De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Bishop Robert Barron has released his own reflection on the Synod on Synodality in which he excoriates the manner and depth of reflection. We now have +Barron plus two Archbishops who attended the synod and have excoriated it afterwards: ++ Wilson , ++ Gądecki and lets not forget Cardinal Müller  who said some in the assembly are “abusing the Holy Spirit” in order to introduce “new doctrines”. Without naming him, Bishop Barron is particularly scathing of Cardinal Hollerich , his reflection suggests Hollerich, who stated in 2022 that Catholic doctrine was "false" does not understand Church teaching and has not engaged with it as well as calling his approach "absurd". He goes so far in terms of criticism of the synod as to state: "It is troubling to see that some of the members of the German bishops’ conference are already using the language of the synod report to justify major reformulations of the Church’s sexual teaching. This, it seems to me, must be resiste...

 An excellent letter in the Irish Times today as follows: Hat tip to Luke for sharing this! Sir, – There has been a great deal of heat and very little light coming out of the Vatican synod on synodality. Even the name is incomprehensible and designed to confuse and obfuscate. This is, of course, quite deliberate, but there is an easy, step-by-step way of deciphering precisely what is happening. Step one is to understand that the church is mirroring the world instead of the other way around, and the world is governed by midwits who have spent just enough time in universities to think themselves educated. These people then colonise administrative and bureaucratic positions and use their office to “make a difference”. This generally involves sidelining and “reinterpreting” the directives of whatever constitution they are supposed to be serving until the goals of that constitution are eventually run into the sand. It rarely occurs to such people that the difference they make is more ...

(Source:  LifeSiteNews ) — Cardinal Gerhard Müller, upon request by LifeSiteNews, has issued a short statement endorsing the courageous   dubia  challenging Pope Francis and several aspects of the upcoming “Synod on Synodality” that go against Church teaching, saying that he is “glad” that “others in their own way do what is necessary” to remind the pope “of his God-given responsibility for the preservation of the Church.” Today, five cardinals – Walter Brandmüller, Raymond Leo Burke, Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, Robert Sarah, and Joseph Zen – published  dubia  they had previously privately sent to Pope Francis but that went unanswered, in the hopes that by going public they would receive answers to a number of concerns they have regarding Church doctrine and the upcoming synod. In particular, the cardinals asked Francis whether  the Church today can “teach doctrines contrary to those she has previously taught in matters of faith and morals,” and whether the Chur...

  Prayer for the Synod on Synodality September 29, 2023  from  Twitter  by  Bishop Athanasius Schneider Lord Jesus Christ, Our God and Saviour, You are the Head of the Church, Your spotless Bride and Mystical Body. Look mercifully upon the profound distress to which Our Holy Mother Church has been subjected. Doctrinal confusion, moral abomination, and liturgical abuse have, in our day, reached an unprecedented height. “The heathens have come into your inheritance, having defiled your holy temple, and laid Jerusalem in ruins” (Ps 79:1). Churchmen who have lost the true Faith and become promoters of a worldly globalist agenda, are intent on changing Your truths and Commandments, the Divine Constitutions of the Church, and the Apostolic tradition. O Lord, with humble spirit and contrite heart we beseech you, prevent the enemies of the Church from exulting in a victory over the authentic Catholic Church obtained by imposing a counterfeit church under the guise of “s...

  At 78, Cardinal Nichols has been in post almost 3 years past his retirement date now. Over the ten years of this pontificate, Pope Francis has built a reputation for accepting the resignation of orthodox prelates immediately while letting friendly prelates linger on. (See this for example : a resignation accepted a mere month after being 75 years old is clearly meant to give a signal to other Bishops). Nichols was appointed a member of the Congregation for Bishops on 16 December 2013 by Pope Francis. On 19 February 2014 he was appointed a member of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches. So he appears to get on quite well with the Pope. Nichols was Archbishop of Birmingham before being appointed Archbishop of Westminster by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009. It was reported that Benedict XVI personally selected Nichols for the post after the Congregation for Bishops failed to reach a consensus, however he was passed over for the Cardinalate, reportedly because of his continued suppor...

Cardinal Müller, Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith under Pope Benedict XVI, has given a characteristically frank interview to Spanish Catholic news website InfoVaticana, in which he expressed his grave concern about multiple aspects of the upcoming Synod Assembly on synodality and the current state of the Church. This is the text: The final phase of the Synod of Synodality is approaching, which will begin this coming October.  Among the 400 attendees (including cardinals, bishops, lay people and religious) will participate the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Cardinal Müller. Since the Vatican has announced that journalists will only have access to the information they themselves provide, we wanted to talk to the German cardinal about this upcoming ecclesial event that has a good part of the Church in suspense. As you will see throughout the interview (done in writing since the cardinal is in Poland this week) Müller address...

Pope Francis is just back from a most extraordinary visit to Mongolia a country with just 1,450 Catholics and where the Catholic Church has only had a sanctioned presence since 1992, after Mongolia shrugged off its Soviet-allied communist government and enshrined religious freedom in its constitution. I scratched my head. Was this some extravagant embodiment of Bergoglio's "going out to the peripheries" rhetoric or some geopolitical wrangling, given the proximity of both China and Russia to Mongolia? But things were about to get crazier - much, much crazier, as Robert Royal summed up in his recent article in The Catholic Thing : "In the past week or so, the pope has: praised “that great imperial Russia” for its noble culture and humanity (a remark later admitted to be “badly phrased”); lauded Genghis Khan’s blood-soaked empire for its religious tolerance and “ pax mongolica ” (40 million killed, give or take); encouraged Chinese Christians to be good citizens of a na...

It has been an extraordinary week or so in the Catholic World where we have seen some truly revealing reactions from the main social media voices who support Pope Francis no matter what. This firestorm was prompted, in the first instance, by Bishop Joseph Strickland's Pastoral Letter  issued on 23 August, the full text of which is available to read here . The next day, Dr. Scott Hahn innocuously thanks Bishop Strickland for his faithfulness. Mike Lewis, the editor of Where Peter Is , took this as a sign of schism and immediately started attacking Hahn in the most vociferous way. This went on and on and on - as it invariably does with Mike: It seemed he got considerable push back from the public. Little wonder really, Scott Hahn is a lovely guy, he is a genius and he is the author of many, many books and interviews all of which do nothing other than lead people to fullness of truth found in the Catholic Church. The tribalism between Catholics on social media continues apace, this is...