John Paul II wrote a letter to Padre Pio asking for prayers and the saintly friar responded with a miracle. In 1947, newly ordained priest Fr. Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II) visited Padre Pio to meet the famous Capuchin friar. It was a brief visit, but Wojtyla didn’t forget it, as he later wrote a letter to Padre Pio asking for prayers. The letter was written (in Latin) in 1962 when Wojtyla was a bishop in Poland. The following is an excerpt of the letter from the book The Making of the Pope of the Millennium. John Paul II never received a …
Category: Catholic Corner
Pope’s Anti-TLM Theologian Shows His Pro-Contraception Cards
Pope Francis is fond of saying “Everything is connected.” Traditionalists have been saying the same thing for the past six decades. We have long emphasized that those who transformed the Catholic liturgy on paper and in practice were also entertaining doctrinal novelties, oddities, and, at times, even heresies. Conversely, a radically changed liturgy has led to the weakening and occasioned the loss of faith in, any number of central doctrines of Catholicism, or that the loss of reverence for God is bound up with moral drift in every sphere of life. It is not hard, after all, to see that the lex orandi, the lex credendi, and …
Will There Be African Resistance to the October 2024 Synod?
In an interview with KTO, a French Catholic news channel, on March 17, 2024, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, Archbishop of Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), discussed the Fiducia supplicans Declaration that authorized the blessing of same-sex couples. He regretted the method used by the Vatican to publish Fiducia supplicans: without prior consultation and with a particular timetable. “I do not believe that this text was necessary at that time,” he said, recalling that the first session of the Synod on Synodality had just ended in Rome and that a second session …
The deep grammar of a(nother) papal faux pas
Christopher R. Altieri is a journalist, editor, and author of three books, including Reading the News Without Losing Your Faith (Catholic Truth Society, 2021). He is a contributing editor to Catholic World Report. We often hear that Pope Francis is either a revolutionary reformer with something like the ecclesiastical version of the Midas touch or he is a gaslighting grifter who’s at least half a heretic and thoroughly corrupt. Neither is correct. It turns out that “shitposting” is a technical term. There’s a great literature, approaching a whole subfield of academic communications studies, treating the practice of tossing cheap and easy provocations into digital …
Rediscovering the memorable Saint Anthony of Padua
Dawn Beutner is the author of The Leaven of the Saints: Bringing Christ into a Fallen World (Ignatius Press, 2023), and Saints: Becoming an Image of Christ Every Day of the Year also from Ignatius Press. She blogs at dawnbeutner.com. It is somewhat disappointing that most Catholics only call upon the brilliant, articulate Saint Anthony to help them find their car keys. After all, he can do much more for us than help us find items we have lost. Catholic saints sometimes become popular for strange reasons. Saint Nicholas, bishop of the early Church, may have inspired the legend of Saint Nick, but he bore little …
Cause for hope in new data on Eucharistic faith?
Reverend Peter M.J. Stravinskas founded The Catholic Answer in 1987 and The Catholic Response in 2004, as well as the Priestly Society of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, a clerical association of the faithful, committed to Catholic education, liturgical renewal and the new evangelization. Father Stravinskas is also the President of the Catholic Education Foundation, an organization, which serves as a resource for heightening the Catholic identity of Catholic schools. A recent poll conducted by Vinea Research says that “69% of Catholics who attend Mass at least yearly believe that the Eucharistic elements become the invisible substance of Christ.” But there is a serious problem …
Everyone on Earth (Including You) Is Either in a State of Grace, or a State of Mortal Sin
COMMENTARY: The lines between a sinful act and a state of sin have been blurred. It’s time to clarify them Father Jeffrey Kirby is the pastor of Our Lady of Grace parish in Indian Land, South Carolina, and the host of the daily devotional podcast Morning Offering With Father Kirby. The Church is commissioned by Christ to give the faithful — especially those in states of sin — the gifts of doctrinal integrity, candid teaching, and time. (Photo: Igreca2n / Shutterstock) Father Jeffrey Kirby CommentariesJanuary 18, 2024 In recent moral teaching, it has become clear that the gravity of a person living …
Opinion: Fiducia Supplicans
Dr. Robert A. J. GagnonPhilip PrimeauFr. Jerry J. Pokorsky Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon is the author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice and professor of the Bible at Houston Christian University. He holds a BA from Dartmouth, an MTS from Harvard Divinity School, and a PhD from the Princeton Theological Seminary. The Vatican’s Dicastery (i.e., administration; formerly, Congregation) for the Doctrine of the Faith has issued, with Pope Francis’s approval, a document called Fiducia Supplicans (hereafter FS) that contains a section allowing priests to offer “non-ritualized blessings” to “couples of the same sex” (III.31-41). It is a master-class example of doublespeak. On the one hand, …
The life, times, and legacy of El Cid, hero of the Reconquista
Father Seán Connolly is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York. Ordained in 2015, he has an undergraduate degree in the Classics from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts as well as a Bachelor of Sacred Theology, Master of Divinity, and a Master of Arts in Theology from Saint Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, New York. In addition to his parochial duties, he writes for The Catholic World Report, The National Catholic Register, and The Wanderer. Detail from Charles de Steuben’s “Bataille de Poitiers en octobre,” which depicts Charles Martel (mounted) facing Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi (right) at the Battle of …
The Vatican Does Not Understand The Church In The United States
by Jayd Henricks Last year I wrote a piece that respectfully argued that the Holy Father does not understand the Church in the United States. I wish I could say I was wrong, but the piece has held up. Pope Francis does not seem to understand the Church in the United States, especially its relationship to Vatican II. A recent interview from his diplomatic representative to the United States, His Eminence Cardinal Christophe Pierre, appears to shed some light on the Holy Father’s misperceptions. In a recent interview with America Magazine, Cardinal Pierre claimed, “There are some priests and religious and bishops [in the United …