Rorate Caeli

Interview: The Vatican Number Two Speaks on the Viganò Memo: "Great pain, the Pope is serene"

This is the entire interview granted by the number 2 man in the Vatican, the Secretary of State, Cardinal Parolin, excerpted from the article published by La Stampa:

How is the Holy Father after these difficult last days?

"I saw a declaration of the Vatican press office that states that the Pope is serene. From what I have seen (in these days, I have been with him during his trip to Ireland and afterwards), he seems serene. The Pope is a great grace, even faced with these things that obviously create so much bitterness ans also restlessness. But he has the capacity of having a very serene approach."

De Mattei: “I will not say a single word about this”

Roberto de Mattei 
August 28, 2018

Omertà, è un codice d'onore — foto stock


 “I will not say a single word about this”.  

With this sentence, uttered August 26th 2018, on his return flight from Dublin to Rome, Pope Francis responded to the shocking revelations made by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, which involve him directly. To the journalist Anna Matranga (NBC) who had asked him whether the things the former Nunzio to the United States had written were true, the Pope in fact replied: “I read that statement this morning, and I must tell you sincerely that, I must say this, to you and all those who are interested: Read the statement carefully and make your own judgment, I will not say a single word on this. I believe that the communiqué speaks for itself, and you have enough journalistic skills to draw the conclusions. It’s an act of trust (confidence): after a while when you have drawn your conclusions, perhaps I will speak. But I’d like your professional maturity to do this work: it will be good for you, truly.  Fine like that.” 

Separating the Wuerls from the Men

As bishops continue to issue statements responding to the Vigano letter, Rorate has begun to compile the supporters of the letter from within Church hierarchy in a post.

One new statement deserves highlighting, from Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois.  Summarizing what so many Catholics are thinking right now, of Pope Francis' rare no-comment, and charge to let secular media discredit the Vigano letter, Paprocki today wrote:

"When asked about this aboard the papal plane on his return flight from Ireland on August 26, Pope Francis said, 'Read the statement carefully and make your own judgment. I will not say a single word on this.'  Frankly, but with all due respect, that response is not adequate."

The first year of the Bergoglio pontificate

Contrast the statements of Bishop Paprocki, Cardinal Burke, Bishop Morlino, Bishop Strickland, Bishop Konderla, Bishop Olmsted and even Cardinal DiNardo to that of Pope Francis and his closest allies.

Downfall: A Not-So-Hypothetical Legal Exercise - What if Jorge Mario Bergoglio were to be sued in his individual capacity?


by E., Attorney-at-law

One can just imagine the panicked phone calls going out on Sunday morning, summoning annoyed associates and partners back to their cushy downtown law offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Washington. So many questions, such huge stakes, and now it’s not just money..... there are now criminal law issues hanging over what used to be strictly civil law files.

A RORATE Editorial: Francis Must Go


In the two years that led to the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI from the papacy, many strange things happened: leaks, a Secretary of State (Cardinal Bertone) who seemed intent on making things difficult for the pope, and a crisis that seemingly had left his control. Only seemingly: what was actually happening was that the large group of Cardinals involved in what would become known as the "St-Gallen Mafia" were plotting to force Pope Ratzinger's departure in a see of problems, forcing the election of the "anti-Ratzinger" -- indeed, the anti-Ratzinger they had promoted in the previous conclave, Cardinal Bergoglio of Buenos Aires.

It all went exactly as planned. Benedict XVI became, or was, convinced that he would not be able to fix things and left. And Bergoglio, the Horror, was elected. The Horror was how we characterized the Pontificate that was about to begin, on the very day of Bergoglio's election.

And how we were criticized and vilified for it! In fact, if you go back and read that post by a dear Argentinian friend, that followed on the footsteps of our intense coverage of the Church in Argentina since our founding, you will see that the current Pope is not accused of heresy. Never once! He is not accused of apostasy. We were wrongly charged with all evils, when in fact our concern, that proved absolutely true, regarding this Pope was his mix of the worst moral companions and his utter doctrinal confusion.

