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Pope Francis has warned “the powerful of the Earth” they will answer to God if they fail to protect the environment to ensure the world can feed its population. “The planet has enough food for all, but it seems that there is a lack of willingness to share it with everyone,” Francis said at a mass to mark the opening of the general assembly of the Catholic charitable organisation Caritas. “We must do what we can so that everyone has something to eat, but we must also remind the powerful of the Earth that God will call them to judgment...

Homosexual activists don't want Jesus' forgiveness for their sexual sin – they want his approval. This is something he cannot and will never offer.Homosexual activists are fond of quoting the first half of John 8:11: "Neither do I condemn you." They are not so fond of quoting the second half. In fact, they quite pointedly ignore it as if it weren't even there. But wishing it away doesn't make it disappear. John 7:53-8:11 preserves for us the record of Jesus' encounter with a woman caught in adultery. She was apprehended in flagrante delicto, in the act, and was dragged by...

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks May 12 at the Catholic-Evangelical Leadership Summit on Overcoming Poverty at Georgetown University in Washington. (CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn) CRUX posted a report yesterday about the "Catholic-Evangelical Leadership Summit on Overcoming Poverty" held at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and attended by President Barack Obama. Here are the opening paragraphs of the story: When it comes to fighting poverty, President Barack Obama wants American Christians to act a lot more like Pope Francis. Obama called Francis “transformative,” saying the pope’s “insistence” that fighting poverty be at the heart of the Christian life has made him...

New Evangelization, where art thou? The Pew Research Center reports that the number of Americans who identify as Christian has fallen sharply, to the tune of nearly eight percentage points in only seven years.  The survey, carried out in 2014, was the second "Religious Landscape Study" Pew conducted since 2007. Based on the 35,000 people the institute interviewed, the American populace is 21% Catholic. It was 23.9% seven years ago.  While the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian dropped from 78.4% in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014, non-Christian religions are growing. Islam showed the greatest gains, growing half a percentage point...

Full title: Feel the Love Tonight? Rick Warren, Elton John Hold Hands, Joke About Kissing Before AIDS Panel WASHINGTON — Controversial megachurch leader and author Rick Warren raised concerns Wednesday after joining hands with homosexual singer Elton John during a speech before a congressional hearing on AIDS funding, and joked what would happen if the two kissed. “It would be the kiss heard ’round the world,” he said.

“This is the fiercest struggle, the struggle that resists a man unto blood, wherein free will is tested as to the singleness of his love for the virtues….It is here that we manifest our patience, my beloved brethren, our struggle and our zeal. For this is the time of unseen martyrdom…” What is this struggle that St. Isaac speaks of and how can it be overcome? Is it some dread mysterious experience that only the very holy or only monastics or only spiritually advanced strugglers experience? No, not at all. St. Isaac names two specific areas or perhaps better, arenas,...

I’ve been a florist in Richmond, Wash., for more than 30 years. In that time, I’ve developed close relationships with many of my clients. One of my favorites was Rob Ingersoll. Ingersoll came in often and we’d talk. Like me, he had an artistic eye. I’d try to create really special arrangements for him. I knew he was gay, but it didn’t matter — I enjoyed his company and his creativity. Then he asked me to create the floral arrangements for his wedding. I love Rob, and I’d always been happy to design for his special days. But there’s something...

You know you are in for a wild ride when a GetReligion reader sends you a URL from The New York Post (or The New York Daily News, for that matter) with one of those, "Yeah, consider the source, BUT" notes that basically is warning you to duck and cover. Incoming. So here is the headline on this one: "The Catholic Church will now forgive your abortion." The loyal reader noted: "The title is bad, but it gets worse from there. Wouldn't have wasted your time with it, but it is such awful dreck that it seemed to me...

Two conservative ex-Catholics have recently been in the news sharing their reasons for leaving. One was Michael Coren. Apparently, the Canadian broadcaster and author of Why Catholics Are Right stopped attending Mass a year ago —but only publicly mentioned his switch to Anglicanism for the first time last month. He told the National Post on May 2 that he left over the Church’s prohibition of gay sex. “I couldn’t look people in the eye and make the argument that is still so central to the Catholic Church, that same-sex attraction is acceptable but to act on it is sinful....

Catholic bishops called Monday for the federal government's immigrant detention system to be dismantled, and predicted Pope Francis would address the issue when he visits the U.S. this fall. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a sobering report that tens of thousands of immigrants are housed in prison-like conditions that cause psychological harm and are inhumane and ineffective. That includes a large number of moms and little kids, because of a growth in family detention after last summer's spike in migration from Central America....

