Could &#8220;ecological sin&#8221; one day be added to the list of sins in the Catechism of the Catholic Church? Pope Francis has proposed such an idea.
Speaking at the 20th World Congress of the International Association of Penal Law in Rome, the Holy Father said Christians have a duty to preserve the environment.
&#8220;We have to introduce – we are thinking about it – to the Catechism of the Catholic Church the sin against ecology, the &#8216;ecological sin&#8217; against our common home, because a duty is at stake,&#8221; Pope Francis said, as reported by <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-proposes-adding-ecological-sin-against-common-home-to-catechism">LifeSiteNews</a>.
So how exactly would a &#8220;sin against ecology&#8221; work on theological scale? According to Catholic author Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, the language would have to be framed in a way that illustrates that the sin would be against God rather than an inanimate object.
“There is no possible sin against planet Earth,” Kwasniewski told the outlet. “All sins are ultimately against God or those who are in God&#8217;s image. As all theologians have explained prior to the post-conciliar decline of theology, when we abuse the natural world or animals or plants, we are sinning against God their creator, who gave them to us to use for the right purposes and in accordance with their nature and ours.&#8221;
“The only ‘targets’ of sin are persons, since they are either divine persons who deserve our total obedience, or angelic or human persons who deserve our reverence as images of God,&#8221; he continued.
If a person were to abuse a tree or an animal, Kwasniewski said that the person would be in grave violation against God due to the natural order, not because an animal or a tree has any basic rights.
“Someone who tortures an animal or burns down a forest for fun is a sinner not because the animal or the forest has rights, but because he offends God, the great king over all the earth, from whom all things come for our benefit and to whom they are ordered,” he said. “Man is obliged in justice to respect God&#8217;s gift and the order He has established; man must also respect the common destination of material goods, i.e., that God has made the earth for the benefit of all, not for the selfish benefit of a few,” he continued.
If Pope Francis were to frame &#8220;ecological sin&#8221; in this light if the Cathechism were to ever be amended, it would stand in line with Catholic tradition, which has always stated human beings have a moral obligation to preserve the environment as a gift sent from God. In fact, Pope Benedict XVI made that very argument in his &#8220;God and the World.&#8221;
&#8220;Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens living so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible,” Benedict wrote. “Animals, too, are God&#8217;s creatures and even if they do not have the same direct relationship to God that human beings have, they are still creatures of God&#8217;s will, creatures we must respect as companions in creation.&#8221;

Pope Francis Celebrates World Day Of The Poor With Special Mass And Lunch

Pope Francis Proposes Adding ‘Ecological Sin’ To Catechism

Catholic Church

Environmentalism

Pope Francis

The American Catholic Church saved itself from the oblivion of liberal theology this week when the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops declared that abortion is the &#8220;preeminent&#8221; political and moral issue over all others, thereby forcing issues like climate change, gun control, and the death penalty to take a lower position in the hierarchy of moral imperatives.
According to the <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/signs-times/abortion-preeminent-issue-global-warming-not-urgent-say-bishops?fbclid=IwAR2H-7A-W46SBjRcgRa5hBWjnHb0lSUhyHls3IHZAMSGmvYZNezK_yTHo38">National Catholic Reporter</a>, the bishops approved a letter saying that the &#8220;threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives it destroys.&#8221;
Though the bishops highlighted abortion as the most pressing issue, the conference conceded that Catholics &#8220;cannot dismiss or ignore other serious threats to human life and dignity such as racism, the environmental crisis, poverty, and the death penalty.&#8221;
In other words, Catholics must regard abortion as the most urgent moral issue but must never use it as an excuse to avoid other important issues. In the end, Catholics are called to achieve holiness and being in the right on a singular issue will not be sufficient enough.
Some more liberal-leaning bishops, such as Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, disagreed with the final statement, arguing that it steps out line with the agenda implemented by Pope Francis in the encyclical &#8220;<a href="https://m.vatican.va/content/francescomobile/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20180319_gaudete-et-exsultate.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Gaudete et Exsultate</a>,&#8221; which gave weight to other issues while not necessarily saying how they must be implemented.
&#8220;Our defense of innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate,&#8221; the pope said in the encyclical. &#8220;Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection.&#8221;
&#8220;We cannot uphold an ideal of holiness that would ignore injustice in a world where some revel, spend with abandon and live only for the latest consumer goods, even as others look on from afar, living their entire lives in abject poverty,&#8221; Pope Francis concluded.
Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego agreed with Cardinal Cupich that making abortion the &#8220;preeminent issue&#8221; stands out of line with the Francis agenda.
&#8220;The preeminent quote will be used to undermine the point Pope Francis is making in that paragraph,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Either we should get rid of preeminent, or if we are going to keep preeminent, then at least give the pope a fighting chance with his view and keep that whole paragraph because that is where he articulates his vision of this very controversial question.&#8221;
&#8220;It is not Catholic teaching that abortion is the preeminent issue that we face as a world,&#8221; continued McElroy. &#8220;For us to say that is a grave disservice to our people if we are trying to communicate to them what the magisterium teaches.&#8221;
Both McElroy and Cupich were immediately rebuked by Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia.
&#8220;Saying that it (abortion) is preeminent is contrary to the teaching of the pope sets up an artificial battle between the bishops&#8217; conference of the United States and the Holy Father,&#8221; said Chaput.  &#8220;We do support the Holy Father completely. What he said is true. But it has been very clearly the articulated opinion of the bishops&#8217; conference for many years that pro-life is still the preeminent issue. It doesn&#8217;t mean that the others are not equal in dignity. It&#8217;s just time in this certain circumstances of our church in the United States.&#8221;
The bishops applauded Chaput and voted in favor of the measure by a margin of 143–69.

US-POLITICS-RELIGION

U.S. Catholic Bishops Declare Abortion The ‘Preemininent Issue’ Over All Else

Abortion

Catholicism

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A Catholic priest in South Carolina reportedly enforced the church&#8217;s code of canon law by denying former Vice President Joe Biden the sacrament of Holy Communion due to his stance on abortion.
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“Sadly, this past Sunday, I had to refuse Holy Communion to former Vice President Joe Biden,” Father Robert E. Morey of Saint Anthony Catholic Church <a href="https://www.scnow.com/news/local/joe-biden-denied-holy-communion-at-florence-church/article_4dfe451b-e181-5cdb-9da1-feae72795f0c.html?utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_campaign=user-share">told SCNOW</a>. “Holy Communion signifies we are one with God, each other and the Church. Our actions should reflect that. Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching.”
“I will keep Mr. Biden in my prayers,” Morey added.
Biden attended a town hall meeting at Wilson High School in Florence over the weekend. His campaign did not confirm to the news outlet if he had attended the church, saying that he did so in a private capacity.
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During every Mass, Catholic doctrine states that the wafer and wine become the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ when a priest consecrates it while still retaining its original form &#8212; a process known as transubstantiation. In order for a Catholic to receive Communion, they must be in a state of grace after having attended the Sacrament of Confession. If a Catholic, usually by way of conscience, determines that they are not in a state of grace, they must refrain from receiving Holy Communion. When it comes to individuals who publicly oppose Catholic teaching (such as politicians who support abortion) bishops and priests are given full license under Canon Law to deny the person Holy Communion until they repent, lest they commit the sin of sacrilege if they receive what Catholics believe to be the body and blood of Christ unworthily.
Former Vice President Joe Biden has a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood and has continued to maintain the &#8220;personally opposed but &#8230;&#8221; line regarding abortion. As his campaign kicked off this year, amid pressure from hardcore abortion rights advocates, he reversed his multi-year stance in support of the Hyde amendment by vowing to seek its undoing should he become president, thereby making it a taxpayer-funded institution.
“The problem is, when in fact there is this enormous pressure and even threat to close down clinics that were available in the past, for women who do not have the funds or are able to have them paid for privately, like they’ve been able to do. That was one thing,” Biden <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-biden-flips-using-taxpayer-money-fund-james-barrett">said in June</a>. He explained:
<blockquote>But we now see so many Republican governors denying healthcare for millions of the most poorest [sic] and most vulnerable Americans by refusing even Medicaid expansion, I can’t justify leaving millions of women out of access to care they need and the ability to exercise their constitutionally protected right. If I believe healthcare is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone’s ZIP code.</blockquote>
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As the abortion argument in the United States has escalated during the Trump era, certain Catholic bishops have taken extra steps to warn pro-abortion politicians to refrain from Holy Communion. Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of Springfield, for instance, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48112/illinois-catholic-bishop-bars-pro-abortion-paul-bois">expressly forbid </a>all priests under his governance to give Holy Communion to politicians that supported the “Reproductive Health Act” in Illinois.
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Orange County Register Archive

