Pope Francis returned to one of his favorite topics Friday morning, telling his hearers that the devil seeks above all to become master of their consciences, so they no longer can tell right from wrong.
In his morning Mass Thursday, Pope Francis reflected on the apparent worldly success of the godless while those who try to do what is right seem to fare poorly.
Pope Francis is urging the bishops gathered for the Vatican Synod on the Family not to give in to “conspiracy” theories, after 13 cardinals and bishops expressed their concern that the assembly is being manipulated in a progressive direction.
An American archbishop who served as Vatican nuncio to Ukraine until several weeks ago warned that the country is in dire straits and risks becoming “a kind of Somalia in the middle of Europe.”
More than 130 notable converts to Catholicism have published an open letter begging Pope Francis and the bishops gathered at the Vatican Synod on Marriage and the Family to stand firm in teaching traditional Christian beliefs regarding the permanence of marriage, human sexuality, and the meaning of the family.
Msgr. Kryzstof Charamsa simultaneously released a “manifesto of liberation,” consisting of a list of ten “demands,” in which he insists that the Catholic Church change its teaching on the morality of gay sex as well as its interpretation of the Bible as condemning sodomy.
In his opening address to bishops gathered in Rome for the Vatican synod on marriage and the family, Pope Francis reminded them that the Synod is not a “Parliament” where participants argue their case or negotiate, but a gathering of believers attentive to the Holy Spirit.
The Pope said that Christian marriage is a cure for much of the solitude experienced by men and women in our own day. Our world, he said is characterized by loneliness and paradoxes. Today we enjoy “many sophisticated means of entertainment, but a deep and growing interior emptiness; many pleasures, but few loves; many liberties, but little freedom.” People need the family, even if they don’t realize it, Francis said.
Monsignor Krzysztof Charamsa, a 43-year-old Polish priest working at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has been fired from his post, after coming out publically as an active homosexual Saturday.
On the eve of the Vatican synod on marriage and the family, progressive German Cardinal Walter Kasper has come out publicly against doctrinal “fundamentalism” in the Church, while expressing his hope that the synod will open a “dialogue” on contraception for Catholics and reconsider the situation of homosexuals.
Phoenix bishop Thomas Olmsted is urging the Catholic men of his diocese to man up and do battle with forces of evil that are “killing the remaining Christian ethos in our society and culture, and even in our own homes.”
When speaking of Europe’s migrant crisis, the Pope has often pointed to the need to address the conditions in migrants’ countries of origin, suggesting that the best long-term cure for the crisis is to stem the flow of those leaving their countries.
To many observers, it may seem strange that the Vatican would choose to keep a secret of what has been called “the most significant meeting” of the Pope’s entire trip to the United States: his 15-minute encounter with Kentucky County Clerk,
Following the departure of Pope Francis, the streets of eastern Holguín, Cuba, have been flooded with dozens of homeless people that residents say had “disappeared as if by magic” in the week before the Pope’s arrival.
“You know what happens to all walls,” Francis said. “All of them. All walls fall. Today, tomorrow or in 100 years, they will fall. This is not a solution. The wall isn’t a solution. At this moment, Europe is in trouble, it’s true. We have to be intelligent because a whole wave of migrants is arriving and it isn’t easy to find solutions. But with dialogue among different nations they will find them.”
With open eyes and an open heart I joined the Catholic Church just a few years ago at the ripe old age of 43. I love my Church and I love Pope Francis and my trip to the Vatican last
The Pope’s visit to the United States will include Wednesday’s plan to perform the first canonization on U.S. soil; the act will make controversial Spanish Franciscan priest Junipero Serra a saint.
Just before leaving for Cuba on Saturday morning, Pope Francis met with the Syrian family of refugees he has invited to take up residence in the Vatican. The family—comprising mother, father and two children—went to the Casa Santa Marta residence
President Obama may have gone too far by packing the Pope’s receiving line with a coterie of public dissenters from Catholic doctrine to greet him at the White House during his U.S. visit next week.
In a thinly veiled reproach to Cuban authorities, Pope Francis told a young Cuban student on Thursday that a political leader who stays in power at all costs is a “tyrant,” and that those who do not invest in future leaders are worthless “dictators.”
A gay lobbying group is pushing its preferred script for media coverage of Pope Francis’ visit to the United States.