The Rev. Charles Hasty, senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Georgia, has announced his resignation from the congregation he's served for 13 years after members narrowly defeated a motion to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA). Hasty announced his resignation Monday evening after congregants voted 266-146 last month to leave PCUSA over theological differences; the total was just eight votes shy of the necessary two-thirds majority needed to pass. JoAnna Williams, administrative assistant for Hasty, directed The Christian Post to a local news article wherein quotes from a letter Hasty wrote explaining his reasoning was published. "Undoubtedly, there is...

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Religious liberties were a hot topic at the Citizens United Freedom Summit Saturday, with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal taking particular offense at a remark made by Hillary Clinton on the issue. Jindal wondered how Clinton could actually change an individual’s religious views saying, “And by the way the speech in this conference where she said those of us who are pro-life should need to have our religious beliefs changed. She didn’t say how. What does it mean? Re-education camps? She proposed to have our religious beliefs changed.” “You have to see her most recent comments on religious...

This week's Torah portion, Emor, opens with an extensive series of laws regarding the conduct of the Kohanim, the priests of the Jewish nation, who minister and serve in the Tabernacle and the Temple. Because of the elevated status of the Kohanim and the sanctity of the Tabernacle and Temple, priests are required to follow a strict physical and spiritual regimen. Because of the serious responsibility conferred upon them, the Kohanim are expected to live up to a sacred ideal, and be adequately prepared to properly perform their Temple and Tabernacle duties. Members of the priestly class are not, for...

When Pope Benedict warned about “the Dictatorship of Relativism,” he meant it. Literally.This was hammered home not long ago when I was speaking to a group of students about the issue of same sex marriage. I prefaced the discussion with a description of relativism saying that this non-philosophy was now the mainstream, default setting in our society. “The way you can tell that relativism is mainstream,” I said, “is that there is no such thing as rational debate. In the absence of objective truth, there can be no debate, for a debate is dependent on the assumption that there...

A Hungarian cardinal set to play a key role in the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the family suggested Thursday that no change will result from the summit, either on Communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics or on broader matters such as contraception.Cardinal Péter Erdő said that talk of revisions on those fronts is the result of “a pressure with no foundation to change Church teaching.” Erdő was the relator — more or less the chairman — of last October’s synod, and will reprise his role this year. It’s an influential post, among other things giving him the chance...

MIAMI BEACH — Christians who have so far avoided controversial "culture war" issues will likely be pulled into those battles as their religious freedom becomes threatened due to gay marriage, Dr. John Inazu warned Monday. Theologically conservative Christian non-profit organizations, including churches, could face losing their tax exempt status or being shut down, and Christian doctors, lawyers, counselors and other professionals could be forced out of their professions, he explained. Inazu, associate professor of law and political science at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, was delivering a presentation, "Religious Liberty and the American Culture Wars," at the...

Monsignor Charles Pope writes, "The gospel from Sunday (John 15:1-8) presents us with an important meditation on the difference between love and kindness. Perhaps some further reflections from this gospel are in order today. There is an unfortunate tendency in our times to reduce love to kindness. Kindness is an aspect of love, but so is rebuke. It is an immature notion of love that reduces it merely to affirming, or that refers to proper correction as a form of “hate.” We saw in yesterday’s gospel that proper care involves the Lord “pruning” us so that we bear more fruit....

For some time, observers have expected the final outcome for Bishop Robert Finn, former head of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese, who was ordered by Vatican officials to tender his resignation last month. The predictable sides have lined up: either condemning and saying, ‘It’s about time,’ or defending him. With all the noise made, it may be difficult for most readers to tease out the truth, but an examination of the facts of the Finn case and that of another high-profile prelate may be enlightening. If Finn, why not the many, and much worse, others? With Finn’s 2012 conviction of...

Many supposed "theological differences" between Catholics and Evangelicals are, I think, founded in semantics rather than in substantial disagreement. For example, when I was an Evangelical one of the periodic arguments I ran across against Catholic moral theology was that the concept of mortal and venial sin is unbiblical. Sin is sin, say Evangelicals, and there's no good in trying to make out some sins as "minor." To us Evangelicals such nice distinctions smelled a great deal like rationalization and looked like an escape clause from the commandment "Be holy, for I, the Lord, am Holy." After all, James wrote,...

Last week I delivered a guest lecture at a Christian liberal arts college entitled “Each Day Dies With Sleep: Literary and Theological Reflections upon Mortality.” As I thought through the topic over the previous weeks, two superficially disparate questions puzzled me. Why is it that the people most vocally committed to causes connected to death (abortion, assisted suicide, euthanasia) are often the same who are committed to progressive sexual causes? And why do abortion advocates frequently see it not as a necessary evil but as a positive good? As to the first question, that the same people often, though not...