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(IsraelNN.com) Temple Mount Faithful organization activists on Thursday morning held their annual Tisha B’Av cornerstone ceremony near the Mugrabi Gate after police ruled they are banned from the Mount. The participants wished to lay a cornerstone for the Third Temple on the Mount, today, Tisha B’Av, the day marking the destruction of the First and Second Temples, but non-Muslim worshipers are prohibited from entering the Mount today by police.

I have been a Freerepublic member for many years (go ahead and look it up ;-)! As a long-timer, please allow me to take a quick moment to introduce a candidate for District Court Judge for the Kansas 13th Judicial District (Butler, Elk, Greenwood Counties). Jim Murfin is an experienced lawyer with many years spent in both the role of council and of judge. That aside, I know of Jim and his family from the perspective of a long-time friend. Jim posses a strong love of God and family, and is proud to have earned the Kansans for Life endorsement....

SAN JOSE - Gov. Schwarzenegger, heading into a tough re-election campaign, turned on the charm Friday to rally party activists upset in recent months by his administration's perceived tilting to the left. In a dinner speech kicking off the state GOP's San Jose convention, Schwarzenegger did not mention his appointment of longtime Democratic operative Susan Kennedy as his chief of staff, nor other actions that have irritated the party faithful, such as his call to raise the minimum wage. Instead, the governor touted past accomplishments, lavished praise on Republican idols such as Ronald Reagan and laid out his vision for...

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Democratic candidates - including the two vying for the nomination in the governor's race - made their pitch to the party faithful Saturday, trying to set a fiery tone for a campaign season where six state offices are up for grabs. The two gubernatorial candidates - state Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus and Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson - aimed most of their direct attacks at the Republican front-runner in the race, U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons. Titus, a state senator since 1989 who has questioned Gibson's Democratic credentials, basked in a standing ovation at the University of...

Republican activists and elected officials downplayed divisions over Gov. Schwarzenegger at a meeting in Riverside Saturday and predicted that the party would eventually unite behind him. Some conservatives are urging the state GOP to withdraw its endorsement of Schwarzenegger at next month's state party convention in San Jose. Among other things, they are upset with Schwarzenegger's appointment of longtime Democratic activist Susan Kennedy as chief of staff and his proposal for $222 billion in bonds to pay for highways, schools and waterworks. But during a speech to the California Congress of Republicans at the Mission Inn, former U.S. Treasurer Rosario...

When the University of Nebraska’s Studio Theatre advertised its plans to stage the blasphemous anti-Catholic play "Corpus Christi," the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP) and its TFP Student Action and America Need Fatima campaign immediately launched a prayerful protest. "Corpus Christi" portrays Our Lord and His twelve Apostles as homosexuals. Just as Our Divine Savior was abandoned, insulted and mocked during His Passion, so is He offended by the sins of men today. Yet as we recall the tragic abandonment of Our Lord, we also behold the heroic example of Our Lady at the...

Capitol Hill Democrats may be saying that the chairman of the Democratic National Committee doesn't speak for them, but Democratic activists and rank-and-file members outside the Beltway say they are happy with Dean's no-nonsense approach. "People outside Washington, D.C., love Howard Dean. He raises money for state parties, he sends money to state parties and he's attacking Republicans. That's what the chair of the party is," said Bob Mulholland (search), a campaign adviser to the California Democratic Party and one of the DNC members who in February voted for the former Vermont governor and 2004 presidential hopeful to become chairman....

Holy smokes, has the Gonzman gone MAD?!?!?! It’s finally happened, the poor sod. Stark, raving, fruit-loopy…. Relax. Howard Dean is a mouth-breathing cretin , and I'm still your buddy. But he still needs defending. He does. Not what he says, which is as butt-stupid as it comes, but Howard himself. Howie-boy has come under a lot of fire lately with pundits of all stripes referring to him as a loose cannon, irresponsible, a crackpot, and Republicans can barely conceal their glee, begging for more vintage Howard. Please talk some more, Howard. Yell it for me one more time, baby. I...

Faithful AncestorsResearchers debate claims of monogamy for Lucy and her ancient kin Bruce Bower A weird kind of creature strode across the eastern African landscape from around 4 million to 3 million years ago. Known today by the scientific label Australopithecus afarensis, these ancient ancestors of people may have taken the battle of the sexes in a strange direction, for primates at any rate. True, no one can re-create with certainty the court and spark that led to sexual unions between early hominids. Nothing short of a time machine full of scientifically trained paparazzi could manage that trick. All is...

Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A. ¡ª Further to our press release of March 30 regarding the arrest of Father ZHAO KeXun Úw¿Ë„× of Xuanhua Ðû»¯ diocese in Heibei ºÓ±±, we now report that Bishop YAO Liang Ò¦Á¼, the auxiliary bishop of the diocese of Xiwanzi Î÷ž³×Ó in Hebei ºÓ±±, was arrested on March 31, 2005. He is in his early eighties. Before his arrest Bishop YAO had been under mounting pressure from the Chinese authority to sever ties with the Pope and join the official Catholic Church (the Patriotic Association). However, the bishop refused to do so. The faithful in Xiwanzi diocese...

