Free Republic

A recent poll showing a decline in traditional American values confirms what conservatives have been saying: the character of America is changing. The percentage of those polled who said patriotism is important dropped from 70 percent 25 years ago, to 38 percent today. While 59 percent said having children was important 25 years ago, now just 30 percent do. And the importance of religion dropped from 62 percent to 39 percent now calling it important. The poll, released in March 2023, was conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago and funded by the Wall Street...

Kabul (AFP) – Three women and 11 men were flogged Wednesday on the orders of an Afghan court after they were found guilty of theft and "moral crimes", a provincial official said. The lashings are the first to be confirmed since the Taliban's supreme leader ordered judges this month to fully enforce Islamic law, or sharia, saying corporal punishment was obligatory for certain crimes. Qazi Rafiullah Samim, head of information and culture for Logar province, told AFP the lashings were not administered publicly. "Fourteen people were given discretionary punishment, of which 11 were men and three were women," he said,...

The MSM propaganda is collapsing… Ukrainian soldiers refuse to fight in Severodonetsk Ukrainian soldiers refuse to fight in Severodonetsk. Picture via Youtube video And it seems that the surrender of the Asov soldiers in Mariupol has driven down the moral of the Ukrainian troops currently fighting against Russians in other battles, especially in the Dombass… Already on May 16th, the Ukrainian 1st battalion of 1st company of 115th Brigade stated that they weren’t able to carry out the orders of their leaders due to poor resources, lack of fire support and lack of weapons. Yesterday, Ukrainian 3rd Battalion of the...

Are Abortion-Free COVID-19 Vaccines on the Way?Recently, a South Carolina newspaper published an article entitled, “Who is refusing COVID vaccines in SC—and why? Here’s what we found.” A trio of reporters detail numerous reasons: distrust of the government; an “I’m healthy enough” attitude; waiting a bit longer to let others be the “bleeding edge”; and wariness of the rollout. But they didn’t mention moral objections. There is a split opinion in the Catholic Church about the morality of the vaccines currently in use. Many Catholic scholars and moral ethicists, including leading voices like Professor Robert George, have stated that the...

ROME — President Joe Biden urged Americans in a press briefing Tuesday to all get vaccinated, insisting Pope Francis has called receiving the shot a “moral obligation.” “People are coming together across the different faiths to serve those most in need, with a special focus on vaccinating seniors from all races, backgrounds, and walks of life,” Biden said. “It’s an example of America at its finest.”

What We Can Learn Today From The Writings Of Marcus Tullius Cicero BY E.P. UNUM February 12, 2021 Marcus Tullius Cicero was born on January 3, 106 B.C., and was beheaded… murdered actually, on December 7, 43 B.C. by order from the Second Triumvirate. His life coincided with the decline and fall of the Roman Republic, and he played an important role in many of the significant political events of his time. His writings are now a valuable source of information regarding the historical significance of those events. Cicero was, among other things, a brilliant orator, lawyer, politician, and philosopher,...

[Catholic Caucus] Catholic Conscience and the COVID-19 VaccineOn Thursday, Vatican News confirmed that both Pope Emeritus Benedict and Pope Francis have received the currently available COVID-19 vaccines, themselves providing an example, ostensibly, for the Church as a whole. In the world’s eyes, I suspect this spells the end of any claim a Catholic might otherwise make for religious exemption to required reception of the current vaccines. If abortion-tainted vaccines are mandated, either formally or by informal social incentives such as the widely-proposed possibility that the COVID-19 vaccine be a prerequisite for travel, conscientious Catholics could not say, “but my Church...

Medicine and Morality UniteCatholics push for ethical COVID vaccineCORALVILLE, Iowa (ChurchMilitant.com) - A Catholic medical research institute is re-upping its campaign to help fund the development of an ethical COVID vaccine.John Paul II Medical Research Institute (JPIIMRI) is campaigning for donations again this year in order to address the urgency — both medical and moral — of the COVID crisis. According to a promotional video for the "Campaign for Cures," JPIIMRI is dedicated to creating a definitive platform for COVID-19 and emerging coronavirus.Such a platform involves creating "a potent vaccine made from a human cell line which closely resembles what...

All of my life, I have said that the left’s moral compass is broken. And all of my life, I was wrong. Why I was wrong explains both the left and the moral crisis we are in better than almost any other explanation. I was wrong because in order to have a broken moral compass, you need to have a moral compass to begin with. But the left doesn’t have one. This is not meant as an attack. It is a description of reality. The left regularly acknowledges that it doesn’t think in terms of good and evil. Most of...

