News

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture - Police—the Vatican’s own police, acting on directions from the Vatican’s top prosecutor— raided the offices of the Secretariat of State, the most powerful office of the Roman Curia. The raid—which the Vatican acknowledged was prompted by suspicious financial transactions—also covered the offices of the Financial Information Authority (AIF), the office created precisely to stop suspicious transactions… The raids were followed by the suspension of five Vatican employees, including two in key positions…

By Stephen Wynne, Church Militant - The former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is reiterating Catholic teaching on the male-only priesthood… In a written statement to LifeSiteNews on Thursday, Cdl. Gerhard Müller affirmed that the Church's ban on female deacons and priests is an infallible dogma of the Faith… "The demand that the Amazon Synod must rule that the Sacrament of Holy Orders — in its first degree, the diaconate — may also be validly administered to women, contains several errors," observed Müller.

By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing - That troubling meaning of “synod” has been quite evident in past weeks. Before the Amazon Synod even started – the bishops, vested in green, joined the pope for Mass at St. Peter’s yesterday and begin their work today – there was a swirl of passionate claims and counterclaims, the likes of which have probably never been seen in Rome at this kind of an event… On Saturday, Pope Francis along with Brazilian Cardinal Cláudio Hummes and Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri (both leaders of the synod) attended an indigenous ritual, a tree-planting ceremony in the Vatican gardens. Participants danced around a mandala, spread soil from “symbolic places,” and bowed to two female fertility figures. A male figure with erect penis lay nearby…