Modern liturgy causes “disaster, devastation and schism”, says Cardinal Robert Sarah. Sarah told the 18th Cologne International Liturgical Conference that rather than bring the liturgy up to date, Vatican II destroyed the Church’s “mystical essence”. In his opinion the church has “abandoned her Christian roots” since the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), where reforms brought the church Read more
The Vatican’s liturgy chief has called on priests to celebrate parts of the Mass facing the east, as this is what Vatican II wanted. The prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal Robert Sarah, made this call in an interview with a French Catholic magazine. Cardinal Sarah said Read more
The Society of St Pius X might get regular canonical status in the Church without having to recognise certain texts of Vatican II. An internal SSPX memo indicates the traditionalist society could be ready to accept if Pope Francis made an appropriate offer. But that would be conditional on the provision of “an appropriate ecclesial Read more
Pope Francis has opened the Jubilee Year of Mercy by calling for a Church that always puts mercy before judgement. In a Mass at St Peter’s Square on December 8, Francis said the holy year is a gift of grace. “How much wrong we do to God and his grace when we affirm that sins Read more
Pope Francis has said that lay people are not second class members of the Church at the service of the hierarchy. Instead they participate in Christ’s priestly role through their own work in the world. The Pope said this in a message marking the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on the Apostolate Read more
Works by a former Catholic nun Sr Corita Kent, IHM, will be the subject of a major exhibition at New Plymouth’s Govett-Brewster Art Gallery later this year. Sr Corita, who developed her art as an Immaculate Heart of Mary sister, made political pop art in the United States in the 1950s to the 1970s. Her Read more
The Church likes to pretend that its current state is as it has always been, and it does this by reading history backwards, an historian writes. Practising Catholic and Pulitzer Prize winner Garry Wills argues this in his latest book, titled: “The Future of the Church with Pope Francis”. “Since one begins from a certitude Read more
A Jesuit theologian has scotched the notion that the Second Vatican Council was a pastoral council and did not propose new doctrines of the Church. Fr John O’Malley said this in an opening address to a conference on Vatican II at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. The conference was focused on the meaning and import Read more
A cardinal has warned religious against trying to abandon the changes in the Church brought about by the Second Vatican Council. Brazilian Cardinal João Braz de Aviz said this to a conference of religious formation directors in Rome last week, according to an article in the National Catholic Reporter. “Do not distance yourself from the Read more
John XXIII at the Opening of Vatican II, the 21st Ecumenical Council: The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another. Further, the Pope said that it is necessary first of all that the Church should never depart from the sacred Read more