Pope Leo XIV meets Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally at the Vatican on April 27, 2026. | Credit: Vatican Media
Pope Leo XIV met with the archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, at the Vatican on Monday. Mullallyʼs first official visit to Rome as the spiritual leader of the Church of England comes amid strained ecumenical relations and division among Anglicans.
Mullally’s delegation for her April 25–28 visit included representatives from the Anglican Communion and the recently appointed Catholic archbishop of Westminster, Richard Moth.
A more difficult path to full communion
In his address to Mullally and her delegation on April 27, Leo said ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion has recently become more challenging.
“While much progress has been made on some historically divisive issues, new problems have arisen in recent decades, rendering the pathway to full communion more difficult to discern,” Leo said. “I know that the Anglican Communion is also facing many of these same questions at this time. Nevertheless, we must not allow these continuing challenges to prevent us from using every possible opportunity to proclaim Christ to the world together.”
The pope added that it would be “a scandal if we did not continue to work towards overcoming our differences, no matter how intractable they may appear.”
Beyond Catholic-Anglican dialogue, Mullallyʼs election has further caused significant theological and ecumenical divides within the Anglican Communion, particularly regarding the ordination of women and sexuality.
Pope Leo has affirmed the Catholic Church’s teaching on a male-only priesthood. In the Anglican Communion, notable splits have arisen over the ordination of Mullally as a female bishop, particularly among the Global Anglican Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON) and other conservative branches of Anglicanism. In March, GAFCON announced its break with the See of Canterbury.
Pope Leo XIV and Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally pray the Liturgy of the Hours together in the Urban VIII Chapel of the Apostolic Palace on April 27, 2026. | Credit: Vatican Media
After their meeting, the pope and the archbishop recited daytime prayer, part of the Liturgy of the Hours, together in the Chapel of Urban VIII in the Apostolic Palace.
In her address to the pontiff, Mullally thanked him for the opportunity to pray together and encouraged mutual hospitality despite differences.
“In our ecumenical journey, I believe the Holy Spirit is inviting us into a deeper practice of hospitality, not simply as welcome, but as a form of ministry,” Mullally said. “As I begin this ministry, I hope to be a shepherd who loves and cares for the Church, who encourages hospitality despite our differences, who speaks prophetically into our present reality, and who proclaims Christian hope with the confidence that the Gospel of Jesus Christ remains good news for our world today.”
Over the weekend, Mullally also visited the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls and St. Peter’s Basilica. On Monday evening, she will preside over choral evensong at the Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola, during which she will commission Bishop Anthony Ball as the archbishop of Canterbury’s official representative to the Holy See.
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Bishops process into St. Peter’s Basilica for the closing Mass of the first assembly of the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 29, 2023. / Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Jul 9, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
The guiding document for the final part of the Synod on Synodality, published Tuesday, focuses on how to implement certain of the synod’s aims, while laying aside some of the more controversial topics from last year’s gathering, like women’s admission to the diaconate.
“Without tangible changes, the vision of a synodal Church will not be credible,” the Instrumentum Laboris, or “working tool,” says.
The six sections of the roughly 30-page document will be the subject of prayer, conversation, and discernment by participants in the second session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, to be held throughout the month of October in Rome.
Instead of focusing on questions and “convergences,” as in last year’s Instrumentum Laboris, “it is now necessary that … a consensus can be reached,” said a FAQ page from synod organizers, also released July 9, answering a question about why the structure was different from last year’s Instrumentum Laboris.
The guiding document for the first session of the Synod on Synodality in 2023 covered such hot-button topics as women deacons, priestly celibacy, and LGBTQ outreach.
By contrast, this year’s text mostly avoids these subjects, while offering concrete proposals for instituting a listening and accompaniment ministry, greater lay involvement in parish economics and finances, and more powerful parish councils.
“It is difficult to imagine a more effective way to promote a synodal Church than the participation of all in decision-making and taking processes,” it states.
The working tool also refers to the 10 study groups formed late last year to tackle different themes deemed “matters of great relevance” by the Synod’s first session in October 2023. These groups will continue to meet through June 2025 but will provide an update on their progress at the second session in October.
The possibility of the admission of women to the diaconate will not be a topic during the upcoming assembly, the Instrumentum Laboris said.
The new document was presented at a July 9 press conference by Cardinals Mario Grech and Jean-Claude Hollerich, together with the special secretaries of the synodal assembly: Jesuit Father Giacomo Costa and Father Riccardo Battocchio.
“The Synod is already changing our way of being and living the Church regardless of the October assembly,” Hollerich said, pointing to testimonies shared in the most recent reports sent by bishops’ conferences.
The Oct. 2-27 gathering of the Synod on Synodality will mark the end of the discernment phase of the Church’s synodal process, which Pope Francis opened in 2021.
