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[Catholic Caucus] Australian Bishops to Discuss Women Priests, LGBT Inclusion 2020 Australian Plenary Council has broad range of topics, including ideas at odds with Catholicism ADELAIDE, South Australia (ChurchMilitant.com) - At a much-anticipated meeting next year, Australia's bishops will consider ideas such as ordaining women, giving Holy Communion to non-Catholics and supporting same-sex marriage. In October 2020, the Church in Australia will have a Plenary Council, at which all of Australia's active bishops will convene. Organizers are also scheduling a second session for mid-2021, likely in Sydney.  The website for the Plenary Council lists a series of "National Themes for...

[Catholic Caucus] EWTN’s “Papal Posse” blasts working doc for Amazon Synod WASHINGTON, D.C., June 21, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― The working document for the Amazon Synod has Catholics wondering if the bishops’ meeting isn’t just a sneaky way of introducing married priests and female ordination. Last night on EWTN’s “The World Over,” journalist Raymond Arroyo and canon lawyer Fr. Gerald Murray, who together form the “Papal Posse,” told host Raymond Arroyo that they have problems with the “Instrumentum Laboris” for these and other reasons. The working document for October’s Synod in the Vatican was released on Monday, June 17. Its English...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop who wrote Amazon working doc wants overhauled priesthood, ordained women une 19, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Erwin Kräutler, primary author of the June 17, 2019 instrumentum laboris (working document) for the upcoming October 2019 Amazon Synod, is a strong supporter of the ordination of married men and women to the priesthood. As The Tablet writes: “Bishop Erwin Kräutler, a proponent of married and female priests, is the author of the working document for the upcoming Synod.” While the bishop may have had other collaborators, Pope Francis himself entrusted Kräutler with this overall task. In June of...

[Catholic Caucus] Nun appointed by Pope Francis to advise bishops praises ‘small steps’ toward women’s ordination ROME, June 17, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — A nun appointed by Pope Francis to the Vatican body tasked with offering strategic direction to the Synod of Bishops’ gatherings has stated that the priesthood will become accessible to women in “small steps.” Sister Maria Luisa Berzosa, who was among the first four female consultors to the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, whom Pope Francis appointed in May, said necessary steps are now being taken for women to achieve greater visibility in the Church structure, even...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Francis is ‘not a deeply learned theologian’: Member of Vatican commission on female deacons June 14, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – A member of the 2016 Vatican commission on the female diaconate said he was “manifoldly irritated” by comments Pope Francis recently made about the commission in which the Pope indicated that the commission had failed to reach a conclusion because of differences of opinion. He also criticized the Pope who "in contradistinction to his predecessor" is "not a deeply learned theologian" ["umfassend belesener Theologe"]. “I am manifoldly irritated about the media reports concerning the comments made by the...

[Catholic Caucus] German bishop laments ‘shackle’ of Church’s refusal to ordain women May 17, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Speaking to journalists on 16 May at an annual press meeting of his diocese of Erfurt, German bishop Ulrich Neymeyr made some stunning remarks with regard to female priests. He said female priests in the Catholic Church are theologically conceivable, adding that “some things” still need to be “reflected upon.” For example, he explained, “what does representation [of Christ] mean? How far does it go? And does it need to be related to [biological] sex?” In Germany, he added, there might already be...

[Catholic Caucus] German bishops’ vice president expects Amazon synod to propose married priests ‘with civil job’ May 8, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Bishop Franz-Josef Bode, the Vice-President of the German Bishops, states in a new interview that he can “very well imagine that there are also priests with family and [civil] job, similar to our deacons, some of whom are married and have a job.” This model of married “priests with a civil job,” he predicts, will “probably be presented to the Pope by the Latin American bishops at the Amazon Synod in October.” Speaking with the regional newspaper Osnabrücker...

[Catholic Caucus] German bishop claims that the question of female priests is still open March 20, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Franz Jung, the bishop of Würzburg, Germany, who last year stated that married priests are “conceivable,” claimed in a new interview with Bavarian radio station Bayerischer Rundfunk that the question of female priests “remains still unanswered.” As Vatican News reported, when Bishop Jung – who was made a bishop by Pope Francis only last year – was asked whether he would witness during his lifetime that women would stand at the altar, Jung responded, “I do not know whether I will still...

'Why shouldn't we pray for gender equality in the Church?' says Sister Ruth Schönenberger The leader of one of Germany's most important female religious communities has called into question the Catholic Church's exclusion of women from the ordained priesthood. "It is surely only natural for women to be priests and I cannot understand the reasons given as to why not," said Sister Ruth Schönenberger, head of the Benedictine Priory of Tutzing, the Bavarian motherhouse of a worldwide missionary order. "I am surprised that the presence of Christ has been reduced to the male sex," she said in a recent interview...

Op-Ed - Anglican Nightmare in Rome: "Ordained" Female Deacons, First Step Towards "Women Priests" Father Richard G. Cipolla, DPhil (Oxon) “Consecrated women already work so much with the poor and the marginalized: teaching the catechism, accompanying the sick and the moribund, distributing communion, [and] in many countries conducting the common prayers in absence of priests and in those circumstances pronouncing the homily. In the church there is the office of the permanent diaconate, but it is open only to married and non-married men. What impedes the church from including women among permanent deacons, just as it happened in the early...

