De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

  Bishop Mutsaerts asks perhaps the most important & most awkward question about the Synod on Synodality: where are the fruits? Not more committees, consultations or documents, but conversions, vocations, stronger Catholic families, fuller churches, better catechesis, greater reverence for the Eucharist and a clearer proclamation of Jesus Christ. This is surely the test by which every programme of ecclesial renewal must ultimately be judged. Synodality can be a means by which the Church listens & discerns, but once the process itself becomes the object of endless discussion, there is a danger that the Church becomes preoccupied with the mechanics of travelling together while losing sight of the destination. The criticism from the beginning was that this was naval gazing; the Church looking inward instead of outward. Mutsaerts’ Emmaus analogy is particularly powerful: Christ walks with the disciples and listens to them, but He does not merely affirm what they already think. ...

"The modern world does not need a Church that echoes its confusion back to itself in softer language. It needs a Church confident enough to tell humanity the truth about the human person, about sin, about grace, about sexuality, about marriage, about salvation and about God. And to do that, the Church needs shepherds who believe those truths completely, without embarrassment, without calculation and without ambition." Watch my video about the report on "Hot Button Issues", which the Vatican downgraded to "Emerging Issues":

  Something significant is happening in Rome — and most people have not noticed it yet. Pope Leo XIV has begun quietly reshaping the machinery of Vatican governance. The appointment of Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia as nuncio to the United States, the replacement of Fr Daniel Pellizzon in the papal household, and the reported appointment of Swiss Guard Lieutenant Anton Kappler as assistant of the chamber are not isolated personnel changes. Together they signal something much larger. After years of turbulence under the pontificate of Pope Francis, Leo XIV appears to be restoring institutional order at the centre of the Church. The papal household is being reorganised. The diplomatic corps is being recalibrated. The networks that surrounded the previous pontificate are gradually giving way to a more disciplined and traditional structure of governance. In my latest article for Catholic Unscripted I examine what these appointments mean, why they matter for the Church in the Un...

My article ;  Roche, Fernández and the Collapse of Competence , has received a lot of oxygen! It is not a personal attack on these two Vatican officials. It is an attempt to name something most serious Catholics instinctively sense but find difficult to articulate: a growing collapse of competence at the heart of Church governance. The focus is not on personalities for their own sake, but on what their elevation reveals about a deeper institutional problem. Authority is increasingly detached from theological depth, historical literacy, and intellectual seriousness. The result is a widening gap between power and credibility, and Catholics feel it. One of the central arguments I make is that liturgy is now being treated less as a received inheritance and more as a variable to be managed. This shift matters. When tradition is approached as something to be controlled rather than handed on, continuity gives way to bureaucratic improvisation. This mentality underpins the reasoning arou...

Something unusual happened at Pope Leo XIV’s first consistory — a written note attributed to Cardinal Arthur Roche on the Traditional Latin Mass was handed out, but no one is allowed to see it. Liturgy was on the agenda but never discussed, and many faithful Catholics are asking tough questions about Traditionis Custodes, unity, and transparency. Why was this document kept from public view? What does it signal about the Church’s direction? READ IN FULL HERE

Vaticanista Sandro Magister has obtained some very interesting inside information from the Cardinals. He writes : "Since the beginning of Lent the cardinals who will elect the future pope have been passing this memorandum around. Its author, who goes by the name of Demos, “people” in Greek, is unknown, but shows himself a thorough master of the subject. It cannot be ruled out that he himself is a cardinal." This is the text with my comments : THE VATICAN TODAY Commentators of every school, if for different reasons, with the possible exception of Father Spadaro, SJ, agree that this pontificate is a disaster in many or most respects; a catastrophe. [that in itself is a sign of hope!] 1. The Successor of St. Peter is the rock on which the Church is built, a major source and cause of worldwide unity. Historically (St. Irenaeus), the Pope and the Church of Rome have a unique role in preserving the apostolic tradition, the rule of faith, in ensuring that the Churches continue to t...

The Congregation for Catholic Education has issued an appositely timed and much needed teaching  document which outlines the philosophical origins of the gender theory movement, and notes the broad movement to enshrine its distinct anthropology in policy and law. The first thought for many parents in the UK who have been literally sold down the river on this issue by Catholic bishops, is how deeply this undermines the Catholic Education Services ' useless guideline document ? In the new document, the Congregation explains that, beginning in the middle of the twentieth century, a series of studies were published which proposed that external conditioning had the primary determinative influence on personality. When such studies were applied to human sexuality, the document says, they did so with a view to demonstrating that sexuality identity was more a social construct than a given natural or biological fact. “These schools of thought were united in denying the existen...