Participants in the fall meeting, including Catholic bishops, priests, religious, and laypeople from around the world, will use the Instrumentum Laboris as a guide for their “conversations in the Spirit,” the method of discussion introduced at the 2023 assembly. They will also prepare and vote on the Synod on Synodality’s advisory final document, which will then be given to the pope, who decides the Church’s next steps and if he wishes to adopt the text as a papal document or to write his own.
The third phase of the synod — after “the consultation of the people of God” and “the discernment of the pastors” — will be “implementation,” according to organizers.
Prominent topics
The 2024 Instrumentum Laboris also addresses the need for transparency to restore the Church’s credibility in the face of sexual abuse of adults and minors and financial scandals.
“If the synodal Church wants to be welcoming,” the document reads, “then accountability and transparency must be at the core of its action at all levels, not only at the level of authority.”
It recommends effective lay involvement in pastoral and economic planning, the publication of annual financial statements certified by external auditors, annual summaries of safeguarding initiatives, the promotion of women to positions of authority, and periodic performance evaluations on those exercising a ministry or holding a position in the Church.
“These are points of great importance and urgency for the credibility of the synodal process and its implementation,” the document says.
The greater participation of women in all levels of the Church, a reform of the education of priests, and greater formation for all Catholics are also included in the text.
Bishops’ conferences, it says, noticed an untapped potential for women’s participation in many areas of Church life. “They also call for further exploration of ministerial and pastoral modalities that better express the charisms and gifts the Spirit pours out on women in response to the pastoral needs of our time,” the document states.
Formation in listening is identified as “an essential initial requirement” for Catholics, as well as how to engage in the practice of “conversation in the Spirit,” which was employed in the first session of the Synod on Synodality.
Pope Francis and delegates at the Synod on Synodality at the conclusion of the assembly on Oct. 28, 2023. Credit: Vatican Media
The document says the need for formation has been one of the most universal and strong themes throughout the synodal process. Interreligious dialogue also is identified as an important aspect of the synodal journey.
On the topic of the liturgy, the Instrumentum Laboris says there was “a call for adequately trained lay men and women to contribute to preaching the Word of God, including during the celebration of the Eucharist.”
“It is necessary that the pastoral proposals and liturgical practices preserve and make ever more evident the link between the journey of Christian initiation and the synodal and missionary life of the Church,” the document says. “The appropriate pastoral and liturgical arrangements must be developed in the plurality of situations and cultures in which the local Churches are immersed …”
How it was drafted
Dubbed the “Instrumentum Laboris 2,” the document released Tuesday has been in preparation since early June when approximately 20 experts in theology, ecclesiology, and canon law held a closed-door meeting to analyze around 200 synod reports from bishops’ conferences and religious communities responding to what the Instrumentum Laboris called “the guiding question” of the next stage of the Synod on Synodality: “How to be a synodal Church in mission?”
After the 10-day gathering, “an initial version” of the text was drafted based on those reports and sent to around 70 people — priests, religious, and laypeople — “from all over the world, of various ecclesial sensitivities and from different theological ‘schools,’” for consultation, according to the synod website.
The XVI Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod, together with consultants of the synod secretariat, finalized the document.
According to the working tool, soliciting new reports and feedback after the consultation phase ended is “consistent with the circularity characterizing the whole synodal process.”
“In preparation for the Second Session, and during its work, we continue to address this question: how can the identity of the synodal People of God in mission take concrete form in the relationships, paths and places where the everyday life of the Church takes place?” it says.
The document says “other questions that emerged during the journey are the subject of work that continues in other ways, at the level of the local Churches as well as in the ten Study Groups.”
Expectations for final session
According to the guiding document, the second session of the Synod on Synodality can “expect a further deepening of the shared understanding of synodality, a better focus on the practices of a synodal Church, and the proposal of some changes in canon law (there may be yet more significant and profound developments as the basic proposal is further assimilated and lived.)”
“Nonetheless,” it continues, “we cannot expect the answer to every question. In addition, other proposals will emerge along the way, on the path of conversion and reform that the Second Session will invite the whole Church to undertake.”
The Instrumentum Laboris says, “Synodality is not an end in itself … If the Second Session is to focus on certain aspects of synodal life, it does so with a view to greater effectiveness in mission.”
In its brief conclusion, the text states: “The questions that the Instrumentum Laboris asks are: how to be a synodal Church in mission; how to engage in deep listening and dialogue; how to be co-responsible in the light of the dynamism of our personal and communal baptismal vocation; how to transform structures and processes so that all may participate and share the charisms that the Spirit pours out on each for the common good; how to exercise power and authority as service. Each of these questions is a service to the Church and, through its action, to the possibility of healing the deepest wounds of our time.”
