De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

A priest friend reminded me of an interesting coincidence of dates. On the 25th July is was the 55th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's historic and prophetic encyclical Humanae vitae. As the opposition to Humanae Vitae in the USA was led by Fr Charles Curran, I wonder if the date of the second document is a coincidence? https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html PAUL VI July 25 1968 https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19860725_carlo-curran_en.html Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the CDF, July 25, 1986

I honestly find it difficult to understand how someone so clearly at odds with Church teaching as Fr James Martin, SJ , is able to retain credibility. But he is, even lauded and given influential posts at the Vatican ! The clear contradiction in his outward persona and agenda and his priesthood I find incredibly jarring, but also a dimension of the kind of religious hypocrisy that people see through very easily. It was very interesting to see this bit of detective work from Dan Hitchens on Twitter this morning: Fr Martin praises an editorial which called for “the entirety of the Church’s sexual ethics” to be rewritten. https://t.co/jZVW1SUDvE — Dan Hitchens (@ddhitchens) August 17, 2017 For those trying to make sense of Fr Martin’s much-discussed recent writings and interviews, this seems a noteworthy statement. — Dan Hitchens (@ddhitchens) August 17, 2017 Particularly interesting to see the link with Charles Curran, whose license to teach as a Catholic Theo...

As a previous Pope warned us: “As there were false prophets in the past history of our people, so too you will have your false teachers, who will insinuate their own disruptive views and disown the Master who purchased their freedom. They will destroy themselves very quickly; but there will be many who copy their shameful behaviour and the Way of Truth will be brought into disrepute on their account.” (2 Peter 2: 1-2) A number of these authors reject not only the teaching of the Church on the evil of abortion – but also reject the teaching of the Church on most other aspects of the Sixth Commandment. They have instead chosen to follow theologians such as Professor Charles Curran whose license to teach as a Catholic Theologian was revoked because of his dissent from Catholic Moral teaching on 25th July 1986 by Pope Saint John Paul II. Pope John Paul authorised the-then Cardinal Ratzinger to write to him informing him of this decision and the reasons for this decision: “Th...

The big story this weekend was that a CDF official, in a clear attempt to subvert the synod which opened on Sunday , announced:  "My name is Krzysztof Charamsa. Monsignor Krzysztof Charamsa. I am a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith...the second secretary of the International Theological Commission. I'm a theologian, philosopher; I lecture  in bioethics at the Pontifical Gregorian University... I am gay" Counter Cultural Father offers his usual intelligent analysis of the flaws in Mgsr Charamsa’s thinking here . Fundamentally, it would seem clear that the Mgsr has fully bought into the secular delusion that his identity is somehow centred on his erotic desires. It was good to see that the Vatican , the CDF, his own Bishop  (if your Polish is up to it) and Fr. Dariusz Oko , who was singled out for criticism by Mgr Charamsa, all quickly responded faithfully to Church teaching. Fr. Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said on Oct. 3 t...

Voting against Church teaching and with the Zeitgeist : the "spirit of the age" may be popular with a generation who have been starved of any Catholic education, but we all know where this policy leads... And, if Sandro Magister is right (and he often is), and the Pope is beginning to promote and articulate an anti-Marx line, the time-servers (as it were) at the Vatican will no doubt coalesce around this new line from Rome. This will mean that Cardinal Nichols may quickly find himself out on a limb. The letter from the 461 has certainly got him rattled. He dedicated his Chrism Mass lecture homily to a directive on how to view the process: “It is wrong, in my view, to think or speak of this Synod as a battle, a battle between contesting sides. Battles have winners and losers. And often ‘collateral damage’ is the most tragic consequence of hostilities,”  “This synod is a time of prayerful discernment, discernment about how we are to bring the love, mercy and tr...

Please read  Countercultural Father's blog on Cardinal Nichols' Rebuke . I join the chorus of dismay which has broken across the UK Catholic community this morning, at the bizarre phenomenon of a Cardinal Archbishop of the Catholic Church blatantly attempting to suppress an authentic expression of the constant teaching of the Magisterium and criticising loyal priests. Fr. Ray Blake comments in the Catholic Herald: I too signed, though I regret having offended Cardinal Nichols by doing so, I thought I was being loyal to the Holy Father's call to 'open speech', parrhesia . I was deeply disturbed by the nameless 'discussion' document from the Bishops, which seemed to imply those who hold what the Church has always held are to be compared to Donatists, hardly a balanced document. The discussion process at the Synod leaves me and many priests concerned that the discussion process in this country might itself be manipulated, especially as His Eminence ...