De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Last night, the Irish Taoiseach (PM) Leo Varadkar confirmed that a referendum on Repealing the Eighth Amendment, and replacing it with a clause specifically enabling the Parliament to legislate for abortion. Not only would the right to life be stripped from unborn babies, the abortion regime being drafted is even more extreme than Britain's. This video explains why it is so crucial to #SaveThe8th . Please do take a minute to share it - especially with your Irish family & friends. This really is a battle of good against evil. And don't forget to pray that Ireland seizes this opportunity to lead Europe towards the light!

Fr Cor Mennen is a Lecturer in Canon Law at the Major Seminary of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch (Netherlands) and Canon of the cathedral chapter of the diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. He has posted a precise critique of Amoris Laetitia which lays bare the errors of the document as the crisis in the Church caused by Pope Francis and his minions continues to rage unabated. As the original is in Dutch, I had some help with the translation from Henk Rijkers . The Amorites and the heresy of sliding panels.   There are few who dare to accuse the pope and his entourage of formal heresy. There are two reasons for this.  Firstly, because the Pope and his papal court, together with the liberal bishops' conferences in the world (Malta, Argentina, Germany) e.g. do not directly contest the insolvability the marriage. On the contrary, they expressly say that they hold on to the indissolubility of marriage. Secondly, a charge of heresy would bring the Church into s...

As we start 2018 and Dioceses all over the UK (and beyond) are developing plans for the future (such as my own here ) we are being asked to discuss and consider a way forward as communities of believers as vocations dwindle and practising Catholics disappear even more rapidly. This has been discussed in numerous places with great clarity, perhaps most familiarly by Sherry Weddell in her book Forming Intentional Disciples , and most recently by Professor Stephen Bullivant in the Catholic Herald . Bullivant's article is concise and packed with valuable detail for anyone discerning the future direction of the Church. Key points are: There are more priestly retirements (or deaths) each year than ordinations.  A number of our seminaries have closed, the ones we still have are practically empty. Priest numbers fell between 1970 and 2014 by 48 per cent. Sunday worshippers fell by 55 per cent over the same period. In short, priest-to-worshipper numbers were better in 2014 ...

In December 2013, Pope Francis sparked hope that the Catholic Church was taking the scandal of clerical sexual abuse seriously as he created a group to advise him and future popes on how the church worldwide could protect children, appointing experts on the issue and even survivors of abuse to a new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors . Four years later that commission has lapsed into an inactive state. Its members' terms of office, as set by the group's Vatican-approved statutes, expired last December (2017). Neither the pope nor the Vatican have made known when or if the current members will be reappointed or new members found. That Francis has allowed this lapse to occur has been broadly criticised from all quarters of the Catholic Church as deeply troubling. A commission without validly appointed members ceases to be a commission; its members may carry on their work but if they do, they do so as individuals without legal standing or vested authority ...

Bishop Juan Barros Madrid, centre, during a Mass celebrated by Pope Francis, far right, on Thursday near Iquique, Chile. The Pope said there was "not one single piece of evidence" that Bishop Barros had protected a peadophile priest. Credit Vincenzo Pinto/Agence France Presse - Getty Images The papal plane stunt provided a great smoke-screen from the Pope awarding a extremist lgbt / pro-abortion politician a Knighthood in the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great  (although this was pretty well hidden among a plethora of awful ecclesial developments over the last week as I noted  in this post ). But there was another, much bigger issue which this PR stunt was perhaps designed to cover up, as Robert Mickens (not the most traddy journalist on the planet) points out in this La Croix article: Pope Francis has been away in South America this past week and, while in Chile, he drew only modest crowds of supporters. It was the frostiest recept...

So, in a P.R. master-stroke, no one is talking about the extreme pro-lgbt, pro-abortion politician the Pope awarded  a knight in the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great. Now everyone is talking about a spontaneous marriage ceremony for a Catholic couple living in a civil, non-sacramental marriage for at least seven years it seems, during a flight in Chile today. The fact that unqualified Vatican PR staff immediately had to assure everyone the marriage was perfectly licit is practically a guarantee that it wasn't: Pope Francis performed on Thursday the first-ever papal marriage ceremony aboard the plane bound for Iquique, the final day of his Apostolic Visit to Chile! Greg Burke, Director of the Holy See Press Office, said the marriage was "totally legit" and "doctrinally OK". pic.twitter.com/F9KKzE4Omr — Vatican News (@VaticanNews) January 18, 2018 It is interesting to note, however, the couple’s account seems to contradict the d...

Fr. Longnecker has posted this review of Pope Francis’ speech at Chile’s pontifical university. It shows just how polarised things are between (in my opinion) those of us who are faithful to the Church and honest about the present situation and those who are sycophants with an agenda. What agenda? Well, some clearly want to change the Church; modernise it. Faggioli belongs to the Bologna School. He literally believes Vatican II was a second Pentecost, that subsequently founded a new religion pic.twitter.com/9AM5d5yw6z — Catholic Sat (@CatholicSat) July 28, 2017 Some have invested so much time and effort into refuting criticisms of this papacy, to show any crack of acknowledgement at this stage would constitute a totally collapse in credibility: Pope cathedral speech a fine example of a spiritual master leading a Church prone to temptations in desolation. #FranciscoEnChile — Austen Ivereigh (@austeni) January 16, 2018 It is Austen Ivereigh who draws Fr. Longnecker...