De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone's response to the Testimony of Archbishop Viganò Dear Faithful of the Archdiocese, Last Sunday witnessed what many are calling a “bombshell” in the Church: the publication of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s “Testimony,” alleging corruption and coverup at all levels of the Church based on his long and extensive personal knowledge. I came to know Archbishop Viganò well during the years he served as Apostolic Nuncio here in the United States. I can attest that he is a man who served his mission with selfless dedication, who fulfilled well the Petrine mission entrusted to him by the Holy Father to “strengthen his brothers in the faith,” and who would do so at great personal sacrifice and with absolutely no consideration given to furthering his “career” – all of which speaks to his integrity and sincere love of the Church. Moreover, while having no privileged information about the Archbishop McCarrick situation, from information I do have ab...

A must read post from the LMS Chairman: "The world is looking to see if Catholics, ordinary Catholics, Bishops and Cardinals, and every kind of Catholic commentator and leader, are going to demand action over what appear to be serious and credible accusations, or if they are going to pretend everything is all right while the Church's moral authority is being systematically dynamited and bulldozed around them." ... "The next key claim of Viganò is that having been told to cease his public ministry by Pope Benedict, McCarrick resumed travelling, speaking and so on under Pope Francis, who made use of him as a trusted adviser. Of this one can say: it would be incredible, it would simply not cohere with publicly known facts, if this were not true. As Cardinal and Pope, Ratzinger tried hard to rein in abusers, but he drew back from public actions which would cause grave scandal. Thus, as Pope he finally managed to cashier the monster Maciel, but did not grasp the ne...

I have the utmost respect for those I know who are even now, fighting against abuse in the Church in "Catholic" countries. I often forget how different England and Wales are compared with Ireland and Malta, for example, which certainly do suffer from the kind of clericalism the Pope referred to in his open letter to the faithful . I am sure that the Pope's experience in South American tells a similar tale: whenever we have tried to replace, or silence, or ignore, or reduce the People of God to small elites, we end up creating communities, projects, theological approaches, spiritualities and structures without roots, without memory, without faces, without bodies and ultimately, without lives.[2] This is clearly seen in a peculiar way of understanding the Church’s authority, one common in many communities where sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience have occurred. Such is the case with clericalism, an approach that “not only nullifies the character of Chr...

Words fail me... Well-connected Italian Vatican reporter @Tornielli writes today that Pope Francis is not planning any more action steps on the clergy sexual abuse crisis, and thinks his letter on the issue was "exhaustive." Ireland, what say you? https://t.co/hrdo57c6jl — Joshua McElwee (@joshjmac) August 24, 2018

So there has been a long pause since the Pennsylvania revelations where the Vatican has been utterly silent. So long in fact that everyone seemed to be asking why the Pope was ignoring it. As Cardinal Burke made clear in the interview I posted here , the only person responsible for the Bishops is the Holy Father. It is within his jurisdiction alone to deal with this issue. Why no comment? Consider for a moment the enormity of the damage done by the homosexual priest/bishop cabal then ask yourself, how can uprooting it NOT be the Pope’s top pastoral priority right now? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out the most obvious fallout from clergy abuse and for those of us involved with the work of evangelisation it is doubly difficult, so much so that I find it impossible to imagine why this is not the absolute priority for every bishop in the world today. Put bluntly, if we do not succeed in rooting out this evil from the Church, the work of evangelisation cannot begin, it ...

Bishop Grech strongly denies allegations that he is guilty of “lack of action” about child abuse. I have received the following communication from lawyers engaged by the Bishop of Gozo following this post . Mr. Lambert, I have been briefed by His Excellency Bishop Mario Grech to rebut the false allegations that you have made in his regard in your blog entitled “Worrying abuse allegations in Scicluna’s backyard”. Bishop Grech formally denies that he has ever “shielded” any member of the clergy falling under his jurisdiction from accusations of child molestation, or, as you put it in your blog “predation on pubescent boys”. Nor has he ever ignored any call from his superiors to take action against any member of the clergy and hence your assertion that he has is guilty of “lack of action” in this respect is also absolutely unfounded. On the contrary, Bishop Grech confirms that: i. Whenever any allegation of child molestation or abuse of minors by any member of the clergy fal...

