Free Republic

Pope Francis has not been re-inventing the Church as much as the media would like people to believe. To say this isn’t to detract from Francis’ pontificate. He has certainly been a unique pope in many respects. As the first bishop of Rome to hail from South America, he has his own personality, style, and priorities – as does every pope. And it’s not his job to re-invent the faith anyway. As the bishop of Rome, it’s his job to simply defend and preach the faith that was passed on to him. Yet time and time again, we’ve seen headlines...

Yes, yes, the Bible describes the relationship between Christ and the Church as a bridegroom and bride, and the Song of Songs is pretty explicit (and is traditionally interpreted as being about the relationship between Christ and the Church), but still – anyone else feel a bit awkward by this phenomenon?

God acts in mysterious ways. That truth is made particularly evident in the types of things he does with those who are especially close to him. Here are a few saints who totally had superpowers:

There have been more than 53 million abortions since Roe v. Wade in 1973. And it is estimated that by the age of 45, 30% of U.S. women will have had at least one abortion. That’s a lot of women who have had abortions. That’s a lot of women who need healing.

A lot feminists today insist that a person must be pro-choice to be pro-woman. This is highly ironic since many first wave feminists were adamantly against abortion, and in fact many of the anti-abortion laws overturned by Roe v. Wade were put in place by pro-life feminists in the 19th century. Rather than viewing abortion a tool of female empowerment, they viewed abortion as a sign of the oppression of women by men. Here are a few examples. Heard of any of these people?

While firmly upholding Church teaching regarding contraception, Pope Francis clarified that good Catholics need not mate “like rabbits, or wasp spiders, with the female devouring the male following the procreative act.” “Openness to life for the husband,” the pontiff said to reporters on his return flight from the Philippines, “is a condition for the sacrament of matrimony.” Catholic couples should practice mutual love and tenderness, he explained, rather than the female “catching her partner in a web and slowly gnawing on him while he’s still alive, resulting in his slow, agonizing death.”

Today we remember the great civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr. Nearly universally respected, King is particularly commended by secular liberals. This is highly ironic because King, a baptist minister, embodied many of the things that secular liberals today dislike the most about “conservative” Christians. If you actually read what King wrote and said, you might be surprised (or not surprised) to find that he regularly appeals to God, the Bible, and even the natural law. Put any of these words in the mouth of a conservative Christian today and liberals would probably label the person a “fundamentalist,” sound...

To quote a friend of mine, “Trying to understand Church issues through mainstream secular media is like trying to understand global economics through a 13-year-old girl’s Instagram account.” In short, it just won’t happen. The personnel aren’t equipped, and likely don’t want to take the time to become equipped, to speak well and foster understanding about nuanced issues in the Church. They’re only after eyes, likes, and shares, (and I don’t know that they deny it) so why, OH WHY do we fall for this every. single. time? A bit of background: Cardinal Raymond Burke, former bishop of the Dioceses...

The Blessed Virgin Mary was thoroughly Jewish. Different cultures and ethnicities have often portrayed her, Jesus, and others from the Bible as being from their group. Since Christianity for many centuries was based largely in Europe, these important characters of salvation history have often been depicted as white Europeans. Which is fine! But other cultures have also depicted them according to their own appearances. Here are 13 beautiful non-white European depictions of the Blessed Virgin Mary:

From an article titled "8 Quirky Ways Epiphany Is Celebrated Around the World": 1) “Women’s Christmas” Also known as “Little Christmas,” in Ireland Epiphany is a day that women take off from work to rest and celebrate for themselves after all the work of the Christmas holidays. Women gather together in pubs without men for special meals and wine (in commemoration of the Wedding at Cana miracle, of course!). Women also receive gifts from their children and grandchildren. (How do we bring this tradition to more places??)

In recent years, examples of good Christian art have at times been difficult to come by. This is partly due to the increasing preponderance of modern art that is often more focused on “making a statement” (political, social, or otherwise) and “pushing boundaries” than on capturing true beauty and uplifting the human spirit. Despite this, there remain many artists who wish to explore the persons of saints and Biblical figures through their art, whether for their own personal interest or simply because they have been commissioned. The following is a list of nine examples of such art in various styles,...

That children have a right to grow up with their biological mother and father should be uncontroversial, but unfortunately it isn’t. The International Children’s Rights Institute was recently founded in order to defend this important right. Below are three practices which it thinks often involve gross and depressingly-common violations of children’s rights.

Gladiator games obviously are no longer going on in Rome. So when did they stop? We actually know the exact day: January 1st, A.D. 404. That’s 1611 years ago today. And it was because of a saint.

"And so we encounter another oddity of Hanukkah: Jews know the fuller history of the holiday because Christians preserved the books that the Jews themselves lost. In a further twist, Jews in the Middle Ages encountered the story of the martyred mother and her seven sons anew in Christian literature and once again placed it in the time of the Maccabees."

When known unbeliever Ridley Scott was announced as the director, faithful film buffs feared the worst. Not only were many unsure whether he would treat the Biblical story with respect, but his film record since the smash hit Gladiator has been rather uneven (Robin Hood, Kingdom of Heaven, and Prometheus all failed to connect with wide audiences). As it turns out, Exodus is thankfully respectful of believers, if not a little ambiguous about the goodness of God. But sadly, a number of Scott’s artistic decisions effectively rob the story of its potential to entertain and to uplift. Here are five...

The phrase has become slippery. “Christian writer.” What does it mean? For some the phrase plays like a favorite old song, an evocation of the glory days of Greene, Waugh, Percy, O’Connor, et alia. Days long gone and sorely missed. For others “Christian writer” may spell an oxymoron, or at least refer to the kind of writer one would not like to meet at a Manhattan cocktail party. And for still others the phrase increasingly tends to serve as a signal that some exceptionally maudlin fiction is quivering like a bad cheese on the horizon. But even looking at the...

But this article isn’t about the whole apparition story so much as it is about the tilma, Juan Diego’s cloak, on which the image of the Blessed Mother was imprinted. In the centuries following the event, some amazing and unexplainable qualities have been discovered about it. Here’s four (literally) awesome facts about the tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe:

AUN-TV has just found out that minutes ago an injunction was filed against President Obama’s Illegal Alien Amnesty program by Freedom Watch on behalf of Sherriff Joe Arpaio. We have reviewed the key points and believe that Freedom Watch (Larry Klayman) has an exceptionally good case as the Obama Administration has set themselves up, due to the reasoning they have presented as to why “discretion” is warranted in this case. Obama has claimed they have to do it because they do not have enough money to process all the illegal aliens. However Congress not only gave Obama all the money...

In the midst of the American Civil War, Lincoln noted that the country’s industry and population was still growing. In the document officially instituting Thanksgiving as a national holiday, he explicitly credited this to nothing else but God’s grace: "No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy." He then asked everyone in the country “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of...

A grand jury has decided not to indict officer Darren Wilson, the white police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, on a street in Ferguson, Missouri, in August. Christian rapper Lecrae offered his perspective of the issue on social media. Here’s what he wrote on Facebook: