De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

The above graph posted by Edward Pentin shows the value and number of wire transfers from the Vatican to Australia 2014-2020 totalling AUS $2.3 billion (USD $1.7 billion) The Australian’s Dennis Shanahan reports on a discovery that the Vatican and associated entities - from 2014 - have transferred $2.3 billion to accounts in Australia that don't seem to be connected to either the church or the government. When Shanahan contacted senior church officials about the matter "they hadn't heard about it".  The Australian Federal Police have been investigating the matter after it was discovered large amounts of money were being transferred from the Vatican to Australia around the time Cardinal George Pell was being accused. The amounts doubled every year from 2014, the year Cardinal Pell was appointed Vatican treasurer, reaching a peak in 2017 when Pell returned to Australia to face sexual abuse allegations. “Most of the time if you speak to senior church figures, they say ...

Cardinal Raymond Burke is a most excellent shepherd of the Church. He is not the most engaging speaker, not the most charismatic individual you will ever meet, but he is, nevertheless, very inspiring, because he is intelligent, wise and courageous in his preaching of the Gospel. This is an excellent recent homily from him which must be listened to carefully. He berates those who spread confusion about what the Church teaches, responding to the laity not as shepherds, but as secular managers. Incredible that Cardinal Burke makes these points now, I have been thinking along similar lines for a while now. I feel hurt by those who constantly work to obscure the crystal clear truth of the Gospel by constantly adding "nuance". Jesus says: "Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one." (Mt 5:37)   When studying the faith, I was blown away by how coherent, clear & reasonable it is. Those who work to occlude that clar...

  Writing  in Lifesite  yesterday, Dr. Joseph Shaw makes a point that cannot be over-stressed regarding Catholic education. As the deadline for the introduction of new PHSE legislation draws ever closer, Dr. Shaw is speaking out, having tried to discuss the matter with bishops and even instigating a prayer vigil outside Westminster Cathedral . As any of us who have tried to engage have come to expect, the only received responses were formulaic & patronising telling Shaw and his co-enquirers that everything would be fine. The incoming legislation is deeply problematic. As Dr. Shaw writes , this "legislation is imposing a program of “Personal, Health, and Sex Education” (PHSE) that demands that choosing not to kill the child in the womb is just one acceptable option among others, and that Christian marriage is just one lifestyle choice alongside same-sex unions and every other possibility. We know from the lesson plans, produced not only by the government, but by t...

Ralph Martin makes some great points in this clip from a longer interview with Matt Fradd. What Ralph says here is BASIC CHRISTIAN TEACHING - it is extraordinary to see how far away we have come away from that basic message. The default situation of the human race is damnation: this is why we need to change our ways, this is why Jesus died on the Cross. God doesn't ignore or overlook our sin, He IS justice so for Him to do so would create an unresolvable paradox. Instead God has paid the price for our sin in Jesus Sacrifice, reconciling us to Him and opening a way to heaven.

  On Tuesday 24th November, a few days before the consistory in which  Wilton Gregory was made a cardinal of the Catholic Church, JD Flynn posted an analysis of recent comments by the Archbishop of  Washington that he is happy to give Holy Communion to Joe Biden. Gregory, who was then made a cardinal at the weekend, told a journalist on Tuesday that in his diocese, he will not deny Holy Communion to a politician who has pledged to enshrine access to abortion in federal law and permit federal funding of abortions. This seems to be in defiance of the recent US Conference of Catholic Bishops statement which, though massively hypocritical in itself , did point out that there were serious problems with some of Biden's policies. The conference president, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, closed the meeting on Nov. 17 by announcing the creation of a bishops’ working group to prepare for the Biden presidency. The USCCB president noted several Biden policies that “pose...

  Father François-Marie Dermine, promoter of an annual international course on exorcism in Rome, discusses his recent popular work about the devil, offering keys to discernment on this controversial and sensitive topic in this article in the National Catholic Register. Fr François-Marie Dermine OP says:  "If the figure of the devil is missing, one also loses sight of the figure of God itself. In this sense, the death of the devil can accompany or precede or favor that of God because it makes the concept of God very abstract. It makes faith arid and intellectualistic and makes us forget that we really need to be saved, helped and protected by the Lord. We must bear in mind that our faith consists in the effective presence of a loving God, and reasoning is not always the best way to reach God." In response to the question of why he decided to write a new book: Ragioniamo sul demonio. Tra superstizioni, mito e realtà (“Let’s Reason About the Devil: Between Superstitions, Myth...

Over the years I have noticed an evolution in the circumstances of our presbyterate which, whether we have heeded it or not, has undoubtedly wrought existential changes in the life of your average priest. Growing up, there were usually  two priests, often three, in a parish. Now priests are largely solitary. As a priest friend of mine remarked a few years ago, this means that it is easy for the good ones to work themselves to death with no one to tell them to take a day off, it's similarly easy for others to descend into darkness, error, alcoholism, etc. A priest is a father and as such, for most of us who take our faith seriously, he commands a certain degree of paternal respect. He is someone who you go to for advice, for wisdom, for succour when things are so bad you can't cope anymore.  But who does he go to? Do you know your priest well enough to be able to say who his friends are? That he has a hot meal? That his heating works? I am blessed to have a family, my home life...

At Catholic World Report, t here's an analysis of the recent papal consistory . The article takes a bit of time to get going, but here's the meat: "The scrapping of automatic cardinalate sees also reduces a process of checks and balances in the Catholic Church. Due to his selective and never-automatic choices of cardinals, it has been easier for Francis to select men (and, consequently, his successor) with similar views. There have been some exceptions, such as Gerhard Ludwig Müller, whom Francis made a cardinal (but later dismissed as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) and who has been in favor of clarifying the confusion regarding Amoris laetitia.... "When we look at the cardinals Francis has bypassed and those he appointed in their place, it becomes clear that many of his selections share his view of the Church. A central theme of the pontificate of Francis, the son of an Italian railway worker who fled Mussolini’s rule for Argentina, has b...

Today is Campion Day - the Feast day of Saint Edmund Campion an English Catholic Jesuit priest and martyr. Campion was highly regarded by Queen Elizabeth, having led a debate in front of her at Stonyhurst College in 1566. While conducting an underground ministry in officially Anglican England, Campion was arrested by priest hunters. Convicted of high treason, he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. Campion was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and canonised in 1970 by Pope Paul VI as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. His feast day is celebrated every 1st of December. St. Edmund has been a powerful intercessor on my behalf since I was ten or eleven. His stirring " brag " (a challenge he issued to the privy council) has long been an inspiration to me:  "The expense is reckoned, the enterprise is begun; it is of God, it cannot be withstood. So the Faith was planted: so it must be restored." As a former student of The Campion School in Hornchurch, E...