De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

When t he story broke about the Archdiocese of Southwark standing up for children in Catholic Schools, I recognised this could be a crunch point for Catholic education in the UK. The pressure on Catholic schools has been slowly increasing, just as it did before Catholic adoption agencies were forced to close . The problem is, Catholic Schools face an enemy on the inside: teachers who are antagonistic to the Catholic ethos they agree to promote. Faced with a forced closure on Thursday, due to striking staff who said they were “fighting for inclusive education” and against a “very concerning precedent for LGBT rights and representation in schools”, the Archdiocese has come out fighting! Writing in The Catholic Network , Joseph Kelly says : It seems hard to accept that the school chose to emphasise simply that this was an obviously well-known and talented new writer, without giving any thought to the material he represented. Kelly continues: it is perfectly in order for a Catholic schoo...

  Bishop Rick Stika is well known to savvy internet Catholics for all the wrong reasons. He sometimes says pretty Catholic stuff...Other times he says some bizarre stuff! But that's not all he is known for. Stika is known for being unwell. He is 65 and suffers from type 1 diabetes and uses an insulin pump. He underwent cardiac bypass surgery in 2004 and suffered a major heart attack in 2009, during a visit to South Florida. He had an angioplasty in 2018. He is also blind in his right eye. Stika has quite a reputation for getting into Twitter battles . It often seemed this happen after he had indulged in a few beverages of the alcoholic variety, as his on-line emissions were often inconsistent & poorly spelt. There are quite a few examples of this . Stika built a financially calamitous cathedral in his diocese. The budget for the build was $25M and he spent $42M. This is way beyond the needs and the finances of his diocese, which will be paying this off for t...

Bishop Mark O'Toole, born 22 June 1963 and currently ninth of Plymouth diocese ( appointed 2013 ) will be the next Archbishop of Cardiff, he will also be bishop of Menevia, it has been revealed.  Former private secretary to St. Gallen Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor (2002-2008), then appointed rector at Allen Hall Seminary in September 2008, O'Toole has long been on a trajectory to high office. Archbishop-elect O’Toole will become the eighth archbishop of Cardiff in succession to Archbishop George Stack, who has been Archbishop of Cardiff since 2011. The installation will take place in Cardiff Cathedral on 20 June, the feast day of Welsh martyrs Saints Julius and Aaron. This follows a similar move in Ireland which was seen as a way of reducing the number of bishops . The Papal Nuncio in Ireland, Archbishop Jude Okolo explained: “this form of union of two dioceses under one Bishop is not an amalgamation and does not suppress either of the two dioceses. Both dioceses will c...

A blessed Easter to you all! We had a truly beautiful Easter vigil Mass here in my parish of Leigh-on-Sea.  This is the high-point of the Church's year and it is marked by the longest liturgy (public prayer) we celebrate. It is divided into numerous parts. My wife & I absolutely love this liturgy and always attend it. It feels like coming out of the long trek through the desert of our Lenten observances. As we sit in the darkened church, we are awaiting our master's return with our lamps full and burning, so that He will find us awake and seat us at His table (cf. Luke 12:35ff). The atmosphere in the church is special and exciting: the holy water fonts are drained, all the lights are out and the tabernacle is empty. The children whisper excitedly about the darkened church. There is a tangible sense of anticipation. The liturgy begins outside the church in darkness; darkness, which represents all darkness, and all the meanings of darkness - devoid of light; evil thoughts, mo...

  The Bishop of Killala, a diocese without a vocation in ten years, announces the "re-birth of Vatican II" with a made up liturgy which he proudly announces is something which is not being done anywhere else. Of course not you muppet - because you made it up!! These boring, deranged, lost loonies have inspired a generation of Catholics to apostatize and yet they loudly proclaim how brilliant they are (listen to Bishop Fleming's homily for examples). This despite the extraordinary evidence to the contrary! Who is he trying to convince? We can see he is completely useless, God only knows why Rome allows this to continue....Perhaps he is trying to convince himself? It seems that bishops have become administrators. Overly concerned with PR, bricks, mortar and money. This is not their primary role. The first thing any decent manager will do is evaluate where they need help, then work to ensure the best people are put in those positions. The impression you get from most bishop...

  The anonymous Cardinal Demos, in his recently circulated memo , pointed out the blatant heresy of Cardinal Hollerich and that that blatant heresy has gone without papal correction: Cardinal Hollerich rejects the Christian teaching on sexuality. The Papacy is silent. This is doubly significant because the Cardinal is explicitly heretical; he does not use code or hints. If the Cardinal were to continue without Roman correction, this would represent another deeper breakdown of discipline, with few (any?) precedents in history. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith must act and speak. Demos also points out the error of the German bishops and the silence of the Pope on this breach of unity, He expresses how the silence of the Pope is emphasised by contrasting it to his crack down on the Latin Mass. In the absence of any leadership from Rome, the scattered flock are lost and confused. No doubt, Demos is not the only one who is concerned, hence the international coalition of b...

The sad state of the episcopacy in England and Wales, is marked by a lack of teaching, courage and anything approaching orthodoxy, and this mess seems to be summed up by the continuing errors of the Archbishop of the once great, now dying Liverpool Archdiocese. The fact that McMahon is vice president of the CBCEW tells you all you need to know about why our bishops are so utterly useless. What is particularly interesting about McMahon is that he is so vocal about a certain issue. What happens when your bishop teaches error these days? There's no succour from the Church, episcopal policy is to lie, obfuscate and ignore. So we have the media. Thank God there's some form of redress! Lifesite reports  that Fr. Mark Moran, the parish priest of St. Wilfrid’s parish in Widnes, announced in the parish newsletter March 27 that the church would be holding a Mass specifically for the “LGBTQ+ community.” Fr. Moran also asked for members of the parish to help with refreshments before a...

In an interview on EWTN, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone explains why he signed the letter to the German Church . His contacts in Germany tell him the faithful in Germany are pleading for help as too many German bishops' reject scripture and tradition on gender and sexual morality. This is another sad example of how impotent Pope Francis is in his role as the point of unity for the Church.

  Over 70 bishops from four continents warn that heterodox German reform efforts risk fracturing Church unity, adversely impacting the Church globally. Can it really be true that there are just 74 bishops in the whole of the episcopacy willing to stand up for the Church? As of 2020 there were approximately 5,600 living bishops in the Latin and Eastern churches of the Catholic Church. One friend commented: Sadly no English bishops are signatories. I guess it's more politically expedient to censure priests who are faithful to Catholic teaching than it is to offend local rainbow people. Of course it is a fact that No less than 13 mitered abbots attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn, so there is historical precedent for low expectations. One can only hope that more sign up now the document is public. Indeed  the letter’s organizers have provided the email address episcopimundi2022@gmail.com where other bishops can request to add their names to the letter. And bishop Paprocki c...