News

By Deacon Greg Kandra, Patheos - Hours after the story broke, we now have the first significant episcopal response to the allegations by Archbishop Viganò, from Bishop Joseph Strickland in Tyler, Texas... While there are still a lot of unanswered questions about this story—and strong skepticism in some quarters— the bishop is nonetheless posting the letter from the former nuncio on the diocesan website, and directing his response to be mentioned at all parishes and included in all websites...

By Jonathan B. Coe, Catholic Exchange - Dysfunctional families are as old as the Book of Genesis. Cain killed Abel; Sarah mistreated Hagar; Jacob stole Esau’s birthright; Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery... Probably sometime in the late 330s Monica found herself in the furnace of familial affliction: she didn’t choose this situation; it chose her. In an arranged marriage, she was wedded to the much older Roman pagan, Patricius... He was bad-tempered and a serial adulterer and no doubt got his dyspeptic personality from his mother, who also made life hard for Monica.

By John-Henry Westen, LifeSiteNews - “The corruption and filth which have entered into the life of the Church must be purified at their roots,” said Vatican Cardinal Raymond Burke in response to a LifeSite request for comment… “The declarations made by a prelate of the authority of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò must be totally taken to heart by those responsible in the Church,” said Burke. “Each declaration must be subject to investigation, according to the Church’s time-tried procedural law.”

By Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register - In an extraordinary 11-page written testament, a former apostolic nuncio to the United States has accused several senior prelates of complicity in covering up Archbishop Theodore McCarrick’s allegations of sexual abuse, and has claimed that Pope Francis knew about sanctions imposed on then-Cardinal McCarrick by Pope Benedict XVI but chose to repeal them... Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 77, who served as apostolic nuncio in Washington D.C. from 2011 to 2016, said that in the late 2000s, Benedict had “imposed on Cardinal McCarrick sanctions similar to those now imposed on him by Pope Francis” and that Viganò personally told Pope Francis about those sanctions in 2013.