Category: News

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 7/20/19

Posted on by Tom

This past week, the diocese of Orange, California officially dedicated positivity-gospeler, Robert Schuller’s former Crystal Cathedral as a Catholic cathedral (above photo). The grandiose complex continues as a Gospel-less, whited sepulchre. Joel Osteen cites Schuller as a major inspiration, while Schuller took his cue from president Trump’s positivity-gospel “pastor,” Norman Vincent Peale.

It’s encouraging to see the Gospel making inroads into such a spiritually dead place as France.

Roman Catholics are obligated to attend mass each and every Sunday under threat of soul-damning mortal sin, although only 20% of American Catholics comply. If there are dangerous circumstances, as there were recently with Hurricane Barry, which prevent Catholics from attending mass safely, the local bishop will grant a dispensation, exempting them from their obligation. This type of exacting religious legalism leads to innumerable questions regarding various contingencies, which even Rome’s bevy of canon lawyers would be unable to answer.

The American Catholic church has a serious problem with declining membership and we’re starting to see a number of programs sprouting up aimed at convincing lapsed members to return. What would be their motivation? The pope has said even atheists can merit Heaven if they are “good.” The Gospel of salvation by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone has no part in any of this.

Some Catholics are offended by the term, “Roman Catholic,” and prefer to be called  simply “Catholic.” “Roman Catholic” is actually an oxymoron because “Roman” refers to a specific location, while “Catholic” means “universal” (Greek καθολικός, katholikos). Roman Catholics concede that evangelical Protestants have “some” of the truth, but that the Catholic church alone transmits the fullness of divine revelation. In actuality, the RCC is so steeped in its man-made traditions, that it transmits very little Biblical truth.

EWTN, the conservative Catholic media conglomerate founded by Mother Angelica aka Rita Rizzo, is subtly leading the opposition against progressive pope Francis.

Pastor Leonardo De Cherico provides an insightful look at the rise of Mariolatry.

Funny stuff. I’ll keep quiet about Trump, but I attended a Baptist church thirty-five-years ago that majored on the “cardinal” sins: drinking, smoking, dancing, card playing, and listening to rock music. Going to the movie theater, also a major no-no at many Baptist fellowships at that time, was OK at our church because the pastor was a martial arts enthusiast who loved rock ’em, sock ’em action movies.

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Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 7/13/19

Posted on by Tom

“God, Greed, and the (Prosperity) Gospel: How Truth Overwhelms a Life Built on Lies” by Benny Hinn’s (photo left) nephew, Costi Hinn (photo right), hit the bookstores this past Tuesday. My local library REALLY needs to purchase a copy of this. Order it from Amazon here. It grieves me that credulous souls hand over their money and their faith to these prosperity gospel shysters.

Speaking of “miracles,” now that the civil courts have settled the dispute between the Catholic dioceses of New York City and Peoria, Illinois over possession of the cadaver of Fulton J. Sheen, pope Francis has put the famous former media pioneer on the fast-track to canonization as predicted.

Last August, Catholic archbishop and former papal nuncio (Vatican ambassador) to the United States, Carlo Viganò, created a huge stir by accusing pope Francis of covering up for pedophile cardinal, Ted McCarrick. Now, Viganò is implicating Francis in the cover-up of another suspected predator, archbishop Peña Parra, the Vatican’s third most powerful prelate.

Members of the conservative Catholic media are caught in a Catch-22. One of their “prime directives” is absolute loyalty to the papacy, but many are convinced pope Francis is a heretic. So much for the age-old Catholic boast that popes are incapable of leading the RC church into error.

We’re seeing several of these wildcat, progressive “Catholic” churches springing up that ordain women as priests and boast of being “inclusive,” while at the same time conservative Catholics are reverting back to pre-conciliar militancy. The RCC is splitting right down the middle.

The Mormon church has announced that next year, 2020, will be the last for the Hill Cumorah Pageant, held annually in Palmyra, New York, about 23 miles east of Rochester. LDS leadership cites “time commitments, cost, security, and impact to church sites” as the reasons for shutting down the pageant. The Mormon church’s founder, Joseph Smith Jr., claimed God the Father and Jesus Christ visited him in Palmyra in 1820 when he was 14-years-old, which culminated in the incorporation of the LDS church in 1830. See my previous posts on Joseph Smith’s Mormonism scam here and here and here.

