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| Spanish priest found guilty of ‘hate crime’ after criticizing Muslim persecution of Christians |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-06-2025, 10:55 AM - Forum: Global News
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Spanish priest found guilty of ‘hate crime’ after criticizing Muslim persecution of Christians
Barcelona priest Fr. Custodio Ballester was found guilty and now faces prison time for warning that ‘Islam does not allow dialogue’ with Christianity.
![[Image: shutterstock_2056414442.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/shutterstock_2056414442.jpg)
Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock
Oct 6, 2025
(LifeSiteNews) — Sentencing for a Spanish priest who this past week was found guilty of making “Islamophobic” comments more than seven years ago has Catholics as well as free speech advocates concerned.
In February, Father Custodio Ballester was summoned by a regional court in Spain to respond to charges that he had committed a “hate crime” for calling attention to the unjust treatment Christians receive in Islamic majority countries.
Ballester, who serves as a parish priest in Barcelona, was charged with violating Spanish law in 2020 when the state prosecutor in Catalonia claimed that an article Ballester wrote in 2016 titled “The Impossible Dialogue with Islam” met the criteria of a “hate crime.”
Ballester wrote his essay in response to a pastoral letter by his superior, the archbishop of Barcelona, Cardinal Juan José Omella, titled “The Necessary Dialogue with Islam.” In his rebuttal, Ballester wrote: “This new reactivation of Christian-Muslim dialogue, paralyzed by the alleged ‘imprudences’ on the part of the late Pope Benedict XVI, is very far from becoming a reality. Islam does not allow dialogue. For Islam, either you believe, or you are an infidel who must be subdued one way or another.”
Ballester has also previously made remarks critical of LGBT ideology.
Ballester’s case involves Father Jesús Calvo and journalist Armando Robles. They had been accused of making “Islamophobic” remarks on a 2017 podcast by the Association of Spanish Muslims Against Islamophobia. The Málaga Provincial Court handed down its ruling earlier this week.
Ballester told Catholic News Agency that his statements “have never been discriminatory or hateful.” He also said, “they want to use me as an example so that others censor themselves.”
Violating Spain’s hate crime law carries a penalty of anywhere from one to four years in prison with additional financial penalties. Ballester says that he expects his sentencing may be delayed due to political pressure, and that he will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights if he is sentenced with jail time.
Several dozen supporters held signs at the courthouse when the decision was handed down. Law firm Abogados Cristiano has collected nearly 30,000 signatures on a petition supporting Ballester’s innocence. Clergy in Spain have largely remained silent, however. CNA reports that Cardinal Omella “has only offered private words of support, without issuing a public statement.”
“People are very angry about the excessive sentences being sought for ‘hate crimes,’ which are comparable to those sought for sexual assault or leaving someone paralyzed in a fight,” Ballester told CNA.
When previously asked whether he was prepared to spend three years in prison if convicted, Ballester said: “It doesn’t seem right to be convicted for something I’ve said, but in Spain anything is possible. But if I am convicted, this will no longer be Spain but Pakistan, where you can be killed for blaspheming the Koran or Mohammed.”
“There is no longer any true right to free speech in Spain,” he added.
According to Islamic Sharia law, Christians and Jews who refuse to convert to Islam are not recognized as full citizens but considered semi-slaves called “dhimmi” who have to pay a special tax called “jizyah.” The OpenDoors “Word Watch List” shows that the majority of the top 50 countries in which Christians are most persecuted are Islamic states.
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| Italy restores October 4 as national public holiday in honor of St. Francis of Assisi |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-05-2025, 09:34 AM - Forum: Global News
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Italy restores October 4 as national public holiday in honor of St. Francis of Assisi
‘The national holiday will be an opportunity to celebrate an extraordinary man and remind us, every year, who we are and what unites us profoundly,’
Italy's prime minister said.
![[Image: Saint-Francis-of-Assisi-Receiving-the-St...643077.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Saint-Francis-of-Assisi-Receiving-the-Stigmata-Mariano-Salvador-Maella-oil-painting-2622643077.jpg)
'St. Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata' by Salvador Maella
Oct 3, 2025
(LifeSiteNews) — Italy will reinstate October 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, as a national holiday.
“I welcome with joy and satisfaction the news of the Senate’s final approval of the parliamentary bill reintroducing, after 50 years, Oct. 4, the day on which we celebrate St. Francis, the patron saint of Italy, as a national holiday,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni commented.
Next year, 2026, will be the first year since 1976 that St. Francis’ feast day is honored as a national holiday in Italy. The holiday was scrapped in 1977 to boost the country’s productivity during a time of economic crisis.
Italy’s lower house overwhelmingly supported the measure by a 247-2 vote, and the Senate Constitutional Affairs Committee approved the bill on October 1.
