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Catholic Monk Comes Out as Transgender With Diocese’s Permission

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Diocesan hermits by nature don’t get much attention. A small subset of religious persons, hermits mostly spend their lives engaged in quiet prayer.

Brother Christian Matson, a Catholic diocesan hermit in Kentucky, has spent years doing just that. His monk’s habit might catch his neighbor’s eye, but he is known in the town where he lives primarily through his work with the local theater. But recently Matson decided that his faith compels him to make a little more noise than usual. “This Sunday, Pentecost 2024, I’m planning to come out publicly as transgender,” Matson told Religion News Service, saying he was speaking out with the permission of his bishop, John Stowe of the Diocese of Lexington in Kentucky.

Matson, who is also a Benedictine oblate, believes he is the first openly transgender person in his position in the Catholic Church. It is a difficult claim to confirm — even Stowe told RNS he did not know for sure if Matson is the first — but Matson’s status is at least highly unusual and comes at a time when church officials are grappling with how to address transgender Catholics. (Read more from “Catholic Monk Comes Out as Transgender With Diocese’s Permission” HERE)

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Religious Group Blasts FBI Memo: ‘Unconstitutional Effort to Surveil Catholics’

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A Catholic advocacy group tore into the FBI on Wednesday over revelations that an effort from the bureau’s Richmond, Virginia, office to target certain “traditionalist” Catholics may have been more widespread.

CatholicVote referenced a less redacted version of an FBI document released by the House Judiciary Committee that revealed involvement from the bureau’s Portland and Los Angeles offices in an initiative that had initially appeared isolated to the Richmond office.

“The FBI has finally acknowledged what we have long suspected, namely that FBI efforts to spy on Catholic churches went far beyond a single field office and a so-called rogue agent,” CatholicVote President Brian Burch said in a statement.

Burch added, “Further, these new FBI admissions raise even more questions now about the intent, purpose, and scope of this illegal and unconstitutional effort to surveil Catholics inside of churches across America.”

The document, which was first leaked soon after its internal issuance by the FBI’s Richmond field office in January, functioned as a threat assessment of “radical-traditionalist Catholics.” The FBI determined they made up a “small minority of overall Roman Catholic adherents” and that there existed an “increasingly observed interest” of violent extremists within that particular group of Catholics. (Read more from “Religious Group Blasts FBI Memo: ‘Unconstitutional Effort to Surveil Catholics’” HERE)

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Cardinal Burke: Neither Bishops Nor Pope Can Change Christ's Teaching on Marriage

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Photo Credit: APCan a pope change Catholic teaching on marriage?

When the synod of bishops that Pope Francis has called to discuss the family was meeting in Rome earlier this month, someone not particularly familiar with the Catholic faith might have presumed the answer was yes.

The synod, for example, released a midterm report with a section headed: “Positive aspects of civil unions and cohabitation.”

Yet the Catholic Catechism states: “The Lord Jesus insisted on the original intention of the Creator who willed that marriage be indissoluble.” The Catechism cites Chapter 10 of the Gospel of Mark as one source for this teaching.

“The Pharisees approached and asked, ‘Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?’ They were testing him,” says the Gospel of Mark.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Says ‘Freedom of Religion is Under Threat’ as Catholics Sue Administration

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Photo Credit: Reuters In a speech during Thursday morning’s National Prayer Breakfast, President Barack Obama acknowledged, “It’s also clear that around the world, freedom of religion is under threat.”

“No society can truly succeed unless it guarantees the rights of all its people, including religious minorities,” he added later.

The Obama administration has been harshly criticized by the Catholic church and civil liberties organizations concerned that Obamacare mandates that organizations provide their employees free access to contraceptives through their health care plans, even if their religious faith calls contraception a sin.

Read more from this story HERE.

Vatican Chief Justice: Denying Communion to Nancy Pelosi “Makes Perfect Sense”

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Photo Credit: LifeNews

Photo Credit: LifeNews

Catholics across the United States have for years wondered if and when pro-abortion “Catholics” like Nancy Pelosi or John Kerry would be told not to present themselves for Communion because they are out of step with Catholic Church teachings on the sanctity of human life.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, the former archbishop of St. Louis and now the chief justice at the Vatican’s highest court saying prohibiting Pelosi and Kerry from receiving Communion”makes perfect sense,” according to a new interview Burke gave to EWTN.

As CNS News reports on the interview:

In an interview with EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo on Dec. 13, Cardinal Burke explained that it is necessary to protect the Sacrament, the Communion wafer offered at Masses, from “being profaned, being violated by someone receiving unworthily,” someone “who knows that he or she is unworthy and yet presumes to come forward and to take the Holy Eucharist.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Judge Rules Pittsburgh Catholic Church Doesn’t Have to Comply With HHS Mandate

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Photo Credit: Life News In yet another pro-life victory against the HHS mandate that forces churches and religious groups to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions for their employees, a federal judge has ruled that the Catholic Church in Pittsburgh doesn’t have to comply.

Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh made such a stink when he testified in court recently that he received national attention. He said would rather pay fines, no matter how much they might be that be forced to follow the directives of the abortion mandate.

“I would not be able to live with myself knowing that we’re contradicting what we believe,” he said during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab.

Under the law’s penalties, Catholic Charities would be subject to a daily fine of $100 per employee if Zubik doesn’t sign, said Susan Rauscher, the nonprofit’s executive director. That would total $2 million to $4 million a year for an organization with a $10 million operating budget, she said. As a result, the Pittsburgh and Erie diocese are suing the government, claiming that the requirement violates their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. They’re asking Schwab to temporarily block enforcement of the mandate on their nonprofits while the dioceses pursue the lawsuits.

Read more from this story HERE.

Appeals Court Delivers ‘Significant Victory’ for Religious Liberty in ObamaCare HHS Mandate Case

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Matt YorkIn a 2-1 ruling on Friday, a federal appeals court in Chicago upheld the rights of both individuals and companies to challenge Obamacare’s contraception-abortifacient-sterilization mandate.

It is the first decision of its kind in the ongoing litigation against the requirement that all employers — despite their deeply held religious beliefs — must arrange and pay for employee health insurance that covers no-cost contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization, under penalty of fine.

“This is a significant victory for protecting the religious beliefs of individuals and corporations,” said Edward White, senior counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, who represents one of the plaintiffs, an Illinois company.

“It is also important to note that the appeals court determined that the HHS mandate should not move forward against our clients while this issue is being litigated. It has been our position from the beginning that the HHS mandate violates America’s longstanding history of protecting conscience rights. The mandate is unlawfully compelling employers such as our clients to do the following: abandon their faith to comply with the law, or follow their faith and pay significant annual penalties to the federal government. The decision by the appeals court is encouraging as this issue heads to the Supreme Court.”

The ACLJ represents Korte & Luitjohan Contractors, Inc., a family owned, full-service construction contractor located in Highland, Illinois. The company provides a group health insurance plan for its non-union employees, which number about 20. Cyril B. Korte and Jane E. Korte own a controlling interest in the company and contend the HHS mandate violates their Catholic faith. The ACLJ filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of both the individuals and the company in October 2012.

Read more from this story HERE.

Catholic Priest Threatened with Arrest If Voluntarily Conducts Mass On Navy Base During Shutdown

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Photo Credit: WNDIn what has been described as “an astonishing attack on religious freedom,” Catholics at a Navy base were banned from attending worship services because of the partial shutdown of the federal government.

In response, the Thomas More Law Center announced it has filed a lawsuit over the orders at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia.

The legal team said a Catholic priest who serves the community on the military base “has been prohibited from even volunteering to celebrate Holy Mass without pay and was told that if he violated that order, he could be subject to arrest.”

Without explanation, however, Protestant services continued.

“This is an astonishing attack on religious freedom by the federal government and the latest affront toward the military since the beginning of the shutdown,” said a report by the Thomas More Law Center.

Read more from this story HERE.

Priests Threatened with Arrest if they Minister to Military During Shutdown

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Photo Credit: U.S. Navy/Johnny Bivera/Getty

Photo Credit: U.S. Navy/Johnny Bivera/Getty

In a stunning development, some military priests are facing arrest if they celebrate mass or practice their faith on military bases during the federal government shutdown.

“With the government shutdown, many [government service] and contract priests who minister to Catholics on military bases worldwide are not permitted to work – not even to volunteer,” wrote John Schlageter, the general counsel for the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, in an op-ed this week. “During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so.”

According to its website, the Archdiocese for the Military Services “provides the Catholic Church’s full range of pastoral ministries and spiritual services to those in the United States Armed Forces.”

In his piece, Schlageter worries about this restriction as Sunday nears. “If the government shutdown continues through the weekend, there will be no Catholic priest to celebrate Mass this Sunday in the chapels at some U.S. military installations where non-active-duty priests serve as government contractors,” he wrote.

Read more from this story HERE.

Catholic Bishop: Supreme Court ‘Giving Legal Protection to an Intrinsic Evil’

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Photo Credit: APBishop Thomas John Paprocki, leader of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, Ill., says the U.S. Supreme Court is giving “legal protection to intrinsic evil” in its decisions late last month that advanced the cause of legalized same-sex “marriage” in the United States.

“As in the case of Roe v. Wade striking down abortion laws forty years ago, the United States Supreme Court has again usurped its legitimate prerogative through a raw exercise of judicial power by giving legal protection to an intrinsic evil, this time by striking down the Defense of Marriage Act in the case of U.S. v. Windsor and in refusing to take up the defense of Proposition 8 in California in the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry.

“These hollow decisions are absolutely devoid of moral authority,” said the bishop. “It is becoming increasingly and abundantly clear that what secular law now calls “marriage” has no semblance to the sacred institution of Holy Matrimony. People of faith are called to reject the redefinition of marriage and bear witness to the truth of Holy Matrimony as a lasting, loving and life-giving union between one man and one woman.”

Read more from this story HERE.