De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

  Writing in The Catholic Thing , Stephen P. White makes some great points regarding the recent exposé by The Pillar . I found his observations on the reaction of both the Vatican & the USCCB particularly interesting: "The Pillar analysis of mobile app data revealed some very unpleasant things. Rather than simply publishing the findings, The Pillar notified the relevant Church authorities and gave them a reasonable chance to formulate a constructive response, granting additional time when requested. Either the USCCB or the Secretariat of State (or both) clearly didn’t like what The Pillarhad to tell them. The response was to stall, leak parts of the story to other sympathetic news outlets, and then stonewall. I’ll leave it to communications directors and journalists to argue over whether this maneuvering was brilliant or slimy. What is clear is that this maneuver was meant to be punitive, to intimidate. This strategy was not to stop the story coming out – word of the story w

  Getting on for a couple of weeks ago now, J.D. Flynn, Editor in Chief & Co-Founder of The Pillar Tweeted that he was in Rome; Borgo Pio is literally the next street to St. Peter's Square. I’m sure this restaurant has a name, but I find “that place on the borgo with the good norcina” is all anybody needs to know where you are. pic.twitter.com/a60XatgOM9 — JD Flynn (@jdflynn) July 16, 2021 Something was afoot. A matter of a few days later, the news about Mgsr Burrill — former General Secretary of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops — broke . Today it became a bit clearer what the boys were up to. I think this is the key bit of the report: The Pillar met for more than 90 minutes with both Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, along with Dr. Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Vatican’s dicastery for communications, to present its findings July 17. The meeting’s discussion was agreed by all parties to be mutually confidential, but the fact of the meeting was not its

  It speaks to the deep tragedy of the Pope's disastrous leadership that young Catholics from across the world are forced to beg for morsels at the Pope's table having been falsely categorised by him as rigid, divisive and problematic. The deep irony is that those who prefer the Traditional Liturgy are the ones who most care about the Pope and the Bishops and pray for them. Progressives do what they want to do and ignore the bishops. The cruelty of this Motu Proprio us extraordinary.

 Things have moved quickly this week. There are quite a few things worth drawing attention to and all relating to the Pope's Motu Proprio : Traditiones Custodes . As a Catholic who attends the Novus ordo — the "Ordinary Form" as Pope Benedict XVI termed it, I feel wounded by this document. I feel it is extremely harsh, lacks justice and integrity and seeks to promote a worrying political element within the Church which works against, not promotes, the unity the document purports to foster. My initial reading left me scratching my head about several issues. How are bishops supposed to obtain oaths of fidelity from Latin Mass goers? Verbally? In writing? If the Latin Mass is banned from Churches ( see §2: "not however in the parochial churches and without the erection of new personal parishes" ) where are those who gather for the Vetus ordo supposed to gather? Are they banned from Churches? Thankfully, The Latin Mass Society has published a document which prov

As a Father a husband a Catechist and a Catholic with a Pontifical degree in Catholic Theology I find great joy in my faith, living it, sharing it, learning about it. I find when you explain the gospel to people they are overjoyed, engaged and grateful. It is frustrating that Catholics are leaving the Church in extraordinary numbers. When I talk about this with fellow lay Catechists we always end up talking about the division and confusion among the bishops and clergy that leads to the promotion of often conflicting messages and petty in-fighting in terms of getting useful catechetical messages out there. It's like they don't want to teach the faith! Is sadly an oft repeated expression of frustration shared among us as we reflect on a programme shut down, a suggestion passed over or ignored by the powers that be or a controversial speaker spreading confusion in a parish or diocese. For some time now, Michael Voris has been saying that the reason for this is that the men in ch

Cardinal Zen has been treated terribly by Pope Francis. He wasn't consulted about the horrendous deal the Vatican made with China when he is clearly the person who should have been consulted first and most frequently. Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, the chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences said  “Right now, those who are best implementing the social doctrine of the Church are the Chinese,”  These are the people Pope Francis wants involved in the negotiations, not the faithful Cardinal Zen. It shows the mindset of the Vatican and those who wield power. Worryingly, one might say they are admirers of Communism. Cardinal Zen has issued a statement on the newly promulgated motu proprio . He points out: The “thorough” consultation did not reach him The document contains "many tendentious generalizations" which "wound the hearts of so many good people" The document is full of baseless, hurtful generalisations  The consultation process was manipulated The do

As I mentioned yesterday , the former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Gerhard Cardinal Müller authored an analysis July 19 of Traditionis custodes , Pope Francis’ July 16 motu proprio on the use of the Roman liturgy prior to the reform of 1970. I think it's well worth a deeper look at what he said if only because his erudition and scholarship provide a perfect antidote to the dim-witted person who wrote the flawed motu proprio text. Presumably not even bothering to have it checked by a Canonist...but why would you when you are omniscient!? As I pointed out in my last post , Pope Francis explained his decision in an accompanying letter to bishops, in which he wrote: “In defense of the unity of the Body of Christ, I am constrained to revoke the faculty granted by my Predecessors.” The pope said he was saddened that the celebration of the extraordinary form was now characterized by a rejection of the Second Vatican Council and its liturgical reforms. This des

The motu proprio “ Traditionis Custodes ” was issued by Pope Francis on 16th July 2021, along with an accompanying letter. This move has been rumoured for months now and was reported to be in its third draft at the beginning of June, but everyone seems to have been taken by surprise at the ferocity of the language in the motu proprio (Latin for "on his own impulse"). It is another embarrassing Pope Francis blunder which damages the office of pope and reveals his petty factionalism and politicalisation of the Papacy. As was posted at NLM : We must redouble our prayers for Pope Francis, whose whole papacy, every smile, every hug of a disabled person, every exhortation to mercy, will be stained for the rest of history, along with the throne of St Peter itself, by this unprecedented and absolutely gratuitous act of pastoral cruelty, the attempted revocation of Summorum Pontificum . And what about that title! Is it supposed to be some kind of deeply ironic joke? With Catholicis

I came across this YouTube video from Trent Horn today and listened to the whole thing.  I do think that these sorts of discussions are absolutely essential given the stark contrast of Church teaching with a culture that continually pushes the boundaries of sexual morality. This discussion between Trent Horn and liberal/ progressive pastor, Brandon Robertson, encapsulates and analyses a lot of the ideas we see mainstreamed in society today without any pushback from the Catholic Church which, presently seems to only be interested in acceptance. This is extremely troubling because of what the Church actually teaches: that homosexual acts are sinful. To virtually everyone what the Catholic Church says and what it does are at odds. We can speculate as to why this is. The well known fact that many Catholic clergy are themselves subject to homosexual tendencies must be a factor in the Church’s silence. But given the teaching itself, such silence is fatal and screams of hypocrisy. Not only t

  There is a very good piece in The Catholic Thing today by Fr. Timothy V. Vaverek. It is prompted by the ongoing discussions regarding eucharistic coherence. Despite the fact this topic is what continues motivates these discussions I cannot help but feel that they have much wider import and relevance not just for the Church in the USA but for the universal Church. It has brought up many issues and revealed a great many problems which I think are clearly the key issues we face. We see these issues identified again and again and again and they are very simple to identify. The tension occurs between those who have shrugged off the prevailing covering of social Catholicism and actually found out what the Catholic faith has always taught, and those who —often for valid reasons, constantly seek to dissent from the Apostolic faith. This may be because they harbour doubts about particular elements of Church teaching, it might be that they are deeply embedded in a cycle of personal sin which

Yesterday the Methodist Conference voted to confirm provisional resolutions on the principles or qualities of good relating, understanding of cohabitation and same sex marriages conducted on Methodist premises or by Methodist office-holders . A report on marriage and relationships, ‘ God in Love Unites Us’ , was received by the Conference in 2019 and the local District Synods were asked to consider the provisional resolutions and report back to this year’s Conference which is being held this week in Birmingham. The Conference received a report on the results of the local conferring which showed that 29 out of the 30 Synods confirmed support for the provisional resolutions. According to Methodists themselves, this is NOT what they want: as we have seen elsewhere, a small but vocal group have relentlessly sought power in the organisation and are now using it to implement fundamental change. Speakers at the Conference called for unity going ahead irrespective of the decision. Other spea