Vatican City, Jun 17, 2017 / 09:22 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis on Friday recognized the heroic virtue of six persons on the path to canonization, as well as the martyrdom of an Italian man who died from injuries of a beating he received while imprisoned in a concentration camp for resisting fascism.
The Pope met June 16 with the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato, giving his approval for the causes to move forward.
He recognized the martyrdom of Venerable Teresio Olivelli, a layman “killed in hatred of the Faith” Jan. 17, 1945, at the age of 29.
Venerable Olivelli was born in 1916. He graduated with a degree in law and went on to comment in papers on legal and social issues of the time before becoming a volunteer soldier in the Spanish Civil War and in World War II.
During the war, his views towards the Italian fascist regime of Benito Mussolini soured. He founded a newspaper dedicated to promoting the Christian message and tried to infuse a Christian message into the regime.
He later broke from it entirely after seeing the reality of the deportation of Jewish people as per racial laws. He became part of the Italian Resistance movement in Milan.
He was apprehended on April 27, 1944 and taken to a prison where he was tortured and beaten before being moved to another prison. On July 11 his name was added to a list of 70 inmates to be shot, but he fled and hid in a field until he was recaptured.
He was then transferred to a concentration camp in northern Italy before being moved to the Flossenburg and Hersbruck camps in Germany. While there he shared food rations with inmates and treated their injuries.
He died from injuries he received after defending a Ukrainian inmate from being attacked. He was kicked in the stomach and intestines and struck 25 times.
Olivelli’s beatification process began in 1988. Originally sought as a martyrdom, this was rejected because of doubts, though he was found to have lived a life of heroic virtue and was named ‘Venerable’ by Pope Francis in 2015.
Officials of the cause remained adamant that Olivelli was killed in hatred of his faith and therefore re-submitted a “positio” – a collection of documents submitted for sainthood causes – in 2016, hoping it would lead to his beatification without the usual required miracle.
Based on new findings it was approved by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and now by Pope Francis, affirming that he was killed “in hatred of the faith,” paving the way for his beatification.
Another cause moving forward is that of Sr. Maria degli Angeli, born Giuseppa Margherita Operte in Turin in 1871.
Born into a wealthy family, she experienced loss at the young age of 14 when her father and brother died within three months of each other. Left alone with her mother, they entered more deeply into the Christian life, becoming Third Order lay Carmelites.
When Giuseppa heard that a priest in a neighboring parish was circulating the rumor that she would open an institute for poor young girls, she took it as a sign of her calling and in 1894 opened the Institute of St. Joseph in a palace inherited from her parents.
She began a religious community of Third Order Carmelites who live an active apostolate according to the spirituality of the great reformers of Carmel, which since 1970 is called the Carmelite Sisters of Saint Teresa of Turin, and has two branches, one contemplative and one active.
She died in the monastery of Cascine Vica on Oct. 7, 1949, having lived an active life centered on contemplation.
The other persons declared ‘Venerable’ are: Bishop Antonio Jose de Souza Barroso of Porto (1854-1918); Bishop Jose de Jesus López y González of Aguascalientes, founder of the Congregation of the Maestro Catholic Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1872-1950); Bishop Agostino Ernesto Castrillo, OFM, of San Marco and Bisignano, (1904-1955); Fr. Giacomo da Balduina, OFM Cap., (1900-1948); and Sr. Umiltà Patlán Sánchez of the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception (1895-1970).
Members of ACLI (Italian Christian Workers’ Associations) hold a sign with the word “peace” in Italian, in St. Peter’s Square on June 1, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Jun 1, 2024 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
Being peacemakers in the style of Jesus Christ, while necessary and valuable, can also be risky, Pope Francis said on Saturday, as multiple conflicts continue to rage around the world.
Speaking to members of Italian Christian Workers’ Associations (ACLI) at the Vatican on June 1, the pontiff said, “interceding for peace is something that goes far beyond mere political compromise because it requires putting oneself on the line and taking a risk.”
“Our world, we know, is marked by conflict and division, and your witness as peacemakers, as intercessors for peace, is as necessary and valuable as ever,” he underlined.
Pope Francis spoke to members of Italian Christian Workers’ Associations at the Vatican on June 1, 2024, about “interceding for peace.”. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN News
Pope Francis’ remarks about a world “bloodied by many wars” came as Israel and Hamas consider proposals for an exchange of hostages and a ceasefire.
“This is truly a decisive moment,” U.S. President Joe Biden said at the White House on Friday, as he unveiled Israel’s three-phase proposal for ending the war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will not end the war in Gaza until its aims have been achieved.
The Israeli military also confirmed Friday it is carrying out an operation in the center of the southern Gazan city of Rafah, which the United Nations said has been reduced to “apocalyptic conditions.”
Last month, Russia began a surprise offensive on Ukraine’s northern border, in the northeastern region of Kharkiv. The assault has forced Ukraine to move already thinly spread resources away from other front lines as it attempts to prevent Russia’s capture of Kharkiv city, Ukraine’s second largest.
In Sudan, millions of people are fleeing the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces as civil war continues to bring devastation over one year later.
The UN has called the conflict “a humanitarian nightmare,” as the country experiences a massive hunger crisis and other human rights atrocities, with the dead numbering around 15,000.
In his speech June 1, Pope Francis recalled the words of the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, spoken at a prayer vigil for peace on Jan. 29, 1991.
The cardinal “laid emphasis on the ability to ‘intercede,’ that is, to situate oneself between the contending parties, putting a hand on the shoulder of both and accepting the risk that this entails,” the pope said.
The person who builds peace is the one, he continued, “who knows how to take a clear position, but at the same time strives to build bridges, to listen, and to understand the different parties involved, promoting dialogue and reconciliation.”
Speaking to members of Italian Christian Workers’ Associations at the Vatican on June 1, 2024, Pope Francis said “interceding for peace is something that goes far beyond mere political compromise because it requires putting oneself on the line and taking a risk.”. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN News
Francis also emphasized that the model par excellence of a peacemaker is Jesus Christ. “Where can we find inspiration and strength to welcome everyone if not in the life of Jesus?” he said.
It is good to take time for prayer at association meetings, he told the group, but living out the Christian life goes further.
“Assuming a Christian style means growing in familiarity with the Lord and in the spirit of the Gospel,” the pope said, “so that it may permeate everything we do and our action have the style of Christ and make him present in the world.”
“In the face of cultural visions that threaten to nullify the beauty of human dignity and tear society apart, I invite you to cultivate ‘a new dream of fraternity and social friendship that is not limited to words,’” he emphasized, quoting his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti.
Pope Francis also praised the association for promoting democracy.
A democratic society, he said, is one “in which there really is a place for everyone, in factual reality and not just in declarations and on paper.”
This event more than anything else made me lose respect for Pope Leo. He gave credence to a complete fraud of a LARPing female bishop who advocates for heretical and gravely evil things. What for? Receive her in a private audience as a courtesy, perhaps. But to put on such a public show that appears to validate her claim to ordination and office? Preposterous and scandalous. Pope Leo, I respect you no more.
His strange actions are on all fronts:
Counter-Islamists Accuse Vatican of Promoting ‘Islamophobia’ Regime Catholics Join in Protesting Holy See’s and U.S. Bishops’ Use of Ideological Term
A global organization monitoring Islamism has reprimanded the Vatican for embracing the disputed term “Islamophobia” while turning a blind eye to the threat of Islamic ideology, Sharia, and the persecution of Christians in Muslim nations.
The Center for the Study of Political Islam International (CSPII) issued a strongly worded statement on April 23 after the Vatican condemned the “persistence of Islamophobia” in an intervention at the United Nations marking the International Day to Combat Islamophobia.
Is there no end to their appeasement of Islam?
“While framed as a defense of universal liberty, the Vatican’s intervention adopts a highly contested political term—‘Islamophobia’—without addressing the ideological and legal dimensions of Islam that generate legitimate public concern,” CSPII warned. https://www.meforum.org/fwi/fwi-news/counter-islamists-accuse-vatican-of-promoting-islamophobia-regime
“First of all, I think it’s very important to understand that the unity or division of the Church should not revolve around sexual matters,” he said. “We tend to think that when the Church is talking about morality, that the only issue of morality is sexual, and in reality, I believe there are much greater and more important issues, such as justice, the equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion, that would all take priority before that particular issue.”
His pontifications prioritize Marxist Liberation Theology, not Holy Scripture or even St. Augustine, the patron of his order:
Romans 1:26-27
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a]
10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. AND SAINT AUGUSTINE:
“Those sins which are against nature, like those of the men of Sodom, are in all times and places to be detested and punished. Even if all nations committed such sins, they should all alike be held guilty by God’s law” (Confessions 3.8).
The Holy Father refers to the Anglicans distinctly and correctly as a “communion” and not as a “church,” and then we also read of its: “…significant theological and ecumenical divides… particularly regarding the ordination of women and sexuality.”
In the first instance, the vocabulary reflects the clarity of Vatican II and the follow-up “Dominus Iesus” (August 6, 2000) regarding the absence of valid Holy Orders in “ecclesial communions” that have historically amputated themselves from the sacramentality of the Apostolic Succession. In the second instance, within the Anglican ecclesial communion some 80 percent of Anglicans do not recognize Canterberry’s (female…and laywoman) Mullally nor the Anglican blessing of gay “marriages.”
