Free Republic

What is REAL and REALITY today in American politics? Well... that a good question, but in all honesty who will really hear ETERNAL REALITY?? The common denominator across the American political spectrum is the rejection of Almighty God's Heavenly summons to repent and to be saved (John 8:24, Acts 4:12, 17:30-31, 1 Tim. 2:3-4). Though many across this spectrum may claim to "know" Almighty God, they personally reject Him and the simple Biblical message of salvation in Spirit and TRUTH (Matt. 7:21-23, John 4:24, 5:38-47, 8:24, 16:2-3, Rom. 10:2-4, 1 John 4:1-5). No matter what political party you belong to...

Following yesterday’s thwarted funeral, some reaction in Italy: The head of Rome’s Jewish community praised protesters who blocked the funeral of a convicted Nazi war criminal as Italy marked on Wednesday the 70th anniversary of the deportation of Jews from the Rome ghetto.Erich Priebke’s final resting place is now unclear after the protesters forced a suspension of his funeral on Tuesday in the Italian town of Albano Laziale. His body is lying at a military airport near Rome pending a decision from the authorities.The former German SS officer died aged 100 last week in Rome, where he had been serving...

WASHINGTON - Americans hoping for an end to the gridlock that's caused a partial government shutdown have an option aside from protesting and rallying in front of the Capitol, according to U.S. Senate Chaplain Barry Black. They can pray.

For the past two Sundays, hundreds of Pakistanis of all faiths have formed human chains in front of churches during mass – first in Karachi, then in Lahore. This solidarity movement was launched in reaction to the terrorist attack that killed 81 worshippers at a church in Peshawar, making it the deadliest ever perpetrated against the country’s Christian minority. Militant groups linked to the Pakistani Taliban said they carried out the September 22 bomb attack in response to US-led drone strikes. Christians have been targeted for their faith before, but previous attacks have usually taken the form of mob violence...

By Mary Wisniewski, Reuters Pope Francis' comments that the Catholic Church should not focus so much on homosexuality, abortion and contraception have met with strong approval from U.S. Catholics, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Friday. Sixty-eight percent of American Catholics agree with comments the Pope made to that effect in an interview published last month in the Jesuit magazine Civilta Cattolica, while 23 percent disagreed, according to the poll. There was little difference in opinion between observant and less-observant Catholics, women and men, and among age groups, the poll found. There was little difference in opinion between...

Pope Francis praised Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone for his “attitude of unconditional faithfulness and absolute loyalty to Peter,” as the Italian prelate stepped down from his position as Vatican Secretary of State. In a short ceremony at the Vatican on October 15, Pope Francis said that he was “profoundly grateful” to Cardinal Bertone for his service, and added that he was also speaking for Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI, who had appointed Cardinal Bertone to the Vatican’s #2 post in 2006. “Seven years of hard work, lived with great generosity and in the spirit of service,” the Pope remarked, as he thanked the...

<p>The man who tried to kill staff members at a conservative think tank in Washington D.C. has been sentenced to a prison term of 25 years. The judge in the case publicly praised an unarmed employee of the group for taking on the gunman and likely stopping a massacre.</p>

Several dozen U.S. Army active duty and reserve troops were told last week that the American Family Association, a well-respected Christian ministry, should be classified as a domestic hate group because the group advocates for traditional family values. The briefing was held at Camp Shelby in Mississippi and listed the AFA alongside domestic hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam. A soldier who attended the briefing contacted me and sent me a photograph of a slide show presentation that listed AFA as a domestic hate group. Under the AFA headline is...

Genesis 25 - The First Wrestling Match in Recorded History In Biblical History, which is arguably the most accurate history in the world, a woman named Rebekah was pregnant with two boys; Jacob and Esau. While in the womb the two boys moved and kicked very often, almost seeming to wrestle with each other. Like many historical stories in the Bible, all of us are like one of these two little wrestlers. Rebekah prayed and asked God why this was happening. The Lord answered her and said that she was pregnant with two great nations. The older would serve the...

Today the lawless and lazy American victicrats hide behind the title "the poor". These individuals masquerade as victims and seek sympathy from the American people so they can pursue their narcissistic ambitions. The TRUTH and REALITY of this matter is that these have reaped upon themselves the horrific consequences of their LAWLESS and LAZY lifestyles (Rom. 1:18-32, Gal. 6:7). These masses have been oppressed by their compounded acts of lawlessness and violence and are never held responsible or accountable to society by the Left and Moderates in Washington. Those who try to overcome this decadent and lawless social wasteland and...

