Free Republic

Sister Diana Momeka encounters stories like this on a daily basis. A mother came to her the other day, desperate for answers. She couldn't get her four-year-old son to eat. He couldn't sleep at night. His bones ached constantly. And the medicine he was taking was no help. In ways, the boy is a metaphor for the larger Christian community in Iraq—100,000-plus souls still wondering what will happen to them, more than a year after an Islamist movement forced them from Mosul and the Nineveh Plain. Once industrious, hard-working, proud homeowners, the sons and daughters of a millennia-old Christian...

In the post-Vatican II world where Catholic education suffered a steep decline and Catholics began to mesh indistinguishably with the culture, many Catholic devotions faded from view.  It was not a reflection of Catholicism, but rather of a world that became increasingly pre-occupied with non-religious concerns.But what was good centuries ago is still good today.  Being a Catholic always means more—the most—of what Christ had to give.   So in a world broken and scarred, Catholics can rest in the gifts of the ages—prayers, devotions, and graces in abundance with power beyond this world to repair and console. Meatless...

But the independent senator from Vermont , who is vying to be the Democratic party’s 2016 presidential nominee, has been booked to speak there next month at a university convocation. “It goes without saying that my views on many issues -- women’s rights, gay rights, education and many other issues -- are very different from the opinions of some in the Liberty University community,” Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who is Jewish, said Wednesday night, in comments relayed by a spokesman. But Sanders said he would like to see if “we can reach consensus regarding the grotesque level of income...

Blase Cupich is the very model of the Novus Ordo prelate: studiously caring and compassionate, politically correct, not too hung up on doctrine or liturgy (but fanatical about having altar girls), eager to surround himself with women in the Chancery, and tolerant of everything except traditional Roman Catholicism. In short, the perfect promoter of “the Francis effect,” which has earned Cupich’s boss something completely unprecedented for a Pope: endless praise from the entire world. Being “the Francis effect” in action, Cupich is not too hung up about abortion either. Like Francis, Cupich is not “obsessed” with the murder of children...

Surveys show that 70 percent of Americans still haven’t even heard of the Planned Parenthood scandal – after six revealing undercover videos – stunning evidence, if such were still needed, of the mainstream media’s dereliction of public duty when it comes to the truth about abortion. But where are our Catholic media, not only the big outlets like Catholic News Agency, National Catholic Register, and so forth, but those old vehicles of Catholic truth: the diocese and the parish? Some states have started investigations or pulled funding from Planned Parenthood. More videos will surface, which should happen more swiftly now,...

AUSTIN -- Gov. Greg Abbott often posts Bible passages and prayerful remarks on social media, but a Facebook posting about a holy day in his Catholic faith drew vitriolic comments suggesting he worships idols.Abbott posted a commemoration of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, marking Roman Catholic belief that Mary was brought into heaven body and soul.“The Virgin Mary is exalted above the choirs of angels. Blessed is the Lord who has raised her up,” Abbott wrote to accompany a sketch of Mary above the clouds. The sketch contains a notation saying it’s a political ad by Texans for...

A Catholic archdiocese is exercising its right to exclude openly gay scout leaders. In 2012, after publicly announcing his sexual orientation, scout leader Greg Bourke was forced to resign from his leadership position in Boy Scout Troop 325, based in Louisville, Kentucky and run by Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. Following last month's lifting of the ban on openly gay scout leaders by the BSA, Bourke — a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church — applied for readmission to the troop; the request, however, was denied by the Archdiocese of Louisville, citing the option of faith-based scout...

Ezekiel 34:26 I will make My People and their Homes Around My Hill a Blessing. And there shall be Showers, Showers of Blessing, For I will not Shut Off the Rains, but Send them in their Seasons.

In Obergefell v. Hodges, America was once again confronted with the pseudo-philosophical and theological ruminations of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Though one’s initial, reasonable tendency would be to assess any court decision on legal grounds, Justice Kennedy’s opinion is founded on a constitutional jurisprudence that went awry long ago. Instead, perhaps the more appropriate hermeneutic for reading Justice Kennedy’s opinion is the theological lens—a lens that prominently reveals and displays the arrogant and fanciful creation of a liberty out of nothing.In his refreshing dissent, Justice Alito harbors the claim against Justice Kennedy that his majority opinion has imported “a distinctively postmodern...

This October’s synod will allow bishops to adapt Church teaching on the family to the local culture, political landscape and economic situation, an African cardinal has predicted. Cardinal Berhaneyesus Souraphiel of Addis Ababa said: “The Catholic Church is a universal institution, both human and divine. It is not a European church, it is not a Canadian church or a US church. It’s different. The issues families are facing in some parts of the world would be different than in other parts of the world.” While Europe and North America face problems such as how to respond pastorally to state-sanctioned same-sex...

