Free Republic

The linear conception of history is so seductive, even antagonistic groups like Enlightenment philosophers and Marxists adopt it. It pervades their attitude toward religion. Both believe society matures as it sheds its religious heritage. Infantile societies practice religion, but progressive societies are secular, they maintain.

Priests and thousands of other Georgians broke through police barricades and forced gay rights activists to flee on Friday, cutting short their rally to mark the international day against homophobia. Holding banners saying "Stop Homosexual Propaganda in Georgia!" and "Not in our city!" the demonstrators swarmed into a square in central Tbilisi where about 50 Georgians were rallying in support of gay rights. Police escorted the gay rights supporters onto buses and drove them away to avoid violence. Several people, including some journalists, received minor injuries, Georgian media said. "We won't allow these sick people to hold gay parades in...

RICHLAND, Wash. (BP) -- A florist who was told by the state of Washington she must provide her services for a gay wedding is countersuing the state, saying she has served gay customers her entire career and is concerned the state's position on gay weddings will harm religious freedom. The countersuit by Arlene's Flowers came weeks after Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson sued the florist when its owner, Barronelle Stutzman, declined to design a wedding floral arrangement for a longtime customer who is gay. Washington legalized gay marriage last year. The countersuit, filed by the group Alliance Defending Freedom, says...

New York City, N.Y., May 18, 2013 / 06:02 am (CNA).- Bill Donohue of the Catholic League said he was “stunned” that the IRS investigated his organization in 2008, charging that the Democrat-leaning group Catholics United filed the complaint and used it to argue that CNN should drop him as a commentator. “This was a fishing expedition meant to intimidate me and create a chilling effect on my freedom of speech,” Donohue said. “I still couldn’t believe that a couple of weeks after the election, I was being asked to spend my entire Thanksgiving trying to defend the Catholic League...

In early May, the trial of Kermit Gosnell was drawing to a close. Our nation was gripped by the revelations of how for years, this notorious abortionist had enjoyed free reign to do his bloody work in horrifically unsanitary, effectively unregulated conditions, resulting in the murder of a number of newly born-alive babies and one mother, along with the countless human beings similarly killed inside the womb. Serious questions were being raised about what our legal regime and social culture of abortion-on-demand had unleashed, and the moral inconsistency being horrified by Gosnell’s crimes while supporting pre-birth abortion. And the Religious...

“See, it is I who created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its work. And it is I who have created the destroyer to work havoc; no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and this is their vindication from me,” declares the LORD. (Isaiah 54:16-17)

The finances of Christians who tithe are generally healthier than the finances of those who do not, according to a new report that takes a close look at the financial, spiritual and giving practices of people who give 10 percent or more of their income away to churches and charities each year. Researchers compared tithers to non-tithers using nine financial health indicators, and found that tithers were better off in every category. Among tithers, for example, 80 percent have no unpaid credit card bills, 74 percent don't owe anything on their cars, 48 percent own their home and 28 percent...

The American Atheists of Cranford, N.J., announced Friday they will be sending books on atheism to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources to be placed next to Gideon Bibles inside every cabin and lodge at the state's parks. On April 28, Ed Buchner, the former president of American Atheists, a nonprofit organization that was founded by Madalyn Murray O'Hair in 1963, complained to the Department after he found "nine Bibles" inside his cabin, according to American Atheists. In a move to avoid controversy, and a potential lawsuit, the decision was made to remove all Bibles from the state's parks that...

I got an interesting port on my Facebook page. Yes, I still have one that I use to keep up with friends and family, but it is quickly becoming very adversarial. I'll let the comments below speak for themselves. Let me know what you think.

The 2011 census puts the Muslim population of the UK at around 5 per cent, a total that has been boosted by around 600,000 Muslim immigrants who have arrived in the UK over the past decade. Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, said to UK daily the Telegraph that the decline of Christianity is “inevitable.” “In another 20 years there are going to be more active Muslims than there are churchgoers,” he said.

Televangelist Pat Robertson is under fire once again after telling the wife of a cheating husband to get over the infidelity and provide a better home so he doesn’t “wander.” Robertson was responding to a letter from a woman identified as Ivy during Wednesday’s episode of “The 700 Club.” Ivy wrote, “We have gone to counseling, but I just can’t seem to forgive, nor can I trust. How do you let go of the anger? How do you trust again? Robertson’s co-host began to answer the letter when the one-time Republican presidential hopeful interjected with the “secret” to getting past...

