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| The Anselmianum Distances Itself From Its Own Professor, Andrea Grillo |
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Posted by: Stone - 06-26-2025, 03:59 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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The Anselmianum Distances Itself From Its Own Professor, Andrea Grillo
![[Image: i777fdm5pvfmumra6q2d2xe8nkuwkwn1qv9cmb5....63&webp=on]](https://seedus3932.gloriatv.net/storage1/i777fdm5pvfmumra6q2d2xe8nkuwkwn1qv9cmb5.webp?secure=wXtn3Xp3TMcuIBxcnrFOJg&expires=1750999763&webp=on)
gloria.tv | June 25, 2025
The Pontifical University Atheneum of Saint Anselm in Rome has distanced itself from Andrea Grillo, a layman and professor of sacramental theology at the university.
Grillo is believed to have played a key role in drafting Francis' document Traditionis Custodes.
On June 17, Grillo wrote on CittaDellaEditrice.com an article mocking Carlo Acutis for his veneration of the Blessed Sacrament: "Should this form of grave Eucharistic miseducation perhaps become, through Carlo who was its first victim, a model to propose to all young people? Are we seriously joking?"
On 23 June, Pro-Rector Father Laurentius Eschlböck OSB wrote on Anselmianum.com:
Quote:"We resolutely distance ourselves from what is individually expressed by professors who, in their personal capacity and under their sole and full responsibility, publish on their sites or blogs, theses, opinions or personal positions."
These positions "do not represent what is taught in the various faculties of our Athenaeum, which welcomes and transmits, in full trust and obedience of faith - in the perspective of a healthy dialectic on which true theological research is based - the teaching of the Church and the Roman Pontiff."
Father Eschlböck did not mention Grillo by name. Thus, the ridiculing of the Eucharist at the institution will continue.
See also the following from Rorate Caeli: His Own University is Now Against Him: Andrea Grillo, Francis' Liturgist and the Father of Traditionis Custodes, Hates the Eucharist and Must Have His Imprint Erased
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| Pope Leo appoints Cardinal Roche, same-sex ‘blessing’ supporters to Dicastery for Consecrated Life |
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Posted by: Stone - 06-25-2025, 07:48 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Pope Leo appoints Cardinal Roche, same-sex ‘blessing’ supporters to Dicastery for Consecrated Life
The new members include 5 cardinals – including Cardinal Arthur Roche – 5 bishops, 4 priests, 4 religious women, and one lay woman.
![[Image: spengler-roche.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/spengler-roche.jpg)
Cardinals Spengler (L) and Roche ®
Michael Haynes/© Mazur/cbcew.org.uk
Jun 24, 2025
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews [slightly adapted, not all hyperlinks included from original article]) — Pope Leo XIV today appointed members to the Vatican office overseeing religious orders and the Latin Mass communities, including some cardinals who have opposed the traditional Mass and supported blessings for same-sex couples.
As outlined in the Holy See Press Office bulletin on June 24, Leo XIV appointed 19 new members to the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (DICLSAL).
The new members include five cardinals, five bishops, four priests, four religious woman and one lay woman.
Among the cardinals are certain notable figures, such as:
- Cardinal Arthur Roche: prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship under Pope Francis who led the late pontiff’s charge against the traditional Mass and enforced restrictions on it.
- Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero: Archbishop of Rabat who has supported blessings for same-sex couples in light of Fiducia Supplicans, adding that synodality is a “prophetic sign” for the world and that opponents of its decisions are “morally obligated to support” them.
- Cardinal Giorgio Marengo: the second youngest cardinal and the Apostolic Prefect of Ulaanbaatar, the Catholic territory encompassing Mongolia numbering around 1,000 Catholics.
- Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa: Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, famous for offering himself as a hostage exchange in 2023 and considered papabile in the May 2025 conclave.
- Cardinal Jaime Spengler: Archbishop of Porto Alegre and president of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil along with the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM). Spengler has given mixed messages about his support for the highly controversial Amazon rite while also supporting Fiducia Supplicans’ blessings for same-sex couples.
- Other non-cardinalatial appointments to the dicastery include male and female religious superiors, along with Luisa Muston, a lay woman who leads the secular institute called the Missionaries of the Infirm “Christ the Hope.”
It is quite normal for cardinals to be appointed to various offices of the Roman Curia, particularly so for those who are already working in the Curia or who have occasion to be in Rome more frequently.
On May 9, Pope Leo already requested all Curia leaders, members, and secretaries to remain temporarily in place until further notice, meaning that a notable number of cardinals are already members of the dicastery.
But the names nevertheless always contain significance and can highlight preferences identified by the reigning Pontiff for particular Roman offices.
Pizzaballa is perceived as a conservative member of the College of Cardinals, as is Marengo, while others named by the Pope today would align more with liberal or “moderate” sectors on varying issues.
Roche is already prominent and well known for his opposition to the traditional Mass.