The JWs couldn’t get a price break from the new owners of the Blue Cross Arena in downtown Rochester, so they are relocating their regional summer conference to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles to the south. Pew Research reports that 1% of adults in New York State identify as Jehovah’s Witnesses and less than 1% identify as Mormons, but a whopping 31% identify as Roman Catholic. So why do the (c)hristian bookstore$ in the region carry materials warning of the dangers of Mormonism and the Watchtower, but nothing about the dangers of works-righteousness Roman Catholicism? Oh, that’s right, these alleged “evangelical Protestant” (c)hristian bookstore$ actually have “Catholic sections” stocked with rosaries, holy medals, prayer cards to saints, and religious statues!

Yet another satire from the Babylon Bee that’s not too far from reality.

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 7/6/19

Posted on by Tom

Americans celebrated Independence Day this past Thursday and the Catholic media invariably trotted out articles about Charles Carroll of Maryland, the Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence (see above graphic), and boasted of Catholicism’s alleged support of religious freedom. What these articles conveniently fail to mention is that religious freedom was non-existent in Latin American and European countries where the Catholic church dominated, and that popes issued formal declarations condemning democratic forms of government and freedom of religion right up until the end of the nineteenth-century (e.g., pope Leo XIII’s condemnation of “Americanism” in his apostolic letter Testem Benevolentiae, January 22, 1899).

The American Catholic church already had a problem retaining its membership prior to the year-long scandal tsunami that began with the outing of predator cardinal, Ted McCarrick, and the New Jersey state investigation of Catholic clerical abuse that touched off similar state probes throughout the country. One year later, we’re beginning to see the results. What is going to happen to these disillusioned Catholic souls? Is the evangelical church reaching out to them with the Gospel of grace?

Catholic confessors (priests who hears confessions) are taught in seminary to question their penitents about very private thoughts and activities to ensure they make a “good” (aka full) confession. The dangers were/are as obvious as the nose on your face. Imagine a Catholic priest probing your spouse or child about their impure thoughts and acts. That’s standard in Catholic confessionals. The manuals used in Catholic seminaries to instruct priests in confessional interrogation are written in Latin and are not available to the laity. “Penitents often fall into the hands of priests who, under the pretense of confession, commit acts which are not fit to be mentioned.” – Erasmus, 16th-century Catholic theologian.

Pope Francis and his allies walk a tightrope. On the one hand, they encourage liberalizing initiatives like the Amazon Synod, yet they don’t want the progressive vanguard, including the German bishops, to break totally free from church tradition and Vatican oversight.

We spent eight months examining Dave Armstrong’s book, “The Catholic Verses,” in which the Catholic apologist attempted to convince the reader that the Bible supports the Catholic salvation system of sacramental grace and merit. Find the index to my rebuttals here. In the article above, Armstrong boasts that Catholics take a much more “charitable” approach towards their Protestant “separated brethren” than they receive in return. Of course, Catholics believe that committed Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and even atheists can also merit Heaven, so it’s understandable why they might be offended by Bible-believers who proclaim there is no salvation outside of by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone.

I don’t recommend any books by authors propagating the Catholic works-gospel, but I include this article as an observation of another example of the unrelenting LGBT steamroller.

Since my company moved across town a year ago, I no longer have access to our region’s only Chick-fil-A. That’s a GOOD chicken sandwich! That sauce! Oh, my.

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 6/29/19

Posted on by Tom

Cardinal Raymond Burke (photo left), was initially supportive of Steve Bannon’s (photo right) plans to rally conservative Catholics in opposition to pope Francis and his progressive brand of Catholicism until “Sloppy Steve” endorsed “In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy,” by Frédéric Martel, which specifically names Burke as a member of the Vatican’s “lavender mafia.”

Joseph Bernardin (1928-1996) was one of the American Catholic church’s most powerful prelates of the previous generation. As the Catholic clerical abuse and cover-up scandal tsunami continues, more abusive practices by prelates, past and present, will surface.

Thanks to Crissy from down under for sharing this example of pope Francis’ and the Catholic church’s ongoing efforts towards a worldwide religious confederation based upon a mutual belief in a “higher power” and merited salvation.

As previously noted, conservative Rhode Island Catholic bishop, Thomas Tobin, stuck his neck out and warned all Roman Catholics in the state not to participate in LGBT Pride Month events. Just about all of his fellow American bishops took a big step back by allowing Tobin to catch the predictable flak all by himself. Jesuit crusader, James Martin, is pressing for full church acceptance of the gay lifestyle.

