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STATEMENT May 8, 2020 Subject: His Eminence Cardinal Robert Sarah’s withdrawal of official support from the “Appeal for the Church and the World,” released yesterday, May 7. At this time of serious crisis that the Church and the world are passing through, it is my wish to abide by an attitude of deep charity towards my brother in Christ, Cardinal Robert Sarah, whom I immediately forgave for the grave wrong he committed against the truth and my person. Genuine charity, however, cannot disregard the truth, since it has its foundation in it. I therefore have the duty, also for the sake of fraternal correction, to make known the series of events as they occurred, with regard to Cardinal Sarah’s signing of the Appeal. Monday, May 4, at 4:00 p.m. I had a telephone conversation with His Eminence,...

She was grinding grain of wheat and barley when he came up from behind, startling her with a quick kiss to the cheek that made her jump and give a little cry out loud. “Yeshua,” she chided as he laughed. “You wouldn’t find this so funny if I spilled the flour into the dirt and we had no bread.” He poured out a bit of water and sipped it, still smiling as he watched his mother’s clever hands at work. “I would never be leaving you without bread, Eema.” Leaving. It was a touchy subject, still. Her son had told her days earlier that he would be traveling away from Nazareth, preaching and teaching like his cousin, John, although “differently,” he had chuckled. “Camelskin itches, and I’ve never been as bombastic as he.” Miriam had sighed and shaken her head in agreement. She’d never quite known ...

As suffering small businesses around the country clamor for much-needed loans from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, news of prominent national chains receiving millions of dollars sparked an outcry among owners of smaller businesses who have been shut out. Now, many will likely be surprised to learn that between 12,000 and 13,000 of the 17,000 Catholic churches in the U.S. also applied for those coveted PPP loans. Pat Markey, the executive director of the Diocesan Fiscal Management Conference, an association of finance officers from Catholic dioceses, estimates that around 6,000 Catholic parishes had their applications for federal funding approved in the first round of PPP and around 3,000 have received loans so far in the second round.  While most people likely don’t th...

You are not signed in as a Premium user; we rely on Premium users to support our news reporting. Sign in or Sign up today! WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) – The U.S. bishops’ conference (USCCB) is informing American prelates that it’s safe to distribute Holy Communion on the tongue. This guidance came in the form of a USCCB memorandum sent April 30 to all U.S. bishops by the Committee on Divine Worship chairman Abp. Leonard Blair of Hartford. The memorandum contains guidelines that reference a universally binding instruction titled Redemptionis Sacramentum, issued in 2004 by the Congregation of Divine Worship (CDW): We have carefully considered the question of Communion on the tongue vs. Communion in the hand. Given t...

Although we are well into the Easter season, my mind harkens back to an event on Good Friday that has often puzzled me. What turned the crowd against Jesus? Recall that just six days earlier, on Palm Sunday, the crowds praised Him, acclaimed Him Son of David, and spoke of Him as a king and messiah. By the morning of Good Friday, though, they were calling for Him to be crucified. What turned them against Him? My usual explanation was to suppose that the Temple leaders hired a crowd of ruffians and coached them on what to say. In other words, I conjectured that these were not the same people who welcomed Jesus on Palm Sunday but rather a carefully selected group assembled on the plaza in front of the governor’s residence (the Praetorium). While it may be true that the Temple leaders coa...

As he turned 93 on April 16, Joseph Ratzinger remained one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented men of consequence in recent Catholic history. I doubt the Pope Emeritus minds; he’s probably impervious to calumny, having had it visited upon him for over a half-century. This kindly man may feel a measure of compassion for the small minds that continually tell untruths about him and his theology. But he has better things to do than fret about his detractors: dwarves ineffectually tossing pebbles at a serene giant. His friends and admirers find it hard to take a benign view of the situation, however, because the ongoing trashing of Joseph Ratzinger is agenda-driven and aimed at shoring up the crumbling foundations of the Catholic Lite project. That salvage operation requires his detrac...

[embedded content] This happened Sept. 15, 1987, in Los Angeles. Afterward, the Holy Father told him, “My wish to you, is to continue of giving this hope to all, all the people.”

A priest distributes Holy Communion during Mass Monday at the Frauenkirche (Cathedral of Our Lady) in Munich, Germany, the first day since March that churches were open in Bavaria. Nationwide state and local governments are easing lockdown measures that were imposed in order to stem the spread of the new coronavirus. (Photo by Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images) “Jesus cannot be treated like this,” says the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Cardinal Robert Sarah has said “bizarre proposals” regarding reception of Holy Communion in Italy aimed at minimizing the risk of contagion of the coronavirus are “total madness” and represent a number of examples of the devil attacking the Eucharist. One particular proposal, reportedly being studi...