Since the election upon Benedict’s retirement of Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, Leatherby has shunned the new pontiff and continued to only refer to Benedict as the church’s true leader in mass. After several warnings, he was charged with schism, defrocked and excommunicated from the Catholic Church.
“I continue to regard Benedict as retaining the Office of Peter, as mysterious as that might be,” he wrote in an open letter to the Sacramento diocese, referring to the belief that all new Popes replace the original Pope Peter. “Therefore, I do not regard Bergoglio as the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.”
Leatherby’s story is somewhat complicated by allegations of a breach of his vow of celibacy through romantic affairs with at least two adult women, one of whom he publicly confessed his love to in a now rather embarrassing video that has been widely circulated. In it, he begins by addressing an unidentified woman: “Hey, Baby Doll. I love that without mascara that you are still strikingly beautiful,” the priest says into his phone camera as he drives his car at night. “I love that. I love it, like, a lot. A lot a lot. I loved it earlier when I saw you, and you didn’t have it on, and I loved it all night long.”
‘’Unbaptised’ US Catholic priest ordained again
Detroit archdiocese ordained a Catholic priest for a second time on Aug. 17 after learning that his infant baptism was void, making his ordination invalid.
Father Matthew Hood, ordained in 2017, has been working in the diocese for the past three years, just like any other Catholic priest. However, his priestly ordination was found invalid as his Catholic Baptism proved to be invalid, reported Catholic News Agency.
Father Hood thought he had been baptized as a baby. But this month, he read a notice issued by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on Aug. 6. It said altering the words of Baptism can render it invalid.
For example, if the minister says, “We baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” instead of “I baptize you,” the Baptism is not valid, it said.
Father Hood remembered a video of his Baptism where the deacon said: “We baptize you….” He suddenly realized his Baptism wasn’t valid.
The Church presumes a sacrament valid unless there is proof to the contrary. Father Hood’s Baptism could have been passed as valid unless he had a video showing the opposite.
Father Hood informed this to his archdiocese. He received Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist again. He made a retreat and was also ordained a deacon. He was validly ordained a priest on Aug. 17. One must be ordained a Deacon before validly ordained a priest.
Pope Francis: Make coronavirus vaccine available to all
A potential coronavirus vaccine should be made available to all, Pope Francis said at the general audience Aug. 19.
“It would be sad if, for the vaccine for COVID-19, priority were to be given to the richest! It would be sad if this vaccine were to become the property of this nation or another, rather than universal and for all,” Pope Francis said on August 19.
The Pope’s comments followed a warning by the head of the World Health Organization that some countries may hoard vaccines. Speaking in Geneva on August 18, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus appealed to world leaders to avoid what he called “vaccine nationalism.”
In his address, the Pope also said it would be a “scandal” if public money were used to bail out industries “that do not contribute to the inclusion of the excluded, the promotion of the least, the common good, or the care of creation.”
Church selling the Eucharist ‘short’ says professor
The Catholic Church is selling “the Eucharist” and people short and is making a mistake by turning Mass into a YouTube experience, according to a UK theologian. Thomas O’Loughlin, emeritus professor of Historical Theology at the University of Nottingham and Director of Studia Traditionis Theologiae, said: “There are some things Zoom and YouTube just won’t do because real experiences are whole human experiences.”
“Can you send an apple by email?” he asked.
He said he will accept doing Mass online when people give up going out to dine with others and when people dine alone at home with pre-packaged food and say it is as rich an experience as it is eating and drinking with friends.
People wanting to have Mass on their TV or computer at home and priests supplying it sounds a warning about the real nature of the community, he said.
“Eucharist makes little sense without a community.”
Challenging the meeting, O’Loughlin posed the question as to whether the Church had stopped being a real community and is being reduced to religious ideology.
Christian man resists forced conversion, threats from young Muslims
A video posted on TikTok in July shows a Christian man being pressured to reject his faith and convert to Islam. Despite threats, he can be heard saying that “for nothing in the world” will he abandon the Christian faith. The video, posted by bilalmaher479, went viral, but also sparked a strong reaction from Christians and members of other religious minorities.
Hitherto, non-Muslims have to had to witness the forced conversions of girls and young women, compelled to marry Muslim men. The forced conversion of boys and young men is something relatively new.In the video in question, the Christian man is seen being pressured to recite the shahada, the Islamic creed, surrounded by people who are not seen. Despite everything, he refuses, saying that for nothing in the world would he recite the Muslim creed and reject the Christian faith.
His tormentors then begin to threaten him, saying that he will face serious consequences. Even then, the victim says no, stating that it is his right to keep his faith and that he is ready to suffer all the consequences, that he would not give up his religion.
In a statement, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said that it has received many complaints about the immoral, obscene and vulgar contents in social media, especially TikTok and Bigo, for their negative impact, especially on young people.
After contacting the two companies, the PTA said that their response was unsatisfactory and that it blocked Bigo under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act.
Taskeen Khan, a Glory TV presenter and human rights activist, came to the victim’s defence, posting the video on his official page and slamming the forced conversion attempt.
“Will the Pakistani authorities find the offenders through their TikTok account and punish them according to the law?” he asked.
For his part, Rev Irfan James of Peshawar said that “Pakistani Christians suffer many challenges and [endure] persecution. They face difficult situations every day.” “It is sad that young Muslims, the majority community, constantly threaten Christians and our faith. Time and time again, they make fun of our faith, but neither the government nor law enforcement do anything about it.”
Beirut, Maronite Church and pro-Hezbollah newspaper in unprecedented clash
Following an unprecedented “paid and planned” attack on Patriarch Raï, carried in the ne-wspaper al-Akhbar, the Episco-pal Commission for Social Co-mmunications has stated that information on “hidden weapons and explosives in residential areas and among civilians” revealed in his Sunday Homily are “without any doubt.”