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Rattled by Pope Francis’s admonishment to Catholics not to be “obsessed” by doctrine, his stated reluctance to judge gay priests and his apparent willingness to engage just about anyone — including atheists — many conservative Catholics are doing what only recently seemed unthinkable: They are openly questioning the pope The wary traditionalists became critical when, in an interview a few weeks ago, Francis said Catholics shouldn’t be “obsessed” with imposing doctrines, including on gay marriage and abortion. Then earlier this month, Francis told an atheist journalist that people should follow good and fight evil as they “conceive” of them. These...

A court in Malaysia ruled on Monday that a Catholic newspaper could not refer to God as "Allah," in a case that has spanned three years. The Herald argued in 2009 that the government ban on the use of "Allah" - the Arabic world for God - was unconstitutional. The challenge to the government's decree was upheld by a court that year and the ban was lifted pending a judicial review. The removal sparked a series of attacks on Christian places of worship in an unusual display of religious tension in the multi-faith country. The review, presided over by a...

More than 1.5 million people converged on the Philippine capital on Monday for a powerful Christian sect's evangelical event, causing traffic chaos that shut down large parts of the megacity. The gathering of the secretive and politically influential Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ) in the historic district of Manila forced all schools and some government offices to close. See your ad here The Supreme Court, as well as some basketball games in the highly popular college league, were also suspended, while Manila's governing authority urged private employers to give their staff a paid day off to avoid the traffic....

<p>A 200-year-old Russian Orthodox bell has been returned to Alaska after being held by Catholics for more than a century in Southern California.</p> <p>The bell, known as the San Fernando bell, was returned to Holy Resurrection Orthodox Cathedral on Oct. 1 and is waiting to be placed in a permanent outside display.</p>

Just a little chill went down my spine as I read this hour's headline on the DR. Curious if anyone felt likewise.

The atheist community hailed last year’s scientific confirmation of the existence of the Higgs boson, for which the British theoretical physicist Peter Higgs was co-recipient this past week of the Nobel Prize in Physics. Higgs had theorized, all the way back in 1964, that there must be something that gives subatomic particles their mass, which enables them to form atoms, which, in turn, form molecules, all of which is integral to creation as we know it. That something turned out to be the Higgs boson. And its discovery, declared Dan Barker, co-president of the so-called Freedom From Religion Foundation, an...

Thank You Heavenly Mother.

A city mayor in Spain has refused to bow to intimidation by Muslims in response to the breaking up of property illegally being used as a mosque. The city offered another property to Muslims for religious properties, but was refused."The rules of the city and the country are mandatory for everyone, and Mollet del Vallès will be uncompromising toward any kind of radicalism or blackmail." — Josep Monràs, Mayor of Mollet del Vallès, Spain Police in Spain have forcibly removed Muslim activists from an illegal mosque in a small town in Catalonia, an autonomous region in northeastern Spain that is...

When it comes right down to it, President Obama is lawless in the majority of ALL his doings and is as base a man as one can find. This truth could not be seen anymore clearer than current dealings with the government shutdown crisis and his past Planned Parenthood speech in June in which he gave his full support; and "to boot" at the end of his speech asked Almighty God's blessings on the most barbaric organization in the world. The spirit of anti-Christ dominates this man and as time goes by we can see his darkened heart manifesting its...

Hazelmary and Peter Bull Hazelmary and Peter Bull are taking their case to the U.K. Supreme Court this week. At a time when so many of our Christian leaders are guilty of compromising the gospel before the media, dishonoring the Lord as they try to make God’s Word palatable to the world, it was an older British woman—nearly 70 and the owner of a bed-and-breakfast—who displayed a backbone of steel, a deep and consistent faith, and a theological clarity while being grilled on national TV. Cheers for Hazelmary Bull! Hazelmary and her husband, Peter, already in his 70s, owned and...

A nasty Norwegian diplomat at the UN frequently badmouths the Holy See. He wonders why Holy See diplomats are allowed into the room during negotiations. He says outright that the Holy See ought to leave. This has happened more than once.It’s amusing a Norwegian would say such a thing. The development of Norway is rather murky and it is hard to figure when Norway really became Norway. Norwegians might claim it was when Harald Fairhair unified disparate tribes and clans in 872 after the Battle of Hafrsfjord. Even so, it is questionable when the people living there began to...