Alas, his friends, the same who got him elected, got the best of him. From the very beginning, as the damning written testimony by Archbishop Viganò (at the time, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States) makes clear, Francis used all means, including malice and deception, to help his friends, such as then-Cardinal McCarrick, and also Cardinal Danneels. And he used all means to punish those he saw as his enemies, such as Cardinal Burke, Archbishop Léonard of Brussels, and so many others.

(UPDATED) More US Bishops speak up in support of Abp. Viganò: "I ask that Archbishop Viganò’s testimony be taken seriously by all"

First, Tyler, Texas.spoke up on the veracity and credibility of Abp. Viganò's damning statement on Pope Francis. Now, a bishop of a major and one of the fastest-growing large dioceses in the nation, Bp. Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, Arizona. Bp. Olmsted actually worked for long years with Abp. Viganò in the Holy See and knows how serious he is.

Statement from Bishop Thomas Olmsted Regarding Archbishop Viganò’s Recent Testimony

PHOENIX (Aug. 27, 2018) — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix has released the following statement today from the Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix:

“I have known Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò for 39 years. We became colleagues in the Secretariat of State of the Holy See in August 1979, where he had been serving prior to my entrance into this work in service to the ministry of Pope John Paul II.

OP-ED - "The McCarrick Affair: The Pope knew. Here is why he must resign."


by Aldo Maria Valli
August 26, 2018

[Rorate note: journalist Aldo Maria Valli is probably the best-known Vaticanist in Italy, since for many years he commented on the papacy in the main Italian television network RAI1, and also for RAI 3.]

“Bishops and priests, abusing their authority, have committed horrendous crimes to the detriment of their faithful, minors, innocent victims, and young men eager to offer their lives to the Church, or by their silence have not prevented that such crimes continue to be perpetrated.”

Writing these words is an Archbishop, former Apostolic Nuncio of the United States from 2011 to 2016.   Now retired, he has decided to open his heart and tell all he came to know about the sequence of events regarding  sexual abuses in the Church. A testimony which concludes with a hard and peremptory ‘invitation’: Pope Francis should step down.  Because also he knew, but covered up. 

Texas Bishop: "I find the Viganò allegations to be credible."

From the Bishop of Tyler, in Texas, Bp. Joseph Strickland. We publish it here for the record of historic events, considering it was the first of its kind.

Dear Priests, Deacons, Religious and all Holy Faithful of the Diocese of Tyler,

A letter (see below) by Archbishop Vigano, former Nuncio to the United States, raises grave allegations and calls for the resignation of numerous high ranking prelates including Pope Francis.

Let us be clear that they are still allegations but as your shepherd I find them to be credible. Using this standard the response must be a thorough investigation similar to those conducted any time allegations are deemed to be credible. I do not have the authority to launch such an investigation but I will lend my voice in whatever way necessary to call for this investigation and urge that it’s findings demand accountability of all found to be culpable even at the highest levels of the Church.

As this unfolds I urge all in the Diocese of Tyler to pray fervently for Holy Mother Church and beg the Intercession of Our Blessed Mother. We are the flock of Jesus Christ. He is Lord of His Church and His Holy Spirit will guide us through this darkness.

Almighty God Father, Son and Spirit have mercy on your Church and cleanse her in the fires of your Love.
Blessed Virgin Mary, Pray for us
All Sainted Popes & Bishops in Heaven, Pray for us
All Holy Men and Women, Pray for us

I direct all priests to include this notice in the masses on August 26, and post it on their websites and other social media immediately.

Most Reverend Joseph E. Strickland
Bishop of Tyler

Explosive: Former Nuncio to the US - "Pope Francis knew it all. He must resign."


"Il papa si deve dimittere." -- The Pope ought to resign.

Those are the explosive words of the former Apostolic Nuncio (papal ambassador) to the United States from 2011 to 2016, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.

His words are at the conclusion of the publication of his explosive written statement (READ FULL STATEMENT HERE) on how the homosexual mafia rules the Vatican and occupies top posts in the US, It also touches on how Benedict XVI tried to punish former-Cardinal McCarrick — and how Pope Francis, and Cardinal Wuerl, even though aware of the sanctions and the reasons for them, promoted and fêted him.