34 female religious superiors ask for access to all Church offices, including priesthood October 30, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The general superiors of 34 female orders from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Luxembourg are demanding more influence in the Church. As part of an international umbrella organization, they ask that women be admitted to all offices in the Church, including ordained offices. Already in 2016, some superiors general of the umbrella organization asked Pope Francis about a commission on female deacons. The final document of the Youth Synod seems to resonate with some of the requests of the women religious. As...

A young priest in the Czechoslovak Hussite Church has been pleasantly surprised by the welcome and openness she has experienced at the Synod of Bishops on young people, she told America in an interview. A fraternal delegate, Rev. Martina Viktorie Kopecká, 32, has the distinction of being the only female cleric at the Synod of Bishops, which is taking place from Oct. 3 to 28 in Rome.Dressed in the liturgical vestments of the Hussite Church—a black robe with an imprinted red chalice and white stole—she delivered an address to the whole synod body on Oct. 11, emphasizing the importance...

An Australian Catholic archdiocese has produced a working document about the "future of the Catholic Church in Australia” which calls for “women deacons and women chaplains,” “married priests,” and a “more inclusive church” that includes “LGBT people.” The document was put out by the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, led by Archbishop Christopher Prowse. It is part of the preparation for a countrywide Plenary Council to be held in 2020. The last such council was held 81 years ago.  The Plenary Council, what the bishops are calling the “highest form of gathering of local church and has legislative and governance...

July 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A group of Catholic clergy and theologians, including two bishops, have signed an ecumenical declaration with Anglican clergy published on the Vatican website that affirms the possibility that the Catholic Church might create a “female diaconate” in the future, which would imply a contradiction of Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Church’s 2000-year tradition. The declaration also refers to the possibility of ordaining married men to the priesthood. The document, entitled “Walking Together on the Way: Learning to Be the Church—Local, Regional, Universal,” purports to explore ways that Anglican practices might influence the Catholic...

For the last several weeks, the Lepanto Institute has been investigating and reporting on a heretical priestly organization called the Association of United States Catholic Priests (AUSCP). This organization promotes women’s ordination to the diaconate (with eyes on the priestly ordination of women), homosexuality, priestless parishes, married priests, and a host of other heterodox positions.If you’re interested in having a better understanding of this international movement to spread heresy throughout the Church, previous Lepanto Institute reports on the AUSCP include the following: AUSCP’s Plan for Ordained Women and Priestless parishes Wester Participating in AUSCP ConferenceAUSCP’s Desire to Obtain Funding from...

The Vatican presented something important today, 8 June, at a press conference: the Preparatory Document for the upcoming 2019 Pan-Amazon Synod in which there is now talk about giving women some “type of official ministry” and of making “courageous” and inculturated proposals with regard to the Church’s “inclusive ministerial action.” One of the leading organiziers of this synod, Bishop Kräutler, says this reform should include married priests, male and female. The Preparatory Document itself refers indirectly to a decisive meeting that took place, in 2014, between the Pope and Kräutler. As a Reuters report today sums it up, today’s press...

Cardinal: German Politician Who Asked For Female Priests Is a Heretic Cardinal Walter Brandmüller has criticised Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the general-secretary of Merkel’s party CDU, for having said recently that she hopes for the ordination of women to the priesthood and wanted become a priestess herself. Writing in the German weekly Tagespost (May 17), Brandmüller said that Kramp-Karrenbauer as a politician and as a Catholic has crossed borders. Brandmüller stresses that whoever claims that a female priest is possible, has left the foundations of the Catholic Faith. And, “This person has committed the offence of heresy which results in an excommunication...

In May of last year, I posted a review of the Preparatory Document for the Synod of Bishops on “Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment,” which is set to take place in October 2018.At that time, based on the bitter experiences of 2014-2015, we considered the likelihood that the “God of Surprises” and his merry band of modernists already have an outcome in mind and, come Hell or high water, they aim to achieve it.As for precisely what we can expect, it bore mention that even though the Preparatory Document didn’t give us much in the way of...

“What are you, a deacon?” the man asks from his bed. We are about 20 minutes into a pastoral visit. His parish deacon has been visiting regularly since he got sick. Now I have entered this man’s life as a hospice chaplain, and he does not quite know what to make of me.It is not the first time I have been asked the question. Sometimes they ask if I am a priest or a sister or if they should call me “Reverend.” Their questions bring a smile to my face, but they also take me back to a time...

We have become aware of a story — an anecdote published three years ago in a Swiss Capuchin journal and never denied by the Vatican —  relating a conversation between the pope and an unnamed archbishop in which the pope is alleged to have said that he has “the keys” to the female priesthood.Before examining that anecdote, some history of papal overtures on this topic is in order. As our readers might already know, OnePeterFive has been attentive to the possibility that Pope Francis has designs to allow women access to Holy Orders — even, somehow, to become (purportedly) ordained priests....