Free Republic

Details, from the New York Times: The Rev. Roy Bourgeois, who refused to renounce his increasingly public campaign to see women ordained as priests in the Roman Catholic Church, has been notified of his dismissal by his religious order, the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.A letter to Father Bourgeois, signed by the superior general and the general secretary of the Maryknoll order in the United States, said the dismissal was necessary because of his “defiant stance” in opposition to church teaching.“Your numerous public statements and appearances in support of the women’s priests movement continues to create in the minds of many...

HARTFORD, Conn. ---- For Ensign Peggy LeGrand, the biggest concern about serving on a submarine is not spending weeks at a time in tight quarters with an entirely male crew. What worries her is the scrutiny that comes with breaking one of the last gender barriers in the U.S. military. "I have a feeling more people will be focused on us. Our mistakes and successes will be magnified more than they deserve," said LeGrand, 25, a Naval Academy graduate from Amarillo, Texas. LeGrand is among a small group of female officers who are training at sites including Groton, Conn., to...

This article from the New York Times trumpets the news that Catholic priests worldwide are rebelling against Vatican teaching forbidding women from being ordained. Guess what? The 'rebellion' consists of about 150 priests in the US and about 300 in Austria and some in Australia. Errr, that would be what percentage of the 400-500,000 priests worldwide? I'm sure the Vatican is extremely worried. The galling thing about this push for women priests is that it comes from the very men who have been engineering an artificial crisis in the priesthood for the last few decades. When I was in England...

Delegates at the most recent national meeting of the United Church of Christ (UCC) agreed overwhelmingly July 4 to strike the term “heavenly Father” from the denomination’s constitutional definition of the local church. By a vote of 613 to 161, the delegates voted to change language in Article V of the church’s bylaws (see page 3) from describing a local church as composed of persons who believe in “God as heavenly Father” to those who believe in “the triune God” — thereby relieving UCC members of the responsibility of acknowledging God as masculine. Explaining the change, which reflects a trend...

A small but fast-growing Presbyterian denomination meeting this week in Memphis resolved long-standing theological and constitutional conflicts over the ordination of women that have vexed and divided evangelical Christians for decades. A record-setting 460 delegates to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church's 31st General Assembly voted to allow congregations to call women to ordained ministry, even if their presbytery (governing body) objects for theological or doctrinal reasons....

Betrayal -- that's what living a cafeteria lifestyle means, so it's hard to feel too sorry for proud, self-proclaimed "cafeteria Catholic" Maria Shriver who is experiencing the reality of betrayal from her cafeteria husband. In 2008, Shriver told the world, via the Washington Post's religion blog, that she chooses what she wants from Church teaching: "Even though I consider myself a Catholic in good standing, I disagree with a lot of the teachings of the Church....I don’t believe that if someone’s divorced they shouldn’t get Communion; I don’t believe that people who are gay shouldn’t be accepted into the...

It is no secret that our culture as a whole is descending into an ever-deeper sexual confusion. Recently two examples of this were in the news.In the first article which I summarize here, a Canadian couple have chosen to raise (impose upon?) their child a “genderless” upbringing. For now, they have refused to tell any of their family or friends the sex of their child, whom they call “Storm,” and groom and dress the infant child ambiguously.I would like to provide excerpts of a much longer article here and comment as we go. As usual, the article is in bold,...

Kate Swift, a writer and editor who in two groundbreaking books — “Words and Women” and “The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing” — brought attention to the sexual discrimination embedded in ordinary English usage, died on Saturday in Middletown, Conn. She was 87. The cause was stomach cancer, her grandniece Corin R. Swift said. Ms. Swift turned her attention to the issue of sexist language when she and Casey Miller, her companion, formed a professional editing partnership in 1970 and were asked to copy-edit a sex education manual for junior high school students. The stated goal of the manual was to...

ATHENS, Ohio (AP) - Ohio University plans to test allowing men and women to live together in the same dorm rooms. It's an idea that was pushed on behalf of the school's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Center. Center Director Mickey Hart tells the student-run newspaper The Post the gender-neutral housing will be of particular benefit to students who identify as transgender. Student Senate member Sean Martin says students in dating relationships who try to live together under the new housing option will be "frowned upon." Administrators say a one-year experiment with male-female roommates will begin with this year's fall term,...