“Instead of abusively accusing the patriarch, whose sources of information leave no doubts of any kind, we advise this newspaper to verify and investigate the statements that reveal that weapons and explosives are being hidden and stored in residential areas and among civilians. Otherwise – affirm the bishops – in reality, the enemy is hiding, among them.”
In his homily, considered the first direct attack on Hezbollah’s military strategy, Patriarch Raï had asked the leaders to “consider the explosion at the port of Beirut as a warning signal.” The Cardi-nal called on authorities “to search all the weapons depots illegally located in the heart of residential districts, in cities and villages.” The head of the Maronite Church added that “certain Lebanese regions have become minefields, which could blow up at any moment. The presence of these hidden weapons depots represents a real threat to the life of the Lebanese, which does not belong to anyone, any party or any organization.” “It is time – concluded the cardinal – to unearth these weapons and these explosives, so that citizens can truly feel safe.”
Furthermore, the patriarch, who has been promoting and relaunching the principle of Lebanon’s ”active neutrality” for several weeks, stressed.
South Korean president turns to Catholic bishops to help fight coronavirus
S. Korean President Moon Jae-in, who is facing increased pressure over some of his policies, hosted a luncheon for Catholic leaders, asking for their cooperation in tackling the COVID-19 coronavirus.
“We must overcome the coronavirus (and) we will do our best to overcome the crisis quickly and minimize economic loss,” Moon said during the meeting, adding that he plans to meet with other Christian leaders in the near future.
Once seen as a model in dealing with the pandemic, South Korea has seen a spike in cases of coronavirus that has led to a fresh suspension of public Masses and could even throw the nation into a second lockdown.
In attendance at the presidential luncheon were Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soo-jung, Archbishop of Seoul; Archbishop Hyginus Kim Hee-jong of the Gwangju Diocese; Archbishop Thaddeus Cho Hwankil of Deagu; Bishop Peter Lee Ki-heon of Uijeongbu; Bishop John Chri-sostom Kwon Hyok-ju of Andong; and Bishop Lazarus You Heung-sik of Daejeon.
According to the presidential office, Moon praised the Catholic Church for its swift action in obeying government quarantine restrictions during South Korea’s first wave of COVID-19 in February.
Chinese female Jesus worries Baptists in Indian state
Church leaders in north-eastern India’s Nagaland state are concerned about a Chinese Christian cult misleading thousands of their young people with faulty doctrines.
The Church of Almighty God, which emerged in China some three decades ago, teaches that a woman named Yang Xiangbin is the second Christ.
The cult is “reportedly making inroads into our land,” said Reverend Zelhou Keyho, general secretary of the Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC), in a letter to all church bodies and Baptist leaders in the state.
It has reportedly attracted thousands of young people through social media, church leaders say.
Yang Xiangbin, also called Lightning Deng, and cult founder Zhao Weishan fled China in 2000 after the Chinese government banned it, mainly because of its direct opposition to the Chinese Communist Party, published re-ports show.
The cult “is a well-organized group, aggressively moving for-ward with publication and creat-ing many Facebook pages and colourful artwork that appears biblical and enticing,” said the letter of Reverend Keyho.
The council is the top body of nearly 1,500 Baptist Churches in Nagaland, where Christians form 90 percent of two million people. The majority of Christians are Baptists. The cult’s Facebook page has some 137,000 followers. They claim to have offices in the US, UK, South Korea, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Germany and France.
Archbishop Kondrusiewicz meets a minister; Lukashenko threatens the churches
After several denials, it has been officially confirmed: last August 21 a meeting was held between Yuri Karaev, Belarusian Interior Minister, and the head of the country’s Catholics, Metropolitan Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz. The meeting had been requested by the archbishop to assess the prospects for a peaceful resolution to the conflict between the president and the opposition.
Archbishop Kondrusiewicz reminded the minister of the unsustainability of violent repression, implemented by the local militia, denouncing at the same time the presence of no less violent provocateurs in various demonstrations. He also proposed the formation of a mixed commission, which would carry out checks on the conditions of arrest and detention of people. The state-owned television channel ONT said the parties reached an agreement on the formation of such a commission.
On the official website of the Belarusian Catholic Church it is specified that Kondrusiewicz has placed the emphasis mainly on the protection of “the weakest and the defenceless.”
Cardinal Cleemis offers churches to beleaguered Jacobites
Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, head of the Syro-Malankara Church, has come to the aid of the Jacobite faction of the Syrian Orthodox Church that has lost its places of worship in a legal battle.
“With great joy, we are offering you the Syro-Malankara places of worship to conduct services until you have made your own alternative arrangements,” says a letter from the cardinal addressed to Joseph Mar Gregorious Metropolitan, the metropolitan trustee of the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Church.
The August 24 letter began by expressing the Catholic Church’s respect and love for the Jacobite Church, its leaders and the faithful.
“We are painfully aware of the recent anguish the Malankara Jacobite Church. We also pray for the Church before the Lord,” Cardinal Cleemis says.
The Jacobites’ decades-old feud with the Syrian Orthodox faction reached the climax on August 17 when the Kerala government took over the Jacobites’ mother church, the ancient Cathedral in Mulanthuruthy near Kochi, Kerala’s commercial capital.
The Mulanthuruthy Church, built in 1200, has been managed by Jacobite faction, but the Supreme Court verdict of July 3, 2017, gave its ownership to the Orthodox Church. The church is a fine example of Gothic architecture. The carvings, sculptures, symbolic icons and wall paintings, are a blend of Indian, West-Asian and European architecture. Most parishioners belong to the Jacobite faction.
The takeover was part of implementing a 2017 Supreme Court order that granted possession of more than 1,100 Jacobite churches to their rival.