REPORT: Joe Biden Denied Holy Communion At Catholic Church Over Abortion Support

Joe Biden

Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest who consistently blurs the line on Catholic teaching regarding homosexual acts, got a complete shellacking from several American bishops for publicly questioning the Holy Bible&#8217;s teaching on the subject.
Though Martin has positioned himself as an LGBT-friendly priest, he has always maintained he agrees with Catholic teaching on homosexual acts while simply calling for more compassion for such individuals. On Wednesday, that facade dropped almost completely when he <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesMartinSJ/status/1187090285332967424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1187090285332967424&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lifesitenews.com%2Fnews%2Fbishops-call-out-fr-james-martin-for-questioning-if-bible-is-right-to-condemn-homosexuality">tweeted an article</a> from the Protestant Scripture scholar and theologian Walter Wink, which said that the Bible&#8217;s condemnation of homosexual acts should be questioned due to the Bible&#8217;s alleged endorsement of slavery. Martin even used the words &#8220;interesting&#8221; in reference to the passage.
“Interesting: ‘Where the Bible mentions [same-sex sexual] behavior at all, it clearly condemns it. I freely grant that. The issue is precisely whether the biblical judgment is correct. The Bible sanctioned slavery as well and nowhere attacked it as unjust,'&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesMartinSJ/status/1187090285332967424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1187090285332967424&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lifesitenews.com%2Fnews%2Fbishops-call-out-fr-james-martin-for-questioning-if-bible-is-right-to-condemn-homosexuality">he tweeted</a>. “&#8217;Are we prepared to argue today that slavery is biblically justified?’”
In response, Catholic bishops immediately condemned this line from Martin.
“Thank you for acknowledging that you question scripture,&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/Bishopoftyler/status/1187189646066933760">said Bishop Strickland of Texas</a>. &#8220;If we go down that road, where do we stop? I know you have lots of support, but you are challenging the Deposit of Faith that I promised to defend. As a bishop, I’ll keep defending it.”
“How convenient to use slavery to justify support for homosexuality, totally overlooking the fact that the Bible is overwhelmingly the story of God freeing His People from all slavery – physical &amp; political, but also slavery to idols &amp; false gods, to moral &amp; spiritual aberrations!&#8221; said Cardinal Napier of South Africa, as reported by <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/bishops-call-out-fr-james-martin-for-questioning-if-bible-is-right-to-condemn-homosexuality">LifeSiteNews</a>.
After a severe backlash on social media, Father Martin once again blamed it all on &#8220;far-right Catholics&#8221; that failed to see the nuance in his tactic.
&#8220;Yesterday I was called a &#8216;heretic&#8217; for supposedly going against church teaching. In fact, I linked to [an] article by the Protestant Scripture scholar and theologian Walter Wink. So if you would like to call anyone a &#8220;heretic&#8221; it is Mr. Wink, the author of many books on the Bible and a scholar who probably forgot more about the Bible than those who would condemn him for ‘heresy’ have learned. But he&#8217;s dead, after years of service to the Lord, so the puerile name-calling probably won&#8217;t bother him,&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesMartinSJ/status/1187409942204030976">he said in a lengthy Twitter thread.</a>
James Martin then went on to make the claim that Catholics are not biblical fundamentalists, even though all Catholic teaching has basis in scripture.
&#8220;I said that Professor Wink&#8217;s short article about biblical criticism was &#8216;interesting&#8217; (which it was) and was thus lambasted by Catholics who excoriated me for not accepting the &#8216;inerrancy&#8217; of Scripture. News flash: Catholics are not biblical fundamentalists. Cf: &#8216;Dei Verbum,'&#8221; added Martin.
&#8220;This points out, once again, that some on the Catholic far-right who are quick to condemn and use names like &#8216;heretic&#8217; are not reading things very carefully. (E.g., &#8216;Building a Bridge.&#8217;) And some also don&#8217;t know, or actively reject, current Catholic teaching (e.g., Vatican II),&#8221; he concluded.
As noted by <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/bishops-call-out-fr-james-martin-for-questioning-if-bible-is-right-to-condemn-homosexuality">LifeSiteNews</a>, Pope Pius XII’s 1943 encyclical Divine Afflante Spiritu spoke about the inerrancy of scripture:
<blockquote>The sacred Council of Trent ordained by solemn decree that “the entire books with all their parts, as they have been wont to be read in the Catholic Church and are contained in the old vulgate Latin edition, are to be held sacred and canonical.” In our own time the [First] Vatican Council, with the object of condemning false doctrines regarding inspiration, declared that these same books were to be regarded by the Church as sacred and canonical “not because, having been composed by human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority, nor merely because they contain revelation without error, but because, having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God for their author, and as such were handed down to the Church herself.”</blockquote>

Pope Francis visit to Ireland

Catholic Bishops Blast Father James Martin For Publicly Questioning Bible&#8217;s Teaching On Homosexual Acts

LGBT

On Tuesday’s episode of “The Michael Knowles Show,” Knowles talks about how Beto O’Rourke is actually brutally honest about the Left’s political endgame. Video and partial transcript: 
The most honest person in politics right now, I think, is Beto O&#8217;Rourke. Certainly, nobody in the news — it&#8217;s not a newsperson, it&#8217;s not a Hollywood celebrity, it&#8217;s not a real politician. It&#8217;s an out-of-work politician named Beto O&#8217;Rourke, [who is] saying a lot of stupid things. He&#8217;s making a lot of untrue statements, but he&#8217;s honest because he is actually showing the logical conclusions of leftist policies. 
So [Beto] was called out, he raised some firestorm, because he was too honest during the LGBTQ town hall on CNN. During that town hall, he was asked, &#8220;Would you take away tax exempt status from churches that don&#8217;t go along with leftist ideology?&#8221; And he said, &#8220;Yeah absolutely.&#8221;
If you don&#8217;t go along with leftist ideology and whatever the new definition of marriage is today, and whatever the new version of gender ideology is today, then we&#8217;re going to take away your tax exemption. We&#8217;re gonna try to bankrupt you and we’ll make you face consequences. So this caught flak not because people disagreed with him. I mean, most of the candidates at that CNN debate agreed with the statement. It&#8217;s because he put it too honestly, put it too bluntly. It was in too stark terms.
So Beto O’Rourke was asked about this on MSNBC [and they’re] basically saying, &#8220;Beto, Beto cut it out man! Don&#8217;t tell them what we&#8217;re really up to!&#8221; And Beto, to his credit, doubles down. 
<blockquote>O’ROURKE: To be clear, you are free to believe anything that you want to in this country, to associate with whom you please, to practice your faith as you best see fit. But you are not allowed to discriminate against people in this country — to violate their civil rights or their human rights. </blockquote>
I love the &#8220;but.&#8221; Look you&#8217;re allowed to practice your religion, but — and it’s that &#8220;but&#8221; that makes him a butthead — you&#8217;re not really allowed to. You&#8217;re not allowed to discriminate. What does that word mean in the context of religion? You&#8217;re not allowed to discriminate? I mean, ideas discriminate. If you hold one idea, you are necessarily discriminating against other ideas. If you believe in one God, you are discriminating against other gods. 
Let’s say you go to church, and you don&#8217;t worship Allah, and you don&#8217;t invite people in who worship Allah — because you&#8217;re a Methodist, so you worship the Methodist conception of God. I guess that&#8217;s discrimination. Are you going to be shut down? 
Let&#8217;s use the gender or the sex example. In the Catholic Church, there are priests. There have always been priests, there have never been priestesses. Women can&#8217;t be priests. They can be nuns, they can do a lot of things. They can&#8217;t be priests. Well, that&#8217;s discrimination. 
So is Beto O’Rourke going to shut down the Catholic Church? Yeah, it sounds like he would. He would try to. I don&#8217;t think he&#8217;d win. Catholic churches have endured a little bit longer than could be taken down by a one-term congressman, or more than one-term congressman — but now an ex-congressman. I think the Church will probably win out. 
Some people are calling on Beto O’Rourke to change his tune. I don&#8217;t want him to change his tune. I&#8217;m glad he&#8217;s telling us what he really thinks, he&#8217;s telling us what the Left really thinks. He&#8217;s telling us what the Left thinks not just about this issue of gender ideology, he&#8217;s telling us what they think about religion. 
<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-michael-knowles-show/id1266577963?mt=2">Listen to full episodes of &#8220;The Michael Knowles Show&#8221; on iTunes.</a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-michael-knowles-show">Watch &#8220;The Michael Knowles Show&#8221; on-demand!</a>