The title of this article is disingenuous. ALL knowledgeable conservative Catholics ARE unsettled by Francis’ doctrine-bending “reforms,” but they’re reluctant to oppose him publicly because loyalty to the papacy is one of conservative Catholicism’s “prime directives.”

Catholics and non-Catholics who are not aware of the great reverence the Roman church accords religious relics should read these two articles. This reverence and worship of objects is sheer religious superstition. All of the relics that are purported to be from New Testament times, such as a shard from the “true cross,” a fragment from the crown of thorns, and a patch from one of Mary’s veils, are all fraudulently bogus. This particular relics “tour” is largely confined to the Midwest at this point. Check out the schedule here.

As the priest abuse and cover-up scandal tsunami continues to unfold, expect many, many more Catholic dioceses to declare bankruptcy in order to “protect” their assets from victims.

This piece from the Babylon Bee may be satire, but society is already heading down a path we couldn’t have imagined fifty years ago.

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 6/22/19

Posted on by Tom

Prior to the Boston Globe’s 2002 investigation, cases of abuse by pedophile priests were treated as infrequent and dissociated anomalies, if they were covered by the press at all. The newspaper not only revealed a large number of predatory priests in the Boston archdiocese, but also exposed the systematic cover-up of the abuse by the diocesan hierarchy. Over the following sixteen years, stories of clerical abuse and cover-up were published across the entire country, but last year at this time, the flood of articles crescendoed into a tsunami, with reports that high-ranking church prelates, such as powerful cardinal, Ted McCarrick, were not only covering up the abuse, but were/had been abusers themselves. He may have been “defrocked,” but eighty-eight-year-old McCarrick is still being generously cared for by the Catholic church.

This story of Catholic bishop and sexual predator, Michael Bransfield, is an increasingly familiar tale of abuse by Catholic prelates.

As pope Francis continues to “flirt” with heresy, Catholic conservatives increasingly flirt with schism. But what is the tipping point? What line must Francis cross before conservatives will say, “No more!”? He has already craftily nullified two doctrines held to be inalterable by conservatives and traditionalists; the ban on communion for remarried divorcees and the ban on intercommunion with Protestants.

The Vatican continues to pursue the possibility of ordaining married men in regions where priests are extremely scarce. This is already a “done deal,” but Francis must go through the motions. Married priests will be yet another reason for Catholic conservatives to squawk. Catholic internecine squabbles aside, the New Testament does not teach a sacerdotal priesthood or mandatory clerical celibacy.

The Catholic dioceses of New York City and Peoria, Illinois (via Sheen’s niece) tussled in court over media pioneer, Fulton J. Sheen’s corpse for decades. As soon as the cadaver is in Peoria, the Vatican will put the wheels in motion for the once-popular Sheen’s canonization.

I’m so glad reformers in America kept chipping away at vestiges of Roman error that continued in Europe, such as the state church.

Looking back over the last seventy years, perhaps the three most significant developments in furthering ecumenism with Rome among some evangelicals were 1) Rome’s shift in its approach to Protestants at Vatican II, from militant opposition to mollification, 2) the pioneering accommodation and compromise of Billy Graham, and 3) the birth of the Catholic charismatic movement.

Popular television shows like “The Bachelorette” are “problematic” for Christian viewers because they condone/propagate a lifestyle that is opposed to God’s Word. Hannah Brown’s self-serving theology is not that far off the mark of some doctrine-lite mega-churches.

It’s quite amazing to me that many of today’s popular politicians are trying to outdo each other as far as who is the most devoted socialist.

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 6/15/19

Posted on by Tom

The U.S. Catholic bishops met this past week to give the appearance that they are decisively confronting the clerical abuse and cover-up scandal. Only the most credulous of Catholics trust their bishops after twenty years of scandalous clergy abuse headlines. The chairman of the U.S. bishops, cardinal Daniel DiNardo (photo above, middle), who led the proceedings, has been accused of covering up for abusers, himself.

Catholic laypersons rightly ponder to themselves, “The priests and bishops teach us that holy living is the key to meriting salvation, but they are more messed up than anybody else.” The truth about works-righteousness religion has been laid bare for everyone to see. Turn from institutional religion, repent of your sin, and accept Jesus Christ as your Savior by faith alone. Jesus Christ will NEVER disappoint you!

