Free Republic

A friend wrote me about a school principal, a religious sister, speaking to a parent and requesting school funds. The gentleman was described as an "ultra-Catholic." My friend asked me: "What is that, do you know?" Evidently, the "non-ultra" principal thought it all right to siphon needed cash from the "ultra" parent. No strings were attached. Once the funds were donated, the non-ultra establishment would go its non-ultra way. The ultra was good for his cash, if he still had any. His ideas were, well, ultra. Clearly, I cannot resist taking a stab at defining what a modern ultra-Catholic...

Everyone knows that Obama and the Pope disagree on abortion and birth control... but maybe what we should be more concerned with are the things they AGREE on - things like global governance and eliminating "greed"

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict on Tuesday called for a "world political authority" to manage the global economy and for more government regulation of national economies to pull the world out of the current crisis and avoid a repeat. The pope's call for a re-think of the way the world economy is run came in new encyclical which touched on a number of social issues but whose main connecting thread was how the current crisis has affected both rich and poor nations. Called "Charity in Truth," parts of the encyclical appeared bound to upset conservatives because of its underlying...

THE controversial Mel Gibson film 'The Passion of the Christ' has been dismissed by the Evangelical Protestant Society as a 'Catholic' interpretation of events which "does not present the Gospel". Wallace Thompson, secretary of the Evangelical Protestant Society, said the film displayed "an un-Biblical fixation on Mary, the mother of Jesus. None of this should surprise us, for both Mel Gibson and Jim Caviezel, who plays the part of Christ, are enthusiastic devotees of the traditional teachings of the Church of Rome." He further claims that Mel Gibson "belongs to an ultra-conservative Catholic group which does not recognise the reforms...