CNS photo/Paul Haring CNS photo/Paul Haring Monday October 14, 2019 Today Pope Francis, 82 -- as I reported yesterday was likely -- accepted the resignation of Domenico Giani, 57, the Commander of his Vatican City State security force, the Vatican Gendarmes, for the past 16 years (link). (Photos of the two [...]
February 7, 2017, Tuesday -- The New York Times and Steve Bannon "Vatican Traditionalists See Hero in Trump Aide." —Headline of a New York Times front-page article today (link) which argues that "Vatican Traditionalists" see US President Donald Trump's top aide and "strategic advisor," the Irish American Catholic and former Breitbart News executive Steve Bannon, as [...]
February 6, 2017, Monday -- Posters against the Pope "Ah, Franky [referring to Pope Francis using a Roman dialect form of Francis which suggests great familiarity], you've put Congregations under supervision, removed priests, decapitated the Order of Malta and the Franciscans of the Immaculate and ignored Cardinals... But where in all this is your compassion?" —Words [...]
January 31, 2017, Tuesday -- "The flower of mankind" "Our forefathers... were able to bequeath to us a Church and a civilization that really is the flower of mankind." — Steve Bannon, top advisor to US President Donal Trump, in 2014, speaking from Los Angeles to a Vatican conference on global poverty and on how best [...]
January 31, 2017, on the Knights of Malta... I left off my last report, on the complicated and tumultuous story of the Knights of Malta (Letter #5 this year) with a "to be continued." I would like to write more, but at this moment there is not much that can be said. We know this: Grand [...]
January 26, 2017, Wednesday -- Knights of Malta and Freemasonry, #2 "One of the difficulties with the Order (of Malta) is that there is a split between those like Matthew Festing who regard the Order as a religious institution doing charitable work in the light of the teachings of the Church and others who would like [...]
January 25, 2017, Wednesday -- Knights of Malta and Freemasonry "Charybdis was a sea monster in Greek mythology, which dwelt in the Strait of Messina. It was later rationalized as a whirlpool. It was believed that Charybdis lived under a rock on one side of the strait. Opposite Charybdis, Ancient Greeks believed there was another sea [...]
November 14, 2016, Monday -- It Begins "Following the publication of your Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, theologians and scholars have proposed interpretations that are not only divergent, but also conflicting, above all in regard to Chapter VIII. Moreover, the media have emphasized this dispute, thereby provoking uncertainty, confusion, and disorientation among many of the faithful." --from [...]
May 16, 2016, Monday -- The Three Positions (And Now Four) On Amoris Laetitia The text below is the Editorial in the May edition of Inside the Vatican, which is just out. (To obtain a copy of the issue or to subscribe for one or more years, click here. We welcome new subscribers, of course. If [...]