MOSCOW -- Sculptures by a renowned Soviet artist on show in central Moscow were smashed after being denounced by Orthodox activists as "blasphemous" "Delusional people came to the exhibition who broke several works belonging to the Manege collection, by Vadim Sidur," said a spokeswoman for the Manege art center by the Kremlin walls, Yelena Karneyeva, referring to the activists. "Several sculptures are completely smashed," she told AFP, adding that police had come and led away the activists. The works were made of plaster and linoleum. A police spokesman told AFP that he could "confirm the incident happened and that currently...

Religous conservatives aren't going quietly into the night, Americans United's Barry Lynn tells Salon.Because non-politicians like Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson have garnered the most attention during the GOP presidential primary thus far, another distinctive feature of this cycle’s batch of candidates has gone relatively unnoticed. For all the talk and hype about the GOP modernizing and learning the lessons of the George W. Bush era — and for all the breathless speculation about the millennial generation and how it demands of politicians a different approach — the religious right’s presence within the party remains formidable. The aforementioned...

In an August 3rd Chicago Tribune article, Archbishop Blaise Cupich of Chicago suggested that the widespread outrage ignited by the revelations that Planned Parenthood was selling body-parts extracted from aborted children represented an opportunity for Americans to reaffirm our commitment as a nation to a consistent ethic of life. While commerce in the remains of defenseless children is particularly repulsive, we should be no less appalled by the indifference toward the thousands of people who die daily for lack of decent medical care; who are denied rights by a broken immigration system and by racism; who suffer in hunger, joblessness...

Prison officials in the state of Kentucky have told chaplains that they are not allowed to speak of homosexual activity as sinful. The Department of Juvenile Justice revoked the credentials of a Baptist chaplain, citing his refusal to comply with a policy that forbids reference to homosexuality as sinful. Chaplains who do not agree to abide by that policy will not be allowed to work in prisons, officials said. The Kentucky policy stipulates that "staff, volunteers, interns and contractors shall not imply or tell LGBTQI juveniles that they are abnormal, deviant, sinful or that they can or should change their...

We need an update on the Assembly of the Great Swirly, the LCWR annual confab at the Hyatt Regency in Houston.They had a speech by one Fr. Stephen Bevans, SVD.  No, he’s a priest.  He couldn’t be bothered to dress like one to talk to the sisters, however.  He’s from CTU, after all.These neck-tie priests… how pretentious!  If you are not going to wear a Roman collar, why wear a tie? Why not just wear a polo shirt?  Because you are… what… a professional?  You are… German?He has the Great Swirly before him but he has Katsushika Hokusai’s Wave behind him.  It’s...

In the politically charged language of the present, Bishop Vitus Huonder is a “conservative” if not an “extremist.” In fact, he is simply a faithful Catholic Christian. And for that he’s being threatened with three years in jail. It’s happening in Switzerland, but the conflict epitomizes a wider phenomenon of anti-Christian secularists on both sides of the Atlantic using the courts to target Christians for simply standing up for biblical truth.In 2011, Huonder, the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Chur in Switzerland, supported parents being able to opt out of having children as young as four subjected to...

Most of us who teach in the field of Christian Origins get asked from time to time by students or in public lectures, “Professor, Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?” Scholars are aware of the rich and diverse ways in which the term “Son of God” is used in the Hebrew Bible, in subsequent Jewish literature, and in the New Testament writings themselves, not to mention various non-Jewish texts (including inscriptions and coins) of the Greco-Roman period. Most of us who teach in the field of Christian Origins get asked from time to time by students...

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David. (Isaiah 55:1-3) The Spirit and the bride...

Republican presidential candidate and Texas Senator Ted Cruz reunited for the first time in decades with the pastor who baptized him and led his father to Jesus in the 1970s, during a campaign stop in Tennessee this week. For Cruz, he saw his stop through Murfreesboro on Monday to speak at a campaign rally as being more than just an opportunity to share his conservative views with potential voters. As Cruz took the stage to speak to the crowd, he had just one question for the audience. "I was told Pastor Gaylon Wiley was here. Is that right?" Cruz asked....

Christianity is booming in communist-ruled Cuba, and one indication of this is the continuing inflow of tens of thousands of Bibles which are distributed to the faithful in the country's more than 1,000 churches. Last month, some 83,000 copies of the Bible poured into the country courtesy of the International Missions Board. The copies of the Bible are distributed by the Baptist Convention in Cuba. The American Bible Society, which claims to have "strong relations with Cuban churches, both Catholic and Protestant," also started its "Million Bible Mission" last year. About 60,000 Bibles were imported and distributed to the faithful...