Stefania Proietti, president of the Umbria Region, told 24 Ore that it is “very rare, perhaps unique, to have the unanimity of all the political forces for a law.”
“Saint Francis embodies those values in which our country says it recognizes itself,” she added.
Meloni said the unanimous support for the bill is “an important sign” that political unity in Italy can be found in “one of the most representative and distinctive figures of (our) national identity.”
“A saint beloved by the entire Italian people and in whom all Italians identify. The national holiday will be an opportunity to celebrate an extraordinary man and remind us, every year, who we are and what unites us profoundly,” Meloni said.
The reinstated holiday was reportedly petitioned by poet and writer Davide Rondoni, president of the national committee for the celebrations of the eighth centenary of the death of St Francis of Assisi.
“St. Francis makes everyone want to live more,” Rondoni told 24 Ore. The national holiday in his honor “is a sign to call everyone to give the best of themselves,” because St. Francis “is a great witness to life.”
“Having patron saints in heaven reminds everyone that there are no patron saints on earth and there must not be,” Rondoni stressed.
Lay and religious figures, such as Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, are invoking St. Francis in support of a “love for creation” and a “fraternal, unarmed world,” which are goods when rightly ordered. However, these ideas are often exploited to further a disordered “theology” or political ideology in which the primacy of God is downplayed or ignored, or individual human rights are subordinated to ecological concerns or a vaguely defined “common good.”
In fact, Zuppi specifically invoked this idea of the common good, writing that St. Francis’ “life and work can inspire political love and love for creation, so that the common good prevails over speculative logic and the logic of the strongest, over partisan interests and polarization.”
St. Francis of Assisi was a model of a true and deep love of neighbor that desired the best possible good for him: Living in the fullness of the truth so that he may have eternal life with God.
Thus, he was not a “Birkenstock-clad hippie, a Peace Corps social worker, or an effeminate tofu-eating Green Party activist,” as he is portrayed by the secular, Dr. Philip Blosser noted. He was not about dialogue for “the sake of mutual understanding” but sought to convert others to Christ, including Muslims.
As Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò put it in a sermon on St. Francis’ feast day in 2023:
Quote:He was a young runaway who understood how the goods of this world were a hindrance toward holiness, and who chose to unite himself to Lady Poverty … living the evangelical counsels in the Rule of the Seraphic Order. Francis was thus poor, of that holy poverty which is neither miserable nor abject, but noble and proud, because it is confident of the help of Providence.
He was a tireless preacher of the Gospel. In 1219 he went as far as Cairo, to the court of al-Malik al-Kamil: on that occasion he wished to face the trial by fire to demonstrate the truth of the Catholic Faith and persuade the Sultan to convert and desist from fighting the Christians engaged in the Fifth Crusade.
St. Francis was a promoter of the decorum and dignity of the Liturgy. In his writings we read a thousand recommendations on the respect and adoration due to the Blessed Sacrament, and we know that he spared nothing to purchase pyxes and sacred vessels to donate to poor churches…His veneration for the Ministers of the Most High was such that it led him to refuse to receive the Priesthood considering himself unworthy of it.
In short, Francis was the heroic example of those virtues that in an age of crisis and war would reform the Holy Church.
Viganò continued:
Quote:In what, then, was St. Francis “the most Italian of Saints, the holiest of Italians”? We can say that he was the most Italian of Saints, because in him was shown that temperament proper to our people, made up of serene charity towards the poorest and the needy, that charity that so many Orders and Congregations have seen born over the centuries under the breath of the Holy Spirit.
A character made up of charity and love for God, of solid and unblemished Faith, of daily witness by example. In Francis we also find that unshakable certainty in the eternal Truths, of that Rome where Christ is Roman (Par XXXII, 102) that still survives in our people despite the devastating action of the modernist hierarchy.
He was also the holiest of Italians, for his life was an example and model of true humility, of holy poverty, of total abandonment to God and in God, to the point of receiving the Sacred Stigmata that assimilated him even in the flesh to the Passion of the Lord. He bore on himself the signs of the infinite Charity of Christ, before which every earthly good, every wealth, every pleasure disappears and is annihilated, and has a meaning only if oriented to the Good and to eternal salvation.
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| First Female Archbishop of Canterbury – Leaderess of the Worldwide Anglican Communion |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-03-2025, 09:55 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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First Female Archbishop of Canterbury – Leaderess of the Worldwide Anglican Communion
![[Image: fe7369scmncfft7793rqc6wftp1chz0q35iutha?...1759565923]](https://seedus4268.gloriatv.net/storage1/fe7369scmncfft7793rqc6wftp1chz0q35iutha?secure=navmi_A3WWe2m-Wc0CSbaQ&expires=1759565923)
gloria.tv | October 3, 2025
For the first time, the title Archbishop of Canterbury goes to a woman. Mrs. Sarah Mullally, the current Bishoppess of London, has been appointed by King Charles and will be confirmed in January 2026.