The abuse and cover-up reaches up even to the pope.

Last weekend, I posted that pope Francis had affirmed his approval of intercommunion with Protestants via statements made at another one of his famous in-flight press conferences. Conservative Catholics view intercommunion as rank heresy. What’s a Catholic to do when their pope is a heretic?

Conservative cardinal Burke is at it again, trying to counter Francis’ heterodoxy. Conservative Catholics have been calling Francis’ reforms “confusion” for quite awhile, but some bravehearts have now switched to calling them outright “heresy.”

All Catholics must be missionaries? Hmm, what message would they proclaim? That the sacraments and obeying the Ten Commandments MIGHT merit you salvation? That is NOT good news, folks. Why would a Catholic want to proselytize on behalf of their works religion when their pope says even atheists can merit Heaven?

The Catholic works-righteousness salvation system is based upon priests and their administration of the sacraments. The RCC is going to have to allow priests to marry to keep the ship afloat.

Pope Francis is a progressive on many political and social issues, but he’s not yet on board with gender identity. Jesuit arch-progressive, James Martin, and his pro-LGBTQ agenda cohort will continue to try to teach old dog, Bergoglio, new tricks.

Many Catholics are opting out of Catholic funerals including a funeral mass with all of its pomp and ceremony. Catholicism teaches a funeral mass and burial at a “consecrated” Catholic cemetery will shorten time in purgatory.

Leave it to the Babylon Bee to note the increasing gender-bending, emasculation going on in our culture.

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 6/8/19

Posted on by Tom

In a June 2nd, in-flight press conference, pope Francis once again encouraged Catholic bishops and priests not to wait for the approval of church theologians and to begin intercommunion with Protestants (Lutherans were named specifically). Last year, without fanfare, Francis ruled that individual German bishops could decide if Lutheran spouses of Catholics could receive communion in their diocese. This is a heretical teaching in the minds of conservative Catholics. Francis doubled-down on his conservative opponents by calling them pitiable “fundamentalists” who must be tolerated and prayed for. I have zero interest in participating in the Catholic mass or receiving the Catholic eucharist, both of which are blasphemous on several levels, but it’s very interesting to observe how the chasm is widening between Francis and his progressive allies and Catholic conservatives.

There’s something very sinister about a religious institution that spent $11 million in the Northeast alone in attempts to limit its legal culpability for the gross misconduct of its employees. The Child Victims Act was finally passed into law by the New York State legislature this past February despite the $2.9 million spent by the Roman Catholic church to oppose the bill.

With many states introducing legislation and/or programs to assist victims of clerical abuse, survivors are coming forward in record numbers.

We can discuss the pedophile priests and cover-up scandal tsunami in abstract and clinical terms, but it has shaken the “faith” of individual Catholic pew-sitters to the core. The writer of this op-ed has lost all faith in her Catholic institution. Will she now turn to Jesus Christ and the Good News of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone?

Catholic bishop, Thomas Tobin, created a maelstrom this past week when he advised parents in his Rhode Island diocese to protect their children by staying away from LGBTQ “Pride Month” events. Catholic parents should be asking themselves, which of the two is potentially more dangerous for their children; exposing them to the LGBTQ snake pit or allowing them to participate in Catholic church youth activities supervised by celibate priests?

Speaking of Francis’ progressive allies, Walter Kasper, the progressive German cardinal who is Bergoglio’s mentor and who engineered his election in 2013, reveals one of the next goals on his protégé’s radar.

Some folks are upset that Francis has now “officially changed” Matthew 6:13 in English translations of Catholic Bibles from “Lead us not into temptation” to “Do not let us fall into temptation.” However, Catholic doctrine is so un-Biblical and even anti-Biblical on so many counts that getting wrapped around the axle over this specific offense is like amputating a toe when the entire leg is gangrene. Evangelical pastor, John MacArthur, comments on this verse, “God does not tempt us (James 1:13), but He will subject us to trials that may expose us to Satan’s assaults, as in the case of Job and Peter (Luke 22:31-32). This petition expresses the believer’s desire to avoid the dangers of sin altogether. God knows what a person’s need is before he asks, and He promises that no one will be subjected to testing beyond what can be endured. He also promises a way of escape – often through endurance (1 Cor. 10:13).”