The gravest passage is the following:

My conscience requires me also to reveal facts that I have experienced personally, concerning Pope Francis, that have a dramatic significance, which as Bishop, sharing the collegial responsibility of all the bishops for the universal Church, do not allow me to remain silent, and that I state here, ready to reaffirm them under oath by calling on God as my witness.

In the last months of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI had convened a meeting of all the apostolic nuncios in Rome, as Paul VI and St. John Paul II had done on several occasions. The date set for the audience with the Pope was Friday, June 21, 2013. Pope Francis kept this commitment made by his predecessor. Of course I also came to Rome from Washington. It was my first meeting with the new Pope elected only three months prior, after the resignation of Pope Benedict.

On the morning of Thursday, June 20, 2013, I went to the Domus Sanctae Marthae, to join my colleagues who were staying there. As soon as I entered the hall I met Cardinal McCarrick, who wore the redtrimmed cassock. I greeted him respectfully as I had always done. He immediately said to me, in a tone somewhere between ambiguous and triumphant: “The Pope received me yesterday, tomorrow I am going to China.”

At the time I knew nothing of his long friendship with Cardinal Bergoglio and of the important part he had played in his recent election, as McCarrick himself would later reveal in a lecture at Villanova University and in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter. Nor had I ever thought of the fact that he had participated in the preliminary meetings of the recent conclave, and of the role he had been able to have as a cardinal elector in the 2005 conclave. Therefore I did not immediately grasp the meaning of the encrypted message that McCarrick had communicated to me, but that would become clear to me in the days immediately following.

The next day the audience with Pope Francis took place. After his address, which was partly read and partly delivered off the cuff, the Pope wished to greet all the nuncios one by one. In single file, I remember that I was among the last. When it was my turn, I just had time to say to him, “I am the Nuncio to the United States.” He immediately assailed me with a tone of reproach, using these words: “The Bishops in the United States must not be ideologized! They must be shepherds!” Of course I was not in a position to ask for explanations about the meaning of his words and the aggressive way in which he had upbraided me. I had in my hand a book in Portuguese that Cardinal O’Malley had sent me for the Pope a few days earlier, telling me “so he could go over his Portuguese before going to Rio for World Youth Day.” I handed it to him immediately, and so freed myself from that extremely disconcerting and embarrassing situation.

"The authority of canonisations": Do all canonisations need to be accepted as infallible? -- a special guest article



The authority of canonisations

by Dr. John R. T. Lamont


The canonisations of John XXIII and John Paul II, and the announcement of the pending canonisation of Paul VI, have raised some controversy among traditionalists. On the one hand, objections have been raised to the conduct of the process of these canonisations and to the claim that these pontiffs exhibited heroic virtue. On the other hand, there has been a tendency to hold that traditionalists should accept that all canonisations are infallible, because this is thought to be the traditional theological view. This latter tendency seems to have got the upper hand, with the result that Catholics have largely come to the conclusion that once someone is canonised, it is the duty of Catholics to accept their sanctity and to cease questioning their canonisation. This essay is intended to reject this conclusion, and to present an alternative view on the subject of the duty of Catholics with regard to canonisations.

Cardinal Tobin instructs whistleblowers to shut up

A letter from Joseph Cardinal Tobin, archbishop of Newark, was sent to all archdiocesan priests on Friday following an explosive investigative report earlier that day on former Newark Archbishop Theodore McCarrick and a homosexual subculture that still exists in northern New Jersey, from the seminary to the priesthood.  The report, by Ed Condon of Catholic News Agency (CNA), featured six priests from within the archdiocese speaking on background for the story.


Tobin's letter of response, according to CNA, stated "no one -- including the anonymous 'sources' cited in the article -- has ever spoken to me about a gay subculture in the Archdiocese of Newark."

The Catholic Herald today highlighted a very important point made in the cardinal's letter.  In it, Tobin instructed clergy not to speak to the media, a remarkable reaction considering the cardinal's extreme friendliness with reporters who swoon over his breaks from Church teaching and tradition.

Instead of speaking on background or on the record with reporters about what they have witnessed in the Archdiocese of Newark, Tobin said priests should send any media inquiries to the archdiocese's communications office.

Rorate tried, earlier this year, to work with that office.  It is where investigative journalism goes to die.

