Free Republic

OLYMPIA – Lt. Gov. Cyrus Habib, who presided over the Senate for the last three years as part of his duties as the state’s No. 2 elected official, will not seek re-election, his office announced this morning. Habib said he will be joining the Jesuits. “This decisions follows two years of careful and prayerful discernment,” Habib said in a news release. “But since that process has been almost entirely private, I realize this will come as a major surprise to my constituents and supporters.” Habib, who has been blind since age 8 because of cancer, managed his duties as president...

Fr. Donald McGuire served as Mother Teresa's spiritual directorSAN FRANCISCO (ChurchMilitant.com) - A priest with ties to Mother Teresa stands accused of sexually abusing underage boys for decades, one victim saying the abuse occurred more than 1,000 times. Robert J. Goldberg filed suit in state court in California on Monday, alleging the late Fr. Donald J. McGuire sexually abused him "more than 1,000 times, in multiple states and countries," according to court documents. McGuire, a Jesuit priest, died in 2017 during a 25-year federal prison sentence for molesting minors. According to the lawsuit, Goldberg was 11 when he first met...

One day in May of 1970, an 11-year-old boy and his disabled sister were sitting on the curb outside a Chicago tavern, waiting for their mother to come out. When a priest with crinkly eyes and a ready smile happened by and offered the family a ride home, they could not have been happier. The boy, Robert J. Goldberg, now 61, would pay dearly for the favor, enduring what he describes as years of psychological control and sexual abuse he suffered while working as a child valet for the late Rev. Donald J. McGuire. He remained in the Jesuit's thrall...

Pope Francis tells teens they’re not a ‘disciple of Jesus’ if they try to convert non-believers ROME, December 23, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — In an apparent repudiation of the Great Commission to baptize and teach all nations (Matthew 28:16-20), Pope Francis has recently told a group of high school students in Rome that speech should never be used in order to convince a non-believer of the truths of the Catholic Faith. Citing a fictional 11th century account of an episode of forced conversion, attributed to the eighth century emperor Charlemagne, Pope Francis implied that the belief that positive efforts should be made to...

[Catholic Caucus] Synod’s day one features ecology, married priests, an Amazon rite and blowback Pope Francis walks in procession on the occasion of the Amazon synod at the Vatican, Monday, Oct. 7, 2019. Pope Francis opened a three-week meeting on preserving the rainforest and ministering to its native people as he fended off attacks from conservatives who are opposed to his ecological agenda. (Credit: Claudio Peri/ANSA via AP.) ROME - During the two-year run-up to the event, Pope Francis’s Oct. 6-27 Synod of Bishops on the Amazon was expected to generate strong ecological consensus, firm support for indigenous cultures and...

Pope Francis says he felt ‘bitterness’ when introduced to Catholic converts in Africa VATICAN CITY, September 27, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― In a question-and-answer session with Jesuits in Mozambique, Pope Francis underscored his dislike of “proselytization” by condemning the actions of a Catholic woman he had met that day.  The Argentinian pontiff’s September 5 remarks were published yesterday in the Holy See’s news website Vatican News. “Today I felt a certain bitterness after a meeting with young people,” Pope Francis told the assembled Jesuits.   “A woman approached me with a young man and a young woman. I was told they...

An international organization of Catholic exorcists said Thursday that the existence of Satan as a real and personal being is a truth of Christian doctrine. “The real existence of the devil, as a personal subject who thinks and acts and has made the choice of rebellion against God, is a truth of faith that has always been part of Christian doctrine,” the International Association of Exorcists said in an Aug. 22 press release. The organization’s release came in response to recent remarks on the devil from Jesuit superior general Fr. Arturo Sosa, SJ, which the organization called “grave and...

-- Fr. Bernard "Barney" McMeel, who was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1954. He also worked in 24 assignments in two Alaska dioceses (1955-1978), nine in Montana (1978 until his death 1994) and one in California (1954-1955). In a 2006 civil lawsuit, he was accused -- along with fellow Jesuit Fr. Andrew Eordogh - of having sexually abused a boy in Holy Cross, Alaska, beginning when the boy was four years old in 1967. His accuser said Fr. McMeel "handed him off" to Fr. Eordogh when Fr. McMeel left in 1968 to become Superior Regular of Jesuits in Alaska. http://www.bishopaccountability.org/assign/McMeel_Bernard_Francis_sj.htm -- Fr. Walter George DeRoeck, who was a Chicago priest ordained in 1971. He resigned...

Georgetown Preparatory School, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's high school, decried how it has been portrayed in recent media accounts about sexual misconduct allegations surrounding Kavanaugh. In a statement, the private school said its community was "being disparaged" and said the portrayals in the media were inaccurate, while also criticizing some media outlets for publishing stories without seeking comment from the school. "The image that has been presented on social media and in various news outlets depicts recklessness, illegal conduct, and lack of respect for persons. Worse, many blame these faults on institutional indifference," Georgetown Prep said in its statement....

