The reply sent by Msgr. Roche’s to Cardinal Nichols at his request for clarification on aspects of Pope Francis’s motu proprio on the Latin Mass, especially for the administration of the sacraments, has been made public. The prefect for Divine Worship considers the ancient rite contrary to "ecclesiology", contradicting Benedict XVI who emphasized its dignity and made clear that the 1962 Missal has never been repealed. Roche even forgets the 1971 indult, indicating the way Vetus Ordo will ultimately die a death.

The appointment of economist Jeffrey Sachs as an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences is unquestionably scandalous. But what it signifies is even worse: rather than the world being swayed by the Gospel, the Church is adopting the criteria of the world.

The spokesman for "We are the Church" has asked that the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, be deprived of his salary, although it is his legal entitlement and despite having emerged completely innocent from the accusation that he had covered up the abuses described in the Cologne report. Moreover, attacks against the bishop have multiplied recently,  "guilty" of not supporting the new path of the German Church.

July 22, 2011: Candela Giarda, an eleven year old Argentine, is in intensive care on life support, she weighs just 19 kilos and for months has been suffering from acute epileptic encephalopathy, aggravated by a septic state of bronchopneumonia. “The doctors warn Candela’s mother that she won’t survive the night and that her  death is imminent.” The Daily Compass interviewed Father José Dabusti, the priest who on that evening of July 22, in Buenos Aires, invited Candela's mother to pray at her daughter’s bedside, to ask Pope Albino Luciani’s intercession. 

Sins of the flesh are a great danger to the soul and, in spite of today's permissiveness, enslave man. In contrast, chastity, to which each person is called according to his or her state of life, is based on self-control and makes us free. It is linked to charity. And it has its natural patron in St Joseph, who is to be invoked against all carnal temptations.

If the French bishops had read the best fairy tales, they would never have made the fatal mistake of asking the "dragon's" allies to "help" them eradicate the scourge of child abuse. Priests in confession are not conducting a profession, but are part of a sacrament. To betray the Seal of Confession means to betray the sacrament and to betray the sacrament means to betray Christ Himself. Of course, the Church has few weapons to defend her libertas, but she still has martyrdom. Benedict XVI pointed to Saint Anselmo as an example.

The meeting between the French Interior Minister and the president of the Bishops' Conference concluded with a directive: "Catholic priests must report the allegations of abuse they have heard in confession". The priestly vocation is defined as a profession and therefore the seal of Confessional is considered a professional secret. But, this is not the case. Rather what is emerging is that with the excuse of the report, totally ambiguous in the numbers and cases cited, an assault on the Church has commenced. Unfortunately, its response is weak.

The findings of the Commission on sexual abuse in the French Church are serious, but the suspicion is the Church is being blackmailed: the high number of abuses is derived from estimates; the intervention of the frequenter of the Grand Lodge, Sauvé, who chaired the Commission on viri probati, is suspect because it omits the main cause: homosexuality. There is a risk that Confession will be affected.

Sexual abuse is a serious problem for the Catholic Church and just asking for forgiveness doesn’t suffice. It is essential to understand the causes but in accordance with the criteria of the Church, not the world’s. Instead, the church is headed in the opposite direction, promoting the very secularisation that is the cause of the collapse of morality.

The Synodal Way has given the green light, with the majority of only one vote, to a further revision of the text "Priestly Existence Today", practically leaving open the debate on the abolition of the priesthood. For Cardinal Cordes this is a confirmation of the "heretical thrust". And a threat of schism that the Pope is called to face. 

Today the dominant Catholic theology holds that the Christian faith and the life of the Church is a historical process and that all life in the Spirit does not come from outside but passes through the concreteness of history. Remaining Bergoglio is therefore essential to being pope, because the papacy is not something that is "above" or "beyond" the man Bergoglio, but the Spirit opens up avenues of self-communication precisely from within that personal history.

A hundred years have passed since the native Irish Frank Duff founded the Legion of Mary, a lay organization that today has over ten million members all over the world. Marked by a strong Marian spirituality, Duff's legacy is still evident in the works of mercy it provides to prisoners, prostitutes, the homeless, drug addicts. His idea of the mission of the laity in the Church both anticipated and was taken as a model by Vatican II. Yet Ireland and even Catholic circles seem to have forgotten this.