Born in 1962, Mrs. Mullally worked as a nurse and later became England’s youngest Chief Nursing Officer. In 2018, she became the first female Bishop of London.
She is married and a mother of two.
Mrs Mullally is a supporter of abortion: “I would describe my approach to this issue as pro-choice rather than pro-life.”
She also adheres to the homosexual ideology: "Our eyes have been opened to the harm that we have done, especially to LGBTI+ people."
Regarding homosexuals: "The church seeks to demonstrate love to all, because it reflects the God of love, who loves everybody."
Mrs Mullally has dyslexia, and has said that she finds reading out long genealogies in Scripture quite difficult.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the Primate of the group 'Church of England' and the spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion.
The 'Church of England' - whose ordinations are all null and void - has been staging "ordinations" for women as priests since 1994 and as bishops since 2015.
There are still Anglican Lay-Bishops who refuse to “ordain” women, such as Philip North of Blackburn. In inconsistency of thinking, he does “not doubt the validity of those orders that the Church of England bestows on female candidates and I hold their ministry to be transformative and grace-filled”.
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| Pope Leo XIV raises pro-LGBT UK archbishop to key Vatican roles |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-03-2025, 09:52 AM - Forum: Pope Leo XIV
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Pope Leo XIV raises pro-LGBT UK archbishop to key Vatican roles
Abp. Bernard Longley, tied to the controversial Soho 'LGBT Masses' and synodal LGBT 'outreach,' has been granted a third Vatican role under the new Pope’s agenda.
![[Image: Untitled-1.png]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Untitled-1.png)
Bernard Longley, Archbishop of Birmingham, in Oxford Oratory on April 18, 2010
Wikimedia Commons
Oct 2, 2025
(LifeSiteNews [Slightly adapted - not all hyperlinks from original included below]) — Pope Leo XIV has promoted a bishop who has supported LGBT-themed liturgies to a consulting position within the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, part of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity under Cardinal Kurt Koch.
Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham, England, has received three Vatican appointments since June, despite his long record of support for initiatives in the Church that stand in contradiction to Catholic moral teaching.
The Vatican’s Thursday announcement follows Longley’s nomination to the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity in June and the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue in July.
Longley, 70, is the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, England. He was ordained in 1981 and named auxiliary bishop of Westminster by Pope John Paul II in 2003.
As an auxiliary, Pink News celebrated his role in overseeing the “Soho Masses Pastoral Council” – a group organizing liturgies for active homosexuals. He was tasked with this role by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, then Archbishop of Westminster.
In 2010, he defended the “LGBT Masses” in The Tablet by rejecting any “moral means-testing” before distributing Holy Communion, and accusing critics of making assumptions about the sexual activity of participants.
His comments drew strong rebukes from campaigners, including the late Daphne McLeod of Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice – one of the groups that regularly held a prayer vigil outside the “LGBT Mass.”
In spite of her opposition, McLeod maintained a respectful relationship with the “LGBT Mass” participants. In her response to Longley, McLeod said that they were “perfectly honest about their homosexual lifestyles,” and were “emphasising that they are in sexual relationships.”
“No one, apart from the Archbishop, tries to pretend they are living or striving to live chaste lives,” she added.
Appointed Archbishop of Birmingham in 2009, Longley has maintained close engagement with LGBT groups. In May 2023, he thanked the “LGBTQ+ community” for its feedback in the Synod on Synodality.
His 2023 diocesan response to the synod referred to the “loving relationships” of “remarried divorcees, single parents, people living in polygamous marriage, LGBTQ people.”
Longley’s archdiocese subsequently hosted an event for LGBT-identifying Catholics for what the prelate called “a continued conversation to listen further.”
According to the archdiocesan website, Longley requested the establishment of a diocesan LGBT group, which “emerged from the Synodal Process.” Longley’s LGBT group organised an “LGBTQ+ Vigil Welcome Mass” in May of this year. Longley himself commented, “It is so important that everyone should feel welcome in the family of the Church,” and expressed his hope that such events would offer “appropriate accompaniment and encouragement.”
Longley’s appointments comes amid heightened scrutiny of Rome’s LGBT “outreach.” At the start of September, Pope Leo XIV received pro-LGBT activist Father James Martin, S.J., in a private audience – after which Martin claimed that Leo “will be continuing with the same openness that Francis showed to LGBTQ Catholics.”
Martin had issued a ringing endorsement of Leo on the day after his election, and was reported to have backed then-Cardinal Robert Prevost prior to the election.