People who resist COVID-19 restrictions are often accused of being selfish and caring only about their own freedom. While that might explain the actions of some, moral arguments can be made against many of the restrictions. Although simple appeals to “freedom” are indeed less popular today than in the past, we should not disregard them. Nearly all our responses to COVID-19 require balancing one concern against another, and individuals and institutions will come to different conclusions as they try to strike that balance.

Much-hyped Moderna mRNA-1273 Covid-19 Vaccine Uses Aborted Fetal Cells – Sanofi Pasteur’s Version Does Not (Clearwater, FL) In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, pharmaceutical companies are racing to provide a vaccine to prevent further spread of the disease. Unfortunately, Moderna, the company that has been recently touted in news headlines for its developing mRNA-1273 vaccine to fight the virus, uses aborted fetal cell cells. Debi Vinnedge, Executive Director of Children of God for Life, a prolife organization whose mission is to end the use of aborted fetal material in vaccines and medicines, said her suspicions were raised after checking Moderna’s...

The secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Giacomo Morandi, said Friday that a new document by the Pontifical Biblical Commission does not give an “opening” to the validity of so-called same-sex unions. Morandi referred to the book-length document “Che Cosa E’ L’Uomo? Un itinerio di antropologia biblica” (“What is Man? An Itinerary of Biblical Anthropology”) published by the Vatican as an Italian-language book Dec. 16. The report was written over several years by the Pontifical Biblical Commission, which is a part of the CDF, and aims to provide a study of the whole of...

Accepting the Vatican II Sect as the Catholic Church has consequences. So does believing that Jorge Bergoglio is the Vicar of Christ despite being a public apostate: If he is a valid Pope, then there is no power on earth that can undo his papacy. If he is truly the successor of St. Peter, then he can resign voluntarily, but no one can take the pontificate from him... Clearly, it is high time we looked at what the Catholic Church teaches on the (im)possibility of judging and removing a valid Pope. In this post, therefore, we will examine two things:...

A woman cried as she pleaded with a masked sharia officer to stop whipping her in a public ceremony in Indonesia's deeply conservative Aceh province on Wednesday. The 22-year-old woman, who was being punished for having pre-marital sex, was among three people who were publicly whipped 100 times

Rev. Thomas Brown, who is married to a fellow priest, was ordained as a bishop of the diocese of Maine in the Episcopal Church June 22. Immediately following his ordination, Brown referred to God as a "she" twice in the Nicene Creed. "She is worshipped and glorified. She has spoken through the prophets," the just-ordained Bishop Brown said, referring to the Holy Spirit. ...

May 28, 2019 by Msgr. Charles Pope Recent Pro-Life Laws Are Encouraging, but Is There Danger Ahead? There is a “sorting” going on among the states of our nation on the issue of abortion. States are lining up on one side or the other as they did long ago around the Mason-Dixon line on the issue of slavery. In those times it was a divide that was largely between northern and southern states; today the split is between red (conservative) and blue (liberal) states. The pro-abortion position has steadily become more radical: recent demands are for abortion with essentially no...

A 16-year-old Kansas boy will soon earn his high school diploma - and a few days later he'll travel to Harvard to collect his bachelor's degree. Ulysses High School senior Braxton Moral will attend both commencement ceremonies in May, becoming the only student to successfully pursue a four-year high school degree and a bachelor's degree from Harvard at the same time, The Hutchinson News reported .

Even during a time of many scandals within the Church, there is nothing more scandalous than the Church itself. It reflects the reality that God has taken this broken material world—and its equally broken inhabitants—and uses it to bring us to him. It is a constant sign to the world that the material, physical world matters. We are each a body/soul composite, and so we need physical as well as spiritual signs to direct us to God. Just as God came into this world as a visible man, he gave us a visible Church to lead us into the next...

Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just: for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins. My defence is of God, which saveth the upright in heart. God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready. He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors. ( Psalm 7:9-13)The Judeo/Christian teaching of a God of Holy wrath has by and large been rejected...

Senator Elizabeth Warren today quoted the Bible to attack Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Apparently the Bible is appropriate to cite when Warren wants to make her own political points but she conveniently ignores the Bible when it comes to the value of human life starting at conception. At a press conference today, Senator Warren complained that Judge Kavanaugh is supposedly on the side of corporations more often than workers and shareholders. She said that supposed fact makes it so Judge Kavanaugh is not qualified to replace retiring pro-abortion Justice Anthony Kennedy. As the Washington Times reports, she broke out...