De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Stop the Amazon Mythos: Amazonians Are Little Interested In Marriage Or In Holy Mass Bishop Reinhold Nann, 59, of Caravelí Diocese, Peru, states that if he had more priests, he would have no way to organise a living for them based on the "meagre offerings" coming from the villages. Nann was born in Germany and belonged to the Schönstatt Movement. He told Die-Tagespost.de (August 29) that as a missionary priest he took care of an Amazon parish with 37 villages. The bishop witnessed that the Amazon people do not care to live according to Catholic morals. Therefore viri probati [married men who could be ordained as priests] hardly exist: “Men living in sacramental marriage are a rare species in a region where most of the laity lives together unmarried.” Nann also debunks the myth of an alleged "hunger" for the Eucharist:  “In the Amazon [as well as in most of the Catholic Church], the Eucharist is not really in demand by the locals. A liturgy of the word is for...

Fr Dwight Longnecker is an excellent priest and commentator and one with whom I tend to agree, but I was really quite surprised at his latest blog post about EMHC (Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion). The piece basically says that EMHC were "a measure introduced as numbers at mass in large churches" (they're in every church, irrespective of numbers, in fact in I've been to Masses where the priest has sat down and left the EMHC to distribute communion) "and the reception of the precious blood became more commonplace." Of course, once the reception of the precious blood was introduced, EMHC became practically essential in most parishes, unless you had four priests! Fr Dwight states that along with the altar servers, EMHC help to establish an atmosphere of reverence at Mass[!!!!!] He argues that their body language, prayerful attitude and reverent treatment of the sacred vessels, the host and the precious blood helps to support the overall sense o...

While George Cardinal Pell is confined to a prison cell, convicted by charges in a case against him which was not and could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt , the extraordinary case of Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta just gets more incredible. Zanchetta was a close associate of Pope Francis before he was elected Pope in 2013: in fact he was executive undersecretary of the Argentine episcopal conference which, at the time, was headed by none other than Jorge Bergoglio (Pope Francis) himself. Zanchetta was so close to the Pope that he was one of the very first Argentines whom Francis promoted to bishop, on his own initiative and bypassing all canonical procedure, on July 23, 2013. Now under investigation for allegations of abuse, Zanchetta has once again been allowed by a judge to travel to Rome, Crux reports , despite the fact that the Vatican City State and Argentina have no extradition agreement. What is the justification for this? The Vatican has apparently t...

Further to my last post on the Jesuit Superior General and his heresy, the estimable commentator Brian Holdsworth has made a video giving his own useful reflections on Sosa's strange position: he claims to be a part of the Catholic community while dissenting from it. He makes some excellent points here: Please check out my website for a wide range of gardening equipment hand and power tools and welding equipment:

For the second time in recent months, the superior general of the Society of Jesus has proclaimed publicly this week that the devil is a symbol rather than a person. Fr Arturo Sosa, the son of a Christian Socialist finance minister and superior general of the Society of Jesus on August 21st denied the article of faith that the devil is a person asserting instead that "the devil exists as a symbolic reality". The devil, “exists as the personification of evil in different structures, but not in persons, because is not a person, is a way of acting evil. He is not a person like a human person. It is a way of evil to be present in human life,” Fr. Arturo Sosa, SJ, said Wednesday in an interview with Italian magazine Tempi . “Good and evil are in a permanent war in the human conscience and we have ways to point them out. We recognize God as good, fully good. Symbols are part of reality, and the devil exists as a symbolic reality, not as a personal reality,” he added. Sos...

The news is breaking this morning that Cardinal Pell's appeal against conviction for historical child abuse has been dismissed on a 2-1 majority. He is to remain in prison and will not be eligible for parole for over 3 years. This is the judgement in full: Basically it boils down to this: The appeal judges summed up what their verdict pivoted on: the complainant seemed genuine, and the defence's evidence that the charges were implausible was dismissed on the grounds it "may mislead or confuse the jury"... — Stat Crux (@Stat_Crux_) August 21, 2019 So the evidence was in danger of leading the jury to dismiss the case against Pell, and this was bad because...All I can think is because they want Pell convicted. Can you think of an alternative scenario? one person's word against twenty-seven - that one person's testimony a replica of a US case reported in Rolling Stone? When deceased 2nd victim said it never happened? Mob-hate can...

Given the current anti-religious climate, it is well worth investing a few minutes listening to this Holy Smoke Podcast which looks at the disturbing  conviction here in Britain of Carl Beech , for inventing a non-existent Westminster sex ring in which VIPs supposedly raped and murdered children. He found a disgracefully gullible audience in the Metropolitan Police. Beech’s serial lies were designed to destroy the lives or posthumous reputations of Lord Bramall, former head of the British Army, Sir Edward Heath, former PM, Lord Brittan, former home secretary, ex-Tory MP Harvey Proctor and Lord Janner, the late Labour politician. Beech has been jailed for 18 years. Journalist Catherine Lafferty, who was in court for his trial, talks to Thompson about the troubling parallels with the conviction of Cardinal Pell , former head of the Vatican finances, for child rape. This is legally sensitive territory – Pell is appealing against his the unanimous verdict of a Melbourne jury ...

There has been a new Pew Research study released . It pertains to Catholics in the US and contains some shocking truths which I would argue are as relevant to the UK & Europe as they are to the US: Only 31% of Catholics personally believe that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus Christ. 69% - more than two thirds - of US Catholics believe it is a symbol. What makes this study different is that they also asked if people understand what the Church's actual teaching was. It is revealing that 22% of US Catholics know what the Church teaches and reject it, while an additional 43% of Catholics both believe that the Eucharist is symbolic and that that is what the Church actually teaches (i.e. they are confused). And there's a real stunner: only 63% of those who attend Mass once a week or more believe that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus Christ! The Catechism of the Catholic Church , citing Lumen Gentium n.11 teaches "The Eucharist is ...