After Cardinal Tobin sent a tweet that said: "Nighty-night, baby.  I love you" while boarding a plane in February, the tweet was widely reported before Tobin deleted it. He claimed it was meant to be a text message to his sister. The media did almost no follow-up on the bizarre explanation, instead believing every word the cardinal said, as if it was perfectly normal for a 65 year old man to write like that to his sister.

That same month, this writer contacted the director of communications for the Archdiocese of Newark, following the protocol Tobin dictates.  Questions were as follows:

1) Which of the cardinal's sisters was the writing intended to reach when accidentally tweeted?
2) Were they texting immediately prior to the cardinal's flight, and is there proof of any such texts? (If so, will those texts be released?)
3) Will the respective sister be confirming any such texting back and forth before the flight?
4) Has the cardinal addressed his sister as "baby" before this incident? (And will she confirm this?)

Novena of Reparation in Pennsylvania

Our friends in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, 20 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, sent us this impressive endeavor from the geographical heart of the current horrible news stories.

Please share with friends and family in and around western Pennsylvania.

***

Traditional Latin Mass
Novena of Reparation
For the Heinous Sins Detailed in the
Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report

Saint Titus Church
952 Franklin Avenue, Aliquippa PA 15001

Nine Consecutive Fridays at 7 PM:
A different priest celebrant each week.

August 31st, 7 PM
Votive Mass of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord

September 7th, 7 PM
First Friday, Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

September 14th, 7 PM
Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

September 21st, 7 PM
Feast of St. Matthew, Apostle & Evangelist

Fontgombault Sermon - ASSUMPTION: Even within the Church, the temptation to water down Doctrine!

Sermon for the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady

Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau
Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault
Fontgombault, August 15, 2018
Fontgombault Abbey in summertime

Beatam me dicent omnes generationes.
All generations shall call me blessed.
(Lk 1:48)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
My dearly beloved Sons,

The Assumption is one of the most beloved feasts among those of the liturgical year. Even though we be in the middle of summer, the sun does indeed seem to shine very weakly in the light of those two mysteries, the last two glorious mysteries of the Rosary that are the object of today’s feast, the Assumption and the Coronation in Heaven of the Blessed Virgin. Such are actually the last of the great things that the Almighty has done for her, who had accepted to become His mother.

Today, we who became her adopted children since Jesus said to the Apostle St. John, “Behold thy mother,” rejoice and proclaim that she is blessed. The Almighty has done great things for her. United with the Church on earth, the angelic choirs exult as they see their Queen crossing the gates of Heaven. On the day of the Annunciation, Mary had offered to the second Person of the Holy Trinity the peaceful shelter of her motherly womb, where God made Himself a man. Today, as if to repay her mysteriously — since the Lord owes nothing to anybody, — God receives Mary in His heavenly house, and crowns her forever as the Queen of heaven and earth. Mary is blessed, and all proclaim it.

Cardinal Wuerl's resignation

Donald Cardinal Wuerl submitted his letter of resignation as archbishop of Washington.

Of course, this was done on 12 November 2015, when Wuerl turned 75 years old, as required by the new code of canon law.  Wuerl has been archbishop since 2006, when he replaced his friend and ally, Theodore McCarrick, in the position.


At the time of his hand-delivered letter of resignation, nearly three years ago, Wuerl told Religion News Service:  "Now if the Holy Father were to accept it tomorrow, I would be well-prepared to take time to write, to read, to pray a lot more."

The relevant code of canon law (401) for resignations at the age of 75 says:  "A diocesan bishop who has completed the seventy-fifth year of age is requested to present his resignation from office to the Supreme Pontiff, who will make provision after he has examined all the circumstances."

De Mattei: The Death of Paul VI (August 6, 1978). An anniversary.

Roberto de Mattei
Corrispondenza Romana 
August 15, 2018

Risultati immagini per images paul Vi

This month of August sees the fortieth anniversary of the death of Giovanni Battista Montini - Pope Paul VI from 1963 to 1978.  His pontificate changed the life of the Church in the twentieth century.