[SNIP] The Church's predictions came as it launched an attack on plans by the First Minister, Alex Salmond, for a new class of “belief” ceremonies – alongside traditional religious and civil weddings. The Scottish Government is currently attempting to overhaul the marriage laws north of the border, primarily to introduce same-sex marriage. But the bill would also include a wider update of matrimonial laws including plans to create a “third way” to get married, through so-called “belief” ceremonies to accommodate those who do not belief in a deity but do but do promote a belief system. It follows the popularity...

Here’s a story about a poignant and prayerful work of mercy most people never hear about.Details: No one Mary Helen Wells knew was at her funeral.The physical sum of her 85 years filled a donated urn Monday afternoon, among 36 other donated urns full of unwanted remains. A kindly priest said prayers and stowed them in a crypt. A groundskeeper sealed it, and the mourners, gathered on principle, dispersed.In South Florida, hundreds die every year without a survivor to claim them. The causes vary: liver failure,dementia. One homeless man died in 2011 when an industrial oven he was helping someone...

Many Vatican-watchers interpreted the election of Pope Francis as Rome’s counter-offensive against the rise of neo-Pentecostalism in the global South. Pentecostalism is the fastest growing sect in the Latin America, where a third of the world’s Catholics live, and is giving the established Roman Church a run for its money — so to speak. The latest figures show that the numbers of Pentecostals throughout Latin America has soared since 1970 — when they represented a mere 4 percent of the population — to nearly 30 percent. In Guatemala it is estimated that four in ten are Pentecostals. Reasons for the...

Caracas, Venezuela, May 16, 2013 / 12:16 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Reporter Macky Arenas of the Catholic Lay Report said the serious food shortage in Venezuela could lead to a lack of wine and hosts for the celebration of Mass. Arenas explained that the shortage in the country is due to “the lack of raw materials.” “This is not a country known for the production of wine, and the only national company has told the bishops it will not be able to meet demand,” she said in statements to CNA. Officials in Venezuela are warning that the situation will not improve...

“We have started down the path of a disposable culture,” Pope Francis said in a May 16 address to four new ambassadors to the Holy See. In his remarks to the new envoys, the Pope spoke about injustice in the world economy, and especially in a socio-economic system in which “human beings themselves are nowadays considered as consumer goods which can be used and thrown away.” The Pope accepted the diplomatic credentials of Bolot Iskovich Otunbaev of Kyrgyzstan, Davis Shoul of Antigua, Jean-Paul Senninger of Luxemburg, and Lameck Nthekela of Botswana. He addressed them as a group, insisting that economic...

Isaiah 26:8 O Lord, we Love to Do Your Will! Our Heart's Desire is to Glorify Your Name.

Dennis Prager and others have done an excellent job of highlighting the genuinely anti-Semitic content of a recent Church of Scotland publication entitled “The Inheritance of Abraham? A Report on the ‘Promised Land,’” and Prager has even called it “ugliest depiction of Jews since medieval times.” What has not been mentioned, however, is the great tradition of philo-Semitism in recent Scottish Church history, making the contrast all the more extreme. Some of the great Scottish Presbyterian leaders of the 19th century built on the heritage of English Puritan theologians like John Owen (1616-1683), who wrote, “The Jews shall be gathered...

As we all know, in far too many cases in years past, priests were accused of sexual abuse by genuine victims—and these crimes were simply swept under the rug, by church officials who eschewed their God-given responsibility to take appropriate action. This is an established, ugly fact that is not up for debate! It’s true that there’s often more than one legitimate way for an ecclesiastical superior to deal with these problems; but doing nothing, preferring to ignore the issue in the hope that it will simply go away, never has been or will be an option, ever. Note that...

The problem with much Christian worship in the contemporary world, Catholic and Protestant alike, is not that it is too entertaining but that it is not entertaining enough. Worship characterized by upbeat rock music, stand-up comedy, beautiful people taking center stage, and a certain amount of Hallmark Channel sentimentality neglects one classic form of entertainment, the one that tells us, to quote the Book of Common Prayer, that “in the midst of life we are in death.” It neglects tragedy. Tragedy as a form of art and of entertainment highlighted death, and death is central to true Christian worship. The...

We have no idea yet if Pope Francis is simply going to lead by words, exhortation, and example or if he is going to back up his words, exhortations and example by concrete directive and promulgations. We have had him for only two months or so and we're still trying to figure him out. He is clearly into the "reform of the reform" and moving forward with that, not backwards. However, for him it is not just a focus on the liturgy, but rather on the people of the Church beginning with bishops, priests and religious, in particular women...