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 6/1/19

Posted on by Tom

Catholic archbishop, Carlo Maria Viganò (photo left), shocked the entire Roman church in August 2018 when he stated that he had communicated reports of disgraced American ex-cardinal Ted McCarrick’s abusive activities directly to pope Francis back in 2013 and that his warnings were ignored. For the first time, Francis this week publicly denied knowledge of Viganò’s assertions. Who is lying? As investigative journalist, Frédéric Martel, detailed in his book “In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy,” the Catholic hierarchy is thoroughly corrupt.

Francis’s deal with the Chinese communist government, which allows Beijing direct intervention into the affairs of the Chinese Catholic church, is seen as pragmatic by church progressives and as an alarming betrayal by conservatives. Either way, Chinese Catholics won’t be hearing the Gospel of grace in their churches.

In our current era of overwhelming inclusiveness and relativism, most evangelicals recoil at the thought of confrontational street preaching. But the Lord can surely use such methods to reach some and there are more than a few Biblical precedents.

Roman Catholicism was once known for its members being consumed with religious scrupulosity, i.e., “Catholic guilt.” That actually makes sense in a works-righteousness religion where the practitioner can never be confident that they’ve done quite enough to merit salvation. But these days, with the current pope saying even atheists can merit Heaven if they are “good,” the vast majority of Catholics routinely flout their church’s legalistic mandates without even a second thought.

Nineteenth-century American Protestants had good reasons to be wary of Roman Catholicism and Mormonism as threats to the civil order. Various popes of that time period had publicly condemned democratic forms of government and freedom of religion. The Mormon “prophets” also mixed church and government. But this article purposely omits the wider context because that wouldn’t serve the writer’s agenda.

Catholicism is a wide-is-the-way, works-righteousness religion which claims everyone, of all religious stripes and even atheists, can also merit salvation. Rome states that EVERYONE is God’s child, but we know from Scripture that is not true. Only those who repent of sin and accept Jesus Christ as Savior by faith alone are reborn spiritually and adopted into God’s family. “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” – John 1:12. Progressive Francis continues to grease the skids towards acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle.

Yes, Christians should pray for governmental leaders so that the Gospel can continue to go forth unhindered (1 Timothy 2:1-2), but Graham, and the other Christian nationalist, culture-war ecumenists named in this article; David Barton, Kenneth Copeland, Jerry Falwell Jr., Mike Huckabee, Robert Jeffress, Greg Laurie, and Eric Metaxas, muddy the Gospel of grace by linking the Gospel to politics and Donald Trump.

Copeland boasts that he has led 122 million souls to the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. No, he has led a much smaller number of souls to the false “Jackpot Jesus” of the false prosperity gospel. Copeland lives like a prince atop his one-man, seed-faith, Ponzi scheme while his contributors covetously hope just a little of his golden stardust falls on them.

Some ushers do take their ministry very seriously!

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 5/25/19

Posted on by Tom

Promise Keepers got its start in 1990 as a ministry to, among other things, assist men in becoming better husbands and fathers. Unfortunately, Promise Keepers’ “gospel” message was so watered down that both evangelical and works-righteousness Catholic men could gather at stadiums and sing macho versions of “Kumbaya” together. Promise Keepers was a tool of ecumenism. Catholic men don’t need to stand around singing with a bunch of accommodators and compromisers who tell them they’re just fine spiritually. They need to hear the undiluted Gospel! See more on the problems with Promise Keepers here.

Speaking of ecumenism, pope Francis is encouraging Catholics to join in the “Thy Kingdom Come” international prayer campaign, May 30-June 9. I myself will be praying that week, as I do every week, that Roman Catholics here in the U.S. and throughout the world will hear the genuine Gospel of grace, repent of their sin, accept Jesus Christ as Savior by faith alone, and leave the apostate RCC.

Our state senator and aspiring POTUS, Kirsten Gillibrand, has her opinions as to what makes one view “Christian” over another, but I can assure you, her opinions have absolutely no basis in Scripture. Sixty-million infants have been murdered in the U.S. alone since the inception of the abortion genocide here in 1973. There appears to be some battles looming ahead in the SCOTUS over the abortion issue. However, souls were never born-again or hearts changed via legislation or by a court ruling.

This “news” should not be a revelation to anyone. Back in the day when Catholic prelates were political power brokers in this country, local police agencies conspired with Catholic dioceses to keep cases of abusive priests out of the headlines. I imagine newspapers and other media sources were also willing partners in the “gentleman’s agreement.”