But Spengler and Romero have gained less notoriety in the English-speaking world. Romero was raised to the episcopate by Pope Francis in 2018, made cardinal in 2019, and participated most recently in the Synod on Synodality.
After Fiducia Supplicans and the furor over blessing same-sex couples, Romero deviated from the Africa-wide rejection of the document led by Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, and later defended his position on the text when asked by this correspondent.
The document became one of the most hotly contested of Pope Francis’ pontificate, with many theologians and prelates calling on Pope Leo to issue a formal clarification of the text.
Spengler has also defended the text. In a 2023 interview, he commented that that Church “can’t deny” blessings on same-sex couples, adding that the Church must “meet every authentically human need.”
More uniquely, Spengler has been linked to the controversial “Amazon rite” of the liturgy. Created a cardinal in December, Spengler told LifeSiteNews in October that married deacons and priests may be a help for regions with few priests, adding that the Amazon rite and indigenous inculturation of the liturgy is taking place in Brazil.
He confirmed that the local Amazonian bishops were “speaking of the possibility of a specific rite for the Amazon region – this is a fact.” However he also sought to link back to the universal Church, noting that “on the other hand there is also something that says the following guidance: today in the Latin Church we have the Roman rite and the Roman rite must be inculturated in the different realities.”
Speaking to The Pillar around the consistory in December, Spengler downplayed the idea of an Amazon rite or of female deacons and married clergy. Such questions, he said, “require further study.”
Continuing, he stated:
Quote:I always like to say that there is a single rite in the [Latin] Church: The Roman rite and this rite needs to be and is called to be adapted to the different cultural realities. Creating the conditions for this adaptation requires, I believe, the best means for us to find the necessary means for inculturation to happen harmoniously. It’s not a question of bringing in a rite from outside to make reality adapt to it. Moreover, how many cultures are there in that reality?
Increasingly prominent Vatican office
For a long time, the DICLSAL has flown somewhat under the radar, apart for those keen to stay abreast of Vatican affairs. But under Pope Francis, it became increasingly prominent, especially due to the document Cor Orans and Vultum Dei Quaerere, which ushered in tighter Vatican control over religious life and has been widely – though often quietly – used against convents and religious orders noted for being too traditional for the liking of Roman officials.
In addition to restricting already existing groups, a 2022 Rescript via the dicastery prevented diocesan bishops from autonomously establishing any groups of the faithful looking to become religious institutes or societies in a move which was described as an attempt to prevent any new traditional communities from being formed.
Not least in the reasons for the dicastery’s newfound prominence is the highly controversial appointment by Pope Francis of a religious woman – Sister Simona Brambilla, M.C. – as the prefect, rather than a cardinal, earlier this year. In order to attempt to satisfy the canonical requirement necessary when signing documents or wielding authority, Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime SDB was made the pro-prefect.
Since Pope Francis’ Latin Mass restrictions contained within Traditionis Custodes, Sr. Brambilla’s dicastery has key responsibility for overseeing the orders that celebrate the traditional Mass such as the Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), Institute of Christ the King Soverign Priest (CKSP), and Institute of the Good Shepherd (IBP).
The FSSP is currently undergoing an Apostolic Visitation from the dicastery after having a meeting in2022 with Pope Francis, who confirmed their constitutions and that they are exempt from the “general provisions” of Traditionis Custodes.
The arrival of a staunch anti-traditionalist figure such as Cardinal Roche to the dicastery will be key to observe what impact such an appointment has for the future of these traditional communities. It was only last year that Cardinal Gerhard Müller remarked that “a senior representative” from Roche’s office was dismayed to hear of the popularity of the Latin Mass Chartres pilgrimage, solely due to the traditional Mass being celebrated.
As of the past few weeks, the dicastery now has a female religious serving as secretary, a move welcomed by activists as a sign of continued female leadership in the Church under Leo.
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| The Catholic Trumpet: When Screens Replace Saints and Silence Replaces Shepherds |
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Posted by: Stone - 06-24-2025, 10:55 AM - Forum: The Catholic Trumpet
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When Screens Replace Saints and Silence Replaces Shepherds
![[Image: rs=w:1280]](https://img1.wsimg.com/isteam/ip/df55e1a9-c854-4d0b-a2a9-94177954436c/IMG_7029.png/:/cr=t:0%25,l:0%25,w:100%25,h:100%25/rs=w:1280)
The Catholic Trumpet [slightly adapted and reformatted] | June 23, 2025
I’ve stepped back from the complete touchscreen world.
The iPhone is gone. In its place: a CAT S22 Flip Phone, basic and blessedly boring—yet powerful enough to let me install apps like NewPipe, where I can still listen to Fr. Hewko, Fr. Ruiz, +Archbishop Lefebvre, and St. Alphonsus. But gone are the rabbit holes. Gone are the distractions. Gone is the sin-soaked scroll of Babylon.
What replaced it?
Better sleep. Sharper thought. More silence. Deeper prayer.