Sermon for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary: Eve and Our Lady

by Fr. Richard G. Cipolla



“And Mary said:  My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoiceth in God my savior.”  (Luke 1:46)

Two women:  so different, yet women, these two women whose role in the destiny of the human race have been pivotal. Their importance transcends that of any mere man who has paraded across the pages of history.  Compared to these two women, pharaohs, emperors, kings, Wall Street whizzes, tech giants:  whatever the power on the stage of history, nothing compares with these two women.  Secular feminism is blind to all of this, for whatever ever is purely secular is blind to the reality of the spiritual, is blind to that Spirit that blows through mankind from the beginning, that Spirit that brooded over the waters, that Spirit that gave the amorphous lump of clay life and called him Adam.

The Pennsylvania Truth: John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II were no saints


Another week and another massive scandal in the American Church. The following is an appropriate summary of the final Report of the Grand Jury investigation of the "widespread sexual abuse of children in six dioceses of the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania":

The investigation captured widespread sexual abuse and institutional cover up across the entire state. Building on investigations of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese and the Philadelphia Archdiocese by previous grand juries, the 40th Statewide Grand Jury’s investigation covered the other Dioceses of Allentown, Erie, Harrisburg, Greensburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton, giving a complete picture of pervasive abuse in dioceses across Pennsylvania. The grand jury found: [RORATE update: the rest of the Summary is so shocking and graphic we have decided to remove it -- it s available here.]


!!!!!

The office of the Attorney General of Pennsylvania has provided a full website dedicated to the report and its details by diocese here.

***

The greatest part of the horrid episodes documented by the Grand Jury report happened in the pontificates of John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II. Some happened before. But as the Church "opened itself to the world", according to the desire of John XXIII, worldly behaviors infiltrated the Church more and more. The horrid episodes represent only what could be found in just six dioceses of one state of one country: the putrefaction runs wide and deep.

How could John XXIII and John Paul II have been canonized? Their systematic failures in the naming of bishops were monstrous. How can Francis dare beatify and now canonize Paul VI, one of the worst popes in history, whose nominations throughout the world, and in the United States, managed to make what was bad truly awful? 

Let us be honest: as administrators, John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II were no saints. They may have been validly included in the list of saints, but their express-rite canonizations are shown, with each passing week, to have been horrible mistakes. A considerable period of time and long investigations of their grave omissions and of their disgraceful cover-up of perverted or irresponsible bishops should have taken place before any beatification procedure had ever been opened up.

The centralization of the administration of the Church went much deeper in their pontificates. They assumed the responsibility for each of these small faithful. They diluted the responsibility of bishops by encouraging and engorging the useless bureaucracies of the bishops' conferences. These little faithful, the children who were abused, were also THEIR failures, the failures of each one of them (and also of preceding and succeeding popes in a lesser degree, but these are either living or have not been beatified or canonized).

The time will surely come in the future to reassess these failed pontificates and to do all that is possible to reevaluate these hasty procedures, in which so much pain and so much failure and so much corruption were overlooked. 

Member of Francis' Inner Circle in Article: "Church in New Phase, beyond Scripture and Tradition" (Updated)


Please, read the following words, taken from an article written by Fr. Thomas Rosica, the Canadian priest who is one of the main English-speaking members of Francis' inner circle, and published by news agency Zenit on July 31, 2018 [August 14 Update: Zenit has removed the controversial part quoted below, but the whole article can be seen at the end of this post]:

Pope Francis breaks Catholic traditions whenever he wants, because he is “free from disordered attachments.” Our Church has indeed entered a new phase: with the advent of this first Jesuit pope, it is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture.

This is astonishing on so many levels it is hard to digest: first, the proclamation that the Church has entered a supposedly "new phase", guided by this new kind of post-Christian Messianic leader, a kind of Catholic "Reverend Moon"; second, the appalling admission that this new kind of leader has a tyrannical hold on the Church that is completely separate, independent from Scripture and Tradition, and that goes beyond both.

