Fox News is reporting it. The UK Independent is reporting it. Life Site News is reporting it. It’s all over the place. It’s also nonsense. Once again, we have a person—in this case, a panelist at the Vatican—claiming that the pope has said something, but no actual documentation of those supposed words. The pope, so this panelist says (his name is Peter Raven), has urged that parents have fewer children in order to make the world “more sustainable.” I say:... Read more
And I mean the balderdash that says you only have to listen to the pope when he speaks infallibly. It is not what the Catechism says. Divine assistance is also given to the successors of the apostles, teaching in communion with the successor of Peter, and, in a particular way, to the bishop of Rome, pastor of the whole Church, when, without arriving at an infallible definition and without pronouncing in a “definitive manner,” they propose in the exercise... Read more
Two authoritative sources for the Church’s teaching on this point are the Catechism (always a good place to begin) and the Council of Trent. Here is the Catechism: The Lord, having loved those who were his own, loved them to the end. Knowing that the hour had come to leave this world and return to the Father, in the course of a meal he washed their feet and gave them the commandment of love. In order to leave them a... Read more
She writes: If you have spent decades building up a venerable and formidable career as a scholar of the theology of human sexuality, you should be aware that publicly defending Bill Cosby, Trump and Milo guarantees that younger generations will reflexively scoff at anything with your name on it. Maybe you don’t care, but that is what happens, and it’s a damn shame. It is. I look at apologias for Milo from professors of moral theology, presumably respected, that strain... Read more
On February 13, I posted an article about a meme you will still find on the Lepanto Institute’s Facebook page. The meme makes the intellectually lax claim that Judas is the “patron saint of social justice.” (The actual patron saint of social justice, Mary Pezzulo points out, is St. Martin de Porres.) I pointed out in my earlier post—and I will repeat below—that social justice is long-established Catholic doctrine. The Church goes as far as to call it one of... Read more
No one doubts that presidents have authority in national security matters. But their power is not, never has been, and must never be, unlimited and immune from question or check. That is not the way of the United States. For example, Article I of the Constitution gives the Congress the power to declare war. War is a national security question too, but the president can not declare a war on whoever he likes. The president has limited powers. But who... Read more
Now, as I see it, this is like asking, “But what if God had made a round square?” There are no round squares. Round squares are logically impossible. And there is no other world in which the logically impossible exists. I don’t like to get into quantum apologetics. Read more
Imean, I do like Pope Francis. I’ve defended Pope Francis. I want to believe—I really want to believe—that footnote 351 of Amoris Laetitia can (and should) be read consistently with Familiaris Consortio 84. I have argued as much multiple times on this wery blog. The pope, in footnote 351, says that “in some cases” couples who are in an irregular marital union but unable to separate for the sake of children can “receive the help of the sacraments.” In the... Read more
Or it should not be a controversy for Catholics. I know that Calvinists say Christ died only for the Elect. (Though they also say we can’t know the identity of the Elect, and would amend my title to read, “Jesus May Have Died for Castro, But We Don’t Know.”). Whereas, for Catholics (those who are rightly catechized) if we can’t know whether Castro is saved, we do know that Christ died for him. Christ died for him just as surely... Read more
To Give a Defense
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