Beto O&#8217;Rourke

KNOWLES: Beto O’Rourke May Be The Most Honest Person In Politics

Beto O'Rourke

Christianity

Homosexuality

Religion

Pope Francis raised his position on the death penalty to a whole new level on Saturday by going so far as to speak out against life imprisonment, saying it diminishes a criminal&#8217;s &#8220;right to hope.&#8221;
&#8220;It is up to every society … to ensure that the penalty does not compromise the right to hope, that prospects for reconciliation and reintegration are guaranteed,&#8221; Pope Francis said, as reported <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-francis-life-imprisonment-forgoes-the-right-to-start-over-69915">Catholic News Agency</a>. &#8220;Life imprisonment is not the solution to problems — I repeat: Life imprisonment is not the solution to problems, but a problem to be solved.&#8221;
&#8220;Because if hope is closed in a cell, there is no future for society,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Never deprive one of the right to start over.&#8221;
Pope Francis then directed his message toward all prisoners, advising them to carry hope no matter what and reminding them that God still loves them.
&#8220;Never let yourself be imprisoned in the dark cell of a hopeless heart; do not give in to resignation. God is greater than any problem and is waiting for you to love you,&#8221; said the pontiff. &#8220;Stand before the Crucifix, in the gaze of Jesus, in front of Him with simplicity and sincerity. From there, from the humble courage that belongs to those who do not lie to themselves, peace is reborn with the trust of being loved, and the strength to go on flourishes again.&#8221;
&#8220;You who are detained are important to God, who wants to do wonders in you,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Have courage because you are in the heart of God; you are precious in his eyes, and even if you feel lost and unworthy, do not lose heart. God is greater than our hearts.&#8221;
Pope Francis concluded by thanking prison ministers and chaplains for preaching the Gospel &#8220;within the walls of prisons&#8221; and encouraged them to &#8220;enter the most difficult situations with the sole strength of a smile and a heart that listens.&#8221;
Pope Francis has previously spoken out against life in prison, on top of his denunciations of the death penalty. In 2014, he even said that such a sentence is &#8220;<a href="https://cruxnow.com/life/2014/10/23/pope-francis-blasts-supermax-prisons-as-torture/">a hidden death penalty</a>.&#8221;
&#8220;All Christians and people of goodwill are called today to struggle not only for abolition of the death penalty, whether legal or illegal, and in all its forms, but also to improve prison conditions, out of respect for the human dignity of persons deprived of their liberty,&#8221; he told delegates from the International Association of Penal Law. &#8220;And this I connect with life imprisonment. Life imprisonment is a hidden death penalty.&#8221;
The pope attached life in prison to his over-arching message of prison reform.
&#8220;It is painful when we see prison systems which are not concerned to care for wounds, to soothe pain, to offer new possibilities,&#8221; he <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/27/pope-francis-philadelphia-prison-rehabilitation">said at a Philadelphia prison</a> in 2015. &#8220;It is painful when we see people who think that only others need to be cleansed, purified, and do not recognize that their weariness, pain, and wounds are also the weariness, pain, and wounds of society.&#8221;

popefrancis.jpg

Pope Francis Speaks Out Against Life Imprisonment: ‘Diminishes Hope’

Prison

Further signaling his acceptance of globalism during an age of increased nationalism, Pope Francis has now invited leaders to sign a &#8220;Global Pact&#8221; to create a &#8220;new humanism.&#8221;
&#8220;The global event, set to take place at the Vatican on May 14, 2020, is themed &#8216;Reinventing the Global Educational Alliance,'&#8221; reports <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-global-education-pact">LifeSiteNews</a>. &#8220;The Pope is inviting representatives of the main religions, international organizations and various humanitarian institutions, as well as key figures from the world of politics, economics and academia, and prominent athletes, scientists and sociologists to sign a &#8216;Global Pact on Education&#8217; so as to &#8216;hand on to younger generations a united and fraternal common home.'&#8221;
On September 12, the Holy Father said in a video message that &#8220;universal solidarity&#8221; can only be achieved by way of a &#8220;global education pact.&#8221;
LifeSiteNews noted that Pope Francis issued a &#8220;strikingly secular message&#8221; on the pact that contained just one reference to God and even echoed former First Lady Hillary Clinton&#8217;s favorite phrase: &#8220;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Takes_a_Village">It takes a village to raise a child</a>.&#8221;
&#8220;This [Global Pact] will result in men and women who are open, responsible, prepared to listen, dialogue and reflect with others, and capable of weaving relationships with families, between generations, and with civil society, and thus to create a new humanism,&#8221; said Pope Francis.
The Pope added that an &#8220;alliance&#8221; must be formed &#8220;between the earth&#8217;s inhabitants and our &#8216;common home,&#8217; which we are bound to care for and respect. An alliance that generates peace, justice and hospitality among all peoples of the human family, as well as dialogue between religions.&#8221;
The Pope&#8217;s invitation to a &#8220;Global Pact&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46760/pope-francis-denounces-nation-state-common-good-paul-bois">echoes</a> his recent declaration that the &#8220;common good has become global&#8221; while criticizing the nation-state for being unable to meet this human need. He, however, did not issue a call for a one-world government.
&#8220;In the current situation of globalization not only of the economy but also of technological and cultural exchanges, the nation-state is no longer able to procure the common good of its population alone,&#8221; Pope Francis told the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in May. &#8220;While, according to the principle of subsidiarity, individual nations must be given the power to operate as far as they can, on the other hand, groups of neighboring nations — as is already the case — can strengthen their cooperation by attributing the exercise of certain functions and services to intergovernmental institutions that manage their common interests.&#8221;
In what was seen as a veiled critique of the pope&#8217;s stance, Cardinal Raymond Burke <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47358/vatican-cardinal-burke-one-world-government-paul-bois">later told Rome Life Forum</a> that natural law permits patriotism &#8220;in accord with the order written upon the human heart&#8221; and &#8220;does not make just and legitimate a single global government.&#8221;
&#8220;Before the challenges of our time, there are those who propose and work for a single global government, that is, for the elimination of individual national governments, so that all of humanity would be under the control of a single political authority,&#8221; said Burke. &#8220;For those who are convinced that the only way to achieve the common good is the concentration of all government in a single authority, loyalty to one’s homeland or patriotism has become an evil.&#8221;

Pope Francis Invites Political Leaders To Sign ‘Global Pact’

On Thursday, Jesuit priest and editor at large of America Magazine James Martin sent out a tweet about homosexuals not feeling welcome in the Catholic church:
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Many <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LGBT?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#LGBT</a> Catholics still feel unwelcome in their own church. But good news: More parishes are now trying to make LGBT Catholics feel at home. Here, one parishioner talks about the welcome that he, his husband, and their son found at Holy Trinity in DC. <a href="https://t.co/mWB85e7UVt">https://t.co/mWB85e7UVt</a>
— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesMartinSJ/status/1172174833670639616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote>Many #LGBT Catholics still feel unwelcome in their own church. But good news: More parishes are now trying to make LGBT Catholics feel at home. Here, one parishioner talks about the welcome that he, his husband, and their son found at Holy Trinity in DC.</blockquote>
In a video attached to the tweet, a man named Joe speaks about his experience at Holy Trinity in Washington D.C., and how he struggled with the church as society moved one way, and the church did not.
Joe spoke with Judith Brusseau, head of faith formation &amp; religious education at Holy Trinity, and she said:
<blockquote>In some respects, we&#8217;re a last-resort Church before people really throw in the towel and say, &#8220;I&#8217;m not gonna have anything to do with this.&#8221; So, when someone comes and says, you know, &#8220;I want to be here,&#8221; as someone who works in the field for Christ, you have to say, &#8220;You&#8217;re welcome. You belong here,&#8221; and I really feel that.</blockquote>
Joe added that Brusseau said: &#8220;Please show up. We need you. If you don&#8217;t show up, we are never gonna change. This is your Church.&#8221;
Joe concluded:
<blockquote>Every time that I had a moment of doubt, I feel like, you know, God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit put the words in somebody&#8217;s mouth to reassure me that I belong. All of us in some way probably feel marginalized no matter what our experience is – it doesn&#8217;t have to be gay; it could be lots of things. And I think at this church, they talk about that, they accept that, they explore that, and they welcome that. And I actually believe most Catholics share that view. Somewhere in them they hear the words of Christ: &#8220;Love your fellow man.&#8221; Christ loved people and welcomed people who were marginalized, and celebrated them. I think this church and that teaching is deep, and is strong, and broader than most people think.</blockquote>
Among the replies to Martin&#8217;s tweet of this video were those who were disappointed that a priest would advocate for the acceptance of views that are clearly anti-biblical:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">You don’t love these people. They are merely pawns for your self aggrandizement. If you loved them you would tell them the truth about God’s Grace and it’s power to heal, instead you let them wallow in their sin and then celebrate it. You are perpetuating evil.
— Robert (@rlj_robert) <a href="https://twitter.com/rlj_robert/status/1172260530888818690?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote>You don’t love these people. They are merely pawns for your self aggrandizement. If you loved them you would tell them the truth about God’s Grace and it’s power to heal, instead you let them wallow in their sin and then celebrate it. You are perpetuating evil.</blockquote>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">Perhaps the best thing now is that you should stand down/resign from the priesthood, since in advocating this you show utter contempt for it, for holiness and the supernatural origins of the order of marriage, whilst parading sin as a good.
— Gerard Calilhanna (@GerardCalilhan1) <a href="https://twitter.com/GerardCalilhan1/status/1172278337588170754?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote>Perhaps the best thing now is that you should stand down/resign from the priesthood, since in advocating this you show utter contempt for it, for holiness and the supernatural origins of the order of marriage, whilst parading sin as a good.</blockquote>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">I realize that people can have same-sex attraction and be Catholic. However, they must follow Church teaching and live a celibate and chaste life. To suggest otherwise is simply against Church teaching &amp; false.
I will pray for our brothers and sisters w/same-sex attraction.
— NASA Fan (Joe) (@DogLuvrInDaHaus) <a href="https://twitter.com/DogLuvrInDaHaus/status/1172489284529639424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote>I realize that people can have same-sex attraction and be Catholic. However, they must follow Church teaching and live a celibate and chaste life. To suggest otherwise is simply against Church teaching &amp; false. I will pray for our brothers and sisters w/same-sex attraction.</blockquote>
The New Testament is rather clear when it comes to homosexual conduct:
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 states: &#8220;Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.&#8221;
1 Timothy 1:9-11 states: &#8220;We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.&#8221;
Romans 1:26-27 states: &#8220;Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.&#8221;
There are numerous other examples of scripture condemning homosexual behavior, and as a priest, Martin surely knows these verses well.
James Martin has more than 253,000 followers on Twitter and 582,000 followers on Facebook, and thus, has quite an influential platform to speak about what he believes.

