Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, July 17, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Days after the United States Supreme Court issued two decisions that delivered a significant blow to traditional marriage, a priest at the University of San Francisco’s St. Ignatius Catholic Church took the pulpit where he read a letter in support of same-sex “marriage” during his homily. The letter “Why am I in the parade?” was penned by Jesuit Fr. John Whitney, pastor of St. Joseph’s Church in Seattle, WA, for his parish’s bulletin. It explains Fr. Whitney’s reasons for participating in the nation’s largest demonstration in support of homosexual activity, the San...

CHICAGO, May 22 (UPI) -- Six men who charge they were victims of former priest Donald McGuire have settled a sex abuse lawsuit against Chicago Jesuits for $19.6 million. The payout averaging $3 million a person is the largest individual amount awarded in the history of the U.S. Catholic sexual abuse scandal, lawyers for the victims told the Chicago Tribune. Settlement of the lawsuit against the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus names a number of Jesuit superiors who for four decades kept McGuire's crimes a secret and enabled him to abuse more young men, victims' attorneys said. Internal...

Catholic Gonzaga University Won’t Allow Catholic Students To Form Catholic Group The Daily Caller. Roman Catholic, Jesuit-affiliated Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington has refused to recognize the Knights of Columbus as an official student group because — wait for it — the Knights of Columbus is a Catholic organization. Gonzaga administrators notified the students who had sought the school’s official seal of approval last month, reports The Cardinal Newman Society’s Catholic Education Daily. “The Knights of Columbus, by their very nature, is a men’s organization in which only Catholics may participate via membership,” reads a letter written by Sue Weitz,...

It’s easy — maybe too easy — for people with progressive political views to dismiss the Roman Catholic Church as a vile anachronism, a nightmarish patriarchy of aging pedophiles, woman-haters, homophobes and/or closet cases that can offer nothing of value to the contemporary world. When it comes to the church hierarchy, and especially the Roman Curia, the corrupt and labyrinthine Vatican bureaucracy that makes the Soviet-era Kremlin look like a model of transparency, that point of view seems more than justified. But the church is not just the hierarchy, and as the spectacle of the last several days has demonstrated,...

I have been researching this today and I haven't found anything definitive on this topic. The order was formed in 1540. That is a long time to be shut out.

Dan Meyer, writing (Warning: link contains offensive images) for Boston’s homosexual publication the Edge, reports that the homosexual community is making gains on Catholic college campuses. As examples, he cites changes to the student handbook, providing protection for people based on sexual orientation and gender identity, at San Antonio’s Our Lady of the Lake University, as well as examples from Boston College, The Catholic University of America, and Fordham University. An increasing number of Catholic colleges and universities have seen the addition of student-run homosexual advocacy and support groups and resource centers. “The Jesuits, who have been historically regarded as...

Vatican City — I can’t tell you how tremendous it was to stand in St. Peter’s Square and hear Pope Francis speak Spanish to the crowd, as Romans continued through the streets to hear their new Holy Father! And it is hard to describe to you the emotions in the square as the white smoke rose. Screaming. Crying. Cheering. Praying. Love. People talked about how blessed they were as they waited. Ready to welcome their “papa” — before even knowing who he was. Earlier this year I attended a conference on the Church in America, and one thing that became...

10 Facts about our new Holy Father Pope Francis. Major curveball. Who saw this coming? Here are 10 quick facts about Pope Francis (Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio): Pope Francis, Jorge Bergoglio, was born in Buenos Aires, one of the five children of an Italian railway worker and his wife. He's a Jesuit. The first Jesuit Pope ever.Pope Francis is known for his humility, doctrinal conservatism, defender of the Church's moral theology, and a commitment to social justice.He has been critical of liberation theology.He is close to Comunione e Liberazione.He has opposed legislation introduced in 2010 by the Argentine Government to allow same-sex...

One of "God's Marines" is now Pope, with Argentine Jorge Mario Bergoglio today becoming the first Jesuit elected to lead the world's Catholics. Jesuits are labelled "God's Marines" or Catholic ''storm troopers'', in recognition of their 16th-century founder Ignatius of Loyola, who had a military background. The Society of Jesus (more commonly known as Jesuits) demands four vows: poverty, chastity, obedience to Christ, and obedience to the Pope. Its purpose is the propagation of the Catholic faith by any means possible. A Spanish nobleman, Ignatius of Loyola was set on a career as a professional soldier, until a cannonball shattered...

What is the difference between Barack Obama and Ignatius Loyola? Not a hell of a lot. I’m thumbing through a copy of The Ten Commandments of Propaganda, a book by my academic buddy Brian Patrick. Aside from being a well-rounded review of the dark art, Brain illustrates historical cornerstones of propaganda, which includes Ignatius. The Roman church originated modern techniques for thought control with their Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, known in Latin as “Congregatio de Propaganda Fide” and hence the modern perversion of the word ‘propaganda’.  In its purest form, ‘propaganda’ means to propagate information. It took...

