De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Cherry Vann has spoken and the BBC have reported her words. She articulates one of the most common yet erroneaous assumptions of our age: That authenticity means doing what we feel comes naturally to us. Christianity has never agreed. Conversion to Christ is not the baptising of our preferences, desires, or instincts. It is the slow, often costly reordering of our lives to a truth that stands outside us. Jesus does not say “express yourself”, but “follow me”. That is why this debate matters. When Church leaders frame moral teaching as an attack on identity, something essential has been lost. The Christian life is not about doing what we fancy and asking God to bless it. It is about learning, sometimes painfully, that our desires are not our destiny. Explaining the goodness of that calling is not cruelty. It is not exclusion. It is the very heart of pastoral leadership. And it is precisely the task entrusted to bishops and archbishops. In our latest Catholic Unscripted article, we...

Amazing Gospel this Sunday, wasn't it? Mark 8:27-35 Peter started to remonstrate with him. But, turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said to him, ‘Get behind me, Satan! Because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’ This came directly after Pope Francis told children in Singapore "All religions are paths to reach God". Tell that to the Incans or the Mayans Holy Father! The Vatican tried to nuance this by altering the Pope's words when they published a transcript, but given that it was recorded on video, and everyone was wise to it, they eventually changed it back (do they or the Pope have any credibility left to squander?). Obviously he (the Pope) was trying to avoid offending non Catholics but if you can't expect the Pope to talk about Jesus, what on earth do you expect him to talk about? If you believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and that none can come to the Father except through Him (see Jn 14:6), how does it help t...

Yesterday saw an extraordinary development in the USA when Bishop Thomas Paprocki, bishop of Springfield, Illinois, and chairman-elect of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance had an essay published in First Things which did everything except publicly name Cardinal Robert McElroy & Cardinal Blaise Cupich as heretics. The First Things essay did not mention McElroy by name, but it cited directly a Jan. 24 essay in America magazine from Cardinal Robert McElroy , which argued that the Church should “embrace a eucharistic theology that effectively invites all of the baptized to the table of the Lord.” McElroy said the Church should discard “a theology of eucharistic coherence that multiplies barriers to the grace and gift of the eucharist.” “Unworthiness cannot be the prism of accompaniment for disciples of the God of grace and mercy,” McElroy wrote, in a text quoted by Paprocki. A number of U.S. bishops have responded...

  I came across this on Twitter the other day and thought it was extraordinary on reflection. I'm from Buenos Aires so I've known all about him longer than most people. I tried to warn people that he was bad news nine years ago but people didn't want to listen. Now, here we are. — 🇦🇷 Daniella M Pavlick 🇺🇸 (@DMendoza1978) August 24, 2022 Back on the day when Pope Francis was elected, a lot of Catholics I know reported a feeling of dread, fear, or revulsion. On that day, Rorate Caeli posted this short article by an Argentine conservative only hours after his election. It seems incredible looking back that everything, every single word that man wrote was absolutely correct. The image is so appropriate on its own. How many times have we seen the Pope behave in this way since his election? It seeks to send a very public message of humility, but how can in not also transmit a message that all religions have equal validity? Faith and morals mean nothing to Bergoglio - he has...

German bishops gave Holy Communion to a Muslim politician and a Protestant politician during Masses at a “Catholics Day” event in late May. In a stroke of irony, the biannual event, called Katholikentag, also prohibited the German Federal Association for Life from setting up a stall on its grounds for the first time in its history. Event organizers reportedly told the pro-life group, “During the examination, the program group could not determine that your organization is clearly Christian,” according to a statement by the association’s president, Alexandra Maria Linder. Bishop Gebhard Fürst of Rottenburg-Stuttgart gave Holy Communion at the event’s opening Mass to Muhterem Aras, a Muslim German parliamentarian of the environmentalist “Greens” party, CNA Deutsch reported .  Makes you wonder why a Muslim would want to receive the Eucharist? Similarly, and perhaps more pertinent to a papacy which has the temerity to see itself as the Guardians of Tradition while attacking any sem...

Fr. Joseph Fessio, SJ, the founder and editor of Ignatius Press is a rare thing these days: someone who doesn't pass rash judgement and gives a fair commentary, in this instance on the subject of the Open Letter to bishops accusing Pope Francis of heresy . Fr Fessio says in this interview that these statements are carefully made and require a response from the Pope or on his behalf. Many of those criticising the authors of the letter seem concerned with the undoubted damage that such accusations do to the office of the Pope. But it seems clear to me that the damage is being done by the Pope, and the Pope has not offered any clarifications of any questions asked of him up to now. As Fr. Fessio so correctly asserts in this interview: "Certainly no one in his right mind can deny there is ambiguity nor that people are using what the Pope has said to forward positions which are false or heretical or contradictory so there is confusion, anyone who says there is no confusion...

As you have no doubt now heard, a group of Catholics, including some prominent academics, have published an open letter to the bishops of the world accusing Pope Francis of heresy. The letter, made public April 30, was dated “Easter week” and was, at the time, signed by 19 individuals, including Dominican Father Aidan Nichols, an internationally recognized theologian and author. To date, the letter has garnered about 51 signatures. 20 more signatories have been added to the Open Letter to Bishops, now there are altogether 51 signatories (see at bottom of article): https://t.co/xxiCXRTf42 — Maike Hickson (@HicksonMaike) May 2, 2019 The 15-page letter begins by asking the bishops of the world to take some action against the Pope. “We are addressing this letter to you for two reasons: first to accuse Pope Francis of the canonical delict of heresy, and second, to request that you take the steps necessary to deal with the grave situation of a [sic] heretical pope.” The lette...

The Baptism of Jesus at the Jordan is the anticipation of his baptism of blood on the Cross, and it is the symbol of the entire sacramental activity by which the Redeemer will bring about the salvation of humanity. This is why the Patristic tradition has dedicated great interest to this Feast, which is the most ancient after Easter. "Christ is baptized and the whole world is made holy", sings today's liturgy; "he wipes out the debt of our sins; we will all be purified by water and the Holy Spirit" ( Antiphon to the Benedictus, Office of Lauds ). There is a strict relationship between the Baptism of Christ and our Baptism. At the Jordan the heavens opened (cf. Lk 3: 21) to indicate that the Saviour has opened the way of salvation and we can travel it thanks to our own new birth "of water and Spirit" (Jn3: 5), accomplished in Baptism. In it we are inserted into the Mystical Body of Christ, that is, the Church, we die and rise with him, we are clothe...

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...

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...

First he is in, then he is out, then he is in again, now he shakes it all about. Many of us dread the papal plane comments now. Yesterday, June 21st, during an in-flight news conference, the pope was asked about his recent decision requesting the Catholic bishops’ conference of Germany not publish nationwide guidelines for allowing Communion for such couples. Carol Glatz at CNS reports that in response he said the guidelines went beyond what is foreseen by the Code of Canon law “and there is the problem.” The code does not provide for nationwide policies, he said, but “provides for the bishop of the diocese (to make a decision on each case), not the bishops’ conference.” “This was the difficulty of the debate. Not the content,” he said saying it will have to be studied more. He said he believed what could be done is an “illustrative” type of document “so that each diocesan bishop could oversee what the Code of Canon Law permits. There was no stepping on the brakes,” he ...