Free Republic

Catholic vs. Presbyterian Question: Could you tell me the difference between the Presbyterian church and the Catholic Church. Answer: Short question, potentially very long answer. I'll try to focus briefly on some basics, beginning with the foundational matter of authority. The Roman Catholic Church understands the Bible to be the inspired Word of God, as do we, but alongside the Bible, stands the authority of the tradition of the church, the decrees of its councils, and the ex cathedra pronouncements of its popes. Tradition, councils, and popes tell the faithful what the Scriptures teach and can add dogma to what...

To halt this “soul drain,” to answer the fundamentalist challenge and, most of all, to understand our faith better, Peter Kreeft looks at five major points of conflict... Whose Bible is it, anyway? We needn’t be bitter in defending our beliefs. Even though many fundamentalists think the Catholic Church is under the control of Satan and all or most Catholics are headed for hell, not all think that — and we shouldn’t think the same of them. However narrow-minded their faith often is, it’s also usually genuine, both in personal sincerity and in basic Christian orthodoxy. Fundamentalism is not some...

January 6, 2010                                   Second Wednesday of Christmas      Reading 1Responsorial PsalmReading 2Gospel Reading I1 Jn 4:11-18Beloved, if God so loved us,we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us,and his love is brought to perfection in us. This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us,that he has given us of his Spirit. Moreover, we have seen and testifythat the Father sent his Son as savior of the world. Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is...

VALENCIA, SPAIN, January 5, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Archbishop Carlos Osoro of Valencia denounced abortion in a well-publicized sermon last Monday as "the worst dictatorship that can exist" and "the greatest injustice in history because it ends the lives of the weakest." The remarks were made on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, which is celebrated every year in the Catholic Church on December 28, and among the Eastern Orthodox on December 29. It recognizes the children killed by the Jewish King Herod, who was seeking to take the life of Christ after discovering that he had been born in Bethlehem....

January 5, 2010                                  Memorial of Saint John Neumann, bishop     Reading 1Responsorial PsalmReading 2Gospel Reading I1 Jn 4:7-10Beloved, let us love one another,because love is of God;everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.In this way the love of God was revealed to us:God sent his only-begotten Son into the worldso that we might have life through him.In this is love:not that we have loved God, but that he loved usand sent his Son as expiation for our...