De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

On Thursday the Vatican published reports prepared by Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer , prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and Cardinal Marc Ouellet , prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. The cardinals’ reports were first presented to Germany’s bishops on the final day of their ad limina visit to Rome on 18th November. Originally written in Italian, the texts were also published in German by Vatican News . You can read my report which has been published in The Catholic Herald here . Both reports were released by the Vatican in Italian and German, which added to the complexity of figuring out what was going on somewhat! I downloaded the German and translated it for both reports and - I have to say - I was really impressed! The reports were markedly different, each cardinal clearly addressing the German issue from the perspective of their own relevant dicastery. Ouellet from the collegial perspective of the episcopacy, Ladaria from a perspective of doctrinal clarity. C...

From 14-17 November 2022, the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales gathered in Leeds for their autumn plenary meeting at Hinsley Hall. They issued a podcast of a press conference on the meeting, you can listen to it here but I warn you, it is deathly dull. Bishop John Sherrington is the lead on life issues and talks about clause 9 which seeks to criminalise a broad range of activities around abortion clinics. Sherrington is "concerned" about this. That's it. That's all they could muster. "Concern". More practically, Right to Life UK ( @RightToLifeUK ) have created a handy tool to contact your MP in advance of the debate on Monday on the abortion buffer zones, you can find it here . We covered the buffer zone exclusion issue in some detail on Catholic Unscripted a month ago. The situation is quite extraordinary. It is a shame the bishops offer no teaching or practical advice in their "resolution". The huge irony is that a resolution is, by defini...

Jesus met with all kinds of sinners. He met with them to call them to repentance.  We know this, it is what the Church exists for. I have discussed here, previously , how I can recognise the way in which the pope, perhaps, considers meeting public sinners an imitation of Christ. He could well consider it the very work of mercy and charity to reach out to the marginalised and despised. The key and obvious difference, it seems to me, is that where Christ offered sinners who knew their sinful position the hope of salvation through repentance, the pope seems to never require any renunciation of the often open and blatant attacks proffered by those he meets. Instead he seems to promote them and their ideas. Quite literally in some cases !  Who could forget the  numerous scandalous reports from Eugene Scalfari , a nonagenarian Atheist Italian reporter? there's his friendship with Emma Bonino , Italian abortionist.More moral relativism from the Argentine Pontiff! On March 21, 20...

Not only did Bishop Ray Browne of Kerry betray his office when he misrepresented Christian teaching & cancelled faithful Kerry priest Fr Sean Sheehy, but, in this interview with John-Henry Westen, Fr Sheehy reveals how Irish Bishops across the country are abandoning their calling - "Individual bishops who have been entrusted with the care of a particular church-under the authority of the supreme pontiff-feed their sheep in the name of the Lord as their own, ordinary, and immediate pastors, performing for them the office of teaching, sanctifying, and governing." - Christus Dominus #11 Instead of preaching the Gospel and leading people to repentence, they take their orders from the LGBTQ lobby and are silencing and canceling brave faithful priests worldwide. Fr. Sean Sheehy's simple exposition of Catholic truth was too much for his bishop, and Fr. Sheehy was quickly removed.   Join John-Henry Westen in this special report as he discusses with Fr. Sheehy what has unfold...

So the USCCB have appointed their new president The US Bishops have manufactured a real mess for themselves with factions refusing to uphold Church teaching on the reception of the Blessed Sacrament backed by Pope Francis who appears to all intentions to be supporting the pro-abortion administration in the White House. The issue has played itself out as far as possible until bishops clearly state those who deliberately perform/enable abortion ALWAYS sin gravely—not only doctors who perform & parents/SOs who pay, BUT ALSO politicians AND VOTERS who deliberately choose for pro-abort legislation. There's little chance of this being sorted under the new President of the US Bishops who is expected to maintain the status quo as Michael Voris points out here: And will go along in lockstep with the bishop gang. Where is his immediate denunciation of pro abort Catholics and Holy Communion. Where is his public rebuke of brother bishops violating Canon 915. Face reality. https://t.co/TSfJ...

In our most recent episode, we discussion the wonderful visit of the Emeritus Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship to  Corpus Christi Church in Maiden Lane and the impact that a truly Holy man has on the faithful. You can see pictures of the visit on my Twitter feed @sitsio or by checking out Corpus Christi's Facebook page . Katherine has since had a piece published in The Catholic Herald . In it, she explains: "..the scales were lifted from my own eyes through the witness of holy men and women I met along the way. This witness is hugely important in the life of the Church. There is a lot of talk today about how to reach young people, but all too often the conversation centres around secular assumptions about what will make them happy and not on sanctity." We also discuss the cancelling of Father Sean Sheehy, who delivered a Sunday homily on sin which ended up going viral on the internet. You might expect the homily to be extreme, given that his bishop remove...

There is a lot of stuff I want to blog about. Sometimes it feels a bit overwhelming - there is such a pace to happenings in the Church under Pope Francis and I do feel I want to document it and record what was going on and the contemporary discussions that surround each event. I've meaning meaning to write something about China and the Vatican's involvement.  It is hard to see how there could be any justification for the secret agreement between Rome & Beijing, the results of which are the silence of the Vatican on Chinese civil rights violations, the persecution of faithful Catholics & the imposition of a syncretic form of Catholicism which advocates worship of "the Party". I don't know about you, but I'm starting to see a pattern here.  Amoris Laetitia  could be said to be an argument for Fundamental Option . Pope Francis has praised Bernard Haring . The Pope's approach to Islam and defence of Mazzucato seem clearly Utilitarian. Is he trying to ...

We all know the Papal Plane Game by now. It always seems to create a scandal but Francis doesn't care, or slow down. Sure, nothing he says is Magisterial, but we all know that irrespective of the finer points of canon law or moral theology (or ecclesiology or theology for that matter) Francis still seems to speak without care, and those who desire to break down the teaching of Christ and the Apostles into something they find more palatable for the modern era, or more comfortable given their personal peccadilloes, jump on his every word to justify whatever blasphemy they seek to endorse.  A perfect demonstration of this is, on the way back from Bahrain, Pope Francis offered a justification for adding pro-abortionists as members of the Pontifical Academy for Life . As the National Catholic Register reports : "While speaking about the gifts of women during an in-flight press conference on Sunday, Pope Francis mentioned the recent appointment of a pro-abortion economist to th...

  Some important issues discussed in this week's episode of Catholic Unscripted. The Seal of the Confessional.  The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has taken aim at the seal of the confessional, purportedly in an attempt to protect children. Secular society is looking for scapegoats for the rampant abuse of minors in our society. Does this exist because of sexual moral or because it naturally comes when you relax the norms that protect intimate relationships. As religious illiteracy grows in society, one repercussion is seen through IICSA taking aim at the sanctity of the seal of confession. Our discussion about why is this challenge is problematic quickly turns into an explanation of the importance, power & beauty of this incredible Sacrament of grace. For more on what the seal of confession is see here https://www.catholic.com/magazine/onl...   Priestly celibacy  This discussion was sparked by Gavin's podcasted conversation with Ann Widdecom...

There are still those out there saying that the Synod is a good thing and that the Church in Ireland still has faith. Here are a couple of very worrying incidents that would challenge even the most ardent protagonists of such positive positions. Firstly, we have the seasoned Vatican journalist Diane Montagna asking (I still can't believe he is a cardinal) Grech about the pro-gay, anti-Catholic images promoted by the secretariat on Facebook. It was reported that these artistic impressions - or whatever they were - were falsifications of actual events, where the people speaking had been changed to represent gay or progressive ideas (see this post for full details on that). Cardinal Grech’s response: pic.twitter.com/va2nRneXWC — Diane Montagna (@dianemontagna) November 1, 2022 Grech is quite bellicose, he seems angered by the question, which  one would expect if one has any knowledge of the man, I was hearing reports that he was a bully and a cover up artist years before his eleva...

Fr. Jon Bielawski was Ordained in 1990 and is a Parish Priest of the Plymouth Diocese in the UK. Fr. Jon’s first experience of evangelising was with the Franciscan Friars of Renewal in London when they took to the streets handing out prayer cards and engaging people in conversation. “I found it exhilarating and it made me realise that the biggest hurdle to overcome in reaching out to others, is no greater than the sum of our own fears and pre-conceived ideas”. In 2015, Fr. Jon combined the role of Episcopal Vicar for Evangelisation and Catechesis with running a busy parish. Haunted by the phrase “the church exists to evangelise” Fr. Jon recognised there is a huge gap between knowing we should evangelise and how to go about it. Fr. Jon’s mission in making disciples is to work on the God given potentiality of the person and to group them within a parish to be the core of dynamic outreach. “We are all looking for full parish renewal and in the meantime there is a whole world that is ...