This one small change has helped push The Catholic Trumpet from screen to street. Every Sunday, our remnant here prays 15 decades of the Holy Rosary publicly—in reparation for sin and for the one request from Heaven that remains scorned: the 1929 Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in union with all the bishops of the world. It has not been done. We will not stop praying until it is.
If you want to step back into sanity, I suggest the CAT S22 Flip. It’s about $130 CAD—and worth every cent if it saves you even one mortal sin.
But this is not just about phones.
It’s about war.
It’s about priests—good priests who are now silent. Priests who once resisted Vatican II, but now ignore the betrayal of the Neo-SSPX, or worse, justify it. Priests who once red-lighted compromise, but now look the other way while souls attend Novus Ordo Masses, indult Masses, and sedevacantist chapels.
It’s about bishops who once stood with Lefebvre, but now seem to stand for nothing.
It’s time to write them. Call them. Warn them.
The priests and two bishops left in the Neo-SSPX must return to the uncompromising position of +Archbishop Lefebvre. And the priests and bishops orbiting Bishop Williamson—whose “resistance” long ago fell silent—must be reminded that silence in the face of error is betrayal.
A resistance that resists nothing is not a resistance.
I now lean toward a better name: The True Assistance. Because it assists Modernist Rome through its silence. It assists the betrayal by doing nothing. It assists confusion by speaking in riddles while Rome burns.
Let us be honest: Bishop Williamson was once a lion. A voice for truth. But around 2013, the voice faltered. He began promoting alleged miracles in the Novus Ordo, softening his critique of the Neo-SSPX, tolerating indult, sedevacantist, and even Novus Ordo masses. The fire became a whisper. The resistance became an observation deck.
But this is not the time for observations.
This is the time for saints.
But if I’m being honest, there’s something deeper that’s been haunting me lately. A common denominator I keep seeing in Catholics who are sliding into compromise—good people, even priests—is this:
smartphone reliance, and use.
It’s become a kind of “necessary evil” for many. And in some cases, perhaps it is. But the real evil is that we’ve stopped calling it evil. We’ve stopped fighting it. We’ve stopped guarding our souls and our homes.
We are desensitized, addicted, distracted—and wide open to influence.
Even good Catholics spend hours scrolling, absorbing modernist moods, tolerating filth in the name of “information” or “balance.” And slowly, the fire fades. The clarity dims. The prayers shrink. The resistance dies.
I don’t take the puritan view that all technology is evil—there is good tech. But when nearly every major doorway into a Catholic’s home has become a glowing portal to sin, softness, compromise, and confusion, the line must be drawn.
This isn’t just my own opinion. One priest saw it long before the smartphone even existed. And his words have been ringing in my conscience like a thunderclap.
As Fr. Frank Poncelet warned:
Quote:“The priest… must come to an honest recognition of the primary avenue to the destruction of souls in his Catholic homes… the television set. And he must continually point out to his parishioners that acceptance of TV entertainment is simply not compatible with the Christian life of spirituality.”
“The disintegration of real Catholic culture has been a slow process begun two generations back… thanks to the constant depiction—in an entertainment mode—of immoral acts… now pass[ing] for commonplace… even among those claiming religious convictions.”
“We cannot hide from basic Catholic moral laws forever. And the sins that are most easily committed, and which involve most grievous matter, are also the sins most exploited on television—those against chastity and purity.”
The medium has changed.
But the evil is the same.
And we’ve grown far more silent.
If this doesn’t make priests, fathers, and faithful souls tremble—it should.
We can not be spectators in this war.
We must be soldiers.
We either resist, or we assist and cooperate.
We either pray publicly, or we betray silently.
We either speak the truth, or we assist the lie.
Choose the Rosary.
Reject the screen.
Contact the priests.
Confront the silence.
And never, ever compromise.
✠ A. Mari Servus
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| Why Ambiguity Was the Most Lethal Weapon of Vatican II’s Architects |
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Posted by: Stone - 06-23-2025, 08:28 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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Why Ambiguity Was the Most Lethal Weapon of Vatican II’s Architects
![[Image: dce6b5a9f1745e17161ec4cff0eb6fe3_L.jpg]](https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/media/k2/items/cache/dce6b5a9f1745e17161ec4cff0eb6fe3_L.jpg)
Robert Morrison | June 20, 2025
Every single ambiguity of Vatican II tended to undermine Catholic teaching in precisely the way against which the pre-Vatican II popes emphatically warned. This is not mere coincidence. Moreover, the presence of so much ambiguity fundamentally undermines the Catholic Church’s role as truth-teller. The Church obviously knew how to speak clearly and unambiguously on all of the matters that have become so contentious after the Council.
In his 2024 book Flee From Heresy: A Catholic Guide to Ancient and Modern Errors, Bishop Athanasius Schneider provided the following question and answer regarding how Vatican II differs from previous ecumenical councils:
“What was the key difference between Vatican II and all previous ecumenical councils? The previous ecumenical councils formulated the doctrine of faith and morals in articles with the clearest possible assertions, and in concise canons with anathemas, to guarantee an unambiguous understanding of the true doctrine and protect the faithful from heretical influences within or outside the Church. Vatican II, however, chose not to do this.”