Here we have it: Brett Kavanaugh, product of a Jesuit education, academic overachiever, fine young man, Supreme Court nominee – and suddenly bad stuff to the Jesuits' main magazine based on a single unsubstantiated accusation from a leftist.  So that's why America magazine is now disavowing him.  Take a look at the pious overload: Evaluating the credibility of these competing accounts is a question about which people of good will can and do disagree.  The editors of this review have no special insight into who is telling the truth.  If Dr. Blasey's allegation is true, the assault and Judge Kavanaugh's denial of it mean...

In a bracing October essay titled “Catholicism After 2018,” First Things editor Rusty Reno pinpoints an acceptance of a homosexual subculture in the Catholic clergy as the core issue underlying recent sex abuse scandals assailing the Catholic Church. *snip* Reno, who taught at a Jesuit University from 1990 until 2010, said that Jesuit novice masters during the 1970s “regarded homosexual relations as healthy, even necessary for proper priestly formation.” “Sometimes the novice masters insisted that they be the agents of this “formation,” he said.

President Trump’s nomination of D.C. circuit court Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill the seat on the United States Supreme Court vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy may furnish the fifth vote needed to overrule Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark ruling that legalized abortion in every jurisdiction of the United States. Judge Kavanaugh is a textualist who is suspicious of the kind of judicial innovation that led to the court’s ruling in Roe. That decision removed a matter of grave moral concern—about which there was and remains no public moral consensus—from the democratic process. Reversing Roe will not make abortion...

The theology program at the Jesuit-run College of the Holy Cross has taken on a new tone ever since the school appointed a gender-obsessed Chair of New Testament Studies who claims Jesus was a “drag king,” a new article contends. Writing for The Fenwick Review, Elinor Reilly of the Holy Cross class of 2018 argues in a March 26 article that Professor Tat-Siong Benny Liew’s “unconventional readings of Scripture” have brought “a new theological perspective to Holy Cross.”

The theology program at the Jesuit-run College of the Holy Cross has taken on a new tone ever since the school appointed a gender-obsessed Chair of New Testament Studies who claims Jesus was a “drag king,” a new article contends. Writing for The Fenwick Review, Elinor Reilly of the Holy Cross class of 2018 argues in a March 26 article that Professor Tat-Siong Benny Liew’s “unconventional readings of Scripture” have brought “a new theological perspective to Holy Cross.”

A Jesuit scholar with expertise in Islam is explaining why Muslims are terroristic and is warning members of his faith not to be taken in by the “liberal-left ideology” that advocates “tolerance” and “concessions.” The verdict and warning comes from Egyptian Greek Melkite Jesuit Father Henri Boulad, who was interviewed by the National Catholic Register. First, the reason for the terrorism is simple, said Boulad, 85, whose relative, Father Samir Khalil Samir, also is a Jesuit scholar of Islam. The Quran orders Muslims to inflict “terror.” *snip* The church should not defend Islam “at all costs” and seek to “exonerate...

An apology from Georgetown and the Society of Jesus’ Maryland Province for their roles in the 1838 sale of 272 enslaved individuals for the university’s benefit took place today in the company of more than 100 descendants. “Today the Society of Jesus, who helped to establish Georgetown University and whose leaders enslaved and mercilessly sold your ancestors, stands before you to say that we have greatly sinned,” said Rev. Timothy Kesicki, S.J., president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, during a morning Liturgy of Remembrance, Contrition, and Hope. “We pray with you today because we have...

Amoris Laetitia opens a new door that goes beyond Familiaris Consortio and does away with unnecessarily harsh requirements from the Catholic Church with regard to chastity, according to a recent presentation on the Apostolic Exhortation by Bishop Marcello Semeraro in Spain. Semeraro spoke at the Jesuit University of Comillas in Madrid at the presentation of a new edition of Amoris Laetitia in Spanish with an introduction he wrote. The university rector, Cardinal Lluís Martínez Sistach, who is the Archbishop Emeritus of Barcelona, as well as Jesuits Pablo Guerrero and Carmen Magallón, both professors at the university, were also present. Semeraro...

The following is from an article published in the September 2016 edition of Central California Catholic Life by Fr. Jim Rude, SJ, Co-Editor: I’m getting to be an old man, brushing the mid eighties, and I find that in these past few years, I have been doing a lot
 of reminiscing, thinking of people, places, events. I remember the theology we were taught in the early days, a theology that was rather simple, and in a way, rather sad. For there was not a great deal of explanation. I went to Mass every Sunday with my family, wouldn’t miss it,...

Officials at a Jesuit-run high school in Phoenix have banned a school alumnus from commenting on their Facebook page after he dared criticize Tim Kaine’s public support for abortion. Brophy College Preparatory, a Jesuit high school in Phoenix, Arizona and part of the California Province of the Society of Jesus, posted a USA Today column on its Facebook page highlighting Tim Kaine’s Jesuit education.

In a state ruled by a former Jesuit, perhaps we should not be shocked to find ourselves in the grip of an incipient state religion. Of course, this religion is not actually Christianity, or even anything close to the dogma of Catholicism, but something that increasingly resembles the former Soviet Union, or present-day Iran and Saudi Arabia, than the supposed world center of free, untrammeled expression. Two pieces of legislation introduced in the Legislature last session, but not yet enacted, show the power of the new religion. One is Senate Bill 1146, which seeks to limit the historically broad exemptions...