Free Republic

Sister Simone Campbell has become a minor celebrity over the last few months. Her 15 minutes began back in April when her social-justice lobbying outfit, NETWORK, earned a rare public rebuke from the Vatican for, ironically, its inadequate understanding of social justice. Capitalizing on the fawning media attention she received, Sister Simone and a few of her fellow progressive friends embarked on a highly publicized bus tour of the Midwest — Nuns on the Bus, they called it — during which they slammed Paul Ryan’s budget for being incompatible with Catholic social teaching. Sister Simone’s crusade against Paul Ryan has...

Wagon Train Descendants tell tale of 1857 massacre in Utah Taping an episode of WTJR's "Truth Outreach" with host Rocky Hulse, the four men forgot about the cameras. They didn't forget their story. A massacre in 1857 in southwest Utah claimed the lives of some of their ancestors. What came to be called the Mountain Meadows Massacre shadows each generation, but Scott Fancher said the public knows little of "one of the single most important historical incidents" in the nation's history. "Apart from the Oklahoma City bombing, this was the single largest act of domestic white-on-white violence in the history...

Father Bernard Lynch, a homosexual Catholic priest and activist known for defying Vatican teachings, has once again challenged the Roman Catholic Church by revealing that he has been married to a man for the past 14 years. Lynch also blames teachings on celibacy for the child sex abuse cases gripping the Catholic Church.

A tragic story concerning an Egyptian father who killed his three young daughters with snakes last April was largely missed in the West. According to Emirates24: An Egyptian man killed his three young daughters aged 7, 5 and 3 by letting a poisonous snake bite them. According to 'Al Youm Al Sabea'a' newspaper, the three kids were found dead in their bed in Bani Mazar town of Al Minya governorate of upper Egypt. Forensic reports confirm the kids died due to snake poison. The man allegedly bought two cobras and let them bite the children while they were asleep so...

A gay couple is suing the Catholic church in Massachusetts for allegedly refusing to sell them a mansion out of concern that they would host same-sex weddings at the site.James Fairbanks and Alain Beret filed their discrimination lawsuit against the Catholic diocese of Worcester in county's superior court on Monday.They allege that they were in negotiations to buy Oakhurst, a former retreat center in Northbridge, when church officials suddenly pulled out due to the possibility of same-sex marriage ceremonies being held there."I have lived quietly in the mainstream for nearly 60 years, and I expected to continue that," Beret told...

TRENTON — The New Year’s Day service at St. Mark’s Catholic church used to draw a dozen people. Now it is the most popular service of the year, drawing hundreds of young people. The reason: Father Bolgren has started blessing the iPods. “It’s a way of getting their hearts and minds,” he says. “Kids take it very seriously.” On the first day of this year, several hundred teenagers stand in line to have Bolgren bless their iPods with a prayer and a daub of oil. All morning, Nanos, video iPods, Minis and more parade before him. “I really liked the...

Teachers who refuse to endorse gay marriage in the classroom could face the sack under controversial Government reforms, a legal expert has warned.Schools will be within their statutory rights to dismiss staff that wilfully fail to use stories or textbooks promoting same-sex weddings, it is claimed. Aidan O’Neill, a senior QC and expert on religious freedom and human rights, also warned that parents who object to gay marriage being taught to their children will have no right to withdraw their child from lessons. In a report, he said that any decision to redefine marriage would have far-reaching consequences for schools,...

I exhort therefore, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. (I Tim. 2:1-2)

Featured Term (selected at random):COMPASSION Pity at another person's sorrow or misfortune, with the desire to alleviate or, on occasion, even to suffer in the other's stead. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Liberalism, generally, favors a bigger government and higher taxes to pay for it, while conservatives advocate moving in the opposite direction: limited government and low taxes. Let's face it. The government since FDR's New Deal has gotten bigger. LBJ instituted the Great Society. (I want my Game Show Government, no matter the cost!) By now conservatives would say Uncle Sam is morbidly obese. But liberalism is still winning, and liberals claim the moral high ground. But do they have the right to it? Not if we follow what the Bible recommends. I have to admit from the outset that I...

