Mel Gibson, the controversial actor and director, is publicly spporting excommunicated Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò. Gibson wrote a letter addressed to Viganò on the blog of traditionalist publicist Aldo Maria Valli. In his letter Gibson referred to Pope Francis by his birth name, Jorge Bergoglio, and commended Viganò as a “courageous hero”. “I’m sure you Read more
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has been found guilty of schism and excommunicated, the Vatican’s doctrinal office says. He was the papal nuncio in Washington from 2011-2016. In 2018 Viganò reportedly hid after alleging Pope Francis and other senior clerics knew of US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexual misconduct for years and did nothing about it. He Read more
Recently a community of Poor Clare nuns in Spain announced their decision to leave the Catholic Church, thus committing the canonical crime of schism and incurring excommunication. Italian Archbishop Carlo María Viganò is also undergoing a Vatican extrajudicial process for schism. Just what are schism and excommunication in the Catholic Church? An explanation follows. Schism Read more
The Ultra-Conservative Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Astana, Kazakhstan, (right) has urged the Vatican to reconsider excommunicating Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò despite his outspoken criticism of Pope Francis. While acknowledging Viganò’s public opposition as “irreverent and disrespectful”, Schneider cautioned that the act of excommunication could potentially deepen the existing divisions within the Church. “I think Read more
Outspoken papal critic Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, announced Thursday (June 20) in a defiant social media post that he had been summoned to the Vatican to answer charges of having committed the crime of schism. Canonical criminal trial The Vatican’s Department for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, asked that Read more
Germany — a nation whose history is entangled with the Catholic Church — has become a “mission country” its Bishops’ Conference says. Conference president Bishop Georg Bätzing says under half of Germany’s citizens still belong to Christian denominations. Evangelisation in Germany has been a central theme since the time of Pope St John Paul II Read more
Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, recently declared that any women who was ordained, and the men who ordained them, would be excommunicated from the church. However, a couple of women ordained Catholic priests in our area say the Pope’s revision of papal law is irrelevant to what is really happening in Read more
Tomislav Vlasic, a former Croatian Franciscan priest and Medjugorje spiritual advisor, has been excommunicated from the Catholic church. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) announced on 23 October they were throwing him out of the church. In 2009 Vlasic was accused of teaching false doctrine, manipulating consciences, disobeying ecclesiastical authority, and of Read more
Italian Catholic priest Alessandro Minutella has been excommunicated for spreading “heresy and schism.” The Archdiocese of Palermo has published the formal decree concerning Minutella’s “latae sententiae” excommunication. In canon law, once certain crimes are committed, they are punished latae sententiae, or “automatically,” by force of the law itself. According to the Code of Canon Law, 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