... While it is still too early to know whether Pope Leo XIV would cooperate with God’s grace to make the necessary corrections to rectify Vatican II’s ambiguities, it is worth considering why ambiguity was the most lethal weapon of Vatican II’s architects.
In his One Hundred Years of Modernism, Fr. Dominique Bourmaud discussed the evidence we have that the architects of Vatican II employed ambiguity deliberately:
“We could cite a hundred cases of such ambiguity, which was in fact premeditated, as Fr. Laurentin explained: “Here and there, ambiguity was cultivated as an escape from inextricable oppositions. One could lengthen the list of such wordings encompassing opposing tendencies, because they could be looked at from both sides just like those photographic tricks whereby you see two different people in the same picture depending on the angle you look at it. For this reason, Vatican II already has given, and will continue to give rise to many controversies.’”
Fr. Laurentin’s image of the photographic trick is quite revealing because he and others were truly attempting to trick the well-meaning Council Fathers into accepting passages that could be read with an anti-Catholic meaning. The liberals could do this only by persuading these Council Fathers that the passages could also be read with a seemingly orthodox meaning.
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre opposed this effort with his November 27, 1962 intervention at Vatican II, in which he encouraged his fellow Council Fathers to express the Council’s teaching in a “dogmatic and scholastic” form that would help promote precision of thought and expression:
“It is of the highest importance that ‘the whole of traditional Christian doctrine be received in that exact manner, both in thought and form, which is above all resplendent in the Acts of the Council of Trent and of Vatican I,’ according to the very words of the Sovereign Pontiff. So for these very important reasons, it is absolutely essential to maintain these two objectives: to express doctrine in a dogmatic and scholastic form for the training of the learned; and to present the truth in a more pastoral way, for the instruction of other men.” (I Accuse the Council!, p. 5)
Archbishop Lefebvre proceeded to suggest two sets of documents: “one more dogmatic, for the use of theologians; the other more pastoral in tone, for the use of others, whether Catholic, non-catholic or non-Christian.” As Archbishop Lefebvre recounted, the proposal was not well-received:
“The proposal met, however, with violent opposition: ‘The Council is not a dogmatic but a pastoral one; we are not seeking to define new dogmas but to put forward the truth in a pastoral way.” (I Accuse the Council!, p. 4)
All throughout the history of the Catholic Church, theologians have worked to make Catholic teaching more and more clear, accurate, and complete. At Vatican II, this clarity was sacrificed in the name of a “pastoral” approach. In hindsight, we now know that this pastoral aspect of the Council has only yielded confusion and apostasy. Unfortunately, though, the pastoral aspect of the Council persuaded the Council Fathers to allow for ambiguous expressions.
Although Archbishop Lefebvre lost the battle of trying to have the Council express its teaching in a “dogmatic and scholastic” form that would have prevented ambiguities, he did not surrender in his attempts to counteract heterodoxy. One of the most illuminating passages written about Vatican II is from Archbishop Lefebvre’s They Have Uncrowned Him, in which he describes his work to oppose the liberal theologians:
“It is certain that with the 250 conciliar fathers of the Coetus we tried with all the means put at our disposal to keep the liberal errors from being expressed in the texts of the Council. This meant that we were able all the same to limit the damage, to change these inexact or tendentious assertions, to add that sentence to rectify a tendentious proposition, an ambiguous expression. But I have to admit that we did not succeed in purifying the Council of the liberal and modernist spirit impregnating most of the schemas. Their drafters indeed were precisely the experts and the Fathers tainted with this spirit.” (p. 167)
We cannot think properly about the Council if we do not grasp these crucial insights from Archbishop Lefebvre. The initial drafts of the Council’s documents were more liberal than those that were ultimately accepted. Going back to the image from Fr. Laurentin, it was much easier to the see the liberal picture in the initial documents. But the final documents did not efface the liberal pictures; rather, they added to the orthodox pictures that could be seen within the same passages.