James_Martin.jpeg

Jesuit Priest Gets Slammed On Twitter After Endorsing LGBT Lifestyle

Gay Rights

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmidt will refer 12 former priests for prosecution after conducting a 13-month investigation into sexual abuse allegations made against members of Missouri’s Roman Catholic clergy.
“Sexual abuse of minors by members of Missouri’s four Roman Catholic dioceses has been a far-reaching, long-standing scandal. No region of the State of Missouri has been spared,” reads the <a href="http://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/2019/catholicchurchclergyabuseinvestigationreport.pdf?sfvrsn=2">attorney general&#8217;s report</a>.
“For decades, faced with credible reports of abuse, the church refused to acknowledge the victims and instead focused its efforts on protecting its priests. During this time, the responsibility for evaluating and responding to reports of abuse and misconduct was controlled by a small circle of priests in diocesan leadership and the bishops.”
In total, the investigation revealed that 163 priests had been accused of sexually abusing children in Missouri since 1945, according to the <a href="https://www.apnews.com/c38c03f4486247c3a7ead9289ccebc64">Associated Press</a> (AP). Nearly half of the priests have already died, and among those living, 46 cannot be charged because the statute of limitations on their crimes has expired.
In a press conference Friday, Schmidt called the “betrayal of trust and of innocence” in the Church “devastating and in many instances incomprehensible,” reports the AP. His office has decided to focus on those priests who committed crimes, and has declined to consider recommending members of the church hierarchy for prosecution.
The AP reports that the investigation was launched after a Pennsylvania grand jury released a bombshell report in 2018 that found hundreds of priests had abused children over the last 70 years — and that church officials attempted to cover it up.
“Despite some institutional reform, individual leaders of the church have largely escaped public accountability,” reads the underlying <a href="http://media-downloads.pacourts.us/InterimRedactedReportandResponses.pdf?cb=42148">grand jury report</a>. “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades.”
According to the report, the FBI reviewed “a significant portion of the evidence” and found a “series of practices” that the grand jury calls akin to “a playbook for concealing the truth.” These practices included avoiding phrases like “rape” in favor of “inappropriate conduct” or “boundary issues,” and an admonishment to handle all matters without the involvement of police.
The grand jury report outlined the seven patterns the FBI found, which can be read below:
<blockquote>REPORT: First, make sure to use euphemisms rather than real words to describe the sexual assaults in diocese documents. Never say &#8220;rape&#8221;; say &#8220;inappropriate contact&#8221; or &#8220;boundary issues.&#8221;
Second, don&#8217;t conduct genuine investigations with properly trained personnel. Instead, assign fellow clergy members to ask inadequate questions and then make credibility determinations about the colleagues with whom they live and work.
Third, for an appearance of integrity, send priests for &#8220;evaluation&#8221; at church -run psychiatric treatment centers. Allow these experts to &#8220;diagnose&#8221; whether the priest was a pedophile, based largely on the priest&#8217;s &#8220;self -reports,&#8221; and regardless of whether the priest had actually engaged in sexual contact with a child.
Fourth, when a priest does have to be removed, don&#8217;t say why. Tell his parishioners that he is on &#8220;sick leave,&#8221; or suffering from &#8220;nervous exhaustion.&#8221; Or say nothing at all.
Fifth, even if a priest is raping children, keep providing him housing and living expenses, although he may be using these resources to facilitate more sexual assaults.
Sixth, if a predator&#8217;s conduct becomes known to the community, don&#8217;t remove him from the priesthood to ensure that no more children will be victimized. Instead, transfer him to a new location where no one will know he is a child abuser.
Finally and above all, don&#8217;t tell the police. Child sexual abuse, even short of actual penetration, is and has for all relevant times been a crime. But don&#8217;t treat it that way; handle it like a personnel matter, &#8220;in house.&#8221;</blockquote>

woman_holding_rosary.jpg

Missouri AG Will Refer 12 Former Priests For Prosecution

Crime

Sexual Abuse

Pope Francis rebuked his critics in America this week by saying he was &#8220;honored&#8221; to be attacked by them.
According to <a href="https://cruxnow.com/pope-in-madagascar/2019/09/04/pope-francis-says-its-an-honor-that-americans-are-attacking-me/">Crux</a>, the Holy Father made his comments while aboard a papal flight to Mozambique after a French reporter presented him with a book detailing the American conservative opposition to the Francis papacy – &#8220;How America Wanted to Change the Pope&#8221; by Nicolas Seneze.
&#8220;For me, it&#8217;s an honor that Americans are attacking me,&#8221; Francis told the La Croix reporter.
As Pope Francis handed the book over to an aide, he jokingly said, &#8220;This is a bomb.&#8221;
Shortly after the flight, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni attempted to clarify the pope&#8217;s comments by saying they were made &#8220;in an informal context&#8221; and that the Holy Father &#8220;wanted to say that he always considers criticisms an honor, particularly when it comes from important thinkers and, in this case, of an important nation.&#8221;
In other words, Bruni claims that Pope Francis did not mean to dismiss his critics but rather welcomed their viewpoints.
The book reportedly focuses on what motivates the right-wing opposition to Pope Francis in the United States, which goes beyond his views on economics and also includes his response to the sexual abuse crisis and his elevating liberal clerics (such as Father James Martin and Cardinal Blase Cupich) while sidelining conservatives (such as Cardinal Raymond Burke and Cardinal Ludwig Mueller). Crux provided more details:
<blockquote>A long-time Vatican reporter from the French Catholic daily, Seneze told the pope that he wanted to explain the roots of American opposition to the Argentine, which has the support of several right-wing news outlets. In his book, Seneze names EWTN, founded by the late Mother Angelica, and Canada-based LifeSiteNews.
The criticism against Francis is based on several points: His cautious opening to allowing the divorced and remarried to receive the Sacraments, his emphasis on the environment, his strong condemnation of the death penalty, and his criticism of the capitalist economic order championed by conservatives in the United States.</blockquote>
Seneze even goes so far to argue in his book that conservatives ultimately seek to overthrow Pope Francis and &#8220;trigger&#8221; a new conclave to elect another pope in his place. He cites an organization called the &#8220;Red Hat Report&#8221; as proof of this conspiracy.
&#8220;The Red Hat Report claims to be drawing on nearly 100 researchers, academics, investigators, and journalists to investigate every single cardinal elector, with the aim &#8216;to hold the hierarchy of the Catholic Church accountable for abuse and corruption, and to develop and support honesty, clarity, and fidelity in Church governance,'&#8221; reports Crux.
In an 11-page letter<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/35335/bombshell-source-close-pope-benedict-confirms-paul-bois"> released in August of last year</a>, Archbishop Viganò, former Nuncio from the Vatican to Washington, D.C., alleged that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had been sanctioned under Pope Benedict XVI only to have those sanctions removed by Pope Francis upon his ascendancy in 2013. Cardinal McCarrick had an alleged history of sexually abusing male seminarians and, according to Viganò, was ordered by Pope Benedict to refrain from saying Mass or public ministry.
Monsignor Jean-François Lantheaume, the former first counsellor at the apostolic nunciature in Washington, D.C., said flatly that Viganò &#8220;<a href="https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2018/08/27/former-nunciature-official-vigano-said-the-truth/">said the truth</a>&#8221; in his letter, which was followed by several other high-ranking prelates testifying to Viganó&#8217;s respectable character.
Shortly after the letter dropped, Pope Francis elected to remain silent and maintained that protocol <a href="https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2019/05/28/in-new-interview-pope-francis-says-he-knew-nothing-about-mccarrick/">until this past May</a> when he told Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki that he &#8220;knew nothing&#8221; about Cardinal McCarrick&#8217;s behavior and did not remember if Archbishop Viganò ever informed him about the sanctions.
&#8220;I have said it many times, I knew nothing, no idea,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And when this guy (Vigano) said that he told me about it that day, that he came … I don&#8217;t remember if he told me about this. If it&#8217;s true or not. No idea!&#8221;

popefrancis

Pope Francis: ‘It’s An Honor That Americans Are Attacking Me’

