Embed from Getty Images Are we near the end of compulsory clerical celibacy? The whispers have been in the wind for a month, at least since the Pope called the Pan-Amazonian Synod of Bishops for October of 2019, but only now are we closer to what really might be Francis’ thinking on the issue with words spoken last week by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, one of the Bishop of Rome’s right-hand men. The archbishop of Munich and Freising spoke last Friday... Read more
Embed from Getty Images “No, no change and no demolishing the dubia… the dubia are authoritative and clearly legitimate”. Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has contradicted himself, yet again, on the question of the interpretation of Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia, the apostolic exhortation that opens the door to the reception of communion by the divorced and civilly remarried. “Unfortunately,” Müller says in a new interview in La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, “some... Read more
The Secretary for Seminaries of the Congregation for Clergy in the Vatican, Archbishop Jorge Carlos Patrón Wong, has warned the French bishops against “spiritual worldliness” in the training of their seminarians, calling instead for the “best priests” of their respective French dioceses to be allocated to houses of formation in order to educate “missionary disciples”. “Rome has made this request because we have observed that priests who have had a particularly meticulous and thorough formation inspire others to become priests... Read more
Embed from Getty Images Breaking news this Thursday afternoon from Catalonia as a Spanish High Court judge orders the Catalonian deputy premier, Oriol Junqueras, and seven other ministers of the regional cabinet be taken into pre-trial custody, in the wake of the Catalonian declaration of independence last Friday. I don’t usually agree with much in the Catholic Herald, but today – knowing that there are now political prisoners in the country I’ve called home for the past seven years – I make... Read more
Today on the blog we return to Spain, where we’ll look at some Church reactions to the news that broke last Friday, when the regional parliament of Catalonia voted to declare itself independent from Spain and the central government in Madrid replied by suspending its autonomy, elected leaders and police officials. Embed from Getty Images Archbishop of Barcelona: “My heart weeps” Only a few prelates have so far spoken out on the new developments, and one of them has been... Read more
“The Bible” apparently provides license, in Portugal, for a man to abuse his wife. This is the conclusion that the judges of the Court of Appeals of Porto have reached in a case in which a husband beat his wife half to death with a nail-spiked club while the woman’s former lover, who had kidnapped her, held her down. Not content with the suspended sentence of 15 months and a fine of about $2,000 handed down against the husband, a... Read more
Embed from Getty Images Consternation in Malta and around the world this week after the car-bomb slaying on Monday of Daphne Caruana Galizia, an investigative journalist who had published various exposés on corruption among senior Maltese politicians and businessmen, including Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. Typical of the global reaction was the telegram sent by Pope Francis to the archbishop of Malta, Charles Scicluna, in which the pontiff, “saddened by the tragic death” of the reporter, conveyed “his spiritual closeness to... Read more
“For the Church, a political project derives legitimacy from its impact on human persons – so the European project should be our project”. Another interesting interview of the cleric some of whose ideas we looked at just the other day: Fr. Olivier Poquillon, the French secretary-general of COMECE, the Commission of the Bishops’ Conference of the European Community. And once again, on the future of the European project and the Church’s place within it. Talking to the Swiss Catholic... Read more
Embed from Getty Images “The Polish revolt against Pope Francis: the racist drift of the bishops of Warsaw”, screamed Tiscali. “The Polish Church is on a dangerous path, supporting the government and forgetting the Pope”, echoed Famiglia Cristiana. A week after the scandalous “Rosary to the Borders” event in Poland, in which nearly a million Catholics lined up along the country’s borders to pray this Marian prayer, here we take a look under the surface of what seems to this writer... Read more
We need to speak of roots in the plural because there are so many. In this sense, when I hear talk of the Christian roots of Europe, I sometimes dread the tone, which can seem triumphalist or even vengeful. It then takes on colonialist overtones. John Paul II, however, spoke about it in a tranquil manner. Yes, Europe has Christian roots and it is Christianity’s responsibility to water those roots. But this must be done in a spirit of service... Read more
European Communion
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