Suppose, one day, you’re reading a historical account of life in Alaska in the 1920s and one of the main characters in the account is named Sting.“That’s surprising,� you think.Suppose that Sting is portrayed as married to a woman named Oprah.“That’s improbable,� you recognize.Then you read that Sting has a brother named Spock.You say to yourself: “Okay. Something is wrong here.�What is it? And what does all this have to do with the gospels?You might be surprised, but the names of the figures mentioned in the gospels actually provide evidence that they’re true.Here’s the story . . . The basic problem...

Michelangelo was asked the question how he could make a beautiful sculpture like his “Moses� out of a large block of marble. He famously answered that he simply began and chipped away everything that wasn’t Moses.And this is a paradigm for us, into senses.Clearly for us, the Lord must chip away everything in us which is not Jesus. Yes, everything that is not of the Lord must go. St. Paul said, “I live, no not I, Christ lives in me! (Gal 2:20). And thus, the Lord chips away at all in us that is not of him that we may...

The memorable play of Irish author and playwright Samuel Beckett, "Waiting for Godot," has become a metaphor for situations in which people wait for someone unlikely to come, or do not even know what they are expecting. They just keep waiting and waiting. The handful of Orthodox Greeks left in Turkey appear to be waiting for Godot, too, caught in a very typical Turkish situation. The Theological School of Halki, which is attached to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, has been closed down since 1971. Almost every day for the past 42 years, the Orthodox community has been anticipating the news of...

St. Petersburg, May 14, Interfax - A monument to the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna has been unveiled next to the Church of the Resurrection near Varshavsky Railway Terminal in St. Petersburg. Sculptor Mikhail Pereyaslavets' creation, the monument is dedicated to the 400th anniversary of the House of Romanov and the 120th anniversary of Nicholas and Alexandra's royal wedding. The sculpture was built with donations from the parish and was sanctified by Archbishop Markell of Tsarskoye Selo. The dedication ceremony, held next to the Church of the Resurrection on Obvdnoi Kanal, was attended by the church...

I was flying from Los Angeles to Miami when I found myself sitting next to two women. Sarah was sitting closest to me. She was 29, inappropriately dressed, with a ring through her nose, and she wasn’t the friendliest person I have sat next to on a plane. After we took off I couldn’t help but notice that her friend kept kissing her on the cheek, holding her hand, and rubbing her shoulder. They were gay, and that little revelation lifted my planned witnessing encounter up a big notch on the awkward-meter. I really didn’t want an angry gay couple...

Pope Francis receives a postcard with a photograph of himself as a gift at the end of his weekly audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican May 8. (CNS photo) “The life of slumbering Christians is a sad life; it is not a happy life. Christians must be happy with the joy of Jesus. Let us not fall asleep!� — Pope Francis, General Audience, April 24, 2013. I. To read Pope Francis, we must not be too literal. When he talked, in a recent General Audience, of “slumbering Christians,� he was not waging a war against “slumber parties.�...

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi responds to a journalist's question about the Vatican's participation in Venice's International Art Festival. Credit: Stephen Driscoll/CNA. Vatican City, May 14, 2013 / 09:33 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican is participating for the first time in a famous international art exposition in Venice under the theme “Creation, Un-Creation and Re-Creation,� with the aim of promoting modern dialogue on faith. The 55th edition of Venice’s Biannual Art Festival, known as the “Biennale di Venezia� in Italian, will take place June 1 to Nov. 24 and will bring together exhibits from 88 different countries. The Vatican’s contribution will...

Beijing, May 13, Interfax - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia believes the Russian Orthodox Church and religious organizations of China could work together on strengthening morals in the world. "We have common moral tasks. These are global tasks. We see a sharp moral decline in many countries of the world, especially in the Western civilization," the patriarch said during a meeting with representatives of Chinese religious communities in Beijing on Monday. All laws are based on morals and moral decline "will lead to the collapse of the entire system of human relations and mankind will commit suicide," he...

The Blessed Virgin Mary is venerated under this title following apparitions to three shepherd children — Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco — in Portugal in 1917. The message of Fatima includes a call to conversion of heart, repentance from sin and a dedication to the Blessed Virgin Mary, especially through praying the Rosary. This optional memorial is new to the USA liturgical calendar and is inscribed on May 13. According to the 1962 Missal of Bl. John XXIII the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, today is the feast of St. Robert Bellarmine. He was famous throughout Europe as a theologian,...