Meanwhile, in the Catholic Church a similar divide lingers over the doublespeak half-blessing of gay couples as “couples” (Fiducia Supplicans). A wording slippery slope predictably now being fully Anglicanized by der Synodal Weg. And, which was called out early by the Catholic Church in all of continental Africa, and in Poland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Peru, Kazakhstan, and parts of Argentina, France and Spain, and by others.
But, yes, to Pope Leo’s steps of “hospitality” as a form of “ministry”…
But how, exactly, to fully witness and evangelize a fallen world now in freefall? It’s almost as if words matter, and as if marginalized Natural Law—moral theology and sexual “ethics”— is the canary in a coal mine.
The Church has to inform even declare that in spite of hospitality some things are deviations from truth and well-being and remain integrally un-Christian that can’t attain the “being Christian together”.
Tell them to look at the muddles in their own “societies” and their own patterns in psychological badgering that hard or soft don’t make anything right and can’t.
You’re a confused man Brother. Phony gestures of solidarity with influential “Christians” forcefully advocating crimes against humanity is a crime against humanity in itself.
Forgive them, Father, for they should know better. And shame on the author for calling her archbishop. In charity, she’s a confused woman. It’s not different than calling her a man or husband, for that is what an archbishop is: the manly husband of his bride the (local) church.
Since Robert Prevost chose to insinuate himself into American politics, I no longer have faith in him as a spiritual leader (NB I am NOT saying that Robert Prevost is not the Pope).
An extremely unfortunate (to use a very mild term) event. I agree that as a courtesy the pope could have had a private meeting with her. But the big hoopla surrounding this visit just gives impetus to indifferentism – one faith as good as another. The treatment given to her makes it seem that she has valid orders.
I mean no offense to women, but in her full “bishops” garb she looks like someone going to a Halloween costume party.
Classic damned if you do damned if you don’t. Although, at closer exam, is that in the end false?
Protocol demands Leo Meets with a woman who represents a Church fallen into the embrace of radical progressive irreligiosity. Anglicanism no longer represents Christ’s revelation to the world. In a real sense its religiosity is on par with the German ‘Catholic’ Synodaler Weg.
Benefit in Leo XIV meeting with Mullally is the image of magnanimity. An expected politeness. That the Catholic Church is big enough to be tolerant. After all, the Church meets with Muslim leadership.
Then there’s the opposing perception of tolerance that borders on complacency, a form of accommodation. Accommodation to worldly values was evident in Leo’s predecessor. Leo claims discipleship.
If weighed in the balance the difference here is a Church that once validly, at least in common beliefs with Catholic Christianity, represented Christianity. That has changed. Anglicanism now represents the digressive process of the repudiation of what Christ revealed to the world. In that context, particularly in consideration of a like tendency to dilute Christ’s message within our Church it would have been better to offer a polite refusal. Perhaps a compromise proposal to privately meet with Mullally if and when the Pope visits Britain.
@Donald. The Supreme Governor of the Church of England is the King or Queen of England. This impetus for the beginning of the C of E was Henry VIII’s desire to commit adultery, which he did. She was later beheaded and Henry married a third time. My guess is the Holy Spirit was not around for Henry’s second and third marriages
BY the time of Henry VIII’s third marriage to Jane Seymour, his first two wives were dead, so he was canonically free to enter a new union. He didn’t pursue reconciliation with Rome then because he’d already confiscated the monasteries.
A long-winded retired and resident Monsignor made a rare appearance at the ambo in my parish, but then put us all at ease: “As Henry VIII said to each of his six wives, I won’t keep you long…”
WIKIPEDIA has a graphic showing the lifespan of Catharine of Aragon relative to Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour. If you wish to do all the reading needed you will see there is clear evidence that the King was involved with Seymour during the life of his wife and during his adultery with Boleyn. A pattern with all the future women -constantly abusing women.
It could possibly be that while he was involved with Boleyn before Catherine had died, he was also involved with Seymour.
Henry VIII had an illegitimate child Henry FitzRoy born 1519, by Elizabeth Blount. He died 1536. She died 1540. Apparently the King had kept up relations with her for as many as 8 years until she got married to another in 1522.
I think Henry VIII had a kind of “confidence: he could and would have a male heir for whom he would arrange the inheritance of the Kingdom at any cost. He demonstrated he had no respect for women which fell also onto his true wife and sacrament, hatred that gave him into rage at the Church and murder.
Pope Prevost will only NOT meet with those for whom Catholic orthodoxy is preeminent in their spirituality.
I succumbed to Francis-Fatigue with the previous occupant of Peter’s Chair. I now sense an incipient case of the same syndrome with the current one. I guess it will remain for orthodox laity to preserve the patrimony of the Catholic faith. Our prelates are not up to the task. They’re too busy jumping into bed with Moloch.
Finally, in refusing to meet with the SSPX while meeting with and praying the Liturgy of the Hours with Ms Mullally mean that what she represents is acceptable and that the SSPX does not?