Although some argued that Martin should not be treated as a trustworthy witness, events have confirmed his interpretation.
Prior to that meeting, Leo received the heretical pro-LGBT nun Sr. Lucia Caram in a secret, unannounced audience.
Less than a week later, the pro-LGBT group “Tent of Jonathan” descended on the Vatican with thousands of attendees, being able to hold a Mass at the Jesuit Gésu church, and processing through the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica. This event was advertised on the Vatican’s Jubilee Year website.
Leo has himself indicated that the Church’s teaching on sexual morality could change, if attitudes changed first. In recent remarks, he strongly implied that shifting pastoral practice and public opinion must come before any formal doctrinal change.
Martin lauded this, and called for Catholics to pray “for a change in attitude” to this end.
Leo’s other recent appointments include Bishop Michael Pham to the Diocese of San Diego. In July, Pham’s auxiliary, Bishop Ramón Bejarano, offered an “LGBT Pride Mass” in the diocese with his backing. In July, he also appointed Father Thomas Hennen as bishop of Baker, Oregon, who had been involved in drafting pastoral guidelines for persons with same-sex attraction, which made no mention of the necessity of chastity.
As the recently elected vice president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales in 2025, Longley is positioned as one of the country’s most senior prelates as Leo reshapes key Vatican bodies.
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| New Canadian bill would empower government to ban anyone’s internet access |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-03-2025, 09:46 AM - Forum: Global News
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New Canadian bill would empower government to ban anyone’s internet access
Bill C-8 has a provision in which the federal government could block 'any specified person' from using the internet.
Featured Image
![[Image: Shutterstock_642720610.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Shutterstock_642720610.jpg)
Oct 2, 2025
OTTAWA, Ontario (LifeSiteNews [Slightly adapted - not all hyperlinks from original included below]) — A new Canadian bill introduced by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney has raised privacy concerns as it appears that, should it become law, it would give officials the power to ban anyone deemed a dissident from accessing the internet.
Bill C-8, which is now in its second reading in the House of Commons, was introduced in June by Minister of Public Safety Gary Anandasangaree and has a provision in which the federal government could stop “any specified person” from accessing the internet.
All that would be needed is the O.K. from Minister of Industry Mélanie Joly for an individual to be denied internet service.
The bill is titled “An Act respecting cyber security, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts,” and it contains a clause that mandates all internet providers to pull internet services from anyone whom the government demands.
The bill would allow the industry minister to “prohibit a telecommunications service provider from providing any service to any specified person,” all without a warrant. The only recourse a banned person would have is after the order is given. They would have to get a federal court to look at the ban order for a judicial review.
The federal government under Carney claims that the bill is a way to stop “unprecedented cyber-threats.”
The bill as written claims that the government would need the power to cut someone off from the internet, as it could be “necessary to do so to secure the Canadian telecommunications system against any threat, including that of interference, manipulation, disruption, or degradation.”
Experts warn that the flaws must be fixed
Many are speaking out against the bill, warning of its Orwellian-like powers.
“The Liberal government is giving itself power to ban dissidents from the internet!” People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier wrote on X regarding the bill.
“Bill C-8, which is undergoing second reading in the HofC, includes a provision under which Ottawa can pull internet services from “any specified person,” a power that currently doesn’t exist.”
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) blasted the bill as troublesome, saying it needs to “fix” the “dangerous flaws” in the bill before it becomes law.
“Experts and civil society have warned that the legislation would confer ministerial powers that could be used to deliberately or inadvertently compromise the security of encryption standards within telecommunications networks that people, governments, and businesses across Canada rely upon, every day,” the CCLA wrote in a recent press release.
CCL Director of Privacy, Surveillance & Technology Program Tamir Israel said the government must fix the bill’s “flaws” at once.
“By failing to guarantee critical end-to-end encryption protocols will not be undermined, Bill C-8 risks doing more harm than good to cybersecurity,” Israel said.
“Its ongoing inclusion of warrantless data access mechanisms and use of a secrecy by default approach poses an additional threat to privacy and other civil liberties. We urge the government and parliamentarians to adopt important fixes to address these flaws.”
Canada’s own intelligence commissioner has warned that the bill, if passed as is, would potentially not be constitutionally justified, as it would allow for warrantless seizure of a person’s sensitive information.
Since taking power in 2015, the Liberal government has brought forth many new bills that, in effect, censor internet content as well as go after people’s ability to speak their minds.
Recently, Canadian Conservative Party MP Leslyn Lewis blasted a new Liberal “hate crime” bill, calling it a “dangerous” piece of legislation that she says will open the door for authorities to possibly prosecute Canadians’ speech deemed “hateful.”
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