Let us go back to what the Church actually teaches about the Roman Pontiff in her quite authoritative words in Vatican I (Pastor aeternus):

Satanelli Beatification -
LA NACIÓN Editorial: Pope Promotes a Political-Ideological Beatification

There were many radical bishops in the wild years following the Second Vatican Council. But Enrique Angelelli, bishop of La Rioja, Argentina, was probably the most radical. He was a Communist in all but name and stridently supported the terrorist organization "Montoneros", the leftist terrorist branch of the Peronist movement. It can be undoubtedly said that the horrid military dictatorship that governed Argentina from 1976 until the Falklands War was brought about as a brutal overreaction to the terrorist attacks coordinated by Montoneros in favor of a Socialist-Peronist revolution.

Angelelli was so leftist, so radically leftist and so political, that the shocked practicing faithful of his own diocese used to call him in life "Satanelli". He died in a car accident in 1976. Yet Francis has decided to beatify Satanelli as a "martyr"! (It is all very ironic because, even though it is claimed, now, that Fr. Bergoglio opposed the dictatorship, at the time he was considered an ally of the military, and even close to the most brutal of the Junta's members, Admiral Emilio Massera.)

La Nación, the oldest and most respected daily in Argentina (the only major newspaper that supported the pro-life position in their recent victory against abortion in the national Senate), ran the following editorial on this startling piece of news. La Nación is also, by the way, an ally of Francis, and its Rome correspondent, Elisabetta Piqué, is the journalist who is probably closest to Francis -- so this is obviously not moved by any animus against the Bishop of Rome.

***
LA NACIÓN - EDITORIAL

A Political-Ideological Beatification 
Bishop Angelelli does not, in any way, represent the model of Christian exemplariness that the Church demands to start a canonization procedure
July 30, 2018

Angelelli next to a symbol of violence


On August 4, 1976, Bishop Enrique Angelelli died, after the rollover of the vehicle in which he was travelling in National Route 38, in La Rioja, along with Father Arturo Pinto, who survived. In the report made immediately after, following comprehensive search for evidence -- autopsy, accident expert summary, photos of the place of the accident, and the testimony of Pinto, who alleged memory loss and being in a state of shock -- the procedure was archived under the name "Angelelli, bishop Enrique A. rep./death."

Italian Interior Minister: “Enough now with this ‘parent 1 and 2.' I have restored mother and father”

Claudio Cartaldo
"Il Giornale"
August 10, 2018

Salvini’s blitz on forms for identity cards - it’s back to the past and “No to the horror of 'surrogate motherhood' ”.  Gone ‘parent n.1’ and ‘parent n.2’.  Back to what is natural: mother and father. Matteo Salvini launches the revolution also in the area of the family and gives the go ahead to re-examine the forms for identity cards. 

[Excerpts]

A Parish Priest: Tradition must be completely legitimized in order to wipe out the confusion which now reigns supreme

H/T Messa in Latino blogspot


Received from a reader of Messa in Latino and published with pleasure:

“I went to Confession in my parish. The priest who was about 60 years old, said to me “I have been here almost five years and it seems to me that I have never seen you before”.

Watch and See: Beautiful Video and Images from the 2018 "Ars Celebrandi" Latin Mass Workshop - Poland



The largest workshop for the Traditional Latin Mass in the world, Ars Celebrandi, concluded last July 18 in Licheń, Poland, with a visit by Archbishop Guido Pozzo.

Archbishop Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei (the Holy See office for Catholics attached to the traditional Roman liturgy) had this message to the workshops’ participants and organizers: "I would like to thank God for this active presence of the Ars Celebrandi community, committed to the promotion of the ancient Roman liturgy and thus giving glory to God for the sake of the Church and all mankind... I encourage you to continue and go forth, in trust in the grace of God."

Archbishop Guido Pozzo celebrated the Pontifical Mass in the Licheń Basilica and presided over Pontifical vespers. The faithful taking part in these celebrations and receiving the Papal blessing could receive a plenary indulgence under ordinary conditions by the decision of the Apostolic Penitentiary.

(Video of the Pontifical Mass below)

BREAKING: Practicing Homosexual Appointed to High Vatican Position

RORATE has learned from a couple of sources that a recent appointment of Pope Francis to a high Vatican position is known widely by the hierarchy and informed laity of his European country as a promiscuous practicing homosexual.

His lifestyle led originally to his exile from his diocese of origin.

(Update: Our tips on Twitter allowed many to find out for themselves the name of the new Prelate.)