… and free condom distribution too! Just when you thought the controversy over the Fordham Republicans rescinding their invitation to Ann Coulter couldn’t get any weirder …A group of law professors at Fordham Law School exchanged high-fives over Coulter’s departure, then quickly segued into demanding that the University fund the Vagina Monologues, pro-abortion groups, and other oppressed, um, minorities at Catholic universities on the theory that if the University was willing to fund Coulter’s “hate speech,” it should fund the feminist agenda even if contrary to Catholic teachings.As reported at The Fordham Observer, Coulter Controversy Prompts Fordham Law Faculty...

The most anti-Catholic American president ever scooped up the Catholic vote again, winning half of all Catholics. This is down four points from 2008, but it is still an impressive feat after four years of persecuting the Church.Historians will no doubt record the grim irony of his achievement with some wonder. He has now won the Catholic vote twice and boasts an honorary degree in law from one of the Church's most prestigious universities, all while breaking her. Saul Alinsky, who pioneered the technique of bamboozling and exploiting the Church, would be proud.Obama also won the religious vote in general...

William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel The Exorcist—which went on to become an Oscar-winning movie—depicts an epic battle of good versus evil waged under the auspices of the Catholic Church. Reportedly based on a real exorcism Blatty heard about as an undergraduate on a scholarship at Georgetown University, the novel is steeped in Catholicism. Indeed, the “hero” of The Exorcist is the fictional Father Damien Karras, a Georgetown Jesuit, who, at great personal cost, drives out the demon. Now Blatty, a longtime financial contributor to his alma mater, says that Georgetown is no longer true to the Catholic identity he knew...

It is a sign of the times that the Trayvon Martin case is waning away from public attention, and that the U.S. Catholic bishops have not addressed the fundamental issues of racial justice at stake for the nation. A failure to address the social structures and culture that is death-dealing for African-American and Latino men and women in America -- the context for the Feb. 26 killing of Martin -- is a “supreme dishonor to the Creator” in terms of the most basic tenet of Catholic social teaching: that we are all made in the image and likeness of God....

A prominent Georgetown University alumnus has announced plans for a canonical lawsuit in a bid to restore the school’s Catholic identity. William Peter Blatty, the author of The Exorcist, is asking Georgetown alumni, faculty, students, and friends to join in his canonical case, in which he will ask the Archdiocese of Washington and the Holy See to take action “up to including the possible removal or suspension of top-ranked Georgetown’s right to call itself Catholic or Jesuit in its fundraising and representations to applicants.” In his plea for support of the canonical case, Blatty argues that Georgetown has failed to...

A sociology professor at Fordham University has blasted U.S. bishops and Catholic universities that uphold the Church’s teaching on contraception as “un-[C]hristian.” Writing in the Huffington Post, Associate Professor of Sociology Jeanne Flavin accused the bishops of showing a “staggering disregard for young women’s everyday lived reality, and their futures” for their stance against providing insurance coverage for contraceptives.Flavin, the author of Our Bodies, Our Crimes: The Policing of Women’s Reproduction in America, seems incensed by the recent decision by Xavier University to stop providing contraceptive coverage and the bishops very public struggle for religious liberty against the HHS contraceptive...

Several students are protesting the decision by Boston College to not renew the contract of an adjunct professor in its School of Theology and Ministry who has openly questioned why the Catholic church won’t ordain women.The Boston College mission statement on its website talks about the Jesuit foundation of the school that makes it unique. It reads: “No other institution so explicitly embodies the fundamental human desire to know.”But after Father John Shea, a professor of pastoral care and counseling, asked church leaders for a theological explanation for why women are not being ordained to the priesthood of the...

Another showdown between a local Catholic institution and the Bishop of Scranton erupted Saturday, with conservative Catholic groups entering the debate on the side of Bishop Joseph Bambera. The Cardinal Newman Society, a group that scrutinizes Catholic colleges for adherence to doctrine, and the locally based American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, joined forces to protest former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Margolies at the University of Scranton, an institution sponsored by the Society of Jesus. "The Jesuits want to reform the church," shouted James Burke, former board chairman of King's College, Wilkes-Barre, from a flatbed stage parked...

.. it is to the Catholic Church more than to any other institution that we owe so many of the treasures of Western civilization. .., scholars operated for two centuries under an Enlightenment prejudice that assumes all progress to come from religious skeptics, and that whatever the church touches is backward, superstitious, even barbaric.</p><p> Since the mid-20th century, this unscholarly prejudice has thankfully begun to melt away, and professors of a variety of religious backgrounds, or none at all, increasingly acknowledge the church's contributions.</p><p> ... modern historians of science freely acknowledge the church's contributions - both theoretical and material -...

LONDON (CNS) -- The Jesuits have sold the historic St. Cuthbert Gospel -- believed the oldest intact book produced in Europe -- to the British Library for $14.7 million. The British Province of the Society of Jesus agreed to sell the late 7th-century Anglo-Saxon manuscript to raise funds to restore a historic church and pay for educational work in London and Glasgow, Scotland. The book, a pocket-size Latin translation of the Gospel of St. John, was found inside the coffin of St. Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne, when the saint's grave was opened in 1104. Experts believe the manuscript was placed...