Add to this that an entire national Church now called the Synodaler Weg drifting off into something akin to congregationalism our Christian world has become a bewildering wilderness. Fortuitously and miraculously it appears Protestant converts to the faith are presenting, as evident in the editors of Catholic websites a growing light in the enveloping darkness.
We might muse, did the Reformation contain some mysterious alter purpose to be revealed centuries later among a unique corps of men with the complete sense of analytic freedom to research and discover where and what the truth is?
Quote: Finally, in refusing to meet with the SSPX while meeting with and praying the Liturgy of the Hours with Ms Mullally mean that what she represents is acceptable and that the SSPX does not?
Yes. It is a fake and easy “unity” which is not based in Christ that feels good and comfortable.
I do not idealize trads and know only basics about SSPX but they are straight Catholics. They have their own temptation, of swapping Christ with various “trad things” and many already went for that, refusing to criticize PL in exchange for his preservation of their little “trad ghetto”. But SSPX seems not to belong to that category, at this point at least. They will fall however if they begin to put their “traditionalism” above Christ, being attached to it more than to Our Lord.
The true basis for unity, Christ, exposes the fake unity based on “niceness” and “all-acceptance”. Hence, the true unity together with Christ must go away. This is, in a nutshell, what is happening now. This process will speed up and increase in magnitude.
As I see it, the would and the Church are tested now re: Christ, their attitude to Him (and to the Truth and true Love, for those who do not believe in Him but have conscience). Only putting Him above and beyond anything and clinging on Him will do.
Finally, in refusing to meet with the SSPX while meeting with and praying the Liturgy of the Hours with Ms Mullally mean that what she represents is acceptable and that the SSPX does not?
Add to this that an entire national Church now called the Synodaler Weg drifting off into something akin to congregationalism our Christian world has become a bewildering wilderness. Fortuitously and miraculously it appears Protestant converts to the faith are presenting, as evident in the editors of Catholic websites a growing light in the enveloping darkness.
We might muse, did the Reformation contain some mysterious alter purpose to be revealed centuries later among a unique corps of men with the complete sense of analytic freedom to research and discover where and what the truth is? That God might turn the tables on Satan and draw some good from evil?
I look at the CofE episcopacy as children playing dress-up. The old saw “smells and bells”.
Some years ago a coworker, an attorney who did pro bono work for the Episcopal community, conceded his concern for the future of it, and this was before its surrender to new temporal powers.
Very sad indeed. Yes the Pope is a very kind and good man, and yet I wonder what the great English martyrs of the 1535-1681 period view this? They took would look and react with sadness. Would the pope meet someone who dressed up as Napoleon, of course not! And yet he gives this woman who dresses up as a “bishop” and whose orders were declared by his named predessor as null and utterly void!!!?? With respect, Holiness I would have used the time by meeting with the SSpx that with this clown, who actually didn’t think it was worth her time to vote in the recent parliament decision to bring in infanticide! Again, such a sad photo 😢
By 
This event more than anything else made me lose respect for Pope Leo. He gave credence to a complete fraud of a LARPing female bishop who advocates for heretical and gravely evil things. What for? Receive her in a private audience as a courtesy, perhaps. But to put on such a public show that appears to validate her claim to ordination and office? Preposterous and scandalous. Pope Leo, I respect you no more.
His strange actions are on all fronts:
Counter-Islamists Accuse Vatican of Promoting ‘Islamophobia’ Regime Catholics Join in Protesting Holy See’s and U.S. Bishops’ Use of Ideological Term
A global organization monitoring Islamism has reprimanded the Vatican for embracing the disputed term “Islamophobia” while turning a blind eye to the threat of Islamic ideology, Sharia, and the persecution of Christians in Muslim nations.
The Center for the Study of Political Islam International (CSPII) issued a strongly worded statement on April 23 after the Vatican condemned the “persistence of Islamophobia” in an intervention at the United Nations marking the International Day to Combat Islamophobia.
Is there no end to their appeasement of Islam?
“While framed as a defense of universal liberty, the Vatican’s intervention adopts a highly contested political term—‘Islamophobia’—without addressing the ideological and legal dimensions of Islam that generate legitimate public concern,” CSPII warned.
https://www.meforum.org/fwi/fwi-news/counter-islamists-accuse-vatican-of-promoting-islamophobia-regime
“First of all, I think it’s very important to understand that the unity or division of the Church should not revolve around sexual matters,” he said. “We tend to think that when the Church is talking about morality, that the only issue of morality is sexual, and in reality, I believe there are much greater and more important issues, such as justice, the equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion, that would all take priority before that particular issue.”