This really is a must watch presentation. The premier English-language Vatican journalist, Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register , offers a journalist’s objective evaluation of a climate of fear in Rome, the Synod on the Family, Amoris Laetitia , and the crisis in the Church during the reign of Pope Francis. Pope Francis has "a disregard for absolutes and traditional teaching" says the respected journalist. The Pope is fermenting schism, preaching politics, and concerned most with power, although he genuinely believes he is doing the best for the Church. Pentin here gives a factual catalogue of spurious interventions, manipulations, monitorings which continue to lead to a breakdown of trust in the Vatican where the behaviour is being reduced to that of a boarding school, to quote Cardinal Müller. Vatican officials have left or will soon leave as a result of the conditions, he has an account of one official who feels the Pope and the Bishops are "trying...

Reuters reports  on a story published in a leading Italian newspaper, that Pope Benedict alleges that a "gay lobby" in the Vatican had tried to influence decisions. Italy's Corriere della Sera daily, which has acquired the Italian newspaper rights for excerpts and has access to the book, ran a long article on Friday summarising its key points. In the book, Benedict says that he came to know of the presence of a "gay lobby" made up of four or five people who were seeking to influence Vatican decisions. The article says Benedict says he managed to "break up this power group". The book, called " The Last Conversations ", is the first time in history that a former pope judges his own pontificate after it is over. It is due to be published on Sept. 9. Following the John Jay Report into abuse, a clear statistical link between SSA and child abuse by Catholic Priests was established. This link justifies the Vatican Instruction of 2005: ...

UN slams Vatican for protecting priests over child abuse Screams the BBC headline today. And it seems the world has forgotten all the progress made over the last 13 years and reverted back to unreservedly attacking Catholicism. The UN has denounced the Vatican for "systematically" adopting policies allowing priests to sexually abuse thousands of children. I have managed to dig up the actual report on the UN website and you can read it for yourself in full here . I guess the first thing to do is to acknowledge how bad this is. The abuse of even one child is unacceptable as far as I am concerned, and the fact that anyone should suffer abuse at the hands of someone who claims to be a servant of the Church is even more appalling, if that is possible, because of the hypocrisy that is involved, and because of the damage it does to the Church. I think it is clear to everyone that the abuse of children has, for a long time, been a problem for the whole of our societ...

Father Dom surprised me with a text from St. Peter's Square yesterday morning. He was in a "vast" queue for Wednesday's Udienza with Papa Francesco. I asked if it wouldn't have been easier to simply turned up for Mass at the Chapel in Casa Santa Marta, but apparently our intrepid Redemptorist said Mass at some ungodly hour in St. Peter's. Dom couldn't get over how many people were there, the square was heaving, Dom estimated between 200-250,000 people jostling in the hot sun to catch a glimpse of Papa Francesco. Here's a picture he took as the Pope went past. It is a powerful witness, I think, that so many want to meet this man. A good sign. I think Fr. Dom is planning to pop in and have tea with the Holy Father today. I hope he asks him for a good new bishop for Brentwood, and as he doesn't seem all that bothered about the Papal Tiara, I know a certain priest who would make excellent use of it!

Today I notice that Gerry Braiden of the Glasgow Herald is reporting that friends of Cardinal Keith O'Brien have told him that the Cardinal has been ordered to leave Britain by the Vatican following the ongoing investigation into his admission that he made sexual advances to priests during his time as Primate of Scotland. As I mentioned on Monday , earlier in the week, there was news that made one think that Pope Francis had turned his eye toward our Islands and was paying attention to what was going on here. As I suggested there, the fact we are outstanding, what, eleven bishops now? And other bishops have been appointed by Pope Francis, but none have been appointed here, can surely only leave one to conclude that something serious is going on? I have to say that I hope this is the case!  Indeed, Braiden notes that the Vatican's notice to Cardinal O'Brien... "...is the clearest indication yet of the Vatican's unwillingness to let the matter drift and co...

Habemus Papam! I've spent an rather exciting evening in front of the t.v. watching, first the white smoke issue from the chimney and then waiting to see who had been elected. I was completely shocked, I hadn't even considered that it might be Jorge Bergoglio, the self-effacing Jesuit from Argentina. Now I feel somewhat underwhelmed, having spent the last few weeks praying for Scola as my adopted Cardinal, and reading about Ouellet, Tagle, O'Malley. Then someone I haven't even heard of is elected: who is this man? When he came out onto the balcony I was a bit perplexed that he was not wearing the papal mozzetta and that he took off the papal stole immediately after giving the blessing. I was worried because it felt like an immediate repudiation of the liturgical return to signs and symbols which had been one of the hallmarks of Pope Benedict XVI's reign. I felt a bit panicked. However, after a couple of days of reading everything I can about Pope Francis, ...