GLAAD’s guide, titled “The Papal Visit: A journalist’s guide to reporting on Pope Francis and the LGBT community,” sets its preferred terms for covering homosexuality. It also suggests a series of story lines and plots to portray the lives of gays, lesbians and transsexuals as happy and positive, except when they’re supposedly victimized by the Catholic church.
In a meeting with environment ministers of the European Union, Pope Francis urged the adoption of UN sustainable development goals later this month as well as intensified preparation for the “COP21” in Paris.
President Obama will apparently test just how far Pope Francis’ notorious tolerance will go by inviting a rogue’s gallery of Catholic dissenters to greet the pontiff at the White House during his visit next week.
In his weekly audience Wednesday, Pope Francis momentarily left his prepared notes to tell the thousands of pilgrims in Saint Peter’s Square that the family “is born of the union of man and woman.”
The Vatican released a statement Tuesday officially welcoming the nuclear agreement between the P5+1 world powers (U.S., UK, China, France, Russia, Germany) and Iran, stating that the Holy See believes Tehran will reduce its nuclear capabilities in exchange for sanctions relief. In calling for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, the Vatican also appeared to target Israel, given that it is the lone nuclear power in the region.
New details are coming out regarding a terrorist attack planned against Pope Francis during his U.S. visit next week, after a lawmaker revealed on Sunday that an attempt had been derailed by Federal agents.
A star-studded cast of celebrities is slated to perform for Pope Francis during his upcoming visit to the United States. Notables like Aretha Franklin, The Fray, Sister Sledge, Andrea Bocelli, Juanes, and the Philadelphia Orchestra are scheduled to grace the stage in preparation for the Pontiff’s meeting with the people.
Pope Francis used a Portuguese radio interview to blame Europe’s post-modern childless culture for the huge migration wave of unskilled Muslims into Europe, and to cautiously warn against the growing danger posed by migrating Islamic jihadis.
In a novel response to Pope Francis’ decision to allow all Catholic priests to absolve women from the sin of abortion during the upcoming Jubilee Year of Mercy, a writer in New York Times accuses Pope Francis of “cruelty,” saying his offer of mercy is evidence of condescension toward women.
It is fascinating to watch the mainstream media create a narrative around Pope Francis that they hope will set the tone for his upcoming visit to the United States.
In a darkly toned essay reminiscent of The Borgias, Washington Post Berlin Bureau Chief Anthony Faiola tells his readers that a storm is brewing in the Church, pitting liberal “Francis Catholics” against a sour group of disenfranchised conservatives who are looking for ways to stymie the Pope at every turn.
After a year’s work by a special legal commission, Pope Francis has approved a reform of the Code of Canon Law to simplify and streamline the marriage annulment process. The new rules were presented at the Vatican Tuesday at noon and were laid out in two brief papal letters.
On Monday Pope Francis celebrated Mass in the Vatican with the new Armenian Patriarch, Gregory Peter XX Ghabroyan, and preached once more on the widespread persecution of Christians throughout the world.
In the general scramble to grab a bit of Pope Francis’ luster in time for his upcoming trip to the United States, Politico has joined a host of other journals, pundits and politicians to stake a claim to the popular pontiff while attempting to distance him from their political adversaries.
In Pope Francis’ historic “virtual town hall” organized by ABC News last week, he used such blunt language to describe abortion as killing that Time magazine has felt the need to tone it down by deleting the offensive expressions.
In his most forceful appeal to date, Pope Francis launched an urgent plea Sunday asking all Catholic institutions on Europe to take in one refugee family, beginning with his own diocese of Rome.
Pope Francis slipped out of the Vatican Thursday evening and had his driver take him to an optometrist near the busy Piazza del Popolo to swap out the lenses in his eyeglasses.
In a Catholic-Jewish double-header, Pope Francis met in a private audience this morning with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, and later in the morning with Britain’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, accompanied by Cardinal Vincent Nichols, head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.
In the latest scuffle over gender issues, the Vatican has come down squarely in favor of the traditional male-female distinction of human beings, banning transgender persons from being godparents posing as the opposite sex from which they were born.
On Tuesday, the Vatican released a letter from Pope Francis on the upcoming Jubilee Year of Mercy, in which the Pope gives all Catholic priests the power to grant absolution to women who repent of the sin of abortion.