Welcome homosexual people to fellowship with your congregation, but be very careful how you show them the “love of Christ.” If you welcome them into church membership and/or give them leadership positions of any kind while they are still living a homosexual lifestyle, you will be, in effect, affirming and endorsing their lifestyle and helping them along a path that can only result in their spending their eternity in hell. (1 Corinthians 6:9). How is that showing them the “love of Christ”, who died to save them from their sins, not to save them and their sins?

In the hours following Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's death Monday, many shared stories of their own encounters with the renowned rabbi, whose influence touched almost every aspect of contemporary Jewish life. Among those who had a story to tell was Elishai, a teacher who works with immigrant youth. Elishai heard the story from an older man he happened to meet on a bus. The other man wore clothing that clearly identified him as a religious Jew, including a long coat and black hat, and he engaged Elishai in Torah learning during the ride. As the bus approached their destination, the older...

After six years and hundreds of celebratory confections, it wasn’t the economy, the stiff competition, financing, or any of the other usual road bumps of building a new business that caused Sweet Cakes by Melissa—a husband-and-wife bakery in Portland, Oregon area—to close its doors at the end of the summer.Instead, it was the nationwide battle over same-sex marriage.In January, co-owner Aaron Klein had denied a request to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding. “The Bible tells us to flee from sin,” his wife and business namesake, Melissa Klein told a Fox News columnist recently. “I don’t think making a...

Rosaria spoke for 35 minutes and then fielded questions from the audience for another hour and a half. While she received many challenging questions from opposing viewpoints, the audience was mostly very respectful of her and her time. In short, the Gospel was clearly proclaimed both in her lecture and during Q&A. Even several from USF’s administration told how thankful they were for her lecture and for how smoothly the whole event ran. As I reflect on the events of the past week, especially the past 48 hours, it is difficult to express all that the Lord has done through...

There’s an odd backwards moral reasoning to which our modern age seems particularly susceptible. Surely you’ve heard it: Y does X. Y is a basically good person. Therefore, X must be okay. You hear it from all sides of the cultural divide. “Joe and Fred are married. They’re good people. How can you say that that kind of relationship is wrong?” “Cindy does that. She’s a good person. So how can that be racist?” Think back a bit, and you’ll see that a huge number of the casually-made moral arguments one hears these days boil down to this. There are...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)The federal shutdown has found its angry prophet. Senate Chaplain Barry Black is usually a calm, pastoral presence on Capitol Hill, doling out spiritual wisdom and moral counsel to his high-powered flock. But the Seventh-Day Adventist and former Navy rear admiral is mad as hell about the shutdown — and he’s letting the Senate, and the Lord, know about it. “Lord, when the federal shutdown delays payments of death benefits to the families of (soldiers) dying on far-away battlefields, it’s time for our lawmakers to say enough is enough,” Black said in his prayer opening the Senate on Wednesday. “Cover...

There is something strange going on in the Vatican by Hilary White, Rome Correspondent Mon Oct 07, 2013 18:28 EST ROME, October 3, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – I don’t know if I’m the only one to have noticed, but there seems to be something strange going on in the Vatican. No, I’m not talking about all that, at least not directly. I’m talking about the strange, long, almost awkward and, dare I say it, embarrassed silence, that has reigned from the Vatican’s press office on all of Pope Francis’s extraordinary statements and actions since his election. I’m not going to go...

It certainly makes for a good story: a scrappy kid from Baltimore flunks out of an English class at what is now Loyola University Maryland only to become an international bestselling author. The problem is that the oft-told tale concerning Tom Clancy is just as fictitious as Jack Ryan. “It was an urban legend that just wouldn’t die,” said Carol Abromaitis, the English professor accused of giving Clancy an F in her class. For decades, Abromaitis urged English majors to let others know the truth. Her efforts bore little fruit. “One major said to me, ‘Of course not. It makes...

KRET KROT, Vietnam — A year ago in this poor hill-tribe village, police rounded up members of a small Catholic sect who were accused of trying to create an independent state. The leaders are in jail, followers who escaped have fled into the jungle and officers patrolling the muddy streets warn people to shun that offshoot of the faith. But the crackdown didn't affect activities at the village's church — actually an old lady's house with a white cross fixed to a corrugated iron wall — or a larger church a short hike away, where priests teach young boys math...

