Free Republic

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who is Catholic, indicated on Friday that she supports forcing St. Mary’s Medical Center, the oldest continuously operating hospital in her San Francisco-based congressional district, to provide health plans to its workers that cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs free of charge even though the Catholic faith says this Catholic hospital may not do so because these things are intrinsically immoral. “We are committed to furthering the healing ministry of Jesus,” says the hospital's mission statement. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius—who, like Pelosi, is Catholic—issued the sterilization-contraception-abortifacient mandate as a regulation under...

Douthat's excellent critique of American heresies By Phil Lawler  | November 27, 2012 8:27 AM Ross Douthat will forgive me, I hope, for saying that it is remarkable Bad Religion was written by such a young man. I don’t mean to patronize him. A conservative Catholic writer who has established himself as a regular op-ed columnist for the New York Times doesn’t need a condescending pat on the head from me.Still, as I read Douthat’s description of the seismic shifts in American culture during the 1960s and 1970s, I had to remind myself repeatedly that he is too young to...

MARYKNOLL, NY, November 21, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has canonically dismissed Roy Bourgeois from the priesthood because of his public dissent from the Catholic Church’s teaching on the ordination of women. Bourgeois’ dismissal was announced by the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, also known as the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, in a Nov. 19 statement. As a Maryknoll priest during 2008, Bourgeois participated in a mock ordination of a woman and a simulated Mass at a Unitarian church in Lexington, Kentucky. The radical feminist group Roman Catholic Womanpriests staged the ceremony....

Featured Term (selected at random):DEONTOLOGISM The theory associated with Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), that only acts done from a motive of duty have moral value. It is a stern moral philosophy, close to Stoicism, which holds that virtue is its own reward and therefore "duty for duty's sake" is man's highest moral imperative. (Etym. Greek deon, that which is obligatory + logia, science, knowledge.) All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Featured Term (selected at random):OCCASIONALISM The philosophical theory that denies that creatures are ever real efficient causes in the visible universe. God's direct intervention is said to bring about every single change in the material world. At once a theory of knowledge and of voluntary control of action, it assumes that when a human being wills a certain action this is the "occasional cause" for God to make a corresponding change in the visible world, and vice versa. the modern author of occasionalism was Arnold Geulincx (1624-69), Dutch Catholic theologian at Louvain who became a Calvinist. (Etym. Latin occasio, a...

Supporters of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of Society of St Pius X, branded the future Pope Benedict XVI and the late Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner "heretics" during the Second Vatican Council, reports The Tablet.A previously undiscovered letter written by Karl Rahner to his brother, Fr Hugo Rahner SJ, during the council in November 1963 has revealed that the French Intégristes - followers of Lefebvre - accused him and Fr Joseph Ratzinger as "heretic[s] who deny the existence of hell and are worse than Teilhardt de Chardin and the Modernists".The letter, part of an exhibition in Munich, states that Rahner consoled...

Featured Term (selected at random):ALUMBRADOS A loosely organized group of spiritual persons in sixteenth-century Spain, condemned many times by the Inquisition, who taught that once a person attains the vision of God's essence in this life he can dispense with all external means of sanctification. Vocal prayer, the use of the sacraments, the practice of justice and charity, penance and bodily mortification become unnecessary. Perfect souls need give themselves only to mental prayer and ecstatic contemplation, which unite them so intimately with God that they lose personal liberty and individuality. In the state of perfection a man becomes incapable of...

The whole world changed on Tuesday. At least, that is what many would have us to believe. Smithsonian magazine, published by the Smithsonian Institution, declares that the news released Tuesday was “apt to send jolts through the world of biblical scholarship — and beyond.” Really? What was this news? Professor Karen King of the Harvard Divinity School announced at a conference in Rome that she had identified an ancient papyrus fragment that includes the phrase, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife.’” Within hours, headlines around the world advertised the announcement with headlines like “Ancient Papyrus Could Be Evidence that Jesus...

ROME (Reuters) - The former archbishop of Milan and papal candidate Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini said the Catholic Church was "200 years out of date" in his final interview before his death, published on Saturday. Martini, once favored by Vatican progressives to succeed Pope John Paul II and a prominent voice in the church until his death at the age of 85 on Friday, gave a scathing portrayal of a pompous and bureaucratic church failing to move with the times. "Our culture has aged, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our rituals and our...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) told a recent gathering of the Women’s Political Committee that the spirits of suffragists Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Paul spoke to her at the White House. Pelosi said she heard them say: “At last we have a seat at the table”. A video recently posted on Youtube shows Pelosi speaking in May describing her first meeting with President Bush in the White House after becoming part of the Democratic House leadership.