On Wednesday, the Jesuit order&#8217;s superior general announced that Satan himself is a &#8220;symbol&#8221; rather than an actual being that was once created by God before falling into damnation.
According to <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/jesuit-superior-satan-is-a-symbolic-reality-60691">Catholic News Agency</a>, Fr. Arturo Sosa told the Italian magazine <a href="https://www.tempi.it/meeting-il-diavolo-esiste-solo-come-realta-simbolica/">Tempi</a> that the devil &#8220;exists as the personification of evil in different structures, but not in persons, because is not a person, is a way of acting evil.&#8221;
&#8220;He is not a person like a human person. It is a way of evil to be present in human life,&#8221; asserted the priest. &#8220;Good and evil are in a permanent war in the human conscience and we have ways to point them out. We recognize God as good, fully good. Symbols are part of reality, and the devil exists as a symbolic reality, not as a personal reality.&#8221;
The Jesuit leader&#8217;s statement about the devil stands in stark contrast with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which teaches <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p7.htm">that</a> Satan and his demons are &#8220;spiritual, non-corporeal beings&#8221; who are nonetheless &#8220;personal and immortal creatures&#8221; with an &#8220;intelligence and will.&#8221;
&#8220;Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: &#8216;The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing,'&#8221; the text reads.
Not once has the Catechism (or any sanctioned doctor of the Church, for that matter) referred to Satan as a symbol.
Sosa previously questioned the actual existence of Satan beyond mere symbols during an interview with El Mundo in 2017 when he said, &#8220;We have formed symbolic figures such as the Devil to express evil.&#8221; However, after significant backlash, a spokesperson for Sosa <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2017/06/08/spokesman-for-jesuit-chief-devil-remarks-must-be-read-in-context/">told the Catholic Herald</a> that he believes in what the Catholic Church teaches.
&#8220;Like all Catholics, Father Sosa professes and teaches what the Church professes and teaches. He does not hold a set of beliefs separate from what is contained in the doctrine of the Catholic Church,&#8221; the spokesperson stated.
His comments in 2017 <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/20492/absolute-disgrace-83-percent-us-catholics-think-paul-bois">preceded a poll</a> that showed eight in ten U.S. Catholics now believe that Satan is just a symbol more akin to that of Santa Claus than an actual being. The poll came from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), which cited its <a href="https://nineteensixty-four.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-new-age-old-scratch.html">chilling data</a> from a Faith and Global Policy Challenges Survey in 2011.
Of the 1,496 adults in the United States polled, only 17% of self-identified Catholics said they believe in the existence of Satan, with 83% regarding the being as a mere symbol. Conversely, 55% of Evangelical Protestants believed in Satan&#8217;s literal existence.
Mark M. Gray, editor of CARA&#8217;s research blog, noted that Catholics believing in Satan&#8217;s existence were exponentially more likely to support pro-life initiatives and other moral causes. They were also shown to lean more conservative politically.
&#8220;Symbols aren&#8217;t really going to stir the same concerns in someone that a being might,&#8221; Gray explained. &#8220;Catholics who believe in the devil and Hell are more likely than those who do not to be religiously active.&#8221;

New Superior General Of The Society of Jesus Celebrates A Thanksgiving Mass

Jesuit Superior General: The Devil Is A ‘Symbol,’ Not A Person

Father Anthony Apuron, the former archbishop of the Catholic Church of Guam, has been accused of molesting children and protecting a culture of sexual abuse that endured on the island for decades.
A total of seven men have filed lawsuits accusing Apuron of molesting them as children, according to <a href="https://www.apnews.com/b8442f05def44d1ea79b9e6805da4e0c">The Associated Press</a>. Mark Apuron, the former bishop’s nephew, said that his uncle forced himself onto him, but that he avoided speaking about the incident because he didn’t think anyone would believe him.
Another man, Walter Denton, now 55, says that Apuron sexually assaulted him on church property when he was only 13-years-old. According to The Associated Press, Apuron warned the young Denton: &#8220;If you say anything to anybody, no one will believe you.&#8221;
&#8220;The archbishop, now 73, insists all his accusers are liars. But in a secret church trial last year, the Vatican found Apuron guilty of sex crimes against children, removing him from public ministry and effectively exiling him from Guam.&#8221; Despite being removed from public ministry, Apuron is still a bishop &#8220;and receives a monthly $1,500 stipend from the church,&#8221; the news agency notes.
The Associated Press has also reviewed thousands of pages of court documents and concluded that the Guam archdiocese engaged in systemic abuse &#8220;dating from the 1950s to as recently as 2013&#8221; and consisting of &#8220;a pattern of repeated collusion by predator priests, with abuse that spanned generations and reached all the way to the very top of the church hierarchy.&#8221;
One church official in the archdiocese, Father Louis Brouillard, has been accused of sexually assaulting at least 132 men and women over the course of three decades beginning as early as 1948. Several years before his death in 2018, Brouillard confessed to abusing nearly two dozen children.
Another man, Father Adrian Cristobal, a senior church official close to Apuron, has been accused in lawsuits of sexually assaulting boys and young men over more than three decades and paying them to keep quiet with money stolen from the church.
Apuron has also engaged in efforts to prevent survivors of sexual assault by members of the clergy from seeking justice.
When B.J. Cruz, a survivor of clergy sexual abuse and then-vice speaker of the Guam Senate, tried to introduce legislation to &#8220;lift the statute of limitations on child sex abuse lawsuits&#8221; in 2010, Apuron used his political clout to lobby against it.
Although the bill passed, senators sympathetic to the church amended the bill to make it more difficult for survivors to come forward, such as requiring plaintiffs to pay the church’s legal fees should they fail to prove their case.
No survivors came forward while the law was in effect.
In total, 35 clergymen, teachers and boy scout leaders on the island have been accused in lawsuits, leading the archdioceses to file for bankruptcy protection. As such, any survivors who wish to file a financial claim against the church only have until Aug. 15, 2019.

Guam In Crosshairs Of Showdown With North Korea As President Trump And North Korea Trade Threats

Report: Child Abuse In Guam’s Catholic Church Spans Decades

Pro-abortion politicians who claim Catholicism as their faith may not present themselves to Holy Communion, says Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke.
Speaking with Martha MacCallum on <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/raymond-leo-cardinal-burke-weighs-in-on-2020-dems-calls-out-biden-harris">Fox News</a>, Burke said that the overabundance of Catholic politicians in Washington supporting abortion has caused a great scandal in the Catholic Church by leading many to believe it has somehow flipped its position on abortion, which it most certainly never has.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve had non-Catholic leaders of government in this nation tell me that they were certain that the Catholic teaching on abortion and so-called same-sex marriage have changed because so many Catholics on Capitol Hill are regularly supporting this kind of legislation. And that&#8217;s a scandal,&#8221; Burke told MacCallum.
One of the greatest scandals in the U.S. Catholic Church since the 1960s has been the hierarchy&#8217;s unwillingness to bar pro-abortion politicians from receiving Holy Communion. This prominent list includes Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin, the entire Kennedy family, and many others. However, the American church hierarchy began <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/23613/gloria-american-catholic-bishops-deal-liberalism-paul-bois">correcting course</a> in 2017 by electing Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann to head the U.S. Bishops&#8217; Committee on Pro-Life Activities. Naumann expressly stated that bishops should bar such politicians from receiving Holy Communion.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a5.htm">abortion is a grave moral evil</a> that cannot be approved or tolerated in any circumstance.
Cardinal Burke noted that the barring of pro-abortion politicians from Holy Communion is actually for their own benefit since the church teaches that receiving the body and blood of Jesus Christ in a state of mortal sin is greatly damaging to the soul. &#8220;It&#8217;s not a punishment. It&#8217;s actually a favor to these people to tell them, don&#8217;t approach,&#8221; Burke said, &#8220;because if they approach, they commit sacrilege,&#8221; he said.
The cardinal also criticized Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) for <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/harris-and-hirono-question-federal-judicial-nominee-over-knights-of-columbus-membership">questioning federal Judge Brian Buescher</a> over his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, asking him if he understood that it was an &#8220;all-male society&#8221; that &#8220;opposes a woman&#8217;s right to choose&#8221; and &#8220;marriage equality.&#8221;
&#8220;This is completely unacceptable,&#8221; Burke said. &#8220;I mean, I think you&#8217;re an everyday citizen whether you&#8217;re a Catholic or not, you need to look at that kind of statement for what it is and say this isn&#8217;t a person who I want to be the leader of my nation.&#8221;
As the abortion argument in the United States has escalated during the Trump era, certain Catholic bishops have taken extra steps to warn pro-abortion politicians to refrain from Holy Communion. Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of Springfield, for instance, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48112/illinois-catholic-bishop-bars-pro-abortion-paul-bois">expressly forbid </a>all priests under his governance to give Holy Communion to politicians that supported the &#8220;Reproductive Health Act&#8221; in Illinois.
&#8220;In accord with canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law … Illinois Senate President John Cullerton and Speaker of the House Michael J. Madigan, who facilitated the passage of the Act Concerning Abortion of 2017 (House Bill 40) as well as the Reproductive Health Act of 2019 (Senate Bill 25), are not to be admitted to Holy Communion in the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois because they have obstinately persisted in promoting the abominable crime and very grave sin of abortion as evidenced by the influence they exerted in their leadership roles and their repeated votes and obdurate public support for abortion rights over an extended period of time,&#8221; Paprocki wrote in a statement.

