- German Catholic bishops endorse blessing same-sex marriages and female deacons
- Catholic Church: Germany’s controversial Synodal Way
The big news this past week was that the 2019-2023 German Catholic Synodale Weg (Synodal Path), a reform initiative by progressive German RC clerics and laypersons, came to an end. At last week’s final meeting, the participating bishops approved the blessing of same-sex unions, the normalisation of lay people preaching, a guideline of “concrete improvements for intersex and transgender faithful,” and requests to reexamine the Catholic church’s stance on clerical celibacy and on women’s ordination. Liberal RC priests all over the world have already been blessing S&G weddings on the Q.T., including here in the USA. Pope Francis has been keeping a close eye on the Synodale Weg. While he is favorable towards some of the reforms, he must also keep the lid on conservative schism. Missing in this ideological tug-of-war is the genuine Gospel of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone.
The conservative Catholic website, The Pillar, broke the news in August 2021 that many RC priests were using the S&G hookup app, Grindr. Notable Catholic sociologist, Richard Sipe, estimated that 30-40% of RC priests were S&G-ites.
I had assumed, as did many others, that pope Francis was going to lift the mandatory celibacy rule for newly-ordained priests in the Amazon region at the 2019 Vatican Amazon Synod, but that didn’t happen. However, Bergoglio is inching closer and closer. Read the Book of Hebrews. The sacerdotal priesthood and ongoing sacrifice for sin were eliminated by Jesus Christ.
Pope John Paul II approved the 1992 RC Catechism, which states that “homosexual acts (are) acts of grave depravity…(and are) intrinsically disordered” – CCC 2357. Pope Francis and his point man, Jesuit James Martin, have been chipping away at the RCC’s reluctance to embrace practicing S&G-ites. Perhaps Francis’ successor will be more amenable to transgenderism?
Yes, Francis has been greasing the skids towards lifting the ban on non-abortifacient contraceptives.
Evangelicals readily reference the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Watchtower Society as false churches. There are 17 million and 9 million members in those two institutions respectively, totaling 26 million souls. That total number is only 2% of the 1.4 billion souls who follow Rome’s false gospel. Why is evangelicalism so focused on the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, but not on the multitudes of lost souls in RC-ism with its false gospel?
- Santa Rosa Catholic Diocese files for bankruptcy protection over sex abuse claims
- Facing hundreds of abuse claims, Albany Catholic Diocese declares bankruptcy
There was speculation several months ago, but this past Monday the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa, California made it official by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The diocese of Albany, New York then filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday. The two dioceses became the 28th and 29th U.S. dioceses respectively to file for bankruptcy since 2004. Catholic dioceses use bankruptcy to shield assets from survivors of priest sexual abuse and cover-up. The Albany diocese’ bankruptcy amounts to a “quadfecta of corruption” spanning from one end of the New York State Thruway to the other. The dioceses of Upstate New York’s four largest cities – Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany – have all declared bankruptcy because of priest abuse.