NaturalNews) In a bombshell finding that has far-reaching implications for society and culture, scientists at the University of Rochester have found that phthalates -- the chemical found in many vinyl and plastic products -- tends to "feminize" boys, altering their brains to express more feminine characteristics. The study has been published in the Journal of Andrology. Phthalates are found in vinyl products (including vinyl flooring), PVC shower curtains, plastic furniture and even in the plastic coating of the insides of dishwashing machines. The feminization process happens during pregnancy when phthalate exposure causes hormone disruptions in the unborn baby. This chemical...

LONDON, U.K., July 6, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - After contemplating the immense mysteries of human life and sacrificial love in comparison to a woman's "right to fertility control," a writer for the Times of London concludes that attempts by pro-aborts to dismiss the life of an unborn child are a "convenient lie" hiding the fact that, "Yes, abortion is killing.” “But,” she concludes, “it's the lesser evil."Columnist Antonia Senior in a June 30 column (available by subscription only) says that, despite the fact that the abortion debate hinges upon whether the unborn child is a unique life or not, women who...

There is a relentless war being waged against American men that literally spans the entire extent of their lives. From the womb, in which a woman's "right" to abort a male baby for being male is defended but a similar right to abort a female baby for being female is vehemently opposed, to the grave, wherein the disparate impact of old age is ignored despite women living 5.2 years longer than men on the average, men are systematically, structurally and unstintingly under assault. Most men understand this on some level, but like the nice dependable man who can't figure out...

Gloria Steinem, an icon of the women’s movement, has criticized Sarah Palin for trying to brand herself as a feminist.In an interview with @katiecouric, Steinem argued that a woman who chooses not to have an abortion can call herself a feminist, but “you can't be a feminist who says other women can't have an abortion." To be sure, Palin’s role as a feminist has been an issue ever since she made history by becoming the first woman to run on the Republican national ticket. Unlike the Democratic side of feminism, however, Palin is a conservative and opposes many of the...

Professor Ross Forman, who earned his doctorate in comparative literature at Stanford, had a tough time finding work in American universities, but found an inviting atmosphere in Asia, where his education and skills were valued despite his being male. More and more American academics – most of them male – have been traveling far afield to find work in the better environment provided outside of the United States, where higher education has increasingly come to resemble a ladies’ book club. In addition to the ideologically-rooted hostility against men standard in American universities, skyrocketing tuition costs and bloated budgets for the...

Modern women balk at any suggestion that men should be able to tell women how to behave. Many believe that a woman should be able to do whatever she likes without worrying “what women are supposed to do.” When feminists talk to men, they pretend to offer the same sort of freedom from social expectations attached to one’s sex. But this talk of freedom is always a lie. This new, “free” model of manhood approved by feminists must, after all, serve the interests of feminism. Many traditionally masculine behaviors and ideas are clearly “off limits.” So, while the new woman...

When President Obama issued a statement last week marking the 47th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act, the federal legislation that sought to end gender-related wage discrimination, he noted ongoing wage inequities and the fact that women continue to earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. ...

'Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Gospel of Luke 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful'. (Pope John Paul II) DAVENPORT, IA (Catholic Online) - We present the full statement of His Excellency Bishop Martin Amos of the Diocese of Davenport concerning the scheduled effort at 'ordaining' a...

Janine Denomme There are tough questions for the Archdiocese of Chicago after it denied a lifelong Roman Catholic a church funeral. CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports with the story of a battle a cancer victim fought until her dying breath. The priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church is the world's oldest all-boys club. Women need not apply. No debate. No appeal. Protest at your own risk. Which is exactly what Janine Denomme did. Janine was 45 when she died, after a year-long battle with cancer, on Monday. She was a devoted parishioner at St. Gertrude's Roman Catholic Church...

WASHINGTON, April 29 (UPI) -- U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus formally announced a policy change Thursday clearing the decks for women to serve on submarines. Women had never been allowed to serve on submarines in the 110-year history of the underwater force. The new coed era will begin once selected female officers complete 15 months of training. The plan calls for three women to be assigned to eight crews attached to four guided-missile attack and ballistic missile submarines, the Navy said on its Web site. The change had been anticipated since Defense Secretary Robert Gates formally presented a letter to...

The reality has been known for years now, though the Western media have generally resisted any direct coverage of the horror. That changed this week when The Economist published its stunning cover story -- "Gendercide -- What Happened to 100 Million Baby Girls?"In many nations of the world, there is an all-out war on baby girls. In 1990, economist Amartya Sen estimated that 100 million baby girls were missing -- sacrificed by parents who desired a son. Two decades later, multiple millions of missing baby girls must be added to that total, victims of abortion, infanticide, or fatal neglect.The...