&#8216;March for Life&#8217; held in Rome

Cardinal Burke: Pro-Abortion Politicians May Not Receive Holy Communion

The Jesuit publication &#8220;America Magazine&#8221; has officially lost its unholy mind. Despite the fact that the Catholic Church has condemned both communism and socialism as unviable economic systems that violate natural law by depriving individuals of their labor&#8217;s fruits, the magazine still had the audacity to publish &#8220;<a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/07/23/catholic-case-communism?fbclid=IwAR3JxekZGabK0XoKld2WUspy1UTmQXYn5eN1DanWeUuOVbMLOn9waAsc-W0">The Catholic Case for Communism</a>&#8221; by Dean Dettloff.
Not once throughout Dettloff&#8217;s lengthy defense of communism, in which he characterizes it as a just system seeking to correct the exploitation of the poor on behalf of the wealthy, does he mention the fact it ushered in one of the most destructive centuries in the history of the world, causing up to 100 million human deaths either by way of famine or government force. No mention of gulags, no mention of Mao&#8217;s &#8220;Great Leap Forward,&#8221; and no mention of re-education camps. Instead, Dettloff plays a big (and wholly simplified) game of whataboutisms by claiming capitalism has caused just as much suffering as communism.
&#8220;Communists are not the only ones who have to answer for creating human suffering,&#8221; he writes. &#8220;Far from being a friendly game of world competition, capitalism, Marx argued, emerged through the privatization of what was once public, like shared land, a process enforced first by physical violence and then continued by law.&#8221;
In other words, a person being able to call the police when a trespasser waltzes on to their private property is akin to shipping someone off to a re-education camp because they held the wrong opinions. Dettloff goes on:
<blockquote>Colonial capitalism, together with the assumptions of white supremacy, ushered in centuries of unbridled terrorism on populations around the world, creating a system in which people could be bought and sold as commodities. Even after the official abolition of slavery in the largest world economies — which required a costly civil war in the United States — the effects of that system live on, and capitalist nations and transnational companies continue to exploit poor and working people at home and abroad. For many people around the globe today, being on the wrong side of capitalism can still mean the difference between life and death.</blockquote>
Later, Dettloff explores the forms of oppression that modern capitalism has inflicted upon people, citing the alleged grotesque labor conditions at Amazon. &#8220;An undercover journalist reports workers <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-workers-have-to-pee-into-bottles-2018-4">urinate into bottles</a> in a U.K. Amazon warehouse for fear of being disciplined for &#8216;idle time,&#8217; and the company has a long list of previous offenses,&#8221; he writes. &#8220;In <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/03/amazon-warehouse-theft">Pennsylvania</a>, Amazon workers needed medical attention both for exposure to the cold in the winter and for heat exhaustion in the summer.&#8221;
All of these, of course, are fair criticisms of the excesses of capitalism, or rather, the pursuit of profit at the expense of individuals, which the Catholic social teaching has condemned all the way back since Pope Leo XIII published &#8220;Rerum Novarum.&#8221; Dettloff clearly understands this, so when he tries to clarify that the sins listed above are &#8220;not the result only of unkind employers or unfair labor regulations&#8221; but are rather symptomatic of capitalism itself, he falls into his own trap.
&#8220;For communists, global inequality and the abuse of workers at highly profitable corporations are not the result only of unkind employers or unfair labor regulations,&#8221; he writes. &#8220;They are symptoms of a specific way of organizing wealth, one that did not exist at the creation of the world and one that represents part of a &#8216;culture of death,&#8217; to borrow a familiar phrase. We already live in a world where wealth is redistributed, but it goes up, not down or across.&#8221;
If capitalism itself truly did create a system fully outside of natural law (not just a system that permits such violations by individuals), then by Dettloff&#8217;s own logic, one can only conclude that communism produces even more suffering simply by observing the widespread misery it produced everywhere it sprang forth, hence why nowhere in Dettloff&#8217;s piece does the phrase &#8220;100 million human deaths&#8221; appear. This is what led Pope St. John Paul II to declare:
<blockquote>Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism.
Socialism likewise maintains that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism.
Socialism likewise maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice, to the unique and exclusive responsibility which he exercises in the face of good or evil. Man is thus reduced to a series of social relationships, and the concept of the person as the autonomous subject of moral decisions disappears, the very subject whose decisions build the social order.</blockquote>
In fact, <a href="https://www.tfp.org/what-the-popes-have-to-say-about-socialism/">as many as 10 Popes</a> throughout history have condemned the evils of both socialism and communism while simultaneously seeking to curtail the abusive excesses of capitalism.
So why did America Magazine publish an article so far outside Catholic social teaching? According to Editor-in-Chief Matt Malone, it was simply an attempt to <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2019/07/23/why-we-published-essay-sympathetic-communism">give representation to different voices</a>.
&#8220;You might ask, after 110 years of opposition to communism, <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/07/23/catholic-case-communism">why are we publishing an article in this issue that is sympathetic to it?</a>&#8221; he wrote in a clarifying op-ed. &#8220;Well, for one thing, you should not assume that America’s editorial position on communism has changed very much. It has not. What has also not changed is our willingness to hear views with which we may disagree but that we nonetheless think are worth hearing. And we could not have picked a better author for such an <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/07/23/catholic-case-communism">article</a>.&#8221;
Except for the fact that the debate on communism has long been shut, every bit as much as the debate on abortion. There is no resurrecting it. While the Catholic Church has certainly shifted its focus into advocating for workers&#8217; rights and a symbiotic relationship between employers and employees, it has never looked at communism as a viable alternative. Likewise, while it has underlined an individual&#8217;s natural right to private property, the church has also emphasized that private property should never come at the expense of the common good. To say that communism is the answer to curing these social ills is akin to injecting yourself with cyanide to cure influenza. There is no correlation.
Though America Magazine has long been pushing the envelope by allowing Father James Martin to publish <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/06/11/listen-lgbt-person-response-vaticans-gender-theory-document">pro-LGBT material</a> without impunity, it blatantly crossed a line by publishing such a tone-deaf defense of what can be argued to be one of the most evil economic systems ever created by human beings and only highlights the reprehensible fact that communism has not yet been put in its rightful place in the history books alongside Nazism.

BOIS: Jesuit ‘America Magazine’ Insane To Publish ‘The Catholic Case For Communism’

Communism

The latest report on the horrific Notre Dame fire is that a newly appointed security guard misunderstood the alert system and sent his colleagues to the wrong building when the fire initially broke out.
&#8220;A security guard in charge of protecting Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was working only his third day and sent his fellow colleague to the wrong building to check on the alert when the fire first broke out,&#8221; reports <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/notre-dame-security-guard-delayed-response-wrong-building">Fox News</a>. &#8220;A major miscommunication occurred amid the early warnings of the blaze as one of the guards went to check the fire-free sacristy, not the attic of the Cathedral, a move that delayed the response to the fire.&#8221;
While Paris prosecutors have largely concluded the fire did not result from a criminal or terrorist act, alleging it most likely stemmed from an electrical shortage or a smoldering cigarette, the delayed response time may indeed have further increased the damage done to the beloved cathedral.
&#8220;Only 30 minutes later, the cathedral staff realized they made a mistake and sent the guard to the attic — also known as &#8216;the forest&#8217; for its aged timber beams that hold up the roof — only to find that the fire was already in full swing,&#8221; the report continued. &#8220;The report found that the person who notified the location of the fire to the guard was working there only his third day and that he just started getting used to the alert system.&#8221;
Though the guard failed to properly read the system, reports are that the system itself was &#8220;complex and dated, prompting questions whether the person in charge of it even understood the alert in general.&#8221;
As The Daily Wire&#8217;s Emily Zanotti <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48941/devastating-notre-dame-fire-was-probably-started-emily-zanotti">reported</a>, the Notre Dame fire most likely originated from a burning cigarette, leading prosecutors to investigate whether the fire resulted from simple negligence. Several weeks after the initial blaze, the scaffolding firm originally charged with renovating the Notre Dame cathedral <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46416/scaffolding-firm-construction-workers-smoked-paul-bois">admitted that construction</a> workers were smoking cigarettes on site. However, the company, Le Bras Freres, denies that it started the fire.
&#8220;We condemn it. But the fire started inside the building &#8230; so for company Le Bras, this is not a hypothesis, it was not a cigarette butt that set Notre-Dame de Paris on fire,&#8221; said Le Bras Frères spokesman Marc Eskenazi.
Following the fire, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the cathedral will be even &#8220;more beautiful&#8221; while also calling for it to be rebuilt in five years.
&#8220;The fire at Notre Dame reminds us that our history never stops and we will always have challenges to overcome,&#8221; Macron <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/17/notre-dame-fire-macron-promises-to-make-cathedral-more-beautiful-than-before">said</a>. &#8220;We will rebuild Notre Dame, more beautiful than before — and I want it done in the next five years. We can do it. After the time of testing comes a time of reflection and then of action.&#8221;
Experts speculate, however, that the rebuilding of Notre Dame could take decades. For instance, the roof was comprised of oak beams cut from centuries-old trees that likely do not even exist in Europe today.
&#8220;Some of that material may be reusable, and that’s a painstaking exercise. It’s like an archaeological excavation,&#8221; Duncan Wilson, chief executive of the conservation organization Historic England, told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/17/notre-dame-fire-macron-promises-to-make-cathedral-more-beautiful-than-before">The Guardian</a>.