I leave it to those trained in such things to assess the reliability of the recent Quinnipiac poll purporting to show American Catholics favoring, roughly 2 to 1, same-sex marriage and women priests. It did not surprise me that the poll indicates greater support for same-sex marriage and women priests among older Catholics, i.e., the generation ‘catechized’ (I use the term loosely) during the worst of the post-Conciliar confusion. But whatever the etiology of such news, I write to suggest that those numbers, if they are even close to correct, portend a true crisis for millions of American Catholics.That God...

Megachurch pastor Rick Warren received criticism this week after posting a photo of a Chinese Red Guard on his Facebook page Monday. The photo....showed a smiling worker in uniform for the Cultural Revolution, which was a social-political movement in China from 1966 to 1976. Millions of people died due to the impact of the revolution. Along with the photo, Warren posted the caption, "The typical attitude of Saddleback Staff as they start work each day.” “People often miss irony on the Internet. It’s a joke people! If you take this seriously, you really shouldn’t be following me!” Warren posted as...

Guess the saint: This saint joined a Crusade to Egypt in the hopes of PROSELYTIZING as many musloids as he could before being killed. This saint was not killed, but was instead received into the court of a sultan. Our saint then offered to engage in a trial by fire – literal fire – with the sultan’s musloid “scholars”. Our saint offered to enter into a fire pit and if he emerged unscathed, the musloid scholars would then have to concede that the CATHOLIC GOD (the word “catholic” means “universal”, so of course God is Catholic, and of course His...

The pope had told reporters accompanying him on his plane back from Rio de Janeiro in July that the next synod would explore a "somewhat deeper pastoral care of marriage," including the question of the eligibility of divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion. Pope Francis added at the time that church law governing marriage annulments also "has to be reviewed, because ecclesiastical tribunals are not sufficient for this. It is complex, the problem of the pastoral care of marriage." Such problems, he said, exemplified a general need for forgiveness in the church today. "The church is a mother, and...

(Salt Lake City, UT) — A group of activist women seeking access to the Priesthood Session at the 183rd Semiannual General Conference were turned away. The 200 women are part of a group called Ordain Women, which is lobbying the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to allow for the ordination of women. A BYU graduated founded the group last year after returning from a mission to Barcelona.

<p>An extremely rare convergence this year of Thanksgiving and the start of Hanukkah has created a frenzy of Talmudic proportions.</p> <p>There's the number crunching: The last time it happened was 1888, or at least the last time since Thanksgiving was declared a federal holiday by President Lincoln, and the next time may have Jews lighting their candles from spaceships 79,043 years from now, by one calculation.</p>

Rabbi Chain Ovadia Yosef, unarguably the greatest Sephardi Torah sage and one of the most influential political leaders of the past 40 years, died in Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital Monday after several months of deteriorating health. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected at his funeral, which will begin at 6 p.m. (11 a.m. EDT) at the Porat Yosef Yeshiva and he will be buried in the cemetery at Sanhedria in Jerusalem. Several main streets will be closed.

Anyone that's familiar what the bible, anything like that, when Jesus said that you're going straight to hell if you didn't treat the less of his brothers and sisters, and what did he say, he said he was hungry. They give him food stamps. – Tax evading Congressman Charlie Rangel The demons are emerging from their pits, folks, and they're slithering toward the TV cameras. Cheatin' Charlie is not "familiar" with "the bible, anything like that." If he were, he would understand that "You Shall Not Steal" and "You Shall Not Covet" are two of the Ten Commandments, and that...

Sean O'Malley is not only the lone American on the Council of Cardinals, but he’s also the lone Franciscan Pope Francis made a historic visit to Assisi on Oct. 4, in part to meet the Franciscans responsible for keeping alive the spiritual legacy of his namesake. Yet it may actually have been a Franciscan the pontiff brought with him who has the greatest imprint on his papacy.  The pope was flanked throughout the day by eight prelates who make up his “Council of Cardinals,” recently formalized by a chirograph as the pope’s most important sounding board, who had just wrapped up...

