The Health-First Heresy

The health-first heresy seems to have broken out quite spontaneously with COVID itself. It required no heresiarch to cultivate it other than the human fear of suffering and death. Its tell-tale mark is the claim, implicit or explicit, that care for the body trumps care for the soul. A correlative feature, scarcely less visible, is … Read more

The Conversion of the Papacy and the Present Church Crisis

One salutary aspect of the troubling Bergolio pontificate is that it forces us to think about the papal office as such. This appeared plainly enough in the recent response of Cardinal Ouellet to Archbishop Viganò, suggesting (with pontifical approval) that the latter was out of communion with the pope. It also appeared in the Secretariat of State’s secret … Read more

Catholics Resist ‘Clericalism’ by Demanding Pope Answer Abuse Cover-Up Allegations

Fr. Thomas M. Rosica, Vatican press assistant for the anglophone sector, wrote recently these astonishingly frank words: Pope Francis breaks Catholic traditions whenever he wants because he is ‘free from disordered attachments.’ Our Church has indeed entered a new phase: with the advent of this first Jesuit pope, it is openly ruled by an individual rather than … Read more

Being Frank about Francis

Fr. Thomas M. Rosica, Vatican press assistant for the anglophone sector, wrote recently these astonishingly frank words: Pope Francis breaks Catholic traditions whenever he wants because he is ‘free from disordered attachments.’ Our Church has indeed entered a new phase: with the advent of this first Jesuit pope, it is openly ruled by an individual rather than … Read more