Report: Notre Dame Security Guard Delayed Fire Response

Europe

France

Notre Dame Cathedral

Victims of clergy abuse in California are speaking out on Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), one of the top contenders for the 2020 presidential nomination and both a former California prosecutor and attorney general.
<a href="https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2019/06/26/victims-question-kamala-harriss-record-on-clergy-abuse/">The Catholic news site, CruxNow</a>, reports that several survivors say that Harris ignored their requests for help for years despite complaints that Catholic priests who had committed acts of sexual assault and sexual abuse were still active in parishes in California. One victim even says he pursued Harris&#8217; attention for more than five years, writing her again and again asking her to take an active role in policing the Catholic sex abuse crisis in California.
“She did nothing,” Joey Piscitelli, the head of a California group called SNAP (Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests) says, adding that Harris &#8220;never responded to him when he wrote to tell her that a priest who had molested him was still in ministry at a local Catholic cathedral.&#8221;
She did nothing five years later, Piscitelli claims, when he and others petitioned her to &#8220;release records on accused clergy to help other alleged victims who were filing lawsuits.&#8221;
That left California abuse victims unable to pursue their tormenters, and as in many other states, allowed the Catholic Church to hide rampant sexual abuse within its ranks until the early 2000s, when a breakout story in the Boston Globe revealed a widespread cover-up by American churches and forced the Catholic Church to make major changes to how it handles claims of abuse internally.
Piscitelli started his inquiry sometime after the &#8220;Spotlight&#8221; revelations.
Harris&#8217; campaign responded to the group by reiterating her commitment to helping child sex abuse victims as a prosecuting attorney in California, both at the city and state levels.
“Kamala Harris has been a staunch advocate on behalf of sexual assault victims, especially child sexual assault victims,&#8221; according to the statement. Harris, the campaign adds, “used her position as District Attorney to create the first unit focused on child sexual assault cases in the office’s history.&#8221;
It seems Harris may have one concrete excuse: the Supreme Court decided in the mid-2000s that the statute of limitations for criminal sexual conduct was airtight, depriving most priestly abuse victims of the ability to see their attackers prosecuted in court. But the decision did not cover civil cases, and the Supreme Court didn&#8217;t speak on whether victims could pursue action against the Catholic Church in civil court for various injuries.
The California abuse victims say that Harris, at that point, could have given them access to any case files the attorney general&#8217;s office had compiled in reference to sex abuse in Catholic Churches, but Harris&#8217; office demurred, saying that those files contained identifying information that just couldn&#8217;t be scrubbed out or successfully redacted.
She was, they say, the only one who didn&#8217;t try to help.
“Of all the DAs in the Bay Area, she’s the only one who wouldn’t cooperate with us,” an attorney for clergy sex abuse victims told the Associated Press.
The California attorney general, like authorities in Pennsylvania and Illinois, is now pursuing a more aggressive inquiry into the Catholic Church, trying to find out exactly how many abusive priests were &#8220;dealt with&#8221; in the years before the Church changed its rules on how to handle complaints of sexual abuse. A spokesperson for BishopAccountability.org says that&#8217;s good news — especially in light of how little victims believe Harris cared for them.
“The current attorney general is showing an awareness of the ongoing problem of clergy sexual abuse in California that Kamala Harris didn’t exhibit at all,” she said.
Harris will take the stage on Thursday night in the second round of Democratic primary debates, and will try to hammer home that, while serving as a prosecutor in California, she took a tough law-and-order stance that changed the landscape of California&#8217;s criminal courts. In some ways, that&#8217;s true — in fact, Harris has often been criticized for her merciless handling of offenders. But the group of clergy abuse victims say they&#8217;ll continue to challenge Harris&#8217; popular profile and contend that her &#8220;law-and-order&#8221; stance is selective.

Kamala Harris SLAMMED Over Treatment Of Clergy Abuse Victims In California

Kamala Harris

Voters should make abortion and the vulnerability of the unborn their top priority, says Catholic Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas.
Speaking with <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/faithful-u.s-bishop-catholic-politicians-must-be-held-accountable-for-pro-abortion-views">LifeSiteNews</a> during a Q&amp;A session about the bishops&#8217; voting guide for Catholics at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops&#8217; spring general assembly meeting in Baltimore, Strickland said that while other issues should be on a voter&#8217;s radar, abortion must take precedence.
&#8220;It has a priority, because, unless you can manage to be born you really don&#8217;t have any life issues. So certainly that&#8217;s foundational,&#8221; Strickland said, adding that &#8220;atrocious laws&#8221; like those in New York and Virginia should stir people&#8217;s conscience.
While Strickland does not discount immigration issues and the quality of life for anyone at any stage of development, he conceded that the unborn child in the mother&#8217;s womb is the most vulnerable of all and carries a different set of circumstances than, say, an able-bodied 25-year-old man.
<blockquote>
Certainly, because conception is where it begins, and I think even scientifically we can say that that newly conceived child is about as vulnerable as a human being ever can be. And isn&#8217;t it tragic that that vulnerability remains in the womb, even after a child is really developed, and even can be viable outside the womb, they remain vulnerable in today&#8217;s society, and even immediately after birth in some places.
I would very clearly say, absolutely, at conception is where the precious gift of life is given, and that&#8217;s where the most important emphasis needs to be, because it&#8217;s the most vulnerable. And then as that vulnerability diminishes, still, the value of the person is there. For (example), the 25-year-old, strong, man, is in a different circumstance than a newly conceived child or an unborn child in the womb.
</blockquote>
Later, when LifeSiteNews asked if Catholic bishops should bar pro-abortion politicians from receiving Holy Communion, he said that the bishops should do so not out of punishment but out of care for the politician&#8217;s soul, so that they may repent and avoid any further occasion of sin or scandal.
&#8220;We&#8217;re not attackers, we&#8217;re shepherds, but we should care for that person,&#8221; said Strickland. &#8220;Care for a presidential candidate who claims to be Catholic but isn&#8217;t upholding the basic Deposit of Faith &#8212; that we promised to guard as bishops, to guard the deposit of faith, whole and incorrupt, entire and incorrupt I think are the exact words.&#8221;
According to <a href="http://www.canonlaw.info/canonlaw915.htm">Catholic Canon Law 915</a>, people who publicly express grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion. The Catholic Church has always taught abortion to be intrinsically evil and that people who either procure or support the practice are in grave error that can only be reconciled through the sacrament of confession.
Bishop Strickland&#8217;s support for making abortion a top priority and for barring pro-abortion politicians from Holy Communion stands in direct contrast with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48444/chicago-cardinal-cupich-will-allow-pro-abortion-paul-bois">Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich</a>, who recently said he would allow such lawmakers to receive what Catholics believe to be the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ &#8212; despite his state of Illinois recently liberalizing its already-permissive abortion regime.

