Christian religions, certain aspects of liturgical reform and their concrete application, remain objects of discussion and clarification,” Archbishop Pozzo added, “but do not constitute an obstacle to the SSPX’s canonical and juridical...