Archbishop Lefebvre continued:
“What we were able to do was, by the modi that we introduced, to have interpolated clauses added to the schemas; and this is quite obvious: it suffices to compare the first schema on religious liberty with the fifth one the was written — for this document was five times rejected and five times brought back for discussion — in order to see that succeeded just the same in reducing the subjectivism that tainted the first drafts. . . . [In this declaration,] Dignitatis humanae, of which the last schema was rejected by numerous Fathers, Paul VI himself had a paragraph added which said in substance: ‘This declaration contains nothing that is contrary to tradition.’ But everything that is inside is contrary to tradition! Thus someone will say, ‘Just read it! It is written, There is nothing contrary to tradition’ — well, yes, it is written. But that does not stop everything from being contrary to tradition! And that sentence was added at the last minute by the Pope in order to force the hand of those — in particular the Spanish bishops — who were opposed to this schema. . . Well, let us be logical! They changed nothing in the text!” (pp. 167-169)
So all of these efforts to make the documents more orthodox ultimately served the purpose of allowing the Council Fathers to grow comfortable enough to approve the ambiguous documents that could still be read in a heterodox manner. And, indeed, the statement added at the direction of Paul VI did not change the reality that the authors of the document intended to interpret it in a heterodox manner.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger corroborated all of this in his Theological Highlights of Vatican II, in which he described the same last-minute addition to Dignitatis Humanae:
“Most controversial was the third newly emphasized aspect. The text attempts to emphasize continuity in the statements of the official Church on this issue. It also says that it ‘leaves intact the traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and communities toward the true religion and the only Church of Christ’ (n. 1). The term ‘duty’ here has doubtful application to communities in their relation to the Church. Later on in the Declaration, the text itself corrects and modifies these earlier statements, offering something new, something that is quite different from what is found, for example, in the statements of Pius XI and Pius XII. It would have been better to omit these compromising formulas or to reformulate them in line with the later text. Thus the introduction changes nothing in the text's content; therefore, we need not regard it as anything more than a minor flaw.”
As Michael Davies explained in his The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty (p. 205), Ratzinger was mistaken about the chronology of text added by Paul VI. However, the future Benedict XVI was entirely correct about that fact that the body of the Declaration actually contradicts the teaching of Pius XI and Pius XII.
Benedict XVI would later encourage faithful Catholics to read Vatican II documents in light of Tradition (i.e., the hermeneutic of continuity), and we can assume he was entirely honorable in his intentions. However, such an exercise could only be effective if it fully accounts for the most salient reality: namely, that the Council’s texts were tainted with ambiguities that leave open the possibility to see the liberal meanings that were actually intended by the men who drafted the documents. Without this recognition, the hermeneutic of continuity can only “succeed” by persuading Catholics to abandon reason.
But there is more that could be said against the ambiguities of Vatican II. Whereas it was theoretically possible that every ambiguity could have gone in a more rigorous direction that offended liberal sensibilities, the indisputable reality is that every single ambiguity tended to undermine Catholic teaching in precisely the way against which the pre-Vatican II popes emphatically warned. This is not mere coincidence.
Moreover, the presence of so much ambiguity fundamentally undermines the Catholic Church’s role as truth-teller. The Church obviously knew how to speak clearly and unambiguously on all of the matters that have become so contentious after the Council. The Council Fathers were perfectly capable of speaking even more clearly about the same issues. And yet, in the eyes of all rational readers, they abandoned the clarity and certainty of past statements. In so doing, the Council compromised the Church’s authority in the eyes of Catholic and non-Catholics alike.
Finally, we can see that it avails little for certain scholars to be able to hold the interpretive keys that allow them to read the documents in a quasi-orthodox manner when the vast majority of Catholics have no such knowledge. Countless souls have apostatized over the past sixty years because they see the picture of the Council as Fr. Laurentin explained: they either see a picture that is entirely heterodox, or one that is ambiguous (nobody sees anything that is unambiguously orthodox). And so they either think the Church has changed its teaching or else forfeited its doctrinal authority.
The only solution is to ... affirm the Church’s true teaching. May God grant Pope Leo XIV the grace to do this.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
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| Destruction Reached after 12 Years of Francis |
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Posted by: Stone - 06-23-2025, 06:50 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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TIA [slightly adapted and reformatted] | Posted June 18, 2025
The Bergoglian Age in numbers: In ancient Christian countries, but not only, the number of Catholics is declining.
Of course, there are many reasons for this, such as secularization, urbanization, competition from competing ideologies and religions, and the unravelling of family units and traditional values in many places. But the statistics point to a worrying acceleration since the start of Pope Francis' pontificate, particularly in places where bishops and, indeed, the Church as a whole, pride themselves on their progressivism and their entry into the 'marvellous' synodality.
Germany loses 500,000 Catholics a year
A prime example is Germany, spearhead of progressivism in the Church, whose dioceses are, along with the United States, the Vatican's main source of money. In August 2024, Riposte Catholique published statistics on “church exits” in Germany, showing that while their bishops are fleeing ahead in a less and less Catholic “synodal path,” German Catholics are losing interest in their religion:
“Church departures declined compared to last year: 402,694, to be compared with the 2022 figure of 522,821 departures, but the statistical office notes that this is nevertheless the second-highest figure in the history of church departure statistics. If one adds 'deaths, entries and moves,' the number of Church members in Germany has fallen by 591,718. At national level, the statistics still count around 20.3 million Catholics at the reference date of December 31, 2023. A year earlier, the figure was still 20.94 million.