Vermont's attorney general says the state is the latest (after NY and CT) to ask an appeals court to rule that the federal law defining marriage as between a man and a woman is unconstitutional. ...

post is not religious. IT IS REALIt is what is happening to our nation. Anyone who cannot see that is .. as blind as the indian who tried so hard to shoot George Washington off his horse. They shot three horses out from under him and his coat was full of shot holes. Watch this ten or fifteen minute clip and see if I am lying. Go to truth that transforms and watch. 2Ch 7:17 And as for thee, if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded thee,...

The Democrats still have a religion problem. No, not that religion problem. They just can’t seem to get past wanting the blessing of a larger-than-life religious figure — even when that figure has called their policies “un-American” and depicts their core beliefs as antithetical to our most cherished freedoms.The circumstances leading up to Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s benediction last night were politically fraught, but they didn’t have to be. First, Mitt Romney announced Dolan would be giving the closing benediction at the Republican National Convention. (At the time, I wrote that the move signaled Dolan had chosen sides with the GOP....

Democrats broke into a battle of wills on Wednesday over the need to restore God to the party’s official platform. After much infighting, they eventually made a change that restored language that was in the 2008 platform.It now reads: "We need a government that stands up for the hopes, values and interests of working people and gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential."Republicans had a field day with the godless platform. But was the change actually necessary?We asked Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of the Catholic social justice lobbying group NETWORK...

The US Catholic bishops' public face over sexual abuse matters has said the hierarchy's credibility on fixing the problem is "shredded" and that the situation is comparable to the Reformation, when "the episcopacy, the regular clergy, even the papacy were discredited," according to a Religious News Service report published on NCR. Bishop Daniel Conlon of Illinois, last month told a conference of staffers who oversee child safety programs in American dioceses that he had always assumed that consistently implementing the bishops' policies on child protection, "coupled with some decent publicity, would turn public opinion around." "I now know this was...

A wave of excitement is gradually making its way through a small community of Catholics in Houston, Texas. Married couples who embrace the Church’s teaching in Humanae vitae and who use natural family planning have waited too long. Houston, which boasts one of the largest and most highly regarded medical systems in the world has, for twenty years, been without an OB/GYN who adheres to the principles of Catholic teaching and good medicine by declining to do abortions, perform sterilizations, prescribe contraception, or resort to immoral infertility “treatments.” But the wait will soon be over and a buzz is in...

In his closing benediction, Timothy Cardinal Dolan gave the kind of benediction that the Obama re-election campaign probably feared he would give when Dolan was initially rejected, and later approved, to give the closing prayer.“Grant us the courage to defend life…waiting to be born, welcomed & protected,” he said, excoriating Democrats to support religious liberty as well in light of the controversial Obama HHS mandate that Catholics and pro-life advocates oppose. Dolan prays for “life, without which no other rights are secured.”“God grants us the right to life so we can choose liberty and happiness,” he said, adding that unborn...

A preliminary report, “What Catholic Women Think About Faith, Conscience, and Contraception,” co-authored by Mary Rice Hasson and Michele M. Hill, offers new data about the views of church-going Catholic women, ages 18-54, on faith, conscience, and contraception. This report is part of a larger research effort called the Women, Faith, and Culture Project. Report Highlights * 13% of church-going Catholic women completely accept the Church’s teachings on family planning. * Acceptance of the Church’s teaching on family planning doubles (27%) among young women (aged 18-34) who attend Mass weekly. * 37% of women who both attend Mass weekly and...

Former Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper speaks Sept. 5, 2012 at the Democractic National Convention's faith council gathering. Charlotte, N.C., Sep 7, 2012 / 12:13 am (CNA).- A former congresswoman known for being a prominent pro-life Democrat has advised fellow party members to tell Catholics that President Obama is a pro-life candidate. "He is pro-life," said Kathy Dahlkemper, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2008 to 2010. "He actually signed the most pro-life piece of legislation that this country has ever seen." Speaking at a Sept. 5 faith council gathering at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.,...

Head of diocese is the highest-ranking Catholic cleric in U.S. to be convicted in abuse scandal.Once relatively anonymous in the Roman Catholic world, the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph on Thursday made an unwelcome piece of history for the 2,000-year-old institution. A judge convicted the diocese’s bishop and spiritual pastor, Robert W. Finn, of failing to report child abuse suspicions, making him the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic cleric convicted in the church’s decades-long child sexual abuse scandal. Finn, 59, was acquitted of one other misdemeanor count of failing to report. And with Finn’s conviction, Jackson County prosecutors dismissed two similar counts...