Gloria.TV News on the 4th of November 2014

Praise from the Wrong People: The English singer and gay-activist Elton John has called Pope Francis 'my hero' at an AIDS benefit. He said Francis is pushing gay boundaries in the Church and told the crowd: 'Make this man a saint already, OK?' John lives together with another homosexual. They produced two boys by a surrogate mother. In 2006 he said: “From my point of view I would ban religion completely”. In 2010, he insulted Jesus as a "gay man". Between January 1996 and September 1997, John spent almost half a million Dollars on flowers only.

Francis Approves Kasper: Catholic convert and New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote last week about Pope Francis that all his moves point in a pro-change direction. Quote: “It simply defies belief that men appointed by the pope at the recent Synod of Bishops would have proposed departures on controversial issues without a sense that Francis would approve.”

Contradiction: For Douthat the stakes on communion for the remarried are not debatable at all. Quote: “The Catholic Church was willing to lose the kingdom of England, and by extension the entire English-speaking world, over the principle that when a first marriage is valid a second is adulterous, a position rooted in the specific words of Jesus of Nazareth.” And: “To change on that issue, no matter how it was couched, would not be development; it would be contradiction and reversal. And: “Such a reversal would put the Church on the brink of a precipice.”

Theological Betrayal? The Church Will Lose The Best: Douthat understands that the defenders of Catholic orthodoxy at the recent Synod are a minority — sometimes a small minority — among self-identified Catholics in the West. Quote: “But they are the people who have done the most to keep the church vital in an age of institutional decline: who have given their energy and time and money in an era when the church is stained by scandal, who have struggled to raise families and live up to demanding teachings, who have joined the priesthood and religious life in an age when those vocations are not honored as they once were. They have kept the faith amid moral betrayals by their leaders; they do not deserve a theological betrayal.