Featured Term (selected at random):DEMIURGE Originally a craftsman working for the people, used by Plato (427-347 B.C.) to designate the Maker of the Material Universe. The Demiurge became a common term in Gnosticism and other heretical systems. He was the maker of the world, the personification of evil who caused Christ's crucifixion, at once distinct from the Supreme God and an emanation from him. Some Gnostics identified him with Yahweh of the Old Testament, from whose power man was rescued by Christ in the New Testament. (Etym. Greek d_mos, people + ergon, work: d_miourgos, artisan, craftsman.) All items in this...

Featured Term (selected at random):BOLSHEVISM A term derived from the Russian bolshinstvo (majority) and originally used to designate the radical left among the Communists. The professed aim of Bolshevism is the overthrow of existing governments and the substitution of Communism under the dictatorship of the proletariat. It has been several times condemned by name in papal documents. Pope Pius XI declared, "We have exposed the errors and the violent deceptive tactics of Bolshevistic and atheistic Communism" (encyclical Divini Redemptoris, III, 25). All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Heretical sect founded in A.D. 144 at Rome by Marcion and continuing in the West for 300 years, but in the East some centuries longer, especially outside the Byzantine Empire. They rejected the writings of the Old Testament and taught that Christ was not the Son of the God of the Jews, but the Son of the good God, who was different from the God of the Ancient Covenant. They anticipated the more consistent dualism of Manichaeism and were finally absorbed by it. As they arose in the very infancy of Christianity and adopted from the beginning a strong ecclesiastical...

Is America ready for its first all-Mormon-raised ticket? We're not talking Romney-Huntsman; we're talking Romney-Rubio. Buzzfeed reports that Marco Rubio, the GOP star senator from Florida, was baptized into the Church of the Latter-Day Saints when he was 8, and remained "active in the faith for a number of years during his early youth," according to family members, and confirmed by the Rubio camp. The family converted after moving near close relatives, the Denises, who had joined the church in the seventies. But Rubio's father, a bartender also named Marco, never converted himself; he "had little use for a religion...

As Baptists Prepare to Meet, Calvinism Debate Shifts to Heresy Accusation Hundreds, including seminary presidents, have signed a statement on salvation criticized by both Reformed and Arminian theologians. Weston Gentry [ posted 6/18/2012 ] A statement by a non-Calvinist faction of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has launched infighting within the nation's largest Protestant denomination, and tensions are expected to escalate Tuesday as church leaders descend on New Orleans.

Is Mormonism Christian? This may seem like a puzzling question to ask. Mormons include the Bible among the four books they recognize as Scripture and insist that Jesus Christ is central to their faith as evidenced by their official name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Furthermore, Mormons’ commitment to high moral standards and strong families is impressive. Doesn’t it follow that Mormonism is genuinely Christian? The question here is not whether individual Mormons are saved (a question we cannot answer) or whether the LDS Church is “Christian” in the sense that any group that professes faith in...

Featured Term (selected at random):ERASTIANISM The system of Church-State relations named after Thomas Erastus (1524-83), who was a follower of Huldreich Zwingli (1484-1531) and whose real name was Thomas Lieber. Its main thesis is the supremacy of civil rulers in matters of religion. The basis for this theory is the alleged analogy between the Jewish and the Christian dispensations. Erastianism became the theological justification for the established churches in England and elsewhere. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Featured Term (selected at random):ANTHROPOSOPHY A religious philosophy developed by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) of Germany, by revising Hindu theosophy through the substitution of the human for God as the center of the new system. The method is essentially disciplined meditation that leads to one's lower self arriving at a vision of the higher self, not unlike the discovery of the Atman, or divine Self, characteristic of Vedanta Hinduism. Its doctrine includes belief in various epochs of the human race, reincarnation, Christ as the Sonnenwesen (sun being) of the universe, and karma. Anthroposophy was condemned in 1919 by the Holy Office,...

As a black leader at the helm of a predominantly African-American church, White has faced heavy pushback from his own community over his decision to stand up for gay rights. White's struggles began July 4, 2005, during a national synod of the United Church of Christ in Atlanta. He joined a majority of delegates from across the country in voting to adopt a resolution supporting gay marriage rights. He explained his decision to his congregation when he returned the following Sunday, and saw church membership immediately nosedive. Within weeks he lost two-thirds of his followers. Many Sundays draw about 20...

for once Newsweek got the message on the cover right. Inasmuch as we are commanded to pray for those in positions of power, I wonder how many of my fellow Christians will join me in prayer for 1) his speedy removal from office, 2) that we be protected from his continued perfidy, and 3) his repentance from a relentless attitude of support for sin. I am horrified that many of my alleged co-religionists will vote for him despite his aggressive hostility towards Biblical truths. If ever there was proof of an enervated Church, that is it. Truly, if there are...