Catholic Bishop: Abortion Should Be A Voter&#8217;s Top Priority

Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich will allow Illinois state politicians who helped pass a law guaranteeing women the right to abortion to receive what Catholics believe to be the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the form of Holy Communion.
Speaking with <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/illinois-bishops-oppose-abortion-law-disagree-on-communion-for-pro-choice-lawmakers-33686">Catholic News Agency</a>, Cupich said that barring pro-abortion Catholic politicians from receiving Holy Communion would be &#8220;counterproductive.&#8221;
&#8220;I think it would be counterproductive to impose sanctions, simply because they don&#8217;t change anybody&#8217;s minds, but it also takes away from the fact that an elected official has to deal with the judgment seat of God, not just the judgment seat of a bishop. I think that&#8217;s much more powerful,&#8221; Cupich told CNA. &#8220;I have always approached the issue saying that the bishop&#8217;s primary responsibility is to teach, and I will continue to do that.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/illinois-nevada-pass-radical-abortion-legislation">Senate Bill 25</a> &#8212; a.k.a., the &#8220;Reproductive Health Act&#8221; &#8212; passed the Illinois State Senate by a 34-20 vote and essentially guarantees that the state will enshrine abortion rights into law should Roe v. Wade be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. It even expressly states that the &#8220;fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights.&#8221; Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the bill into law this past Wednesday.
According to <a href="http://www.canonlaw.info/canonlaw915.htm">Catholic Canon Law 915</a>, people who publicly express grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion. The Catholic Church has always taught abortion to be intrinsically evil and that people who either procure or support the practice are in grave error that can only be reconciled through the sacrament of Confession.
Cardinal Cupich did, however, tell Catholic News Agency that the &#8220;Reproductive Health Act&#8221; is &#8220;pernicious&#8221; by denying the humanity of the unborn child.
&#8220;What&#8217;s pernicious about this law, and what&#8217;s so very difficult, is that it says that the unborn child has absolutely no claim on rights,&#8221; Cupich said. &#8220;It says that human life is cheap. That&#8217;s the message that we send &#8212; that human life is cheap in the State of Illinois.&#8221;
Cardinal Cupich&#8217;s decision to give pro-abortion politicians Holy Communion <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48112/illinois-catholic-bishop-bars-pro-abortion-paul-bois">stands in direct contrast </a>to another bishop in Illinois &#8212; Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of Springfield, who expressly forbid all priests under his governance to give Holy Communion to politicians that supported the &#8220;Reproductive Health Act.&#8221;
&#8220;In accord with canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law &#8230; Illinois Senate President John Cullerton and Speaker of the House Michael J. Madigan, who facilitated the passage of the Act Concerning Abortion of 2017 (House Bill 40) as well as the Reproductive Health Act of 2019 (Senate Bill 25), are not to be admitted to Holy Communion in the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois because they have obstinately persisted in promoting the abominable crime and very grave sin of abortion as evidenced by the influence they exerted in their leadership roles and their repeated votes and obdurate public support for abortion rights over an extended period of time,&#8221; Paprocki wrote in a statement.
In 2017, the American Catholic hierarchy <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/23613/gloria-american-catholic-bishops-deal-liberalism-paul-bois">elected </a>Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann to head the U.S. Bishops&#8217; Committee on Pro-Life Activities, who expressly stated that bishops should bar pro-abortion politicians from receiving Holy Communion.

Chicago Cardinal Cupich Will Allow Pro-Abortion Politicians To Receive Holy Communion

Chicago

In a historic move, a small cadre of Catholic bishops and cardinals have joined forces to issue a formal &#8220;declaration of truths&#8221; to reaffirm long-established Church doctrine in the face of what they describe as &#8220;universal doctrinal confusion and disorientation&#8221; under the Francis pontificate.
Though the <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/images/uploads/Declaration_Truths_Errors_final_version_clean.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">eight-page document</a> released by the <a href="http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/new-declaration-of-truths-affirms-key-church-teachings">National Catholic Register</a> does not mention Pope Francis by name, it undoubtedly addresses several statements he has made (either recently or throughout his pontificate) that have carried with them an aura of ambiguity that permits disobedience to Catholic moral teachings &#8212; such as when he said, while visiting the Middle East, that <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/bp.-schneider-pope-must-formally-correct-statement-that-god-wills-false-religions">God wills other religions</a>. Everything that Pope Francis has either downplayed or ignored &#8212; from homosexual acts to divorce to priestly celibacy to abortion to the death penalty &#8212; the document addresses.
In the introduction, the bishops discredit the idea of dogmatic evolution currently prevailing among the modern Catholic world, which says that some sort of new discovery can somehow negate a past declaration of Truth. For instance, the modern relativist would say that the Church needs to &#8220;get with the times&#8221; on certain moral issues like homosexuality and abortion, which would be a total reversal of the Church previously declaring those actions morally wrong, despite whatever unfortunate circumstance that led to them.
<blockquote>
The right meaning of the expressions &#8220;living tradition,&#8221; &#8220;living Magisterium,&#8221; &#8220;hermeneutic of continuity,&#8221; and &#8220;development of doctrine&#8221; includes the truth that whatever new insights may be expressed regarding the deposit of faith, nevertheless they cannot be contrary to what the Church has always proposed in the same dogma, in the same sense, and in the same meaning.
</blockquote>
Later, the document addresses the doctrine of hell, affirming that both fallen angels and human souls go there for eternity if they should die outside the grace of God.
&#8220;Hell exists and those who are condemned to hell for any unrepented mortal sin are eternally punished there by Divine justice,&#8221; the document states. &#8220;Not only fallen angels but also human souls are damned eternally. Eternally damned human beings will not be annihilated, since their souls are immortal according to the infallible teaching of the Church.&#8221;
As Easter approached in 2018, 93-year-old atheist journalist Eugenio Scalfari <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/28831/its-lie-no-pope-francis-did-not-abolish-hell-paul-bois?utm_source=facebook&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_content=062316-news&amp;utm_campaign=dwbrand&amp;fbclid=IwAR1u4A0APYUxWIwDJ-CljMshAUZVz4TO4J3ndJyXUAxZqYI4fOvWMsoTnH4">reported</a> that Pope Francis allegedly told him in private that souls do not go to hell and instead believed in the heretical doctrine of annihilation &#8212; the idea that unrepentant souls simply cease to exist after death rather than eternal damnation.
&#8220;They are not punished &#8212; those who repent obtain the forgiveness of God and enter the rank of souls who contemplate him, but those who do not repent and cannot therefore be forgiven disappear,&#8221; Scalfari alleged Pope Francis said.
&#8220;There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls,&#8221; he allegedly added.
When the article broke, the Vatican did not issue an emphatic condemnation of Scalfari&#8217;s words and only said that he did not provide a &#8220;faithful transcription&#8221; of the Holy Father&#8217;s words. There was no formal declaration by Pope Francis or the Vatican reaffirming Church doctrine.
Read the <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/images/uploads/Declaration_Truths_Errors_final_version_clean.pdf">full document here</a>, which was formally signed by two cardinals and three bishops.

Catholic Bishops Issue ‘Declaration Of Truth’ To Clear Confusion Under Pope Francis

One prominent Catholic bishop has put defense of the faith over popularity by barring pro-abortion politicians in his state from receiving the sacrament of Holy Communion.
According to <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-illinois-bishop-bars-pro-abortion-legislators-from-communion">LifeSiteNews</a>, Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, recently asked all Catholic politicians who helped pass <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/illinois-nevada-pass-radical-abortion-legislation">Senate Bill 25</a> &#8212; a.k.a., the &#8220;Reproductive Health Act&#8221; &#8212; to refrain from receiving Holy Communion in a Catholic church until they repent of their sin through the sacrament of Confession. The bill passed the State Senate by 34-20 vote and essentially guarantees that the state of Illinois will enshrine abortion rights into law should Roe v. Wade be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. It even expressly states that the &#8220;fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights.&#8221; Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker has already promised to sign the bill into law.
Paprocki especially forbid priests in his diocese from giving communion to both the Senate president and the speaker of the House.
&#8220;In accord with canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law &#8230; Illinois Senate President John Cullerton and Speaker of the House Michael J. Madigan, who facilitated the passage of the Act Concerning Abortion of 2017 (House Bill 40) as well as the Reproductive Health Act of 2019 (Senate Bill 25), are not to be admitted to Holy Communion in the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois because they have obstinately persisted in promoting the abominable crime and very grave sin of abortion as evidenced by the influence they exerted in their leadership roles and their repeated votes and obdurate public support for abortion rights over an extended period of time,&#8221; Paprocki wrote in a statement.
&#8220;These persons may be readmitted to Holy Communion only after they have truly repented these grave sins and furthermore have made suitable reparation for damages and scandal, or at least have seriously promised to do so, as determined in my judgment or in the judgment of their diocesan bishop in consultation with me or my successor,&#8221; the statement continued.
John Cullerton and Michael J. Madigan were the only two lawmakers that Paprocki specifically named in his edict, though he did go on to say the rule extends to any other Catholic lawmaker that worked to pass the bill. &#8220;I declare that Catholic legislators of the Illinois General Assembly who have cooperated in evil and committed grave sin by voting for any legislation that promotes abortion are not to present themselves to receive Holy Communion without first being reconciled to Christ and the Church in accord with canon 916 of the Code of Canon Law,&#8221; he said.
One of the greatest scandals in the U.S. Catholic Church since the 1960s has been the hierarchy&#8217;s unwillingness to bar pro-abortion politicians from receiving Holy Communion. This prominent list includes Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin, the entire Kennedy family, and many others. Fortunately, the American church hierarchy began <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/23613/gloria-american-catholic-bishops-deal-liberalism-paul-bois">correcting course</a> in 2017 by electing Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann to head the U.S. Bishops&#8217; Committee on Pro-Life Activities. Naumann expressly stated that bishops should bar such politicians from receiving Holy Communion.

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