I think it may be possible to very broadly divide the Church up into two camps. The first camp are learning & growing in Christ. They seek to understand what the Church teaches about God and the Gospel message with humility and seek Christ. They want to change their lives and recognise the power of Jesus Christ to work that change through grace. When they struggle with a topic they work hard to understand it by reading and talking about it with other Catholics to gain a better understanding of the idea in context. They seek forgiveness for the mistakes they make and the grace to conform their lives to Christ in Confession. The other camp think the Church needs to change to conform to them. For all of my life, the latter camp have been in the ascendancy. My whole life as a Catholic could be characterised as wondering why no one seemed to take the faith they professed seriously. Why everyone seemed to know better than the Church. No one was interested in humbly seeking to l...

There is so much to read and so much information to take in about the devastating Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report into abuse in the Catholic Church. The harrowing 1,356-page document is the result of the office of the attorney general’s investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by priests in the dioceses of Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg and Scranton. Two other Pennsylvanian dioceses — Philadelphia and Altoona-Johnstown — were spared only because they had been previously investigated. The numbers speak for themselves: More than 300 priests in the six dioceses sexually abused a large number of minors over the span of seven decades. The number of victims is estimated at 1,000 at least, but it may actually be significantly higher. The report claims that the priest abusers were routinely shielded or moved by bishops and Church officials. “All of [the victims] were brushed aside, in every part of the state, by Church leaders who preferred to protect the abu...

Twitter is buzzing this morning with the latest heretical out-pouring from professional papal tailgater, Fr. Thomas Rosica. You may remember this is the the Vatican spokesman & CEO of Canadian Salt & Light TV , who seems unable to avoid embroiling himself in what can best be described as embarrassing polemics. He infamously made a legal threat against a small part-time blogger who wants to defend Church teaching.  He has a long record of dodgy pronouncements and quasi-theology (for another example see here ) but these are the men Pope Francis chooses to speak for him. This is something which has puzzled me since the inception of this Pontificate. Who is Rosica? Get it now? This morning's fuss is about a typically sycophantic article written about Pope Francis by Fr. Rosica, entitled  The Ignatian Qualities of the Petrine Ministry of Pope Francis and  posted on his smoke & litigation Salt & Light blog here  and re-posted by Ze...

As Catholics reel over the scandal of active homosexual predators at the highest levels of the clergy, brought to light by the exposure of ex-Cardinal Theodore "Uncle Teddy" McCarrick , a conference for “LGBT Catholics” which advertises itself with what appears to be a young boy’s hand and a man’s hand walking over a rainbow bridge to meet each other is causing a stir on the internet this week. The organisers, Quest, are a well know gay pressure group which seeks to change Church teaching on sexuality. They have a long history of dissent and pressure which you can get a sense for at Protect the Pope . Quest openly and publicly support same-sex marriage  in direct contradiction to Church teaching. The conference is facilitated and endorsed by Bishop Peter Doyle, the Bishop of Northampton who is speaking at the event. Doyle is a bishop known to have a bit of problem with people going to confession, once having said a whole family attending confession together were ...

Argentina's senate has rejected a bill which would have legalised abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. After a marathon debate, 38 senators voted against it and 31 in favour. Its defeat means lawmakers must wait until next year to resubmit legislation. Currently abortion is allowed in Argentina only in cases of rape, or if the mother's health is in danger. Pro-abortion supporters react to failure in as extreme a manner as the Irish did to success. In Argentina they have responded to defeat with violence and burned the place down. This victory for those who reject the legality of abortion has international moral importance. It says not everyone agrees with the steam-roller of social consensus about this issue. Most interesting is the clear BBC bias on abortion - it is definitely one of their shibboleths against which they will have no dissent. No balance. No counterpoint. Instead they paint those who oppose the bill - which has democratically been voted...

I really should have blogged about this earlier but I have been watching information develop so it is probably just as well I've left it to now. I am honoured to be the President of my Catenian Circle this year and as President, you choose a charity that you raise money for throughout the year. I have chosen Life . Life was founded in 1970 Professor Jack Scarisbrick and his wife Nuala in response to the Abortion Act 1967 on the principle that it is not enough simply to oppose abortion but that the positive alternatives should also be provided. Life is a UK-based pro-life educational and caring charity which has in the region of 12,000 members in the UK. Its patrons include well-known pro-life parliamentarians, such as David Alton, Baron Alton of Liverpool.  Life was the first pro-life organisation in the UK to pioneer this two-pronged approach of opposing abortion yet also providing viable long-term alternatives. On Sunday 22nd July Life had a stall at the...