Discover
Diminished Bishops, the New Ultramontanism and the Synodal Process…
Is Vatican II’s achievement in reaffirming the authority of bishops being undercut by the current preparatory process for the Synod on Synodality? Thanks to the Franco-Prussian War, the First Vatican Council was suspended in October 1870 and never reconvened. Before its unanticipated end, Vatican I did important work: It defined the universal scope of papal jurisdiction (and thus frustrated the claims of the new nationalists to authority over the Church) while spelling out the precise, limited circumstances in which the bishop of Rome can teach infallibly on matters of faith and morals. Nonetheless, the council’s abrupt adjournment led to an imbalance in the Church’s self-understanding: Catholicism was left with a strong theology of the papacy but a weak theology of the episcopate. A...
‘It’s a Religious Holiday’ — Tim Allen includes Christ, St. Nicholas of Myra in Disney’s ‘The Santa Clauses’…
This is awesome! 👏 Actor, comedian, and producer Tim Allen discussed his Disney+ mini-series, ‘The Santa Clauses” in a recent interview. Allen, who was raised Episcopalian, explained that the series includes a faith-based tone, but did not specify how. As executive producer of the series, he pushed to eliminate “otherworldly characters,” such as “ghosts and goblins.” “It originally had a lot of otherworldly characters, and ghosts and goblins. I said ‘no, this is Christ-mas. Its Christ-mas. It literally is a religious holiday,’” he said. “We don’t have to blow trumpets, but I do want you to acknowledge it. That’s what this is about. If you want to get into Santa Claus, you’re gonna have to go back to history, and it’s all about religion.” He adds that the religious storyline c...
1,700 Years After Nicaea, Ecumenical Patriarch Says 2025 May See Historic Catholic-Orthodox Easter Date Agreement…
By AC Wimmer CNA Newsroom, Nov 18, 2022 / 07:30 am In a move that could lead to Catholics and Orthodox celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ at the same time, the spiritual leader of the world’s Eastern Orthodox Christians has confirmed his support for finding a common date to celebrate Easter. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople told media that conversations are underway between Church representatives to come to an agreement, Zenit reported this week. According to an earlier report by Vatican News, the patriarch supports such a common date to be set for the year 2025, which will mark the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea. Previously, Orthodox Archbishop Job Getcha of Telmessos also suggested that 2025 would be a good year to introduce...
Maggie Green: Praying for your kids to return to the faith…
November 14, 2022 “No one wants to be a member of this club. You just wake up and find out that you’ve got a card. But what I have found is there’s a tremendous fellowship. I know of a couple of parishes where they’ve formed, quite literally, a St. Monica Club, and they started with reading the book and then they meet…to pray for their families and to have fellowship and to help each other bear the burden,” said Maggie Green, the pen name of the author of “The Saint Monica Club: How to Hope, Wait, and Pray for Your Fallen-Away Loved Ones” (Sophia Institute Press). “The number one thing you can do for whoever it is that you long to have united with Christ — is bring that person in your prayers, to the Blessed Mother,” said Green la...
San Francisco launches program to give trans residents $1,200 per month for up to 18 months…
Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios San Francisco officially launched a guaranteed income program for members of its transgender community yesterday. Details: The effort — dubbed Guaranteed Income for Trans People (or GIFT) — will provide 55 eligible residents with $1,200 per month for up to 18 months to “help address financial insecurity,” per the mayor’s office. The people selected will also receive gender-affirming medical and mental health care, as well as financial coaching. First announced last year, the city has set aside $2 million for the program, Parisa Safarzadeh, a spokesperson for the mayor, told Axios. Why it matters: A higher percentage of trans Californians experience poverty compared to the state’s general population (33% vs. 12%), according to a 2015...
Vatican to Consider Elevating Las Vegas to Metropolitan Archdiocese, With Reno and Salt Lake City as Suffragan Sees…
The Vatican will consider a plan to elevate the Diocese of Las Vegas to a metropolitan see, after U.S. bishops were consulted on the plan during their fall plenary meeting in Baltimore. The plan would see Las Vegas become an archdiocese, with the Dioceses of Reno and Salt Lake City as suffragan dioceses, sources close to the U.S. bishops’ conference told The Pillar. After consultation on the idea during an executive session of the USCCB this week, the proposal will be considered by the Congregation for Bishops in the Vatican curia, before a final decision from Pope Francis, sources added. The Las Vegas diocese was erected in 1995, when its territory in southern Nevada was carved from the Diocese of Reno. In 2020, the diocese had at least 600,000 Catholics, constituting nearly 30% of the re...
There is no Vatican secret that escapes the Chinese regime…
> Italiano> English> Español> Français> All the articles of Settimo Cielo in English If you want to receive (or go back to receiving) a notification for every new article, click HERE and subscribe to the Newsletter from Settimo Cielo! * On the morning of this November 15, at the Vatican, at the press conference to present the international study conference “Euntes in mundum universum” organized by the dicastery for evangelization, Settimo Cielo posed a few questions regarding China to Msgr. Camillus Johnpillai (in the photo), head of the dicastery. In his responses, transcribed below from the video recording of the press conference, there is some new information. Concerning in particular: – the working meeting on China that is held every week at the Vatican betwee...
T. rex could have been 70% bigger than fossils suggest, new study shows…
There’s no denying that Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the biggest and baddest dinosaurs to ever walk the planet. But exactly how big could this ferocious dinosaur get? In a new investigation, researchers attempted to answer that question. Paleontologists from the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Ontario, estimated that the largest T. rex may have tipped the scales at a whopping 33,000 pounds (15,000 kilograms), making it heavier than an average school bus, which weighs about 24,000 pounds (11,000 kg). The scientists presented their findings on Nov. 5 at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s (SVP) annual conference in Toronto. Currently, the heftiest T. rex on record is a specimen nicknamed “Scotty,” which weighed 19,555 pounds (8,870 kg) when it was alive — ab...
U.S. Bishops Decide to Put off Rewriting Voting Guide Until After 2024 Election…
By Zelda Caldwell Baltimore, Md., Nov 16, 2022 / 17:30 pm The U.S. Catholic bishops will postpone writing a full revision of the teaching document on the political responsibility of Catholic voters until after the 2024 election. The teaching document, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” is meant to advise Catholic voters on how to apply Church teaching to the decisions they make in the ballot box. The guide, for example, states that the abortion should be a “preeminent” political issue for Catholics. In the introduction to the 2019 document, the bishops wrote: “The threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed. At the same t...
Tuesday’s new White House bid pits Donald Trump against Catholic GOP rising star Ron DeSantis…
WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Former President Donald Trump announced Tuesday his third bid for the White House, potentially setting the stage for what could be a competitive Republican primary with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Florida), a Catholic, should he also choose to run. If Trump’s third bid for the Republican nomination proves successful, it would set up a rematch between the ex-president and Democratic President Joe Biden, a Catholic who defeated Trump in 2020. “America’s comeback starts right now,” Trump said of his presidential run at his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida, alleging the United States has been “a nation in decline” under the Biden administration. His remarks came after he filed federal paperwork on Nov. 15 declaring his 2024 candidacy. Trump’s announcement is expected...
Is politics the result of original sin?
Stained glass window in the cathedral of Brussels depicting Adam and Eve eating the Forbidden Fruit in the Garden of Eden. jorisvo / Shutterstock.com Having just concluded the 2022 midterm elections, discussions of 2024 presidential candidates feel worse than seeing Christmas decorations for sale in stores before Halloween passes. The electoral exhaustion many Americans feel — or worse still, the rage that overwhelms many of us at the mere mention of this or that politician’s name — leads some to conclude that, surely, a loving God would not have intended this. Politics must be the result of sin. The question was raised recently at a panel discussion called “The Creation of Politics” at the annual conference hosted by the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre D...
What’s the point of Advent?
“‘Advent’ does not mean ‘expectation,’ as some may think. It is a translation of the Greek word parousia, which means ‘presence’ or, more accurately, ‘arrival,’ i.e. the beginning of a presence. In antiquity, the word was a technical term for the presence of a king or ruler and also of the god being worshiped, who bestows his parousia upon his devotees for a time. ‘Advent,’ then, means a presence begun, the presence being that of God.” — Pope Benedict XVI, Dogma and Preaching I have been asked more than once, particularly by my evangelical friends, why Catholics and mainline Protestant Christians put so much stock in “ritualistic” sorts of things not explicitly spelled out in Scripture, things like Advent, and its trappings — the purple vestments, the Advent wreaths and colored candle...