For 15 years, Heather Ann Clement was a faculty member at Azusa Pacific University, an evangelical Christian school in Southern California. But that changed last month, with the start of Azusa’s new academic year, when Heather came out as a transgender. The professor of theology began referring to herself as Heath Adam Ackley. And she even started to develop a more masculine appearance. The professor of theology formerly known as Heather demanded that Azusa officially recognize “his” new name and gender change. So university administrators sat the prof down for several “thoughtful conversations.” After hearing out Heather/Heath, it was abundantly...

One man's story of how he came to understand the true meaning of Christ's commandment to love your neighbor and turn the other cheek.If you would have told me ten years ago that it was possible for me to form a genuine, lasting friendship with one of the protesters outside general conference, I would have questioned your testimony and standing in the Church. Perhaps I would have nodded my head and agreed that Jesus would have us love our enemies, but it wouldn’t have registered in my mind that actually doing so was possible or even expected. Instead, I would...

Family is the vocation that God wrote in the nature of man and woman, but there is another vocation, complementary to that of matrimony: the calling to celibacy and to virginity for the Kingdom of Heaven. It is the vocation that Jesus himself lived. How to recognize it? How to follow it? I answer you with two essential elements on how to recognize this vocation to the priesthood or to consecrated life: praying and walking in the Church. These two things go together, they are intertwined. At the source of every vocation to the consecrated life there always is a...

There have been a lot of comments on my piece from yesterday pertaining to the prohibition on furloughed GS or contract priests saying Mass at US military installations. A number of people have raised questions over the legal provisions surrounding this situation, and some have said this situation is no different than that facing every furloughed government worker.I’m no attorney, but I’ve done some digging. In an attempt to answer some of these questions, I’d like to share what I’ve found.The governing regulation concerning furloughed federal workers is the Antideficiency Act of 1884. As the story goes, the Executive branch...

Father Kevin L. Kayda It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of Reverend Kevin Lee Kayda. He died unexpectedly at the home of his parents in Carlisle on Thursday, October 3, 2013. Fr. Robert M. Gillelan, Jr., Diocesan Administrator said, “The loss of any life is a tragedy, but the death of a beloved young priest is an especially difficult loss to bear. St. John of the Cross helps us to navigate this difficult passage when he says, ‘And I saw a river over which every soul must pass to reach the kingdom of heaven and the...

Recently a Community Column writer for a local paper wrote an opinion piece denouncing conservative politicians for not complying with the "Red-Letter" teachings of Jesus. Among other things, he was referring more specifically to Ted Cruz's call for evangelical Christians to help his political bloc to defund Obamacare. This claim is worthy of careful examination. Emphasizing the authority of one portion of scripture while ignoring all others isn't a principle of historical normative Christian theology. As the Bible declares of itself "...All scripture is given by inspiration of God..." Red-lettering was first conceived in 1899, and it first appeared in...

This just in, from the Archdiocese for the Military Services: The United States House of Representatives today voted 400-1 to pass House Concurrent Resolution 58 calling on Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to allow the continued performance of religious services on military installations during the government shutdown. The resolution was introduced by Congressman Doug Collins (R-Ga.) in response to an Oct. 3 op-ed by Mr. John Schlageter, General Counsel of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA (AMS) in which he disclosed that non-active duty Catholic priests have been ordered not to work—or even volunteer—on military installations for the duration of...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 10/04/2013 Attention Editors:                It has come to the attention of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA that contrary to earlier reports, Masses will in fact be held as scheduled this weekend at Marine Corps Base Quantico. In spite of the government shutdown, the terms of his contract allow the priest there to perform his pastoral duties because of the way the contract is funded. Nonetheless, many Masses at other installations remain cancelled due to the shutdown. The op-ed issued by the archdiocese on Oct. 3 is thus revised...

<p>Residents of a Florida city who have had "God Bless America" signs posted on their front lawns for months have been ordered by local officials to remove them.</p> <p>MyFoxTampaBay.com reports that the First Baptist Church of Bartow distributed some 300 signs to residents following a Fourth of July celebration. The city only permits residents to display signs during major holidays is starting to crack down on the displays.</p>

(Vatican Radio) At the conclusion of his one day visit to Assisi on Friday, Pope Francis met with over 20.000 enthusiastic young people gathered in front of the Basilica of St Mary of the Angels, answering four questions about faith, family, vocations and their fears for the future. Responding to the first question from a young couple with their new baby, the Pope said it takes courage to form a family, to build solid and lasting relationships in our ephemeral and superficial environment. But the Holy Spirit, he said, has inspired many new initiatives within the Church for young...