![[Image: P066_Ger.png]](https://traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_m-q/P066_Ger.png)
The decline in German Catholics jumped dramatically in recent years
As there are also 18.56 million Protestants in Germany, the majority of Germans are no longer Christian - or rather, no longer officially attached to one of the country's main Christian churches. As a reminder, in 2020 Germany still had 22 million Catholics and 20 million Protestants for a population of 83 million. The decline of the Catholic population can also be seen in another statistic, shared by Katolisch.de on July 9: “In 2011, there were still 23 cities with a Catholic majority in Germany. Now only Münster, Paderborn, Bottrop and Trier remain. In Regensburg and Ingolstadt, for example, the proportion of Catholics has fallen by almost a quarter”
Above all, church departures are accelerating, in line with the dynamics of the “German Synodal Way” and thus with the line of thought promoted by Pope Francis: “if in 2010 181,000 Catholics and 141,000 Protestants had left their churches, in 2020 they were 221,000 and 220,000 respectively.
In 2011, there were 24.07 million Catholics and 23.37 million Protestants - the two religions then accounted for 60% of Germans”.
And of course, fewer Catholics means less tax redistributed to the Church and therefore to the dioceses, and consequently to the Vatican - we'll come back to this: “in 2023, the revenues of the 27 German dioceses will amount to 6.51 billion euros. This represents 330 million euros, or 5% less than in 2022. When inflation is taken into account, the decline is even more marked."
In neighboring Belgium
Equally progressive, the practice has fallen below 1% of the population, and in formerly more practicing Flanders, by 2022 70% of documents registering requests for euthanasia were written in Dutch - the language of the Flemish minority.
Above all, there are barely 30 seminarians left for the whole country, as the head of the Namur seminary explained to the parliamentary commission on abuses in the Church in March 2024: “at the John XXIII seminary in Louvain, 15 seminarians are currently studying for the five Flemish dioceses, and in Namur 17 seminarians are studying for the French-speaking part of the country [including 5 from Liège and 8 from Brussels in 2023].”
Switzerland: 34,000 fewer Catholics per year
In Switzerland, it's no better - statistics for 2022 published online by Riposte Catholique show a 10% acceleration in exits from the Catholic Church compared to the previous year, and above all a higher prevalence of exits in the most progressive diocese, that of Basel:
“In 2022, 34,561 people left the Catholic Church in Switzerland, roughly the same number as in 2021, but significantly more than in previous years (in 2021: 34,182; 2020: 31,410; 2019: 31,772), notes the SPI in a report published on October 30, 2023; compared with 1080 entering the Church and 910 in 2021. At the end of 2022, church membership stood at around 2.89 million (in 2021: 2.96 million). The cantons with the biggest losses are Basel-Stadt (3 out of 100), Aargau (2.7 out of 100), and Solothurn (2.2 out of 100).”
Italy: young people on the verge of extinction
In Italy, religious practice is holding steady... but not among young people, and the cessation of celebrations during the pandemic was an accelerating factor... as was the submission of many Italian bishops to health measures that were as intrusive as they were changeable and ineffective.
![[Image: P066_Ita1.png]](https://traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_m-q/P066_Ita1.png)
One of the many abandoned Churches of Italy
Credit: Roman Robroek
In August 2023, Riposte Catholique translated the report by the Italian Institute of Statistics (Istat), which took stock of so much decline - and of Italy's low birth rate:
“Over the past twenty years, religious practice in Italy has steadily declined, down to just half: from 36.4% of the population in 2001 who declared themselves 'practicing,' to less than 19% last year, so fewer than one in five people. The biggest 'leap' was recorded between 2019 and 2020, with the loss of 4 points of mass-goers. This was the year of the pandemic, during which 'face-to-face' celebrations were suspended, but church attendance was permitted."
According to the latest data from the Diocese of Milan, one of the largest in the world, baptisms have fallen from 37-38,000 in the 2000s to 20,000 today. Even taking into account the falling birth rate, this figure is low. As for marriages in the diocese, they have fallen from 18,000 a year in the 1990s to 4,000 today.
Churches are gradually emptying in all age groups, but the most obvious decline is among young people (18-24) and teenagers (14-17). While overall religious practice has fallen by 50% over the last twenty years, for these age groups the decline is two-thirds”.
Poland, South Korea: vocations down by half
In the de-Christianized, aging dioceses of old Europe, where the birth rate is often low, Polish or even South Korean priests often offer an alternative to African or Indian Fidei Donum. But for how much longer? These two countries are experiencing a drastic drop in vocations.
In July 2023, Riposte Catholique reported that the gathering of some 1,400 Polish seminarians at the Jasna Gora shrine was the tree that hid the forest of collapsing vocations:
“In 2021, admissions to Polish seminaries fell by 20%, Poland suffering the double shock after Amoris Laetitia and the closure of diocesan churches during Holy Week 2020, under the pretext of Covid and the so-called 'health' restrictions thereafter - something that had never happened, even under the Communist regime. The introduction of communion by hand and other Rome-inspired innovations didn't help matters either.
“Father Piotr Kot, president of the Conference of Rectors of Major Seminaries in Poland, told the Catholic news agency KAI that 356 seminarians had begun their studies in 2021. This compares with 441 in 2020, a drop of around 20%. The figures were 498 in 2019 and 828 in 2012”. That's a drop of half (57%) since 2012.”
