For both admirers and critics, the personal authority and moral legacy of Pope Francis will be hanging in the balance this month. On Monday (NZ time) he will invite a gathering of bishops, men and women from religious orders, indigenous people and secular experts to think boldly about a remote but ecologically sensitive corner of Read more
Bazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes clarified the working document’s purpose for the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon. It is is not official church teaching, he says. It is a way for bishops to listen to the local church’s concerns. The working document ( also called the Instrumentum Laboris) “isn’t a document of the synod, it Read more
Ecology, economy and politics have everything to do with evangelisation. They are not an alternative to it, Pope Francis says. The topics will be discussed at next month’s Synod of Bishops on the Amazon. Francis’s mainly conservative, traditional Catholic critics say these topics distract from evangelisation. “What do ecology, economy, and politics have to do Read more
Two cardinals are challenging the working document for next month’s synod of bishops on the pan-Amazonian region. Cardinals Walter Brandmüller and Raymond Burke have both written to fellow members of the College of Cardinals raising concerns about the document. “Some points…seem not only in dissonance with respect to the authentic teaching of the Church, but Read more
German Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, widely seen as a key opponent of Pope Francis, has penned a rare essay openly criticizing the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, saying the official preparatory document breaks with Catholic teaching. According to Brandmüller’s essay, the synod’s recently-published preparatory document “burdens the Synod of Bishops, and finally the Pope, Read more
Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, one of the so called Dubia cardinals warned Catholics who leave the one true Church, whatever the reason might be, that they risk falling into eternal damnation of “existential nothingness.” Read more Related Posts:Heightened tension during meeting with Archbishop of ColognePope warns of sick, closed-in ChurchRisk of schism in Germany after Vatican’s Read more
Leaked letters from Pope emeritus Benedict XVI have been published in Bild, a German magazine. In them, Benedict says the “anger” some of his staunchest allies express risks tarnishing his own pontificate. The New York Times says the letters were addressed to Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, one of the four ‘dubia’ cardinals, who recently criticised Benedict’s Read more
Cardinal Walter Brandmüller says people who insist on ordaining female priests “fulfil the elements of heresy.” He says they will be excommunicated from the church. Brandmüller is one of the four “dubia” cardinals who has repeatedly asked Pope Francis to provide doctrinal clarity about some elements of Amoris Laetitia. He was responding to comments by Read more