Praise God that he was convicted of some murders of those poor babies and the woman patient. I pray ABC News covers it, but it truly wouldn't surprise me if they didn't. If anyone would like to contact their advertisers due to their lack of coverage of the story, these are the ones from Saturday. Prilosec Energy Tomorrow Preen Chase Business Ink Sunsweet Nexium Quicken loans One-a-Day Lyrica Dulcolax TVboss.org, Ad Council Franklin Templeton Zantac American Cancer Society Crestor Oral B Phillips

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY is being redefined in America, or at least many would like it to be. Our secular establishment wants to reduce the autonomy of religious institutions and limit the influence of faith in the public square. The reason is not hard to grasp. In America, “religion” largely means Christianity, and today our secular culture views orthodox Christian churches as troublesome, retrograde, and reactionary forces. They’re seen as anti-science, anti-gay, and anti-women—which is to say anti-progress as the Left defines progress. Not surprisingly, then, the Left believes society will be best served if Christians are limited in their influence on...

Christian ministers like Joel Osteen, Rick Warren and Jamal Bryant are among a number of high-profile individuals and organizations apparently being used by scammers on Facebook to solicit funds from unsuspecting supporters.Miles McPherson, senior pastor of the Rock Church in San Diego, alerted his Facebook fans Wednesday that someone had set up a fake account on the social network pretending to be him.Joel Osteen Ministries, which has more than 3,630,000 "Likes" on Facebook, received several messages from supporters this week notifying the Lakewood Church ministry of account holders using Joel Osteen's name.The ministry has routinely responded: "Thank you for informing us...

(Vatican Radio) On Sunday 12 May, Pope Francis will preside at a Mass for the Canonization of Blessed Antonio Primaldo and Companions; Blessed Laura di Santa Caterina da Siena Montoya y Upegui, virgin and foundress of the Congregation of the Missionaries of Mary Immaculate and St Catherine of Siena; Blessed Maria Guadalupe Garcia Zavala, co-foundress of the Congregation of the Handmaids of St Margaret Mary (Alacoque) and the Poor. The announcement of the canonization was made at a consistory on 11 February – a consistory made historic by Benedict XVI’s announcement that he would resign the papacy. Among those being...

An official says Turkish authorities have tightened security for the Istanbul-based Orthodox Patriarchate following allegations of a plot to attack the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians. Unconfirmed local media reports said Friday police briefly detained a man following a tip that he planned to assassinate Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. Haberturk newspaper said prosecutors in Ankara were investigating the alleged plot. Police wouldn't confirm the reports, and the prosecutor's office did not immediately return calls.

No genius is needed to figure out that Pope Francis is not a liturgist the way Pope Benedict was. But the fear that Francis’ papacy may mark the “end of the reform of the reform” of the liturgical changes that were introduced after the Second Vatican Council is, frankly, unfounded. [snip] ... Buenos Aires is probably the Latin-American city with the largest number of Masses celebrated in the extraordinary form....[Yet Bergoglio] was concentrating on a far more daunting task: making sure that all of the faithful in his archdiocese had access to a decent Mass. In Latin America, beside...

Bogotá, Colombia, May 9, 2013 / 12:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A three-year-old Colombian boy has garnered attention across the internet for a video in which he dons priestly garments and “celebrates� Mass, reciting the liturgy from memory. Samuel Jaramillo, who is an orphan, lives with his grandmother and an aunt in the city of Medellin. When family members posted a video of the boy pretending to celebrate Mass on YouTube, it gained rapid popularity, attracting nearly 300,000 views in just over a week. His relatives told reporters that last Christmas, Jaramillo did not ask for toys like most kids...

Here are ABC advertisers for Friday if anyone would like to contact them about not covering the Gosnell trial. I included USAA's 800 number because they require you to register to contact them over the internet, and their questions are very invasive, including birthday and even Social Security number. That last one stopped me. USAA (1-800-531-8722) Preen Dulcolax (Boehringer Ingelheim) Biomet Oxford knee Zyrtec (McNeil PPC) Publisher's Clearinghouse Chase Business Ink Zantac (Boehringer Ingelheim) Axiron BP Aleve

The LORD reigns forever; he has established his throne for judgment. He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the peoples with justice. The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you. Sing praises to the LORD, enthroned in Zion; proclaim among the nations what he has done. For he who avenges blood remembers; he does not ignore the cry of the afflicted. (Psalm 9:7-12)

I wrote HERE about Jesuit-run Boston College’s plan to have anti-Catholic catholic, pro-abortion Prime Minister of Ireland Enda Kenny speak at commencement and then confer on him an honor.Outrageous. Shades of Notre Shame.Now I read at the site of the Cardinal Newman Society (see their feed on the side bar) that the local Archbishop, Sean Card. O’Malley, will boycott the event. Cardinal Sean O’Malley Will Boycott Boston College CommencementArchdiocese of Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley said today that he plans to boycott Boston College’s commencement ceremony May 20 because it will feature Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny as its commencement speaker....