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Mass attendance in once staunchly Catholic Poland has fallen
In South Korea, it's no better, reports Fides in February 2025 - not least because of the world's worst birth rate (0.72), but not only because of it, the number of seminarians has fallen by 40% in ten years, and the number of baptized is plummeting as the generations get younger: “according to data from the Dicastery for Evangelization, in 2013 there were a total of 1,264 major seminarians in the various dioceses of the Korean Church.
Ten years later, in 2023, there were 790 seminarians, a drop of around 40% in ten years.
If we look even further upstream at the number of baptized Catholics, in the official statistics of the Korean Bishops' Conference (to 2023), we see that baptized children between the ages of 0 and 4 represent 1.8% of the Korean population; in the 5-9 age bracket, baptized children are 3.9%; and between the ages of 10 and 14, they represent 5.8% of the total Korean population. If we compare these figures with the overall figure, according to which Catholics represent 11.5% of the entire Korean nation, we can see that as the generations go by, their numbers diminish."
In Argentina, 50% less seminarians & 80% fewer entrants
The statistics on the decline in priestly vocations are even more marked in Argentina, the home country of both the Pope and Cardinal Fernandez. Moral affairs don't help: Pope Francis tried to clear a pedophile priest when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Father Julio Cesare Grassi, sentenced to fifteen years in prison in 2009 and incarcerated since 2013 (just as he protected to the bitter end Bishop Zanchetta of Oran, Argentina, who was forced to resign in 2017 but whom he immediately rehired as advisor to the Vatican's administration of the Apostolic See patrimony, but who, in 2025, was sentenced to four years and six months in prison for raping seminarians, a sentence confirmed by the Court of Appeals).
The result of secularization and the Francis effect is a collapse in vocations: “Whereas the country had 2,260 seminarians in 1990, there will be just 481 diocesan seminarians in 2024 according to the American website The Pillar. While the number of religious seminarians is not available, it should be remembered that there were 351 in 2020. It can be estimated that there will be fewer than 900 seminarians in Argentina.
"There is therefore a clear drop in vocations, which is also reflected in the low number of entries to seminaries. This year, there were only 57 entries into diocesan seminaries. As a reminder, in 1997, there were 256 entries, a drop of almost 80% in twenty-five years."
Latin America turns Evangelical
The April 2018 issue of Hérodote magazine provides statistics on the subcontinent as a whole, and looks back at a major shift: Latin America... isn't so much Latin anymore.
“If, in the early 1970s, 90% of Latin Americans claimed to be Catholics, today the figure is just 65%. This decline in Catholicism takes three main forms. Firstly, a decline in the number of Catholics accompanied by an increase in the number of Evangelicals. This is the case in the region's most populous countries, Brazil and Mexico, where Catholics fell from 95% to 61% and 99% to 81% respectively between 1970 and 2014."
This decline is all the more striking given that these are the two countries in the world that still have the highest number of Catholics: Brazil with 172.2 million baptized, or 26.4% of Catholics in the Americas, followed by Mexico with 110.9 million baptized. The decline in the number of Catholics in Brazil is accompanied by a significant increase in membership of Protestant and Evangelical churches, which account for 26% of the population.
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The Catholic Faith is declining all across Latin America
The second form of Catholicism's decline is the transformation of the religious landscape in Central American countries, where Catholicism has become a minority religion. All of these countries now have a Catholic population of less than 50%, compared with over 90% in the 1970s.
The decline of Catholicism in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala is all the more striking in view of the strong roots of liberation theology in the 1980s-1990s, and the role played by the Catholic Church in accompanying victims of abuse by both the military dictatorships and the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
These three countries, plus Honduras, are also the only ones where Evangelical churches could eventually become the majority: in Nicaragua, 30.4% of the population have joined them; in El Salvador, 35.3%; in Guatemala, 38.2; and in Honduras, 43.9%. Finally, in Chile, it's not the evangelicals but the atheists who are gaining in power, with 16% of the population, while Catholics are declining.
As a result, in 2014, countries that were still monolithically Catholic in 1950 and over 90% in the early 1970s lost 20% of the faithful in Argentina, 34% in Costa Rica, 31% in Brazil, 43% in El Salvador, 47% in Honduras - half of the total, 43% in Nicaragua, 15% in Mexico, 31% in Puerto Rico and 20% in Venezuela. And the number of Catholics has been falling ever since.
A map put online by the Center for Orthodox Journalists in 2024 shows that while Paraguay still has 89% Catholics and Mexico 74%, as well as Colombia, Ecuador and Peru 70%, there are only 57% in Brazil, 52.5% in Chile, 49% in Argentina, now one of the least Catholic countries in Latin America, and 37% in Uruguay. Meanwhile, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua now have between 36% and 43% Evangelicals, Venezuela 23%, Brazil 25%, Mexico just 4.5% and Argentina 7%.
