The Catholic Church is open to reviewing its thousand-year-old practice of celibacy, Pope Francis has suggested.
He said the ban was only ‘temporary’ and there was also ‘no contradiction’ for a priest to marry.
Celibacy was made a requirement by the Catholic Church in the 11th-century for financial reasons, as clergy without children were more likely to leave their wealth to the church.
Pope Francis spoke out against gender theory in a recent interview, echoing his past comments expressing disapproval of transgender ideology.
“Gender ideology, today, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations,” Francis said in the conversation.
The pope made the comments in a March 10 interview with Argentinian newspaper La Nación — the conversation was translated into English by the Catholic News Agency.
“Why is it dangerous?” he continued. “Because it blurs differences and the value of men and women.”
Kyle Seraphin has a leaked FBI document that purports to show the extremism of “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics.” The document outlines opportunities for agents to recruit assets within the Catholic Church itself.
What’s astonishing about the document is the shoddiness of its analysis and sourcing. The belief that “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics” are a potential threat seems to come entirely from an old report from the Southern Poverty Law Center. This is buttressed in the appendices with a clickbait piece from the Atlantic — about populist and hyper-masculine depictions of rosary beads — and a few more from Salon.
With Pope Benedict dead, the gloves are off
In the early hours of January 2, the fully robed body of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was transferred from the little monastery in the Vatican where he had died on the last day of 2022 to St Peter’s Basilica. There is a photograph of his remains being lifted into a vehicle. It’s shocking, but not because it shows a dead ex-pope. It’s true that today’s megapixel cameras conveyed the waxwork sheen of the corpse in unnerving detail, but that was more obvious when Benedict was lying in St Peter’s (and, anyway, we British are squeamish because we don’t open the casket for mourners).
When Pope Benedict XVI died on December 31 at the age of 95, it turns out that he had a completed book ready for publication upon his death. Written in Italian, that book, Che cos’è il Cristianesimo: Quasi un testamento spirituale (What Is Christianity: Almost a Spiritual Testament), is full of explosive revelations and trenchant criticism of his woke successor, Pope Francis. Could Pope Benedict begin a counter-revolution within the Roman Catholic Church from the grave? Stranger things have happened, although it would take any one of us a good while to think of one.
New book by the late pontiff makes extraordinary claims about the Catholic Church under his progressive successor
Gay “clubs” operate openly in Catholic seminaries, the institutions that prepare men for the priesthood, the late Pope Benedict XVI has claimed in a posthumously published book scathing of Pope Francis’s progressive agenda.
In a blistering attack on the state of the Catholic Church under his successor’s papacy, Benedict, who died on Dec 31 at the age of 95, said that the vocational training of the next generation of priests is on the verge of “collapse”.
He claimed that some bishops allow trainee priests to watch pornographic films as an outlet for their sexual urges.
Vatican conservatives are waging a “secret plan” to put Pope Francis under such stress that he resigns, it has been claimed.
The campaign against the Argentinian pontiff began just days after the death of his predecessor, Benedict XVI.
Despite previously stating he will resign if his health deteriorates, it was thought highly unlikely that Francis would decide to step down while Benedict was still alive to avoid there being three Popes living in the Vatican – a situation without precedent that would have embarrassed the Catholic Church.
Pope Benedict XVI warned in a 2006 book that “Western self-hatred” had become “pathological”, and that the decline of marriage, the family, and depopulation could be the death knell for European identity.
Former Pope Benedict XVI has died, aged 95, almost a decade after he stood down because of ailing health.
He led the Catholic Church for fewer than eight years until, in 2013, he became the first Pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415.
Benedict spent his final years at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery within the walls of the Vatican where he passed away at 09:34 (08:34 GMT) on Saturday.
His successor Pope Francis will lead the funeral on 5 January.
Priests like Fr. Backhaus are no longer rare exceptions in the Church.
Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse in the Catholic Church, Father Hermann Backhaus, a priest of the Diocese of Münster, Germany, proves you wrong. In a recent interview, Backhaus said that consuming pornography “can have a relieving effect” on celibate clergy.
VATICAN CITY, Nov 26 (Reuters) – The Vatican on Saturday accused Chinese authorities of violating a bilateral pact on the appointment of bishops by installing one in a diocese not recognised by the Holy See.
A statement said the Vatican learned with “surprise and regret” that the bishop of another district had been installed as auxiliary, or assistant, bishop in Jiangxi.
The unauthorized installation appeared to be one of the most serious violations of a 2018 agreement between the Vatican and Beijing on the appointment of bishops.
The accord, which some Catholics have denounced as a sell-out to China’s Communist authorities, was last renewed for a two-year period in October. Its details are still secret.
Yes, suggests a lawsuit from a fired Vatican auditor.
Afired Vatican auditor and his deputy are suing the Holy See for $9.25 million, “alleging they were sacked after discovering financial irregularities,” according to an account by Reuters this week. The auditor, Libero Milone, says that Pope Francis signed off on his firing in 2017 after he exposed graft-ridden Vatican officials.
ROME — On June 19, 2017, the Vatican gendarmes entered the offices of the church’s chief auditor. They confiscated his phone and iPad, threw his papers on the floor and ordered the fire brigade to smash open a locked metal filing cabinet, from which they extracted a document that they said proved he was abusing resources to spy on top Vatican cardinals.
“Now you have to confess,” they demanded, according to the auditor, Libero Milone. Faced, he said, with being thrown in a Vatican jail, Mr. Milone signed resignation papers.
The renewal of a controversial secret deal between the Vatican and China on the joint appointment of bishops has come at an embarrassing moment for the Pope, fanning international criticism of what has been characterised as moral appeasement on the part of the Holy See.
The announcement came on the day that President Xi consolidated his dictatorial powers at the climax of the 20th Chinese Communist Party congress and four days before the reopening of the trial of Cardinal Joseph Zen for helping to fund the legal costs of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong.
A 2018 arrangement aims to ease a longstanding divide between an underground flock loyal to the pope and a state-backed official church. Critics say it accommodates Beijing communist government.
China and the Vatican extended a secretive deal regarding the appointment of bishops in the communist country.
Under the agreement, which has never been made public, the Vatican and Beijing agreed jointly to appoint bishops but Pope Francis has the final say.
The deal was signed in September 2018 and is still provisional but has been renewed twice.
“The Vatican Party is committed to continuing a respectful and constructive dialogue with the Chinese Party for a productive implementation of the Accord and further development of bilateral relations, with a view to fostering the mission of the Catholic Church and the good of the Chinese people,” the Holy See Press Office said on Saturday.