Here is something that I never thought I would write.Fr. Z kudos to Jamie Manson of the National Schismatic Reporter.One of Fishwrap‘s headliners, a darling of LCWR, the openly-lesbian, Margaret Farley-mentored Jamie Manson has sobered up about Pope Francis.She has a piece in the Fishwrap today in which she tosses Francis under the bus. Be clear about this: she is wrong in her positions, but she is honest enough to state her case clearly and she sees accurately what is going on.Context: she starts with the high hopes which the liberal, dissenting LCWR-ers had for Pope Francis, how jazzed they...

Marriage and the Church Someone quipped, "The world is moving so fast these days that the one who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it." I thought rather cynically about this quote as I listened to the Supreme Court argue over the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Just a decade and a half ago, this legislation was signed into law, defining marriage for federal purposes as the union of one man and one woman. DOMA came as a safeguard against individual states redefining marriage and forcing the federal government (the whole nation!) to treat same-sex...

Archdiocese of Boston's Cardinal Sean O'Malley said today that he plans to boycott Boston College's commencement ceremony May 20 because it will feature Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny as its commencement speaker. The College is scheduled to award Kenny an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. Kenny supports loosening the country's legislation against abortion. “Since the university has not withdrawn the invitation and because the Taoiseach (prime minister) has not seen fit to decline, I shall not attend the graduation,’’ O’Malley said in a statement released this afternoon. “It is my ardent hope that Boston College will work to redress the...

A few weeks ago Mitt Romney spoke at a college commencement exercise and encouraged the graduates to marry early and have a lot of children. He used the words “quiver full” taken from the Old Testament.The comment was unremarkable, particularly for a Mormon to make. They are known for marrying early and having quivers full of children. Contra the contraceptive culture, even among Evangelicals, the notion of a quiver full from the Psalms is gathering steam among orthodox believers.Here is what he said, “You only live one life. Don’t spend it in safe, shallow water. Launch into the deep. If...

May 9, 2013 – Much ink has been spilled in recent months over what social analysts are calling the “rise of the Nones.” The trend describes the seeming surge in people who claim no faith or say they are unaffiliated with any belief system. The term rose to prominence when a Pew Research poll found that the number of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated rose to almost 20%—a nearly 5% leap in just the last five years. In the subsequent months, a Gallup poll showed similar numbers, and most recently, in March 2013, a poll from UC-Berkeley and Duke University...

A report from the Pennsylvania Pastors' Network reveals that approximately 20 percent of evangelical pastors in the Keystone State are "not in sync" on significant moral and doctrinal issues. The report contains information compiled from a phone survey conducted by United in Purpose on behalf of PPN. The survey asked evangelical pastors from across the state to respond to 20 questions pertaining to topics such as abortion, same-sex marriage, the authority of the Bible, and how a person can be spiritually saved. The results of the survey are being released in several parts over time. When asked to respond to...

Pope Francis. (AP)(CNSNews.com) – In his May 4 homily, Pope Francis stressed that Christians must follow Jesus and not listen to the deceptive “dialogue” of “the prince of this world,” the Devil, adding, “There can be no dialogue with the prince of this world: let this be clear!”Pope Francis made his remarks during the Saturday Mass at the Saint Martha House, which is next to St. Peter’s basilica at the Vatican. As excerpted on Vatican Radio, the Pope said that “the spirit of the world hates” and that Christ “redeemed us from the power of the world, from the...

The purported value of ethical relativism, the idea that there are no transcendent, binding rules for right and wrong that all humans are morally required to submit to, is that it allows us to live in peace. That is, if you have your ethics, and I have my ethics, well then there is no real need for us to fight over whose ethic wins. (So long, as, of course, our lives never actually cross.) The real value is far more sinister. We find ethical relativism appealing because we find our own guilt unappealing. Though we seek to suppress such knowledge,...

If anyone would like to contact advertisers of ABC News due to them not covering the Gosnell trial, here are the ones from tonight. There are others, too, that I've posted in earlier threads. Publisher's Clearinghouse Enbrel Bayer Ally Bank Miracle Gro EnergyTomorrow AngiesList Preen Biomet Oxford partial knee Johnson & Johnson Chase Bank Ink Axiron Transitions