St. Alphonsus: ". . . The public authority is given the power to kill wrongdoers, and that not unjustly . . ."


St. Alphonsus, Holy Doctor of the Faith

Inasmuch as Pope Francis chose August 2, the traditional memorial of St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, bishop and confessor, Doctor of the Church, to make public his attempt to chuck down the Memory Hole the irreformable truth that "the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty," it is only fitting that the faithful recall what this eminent Doctor of Truth had to say on this subject.

Op-Ed, by Fr. Cipolla: "Uncle Ted: The Homosexual Subculture of Bishops & Priests is as large as ever"

One would have to be a hermit not to know about quondam Cardinal McCarrick’s precipitous fall from grace.  The New York Times, probably with great relish, ran three stories on McCarrick’s other career as “Uncle Ted”, sexual predator of young men.  The story was taken up by the whole mediasphere for at least a week and still continues at this writing. The Church, thanks be to God, acted swiftly, stripping him of his public ministry, removing his membership in the College of Cardinals, and planning a trial in the Vatican in the future.  The secular press often wonders how such a man could have been promoted to the very highest levels in the Church.  But that sense of wonder masks an assumption that moral corruption in the Catholic Church is far and wide among its clerics. 

The fact is that many priests and bishops knew about McCarrick’s predatory behavior for years.  Even I, a simple parish priest from Connecticut, heard from priests in the know  about Uncle Ted and his exploits. The question then still remains:  why did he rise so high in the hierarchy when so many people, including those in Rome, knew his sordid history?  Those in charge of making bishops cannot claim ignorance given the paper trail of payments paid to settle accusations made against him.  So the obvious conclusion is that it is true that moral corruption has infected the Church at all levels.

Meet the new Italian Minster for The Family and Disability: The Honourable Lorenzo Fontana


When the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum was issued by Pope Benedict XVI in July 2007, Municipal Counsellor of Verona at that time, Mr Lorenzo Fontana had this to say:“This is an event of historical importance, which marks a return to tradition”.  The New Minister who has been a Member of the Lega Nord * since he was 20 years old, [he is now 38] attends the Traditional Latin Mass and in actual fact was married in that rite. He has a daughter.

What was black is now white: Pope "changes Catechism" to declare death penalty "inadmissible in all cases".

The Church was wrong in a major issue literally of life and death.

Is the Pope a kind of "Prophet", as the "First President" of the Mormons, receiving new teachings that contradict completely teachings that the Magisterium had taught since Apostolic Times?

That is what seems to come from the "alteration" of the Catechism of the Catholic Church of 1992 promoted by the current Pope and published today:

The Supreme Pontiff Francis, in an audience granted on May 11, 2018, to the undersigned Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has approved the following new text of the n. 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, ordering its translation in the various languages and inserted in all editions of the mentioned Catechism:


The death penalty

Reminder: Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society


This is our monthly reminder to please enroll Souls of the Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society. We now stand at 88 priests saying weekly or monthly traditional Latin Masses for the Souls. Come on Fathers, let's get this to 100! 

** Click here to download a "fillable" PDF Mass Card to give to the loved ones of the Souls you enroll. It's free for anyone to use. **

Priests: The Souls still need more of you saying Mass for them! Please email me to offer your services. There's nothing special involved -- all you need to do is offer a weekly or monthly TLM with the intention: "For the Souls enrolled in the Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society." And we will always keep you completely anonymous unless you request otherwise. 

How to enroll souls: please email me at athanasiuscatholic@yahoo.com and submit as follows: "Name, State, Country." If you want to enroll entire families, simply write in the email: "The Jones family, Ohio, USA". Individual names are preferred. Be greedy -- send in as many as you wish and forward this posting to friends as well.

Archdiocese of Philly names pastor of its newest FSSP parish — first Mass September 9

As the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) continues to make inroads into the East Coast, we can now report that the great Fr. Carl Gismondi, FSSP -- current pastor of St. Anne’s Church in San Diego -- will become the new pastor of St. Mary’s in Conshohocken, Penn. Father’s first Mass at the currently closed church will take place on September 9 (details below). Rorate will be there, incognito of course, and urges everyone in the area to please attend.