By the way, Argentina has also dethroned Chile regarding the number of people who claim to be agnostics or atheists - 40% of the population. And 13% in Brazil, 5% in communist Venezuela, and 16% in Mexico. Almost half of the Catholic population in a country that was 91% Catholic in 1970: 40% atheist, irreligious or agnostic - the Pope Francis effect is in full swing in Argentina, a real hit.
Will the great Catholic decline affect Africa?
Faced with such a catastrophic picture, some would like to believe that Africa is a Christian sanctuary resisting decline. It's true that vocations remain at a high level, and many African dioceses twinned with the vocation-strapped dioceses of old Europe send them seminarians and deacons to enable them to keep the parish geography at arm's length.
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Even Africa is starting to decline following the influence of Francis
Admittedly, Africa has spearheaded the refusal of Fiducia supplicans, and Cardinal Ambongo mentioned the “loss in terms of value, a cultural and moral decadence of the West” to whom he wished, from Kinshasa in DR Congo on January 16, 2024 a “happy demise.”
Yet some bishops' conferences are already worried. In Ghana, the number of Catholics fell by a third between the two censuses of 2010 and 2021, the bishops' conference warned in 2023: “The members of the Ghana Catholic Bishops' Conference (GCBC) propose the development of well-structured catechesis and formation programs, among other proposals, to address the declining number of Catholic faithful" in this West African country. The 2021 Population and Housing Census (2021 PHC) in Ghana shows that the number of Catholics has declined from 15.1% to 10.0% since the 2010 census.”
This article was published by La Paix Liturgique on Febraury 26, 2025 under the title “NUMBERS, JUST NUMBERS? THE FIGURE-BASED REALITY OF THE POST-CONCILIAR AND SYNODAL CHURCH IN EUROPE... AND AROUND THE WORLD”
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| Head of Irish bishops to consecrate country to Sacred Heart for first time in over 150 years |
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Posted by: Stone - 06-21-2025, 07:08 PM - Forum: Global News
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Head of Irish bishops to consecrate country to Sacred Heart for first time in over 150 years
The consecration comes at a time when Ireland, once a devout Catholic country, has become increasingly secularized.
![[Image: ireland-sacred-heart-1.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ireland-sacred-heart-1.jpg)
Unsplash, Rawpixel
June 21, 2025
KNOCK, Ireland (LifeSiteNews) — Archbishop Eamon Martin, the archbishop of Armagh and president of the Irish Episcopal Conference, will consecrate the entire country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for the first time in over 150 years this Sunday.
Martin, who also holds the title Primate of All Ireland, will consecrate the nation to the Sacred Heart during a Sunday Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Knock on June 22, the Sunday of Corpus Christi, according to the archdiocese. The archbishop emphasized that the consecration is necessary in this age that presents “many challenges to our faith, to our families and indeed to the deepest core of our humanity.”
“We are living in a time of great need for God – for faith, for hope and for love. Our age presents many challenges to our faith, to our families and indeed to the deepest core of our humanity,” Martin said.
“But as a pilgrim people filled with great love and hope in this jubilee year of graces, while recalling the promises of the Sacred Heart made known 350 years ago to Saint Margaret Mary, we have chosen to renew the consecration of our country to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus as its secure refuge from all dangers – visible and invisible,” the bishop added. “All are welcome to our Mass this Sunday in Knock.”
June is traditionally dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The origins of this devotion come from an apparition of Christ to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in Paris in the 1670s, when He revealed the love of His Sacred Heart for the world and asked for reparation for the sins of sacrilege and blasphemy.
READ: Fatima and St. Margaret Mary’s visions of the Sacred Heart providentially connected
Prior to the consecration, the basilica will host the relics of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, St. Claude La Colombiere – the confessor of St. Margaret Mary – and Blessed Mary of the Divine Heart, who influenced Pope Leo XIII to consecrate the world to Our Lord’s Sacred Heart- for the faithful to venerate.
Ireland was previously consecrated to the Sacred Heart on Passion Sunday in 1873, becoming the first country to consecrate itself as a nation to Our Lord’s Sacred Heart.
The consecration comes at a time when Ireland, once a devout Catholic country, has become increasingly secularized. According to the country’s 2022 census, 69 percent of the Irish identify as Catholic, a 10 percent drop from the previous census in 2016. Mass attendance has also declined dramatically, dropping from 93 percent in 1973 to just 43 percent in 2008.
In 2015, 62 percent of the Irish people voted in favor of a referendum to legalize same-sex “marriage,” becoming the first nation to legalize it by popular vote.
READ: Abortions climb to record levels in Ireland with over 10,000 in 2023
Just three years later, in 2018, abortion was legalized by another referendum in which 66 percent of the Irish people voted to repeal an amendment protecting the equal right to life of the mother and unborn child. Abortion numbers have since dramatically increased in the country, with over 10,000 unborn Irish babies being murdered in 2023, a record.
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