This police raid on the Dallas Catholic diocesan offices is just one more sickening detail in the year-long pedophile priests and cover-up scandal tsunami. Many Catholics no longer have any faith in their priests or their church. They need to hear there is a better Way; Jesus Christ and the Gospel of grace.

The PBS “educational” cartoon, “Arthur,” which is aimed at the 4-8 years-old age group, recently featured an episode in which a teacher character marries his same-sex “partner.” Young children are being indoctrinated into the LGBTQ agenda at school and via television.

To accusations from conservative Catholics that he is subverting foundational doctrines and creating confusion, pope Francis just keeps his head down and continues to cunningly mold the Roman church into a more “progressive” version. In the meantime, conservative Catholics continue to search for the courage of their convictions.

Sozo prayer? Argh. So much bad stuff comes from Bethel Redding church and the New Apostolic Reformation movement.

I appreciate a little humor from the Babylon Bee after another roundup of serious news. I’m not a fan of believers being pushed to identify their spiritual gifts, as I wrote about here.

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 5/18/19

Posted on by Tom

Over the last twenty years, the Roman Catholic hierarchy has largely ignored its pedophile priests and cover-up “problem” despite the reoccurring negative headlines and lawsuits. There were two primary issues at the root of that laissez-faire attitude: 1) Catholicism’s rule of clerical celibacy ensured its institutions continued to attract, indoctrinate, and promote sexual deviants and 2) the foxes were running the henhouse. After last year’s scandal tsunami, polls showed that 37% of U.S. Catholics are considering leaving the church. The U.S. Catholic bishops are now stirring from their slumber and rolling out the big guns with the publication of this book, “Letter to a Suffering Church,” from the church’s media darling, bishop Robert Barron (photo above), which is being given away for only the price of handling and shipping. The purpose of this 122-page book is to try to convince members to stay despite the toxic scandal. I will review this book as soon as it’s published, but I can already guarantee the Gospel of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, will not be found on any of its pages.

At the Vatican sexual abuse summit this past February, pope Francis promised “concrete action,” yet the bishop of nearby Buffalo, N.Y., Richard Malone, retains his position. Malone was exposed as a serial abuse-enabler in a “60 Minutes” episode last October.

I see Louis Farrakhan was invited to propagate his anti-Semitic hatred at a Catholic church in Chicago. Priest pastor, Michael Pfleger, referred to Farrakhan as a “friend” and a “brother.” Pfleger’s pro-Francis bishop has egg on his face and has been profusely apologizing for his subordinate. Catholic apologists boast of their church’s monolithic unity, but beliefs and attitudes within the church run the gamut from one extreme to the other, but with no genuine Gospel.

Speaking of sensitivity to the Jewish community, Jewish leaders have asked pope Francis to stop referring to his conservative and traditionalist enemies within the church as legalistic “Pharisees.” They feel the pejorative reinforces anti-Jewish attitudes.

There’s been hundreds if not thousands of alleged Marian apparitions all over the world, but the Catholic church officially recognizes only twelve. Pope Francis is giving the green light to church-sanctioned pilgrimages to the alleged apparition site at Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina even though official recognition has not been granted to the apparitions there. Why? Because one-million credulous pilgrims visit there every year without approval, meaning there’s plenty of unrealized money that could be going into the church’s coffers. Medjugorje won’t be officially approved anytime soon because 1) the alleged appearances, which supposedly began in 1981, still continue on a daily basis and 2) some of the sayings attributed to Mary by the six “visionaries” include information that is at odds with official church teaching to some degree. In addition, some of the sayings have also contradicted the local bishop and he’s not happy about it. See one of the Medjugorje “visionaries,” Mirjana Dragicevic-Soldo, allegedly interact with the apparition in a recent Catholic-produced short video here. She is either a religious hysteric or under demonic control. Everyone in the crowd is worshiping Mary. No Good News in sight!

According to French investigative journalist, Frédéric Martel, the Vatican and the entire Catholic church hierarchy is a bee hive of homosexuality. See my review here of Martel’s book, “In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy.”

Poland is the last bastion of pre-conciliar, militant Catholicism in Europe. But the revelations about pedophile priests and the cover-up by the hierarchy are making an impact even there.

The LGBTQ militants and their fellow travelers are steadily breaking down barriers within Catholicism.

Oy vey! Yet another Babylon Bee satire about me! 🙂