Pope Francis

The Holy Spirit is Not a Fixer

Every so often someone writes to tender an oblique suggestion that I am not a true Catholic. A lapsed one maybe, a Jack Catholic, but hardly a staunch card-carrier like themselves. How else could I not bang saucepans for this pontificate? How else harbor unsmiling thoughts about Papa Francis? The correspondence goes something like this: • Are you Catholic? [Yes.] • Are you a practicing Catholic? [Yes.] • Do you believe the Holy Ghost guides the Church? [Yes.] • Well then, don’t you believe the Holy Ghost chose Francis? Continue Reading
Influence Peddling at the Chair of Peter

You do not have to read between the lines of this morning’s broadcast from Chiesa to see an analogy emerge between Pope Francis and Hillary Clinton, an enthusiastic trafficker in influence. Chiesa‘s headline runs: “Welcome Wealthy. Francis Receives Them With Open Arms.” These are not ordinary people of means. They are political players buying leverage and prestige from a pope who sees himself a player among principalities and powers. Hillary was her husband’s bagman back in Arkansas and has been selling access ever since. Continue Reading
Fr. Rutler & Paris

For those of you who do not subscribe to Fr. George Rutler’s Sunday homilies, today’s reflection is excerpted below. But first let me follow the example of Pope Francis and scold a bit: You really should subscribe. They are free. You have no excuse. [I shake my finger here.] Fr. Rutler brings wit, erudition, and deep faith to the pulpit—the very place that blessed medley of qualities is most needed but too often absent. These postings began when Father was pastor of Our Saviour. Continue Reading

The road show is over. The spectacle flamed up and subsided, a Roman candle of demonic sanctimony. Think of it as pre-game warm-up for the main event: the global climate summit in Paris, November 30 to December 11. The Vatican is partnering with the Obama administration, at the U.N. and later in Paris, in magnifying state control over a free society and tightening the screws on the developed world. This, in the name of saving the planet from the production and growth of those very means by which the poor can raise themselves out of poverty. Continue Reading

Peronism is the highest level of consciousness reached by the Argentine working class. Statement of the Movement of Priests for the Third World, 1971 We mustn’t pay too much attention to people who talk to us of prudence. We must be fanatical. Eva Perón
By whatever varietal name you call it, populist leftism is experiencing a rebirth, with the Vicar of Christ as an attendant midwife. Jorge Bergolio grew up amid extravagant devotion to Juan and Eva Perón. The agitated history of those years and the collapse of the peronato into violence and economic ruin is well documented. Continue Reading