LISBON, PORTUGAL - Sister Lucia Marto, the last of three children who claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary in a series of 1917 apparitions in the town of Fatima, has died, Portuguese media reported. She was 97. Sister Lucia, a Roman Catholic nun, had been ill for the past three months and died Sunday at the Convent of Carmelitas in Coimbra, 120 miles north of Lisbon, TSF radio reported, citing family sources. Lucia and two of her cousins, siblings Jacinta and Francisco, said in 1917 that the Virgin Mary had been appearing to them once a month and predicting...

Editor's note: Readers may also be interested in New Jersey: An Islamic Murder of Coptic Christians?.Anyone following the investigation into the mid-January slaughter of the Armanious family (husband, wife, two young daughters), Copts living in Jersey City, N.J., knows who the presumptive suspects are: Islamists furious at a Christian Egyptian immigrant who dares engage in Internet polemics against Islam and who attempts to convert Muslims to Christianity.The authorities, however, have blinded themselves to the extensive circumstantial evidence, insisting that "no facts at this point" substantiate a religious motive for the murders.Somehow, the prosecutor missed that all four members of this...

23 Ways To Identify A Faithful Parish CRISIS Magazine - Special e-Report January 14, 2005 In my last email, you'll remember that I asked for your advice on a letter I received from one of our readers. She's a non-Catholic who's interested in entering the Church, but wants to make sure she gets involved with a solid parish -- one that follows and promotes authentic Catholicism. So, she asked, what kinds of things should she look for when she walks into a parish church for the first time? Are there any easy, tell-tale ways to gauge the health and fidelity...

What place could be sadder at Christmas than a hospice? Or so one might think. But my high-school-aged daughter discovered otherwise. She visited a hospice with her choir to sing Christmas carols. The residents were in the final months or weeks of their lives. Most were elderly, their faces gaunt, their eyes lusterless. But as my daughter's choir filed from room to room, filling the halls with strains of "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World," the patients seemed transformed. They became animated. Most struggled to sit up, raising their voices to join in and sometimes weeping as they did...

For years, they followed the rules as best they could, attending Mass at least once a week, teaching religious education, helping in the office or the rectory. But for weeks now, in a quiet but extraordinary uprising against the church authority they had been taught to respect, hundreds of Catholics in eight communities in and around Boston have been occupying churches the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston is attempting to close. They have taken over the roles formerly administered by priests and paid church employees, doing everything from leading worship to cleaning buildings. One major thing they cannot do, consecrate the...

by Fr. Paul Scalia Other Articles by Fr. Paul Scalia When Death Does Us Part 11/06/04 "Until death do us part." Most of us recognize these words from weddings we have attended or just seen on TV. Even our culture, which displays a tragic inability to heed them, still understands the truth they convey: marriage is for life. As the author of marriage, our Lord established this truth. During His earthly life He explicitly confirmed it (cf. Mt 19:6). He also taught clearly an implication we rarely consider: there is no marriage in heaven. "The children of this age marry and...

"In assessing the recent history of the Catholic Church, more than one commentator has applied the term "revolutionary" to what he has seen. Although there are some who intend this term's use in its empty corporate advertising sense (i.e., "very good"), most are attempting to draw to focus events and ideas pertaining to what can rightfully be considered a revolution. Indeed, there are fascinating insights to draw from the parallels between the progressive efforts to reform the modern-day Church, and prior revolutionary upheavals in various societies. In more ways than one, the tactics, tendencies and rhetoric employed by Protestant, Masonic,...

"Perhaps the best rebuttal to those pro-abortion "Catholic" politicians in Washington and the statehouses who argue it is their duty to represent all their constituents and not vote or act on legislation based on their own personal beliefs — which reportedly mirror Church doctrine condemning the killing of the unborn — are the words uttered by the 16th century English statesman, St. Thomas More." ... "Clearly these Catholic politicians have elevated the goal of getting elected above their solemn duty to defend the Faith and the most vulnerable in society. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "God, the Lord...

Press Release Contact: Stephen G. Brady Phone: (217) 632-5920 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 1 PM EDT, February 18, 2004 CATHOLIC WATCHDOG GROUP TO CONDUCT MEETING OF ALBANY CATHOLICS An international group of faithful Roman Catholics has scheduled a public meeting in Albany to discuss its ongoing investigation of the Albany Catholic Diocese. Stephen G. Brady, president of the Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc. (RCF) issued a statement on Wednesday that he will arrive in Albany from RCF’s headquarters in Petersburg, Illinois, on Saturday evening, February 21. The meeting will take place at 6:00 p.m. Sunday at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Albany City...