His pontifications prioritize Marxist Liberation Theology, not Holy Scripture or even St. Augustine, the patron of his order:
Romans 1:26-27
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a]
10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. AND SAINT AUGUSTINE:
“Those sins which are against nature, like those of the men of Sodom, are in all times and places to be detested and punished. Even if all nations committed such sins, they should all alike be held guilty by God’s law” (Confessions 3.8).
An Imam, a woman Protestant “Bishop” and a Pope all entered a bar at the same time. Which one of these three was Catholic.
(Gold Medal of the Day to anyone who gets the answer corret)
Not a one for $1000, Alex.
Well, if the pope was Pius V, it was the pope. Then again, maybe there was good Irish bartender too.
Is that real gold?
None, as in 0.00, of these pagans, heretics, and apostates
The Holy Father refers to the Anglicans distinctly and correctly as a “communion” and not as a “church,” and then we also read of its: “…significant theological and ecumenical divides… particularly regarding the ordination of women and sexuality.”
In the first instance, the vocabulary reflects the clarity of Vatican II and the follow-up “Dominus Iesus” (August 6, 2000) regarding the absence of valid Holy Orders in “ecclesial communions” that have historically amputated themselves from the sacramentality of the Apostolic Succession. In the second instance, within the Anglican ecclesial communion some 80 percent of Anglicans do not recognize Canterberry’s (female…and laywoman) Mullally nor the Anglican blessing of gay “marriages.”
Meanwhile, in the Catholic Church a similar divide lingers over the doublespeak half-blessing of gay couples as “couples” (Fiducia Supplicans). A wording slippery slope predictably now being fully Anglicanized by der Synodal Weg. And, which was called out early by the Catholic Church in all of continental Africa, and in Poland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Peru, Kazakhstan, and parts of Argentina, France and Spain, and by others.
But, yes, to Pope Leo’s steps of “hospitality” as a form of “ministry”…
But how, exactly, to fully witness and evangelize a fallen world now in freefall? It’s almost as if words matter, and as if marginalized Natural Law—moral theology and sexual “ethics”— is the canary in a coal mine.
The Church has to inform even declare that in spite of hospitality some things are deviations from truth and well-being and remain integrally un-Christian that can’t attain the “being Christian together”.
Tell them to look at the muddles in their own “societies” and their own patterns in psychological badgering that hard or soft don’t make anything right and can’t.
What’s there to talk about?
You’re a confused man Brother. Phony gestures of solidarity with influential “Christians” forcefully advocating crimes against humanity is a crime against humanity in itself.
Forgive them, Father, for they should know better. And shame on the author for calling her archbishop. In charity, she’s a confused woman. It’s not different than calling her a man or husband, for that is what an archbishop is: the manly husband of his bride the (local) church.
Since Robert Prevost chose to insinuate himself into American politics, I no longer have faith in him as a spiritual leader (NB I am NOT saying that Robert Prevost is not the Pope).
An extremely unfortunate (to use a very mild term) event. I agree that as a courtesy the pope could have had a private meeting with her. But the big hoopla surrounding this visit just gives impetus to indifferentism – one faith as good as another. The treatment given to her makes it seem that she has valid orders.
I mean no offense to women, but in her full “bishops” garb she looks like someone going to a Halloween costume party.
Surely, for the 2 people in the photograph, DAVID AXELROD IS THE WAY.
Classic damned if you do damned if you don’t. Although, at closer exam, is that in the end false?
Protocol demands Leo Meets with a woman who represents a Church fallen into the embrace of radical progressive irreligiosity. Anglicanism no longer represents Christ’s revelation to the world. In a real sense its religiosity is on par with the German ‘Catholic’ Synodaler Weg.
Benefit in Leo XIV meeting with Mullally is the image of magnanimity. An expected politeness. That the Catholic Church is big enough to be tolerant. After all, the Church meets with Muslim leadership.
Then there’s the opposing perception of tolerance that borders on complacency, a form of accommodation. Accommodation to worldly values was evident in Leo’s predecessor. Leo claims discipleship.
If weighed in the balance the difference here is a Church that once validly, at least in common beliefs with Catholic Christianity, represented Christianity. That has changed. Anglicanism now represents the digressive process of the repudiation of what Christ revealed to the world. In that context, particularly in consideration of a like tendency to dilute Christ’s message within our Church it would have been better to offer a polite refusal. Perhaps a compromise proposal to privately meet with Mullally if and when the Pope visits Britain.
@Donald. The Supreme Governor of the Church of England is the King or Queen of England. This impetus for the beginning of the C of E was Henry VIII’s desire to commit adultery, which he did. She was later beheaded and Henry married a third time. My guess is the Holy Spirit was not around for Henry’s second and third marriages
BY the time of Henry VIII’s third marriage to Jane Seymour, his first two wives were dead, so he was canonically free to enter a new union. He didn’t pursue reconciliation with Rome then because he’d already confiscated the monasteries.
