Word: churches
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...rattled the establishment. Officials at the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) have been running an expensive campaign calling on people to vote and are unhappy about now having to argue their point. "To consolidate our democracy, we need more participation, not less," says IFE councillor Arturo Sanchez. The Roman Catholic Church has also spoken out against the movement, with one bishop calling it "stupidity." And several politicians have attacked its advocates as being "irresponsible" for encouraging people to shirk their civic duty...
...that one of the four bishops brought back into the fold, British-born Richard Williamson, was a vocal Holocaust denier. That required weeks of Vatican damage control. But another clash is brewing that may seem less explosive to the outside world but is actually more problematic for long-term church relations. For the Society is now preparing to openly defy the Holy See again. The group has announced that on June 27, three new priests and three deacons will be ordained at its seminary in southern Germany, with plans for further ordinations at its headquarters in Switzerland and in Winona...
Lefebvre's successor, Monsignor Bernard Fellay, has defended the new ordinations, noting that his group and the Catholic Church as a whole need new priests. But Gerhard Müller, the bishop of Regensburg, the official Catholic diocese with oversight of the German ordinations, recently stated that without Vatican permission the new priests and the ordaining bishop could be excommunicated. The Vatican released a statement Wednesday that the ordinations "must be considered illegitimate," though no mention was made of excommunication. The brief note from the Holy See also referred to the Pope's letter to bishops in March that outlined...
Ultimately, religious schisms often boil down to the question of who's in charge. In this specific case, the Lefebvrites want to decide who becomes a priest of the Catholic Church, an authority that for centuries has rested solely in the hands of local bishops, who derive their authority from the Pope himself. One senior Vatican official says that the Pope's unilaterally reaching out to the Society, even with many outstanding issues unresolved, has emboldened rather than humbled the breakaway flock. "They thought all concessions had to come from Holy See," he says. "But they are [now] going...
...pictures of a drive-in church...