A long-winded retired and resident Monsignor made a rare appearance at the ambo in my parish, but then put us all at ease: “As Henry VIII said to each of his six wives, I won’t keep you long…”
Please clarify: Were his first two wives dead because he had them murdered? If so, I not certain he’d be “free” to marry another.
Katharine of Aragon wasn’t murdered – though I don’t imagine being put under terrible stress for years helped her health.
WIKIPEDIA has a graphic showing the lifespan of Catharine of Aragon relative to Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour. If you wish to do all the reading needed you will see there is clear evidence that the King was involved with Seymour during the life of his wife and during his adultery with Boleyn. A pattern with all the future women -constantly abusing women.
It could possibly be that while he was involved with Boleyn before Catherine had died, he was also involved with Seymour.
Henry VIII had an illegitimate child Henry FitzRoy born 1519, by Elizabeth Blount. He died 1536. She died 1540. Apparently the King had kept up relations with her for as many as 8 years until she got married to another in 1522.
I think Henry VIII had a kind of “confidence: he could and would have a male heir for whom he would arrange the inheritance of the Kingdom at any cost. He demonstrated he had no respect for women which fell also onto his true wife and sacrament, hatred that gave him into rage at the Church and murder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wives_of_Henry_VIII
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Blount
Pope Prevost will only NOT meet with those for whom Catholic orthodoxy is preeminent in their spirituality.
I succumbed to Francis-Fatigue with the previous occupant of Peter’s Chair. I now sense an incipient case of the same syndrome with the current one. I guess it will remain for orthodox laity to preserve the patrimony of the Catholic faith. Our prelates are not up to the task. They’re too busy jumping into bed with Moloch.
Finally, in refusing to meet with the SSPX while meeting with and praying the Liturgy of the Hours with Ms Mullally mean that what she represents is acceptable and that the SSPX does not?
Add to this that an entire national Church now called the Synodaler Weg drifting off into something akin to congregationalism our Christian world has become a bewildering wilderness. Fortuitously and miraculously it appears Protestant converts to the faith are presenting, as evident in the editors of Catholic websites a growing light in the enveloping darkness.
We might muse, did the Reformation contain some mysterious alter purpose to be revealed centuries later among a unique corps of men with the complete sense of analytic freedom to research and discover where and what the truth is?
Quote: Finally, in refusing to meet with the SSPX while meeting with and praying the Liturgy of the Hours with Ms Mullally mean that what she represents is acceptable and that the SSPX does not?
Yes. It is a fake and easy “unity” which is not based in Christ that feels good and comfortable.
I do not idealize trads and know only basics about SSPX but they are straight Catholics. They have their own temptation, of swapping Christ with various “trad things” and many already went for that, refusing to criticize PL in exchange for his preservation of their little “trad ghetto”. But SSPX seems not to belong to that category, at this point at least. They will fall however if they begin to put their “traditionalism” above Christ, being attached to it more than to Our Lord.
The true basis for unity, Christ, exposes the fake unity based on “niceness” and “all-acceptance”. Hence, the true unity together with Christ must go away. This is, in a nutshell, what is happening now. This process will speed up and increase in magnitude.
As I see it, the would and the Church are tested now re: Christ, their attitude to Him (and to the Truth and true Love, for those who do not believe in Him but have conscience). Only putting Him above and beyond anything and clinging on Him will do.
Finally, in refusing to meet with the SSPX while meeting with and praying the Liturgy of the Hours with Ms Mullally mean that what she represents is acceptable and that the SSPX does not?
Add to this that an entire national Church now called the Synodaler Weg drifting off into something akin to congregationalism our Christian world has become a bewildering wilderness. Fortuitously and miraculously it appears Protestant converts to the faith are presenting, as evident in the editors of Catholic websites a growing light in the enveloping darkness.
We might muse, did the Reformation contain some mysterious alter purpose to be revealed centuries later among a unique corps of men with the complete sense of analytic freedom to research and discover where and what the truth is? That God might turn the tables on Satan and draw some good from evil?
I look at the CofE episcopacy as children playing dress-up. The old saw “smells and bells”.
Some years ago a coworker, an attorney who did pro bono work for the Episcopal community, conceded his concern for the future of it, and this was before its surrender to new temporal powers.
Very sad indeed. Yes the Pope is a very kind and good man, and yet I wonder what the great English martyrs of the 1535-1681 period view this? They took would look and react with sadness. Would the pope meet someone who dressed up as Napoleon, of course not! And yet he gives this woman who dresses up as a “bishop” and whose orders were declared by his named predessor as null and utterly void!!!?? With respect, Holiness I would have used the time by meeting with the SSpx that with this clown, who actually didn’t think it was worth her time to vote in the recent parliament decision to bring in infanticide! Again, such a sad photo 😢