Free Republic

While necessity is the mother of invention, sloth and envy beget mediocrity and upheaval – the twin siblings of secular-socialism. It is in this vein that a rebellious and increasingly violent spirit of incoherent anarchy continues to fester in urban centers across the nation. This is most evident in the form of the envy-driven "Occupy wherever" nonsense embraced by the "progressive" establishment. Still, this Obama-supported effort to supplant, through lawless imposition, our free-market constitutional republic with some misguided conception of an outcome-based equalitocracy is rooted in much more than just good old-fashioned class warfare. Part and parcel of secular-socialism is...

I had in my car two fourteen year olds and one thirteen year old. All were familiar with the Sandusky case, so I wasn’t exposing them to sordid information they didn’t already know. None of them, however, knew about Mike McQueary’s involvement, or lack thereof. I gave them a simple multiple choice question: You walk into a room and see a 50 year old man raping a 10 year old boy. Do you (a) attack the man and try to drag him off the boy or (b) sneak away and, hours later, ask your parents what you should do? The...

Last year, Bishop Jim Swilley spoke from his heart to his congregation at Church in the Now in Conyers, Ga. He came out as a gay man, shocking many of his mega-church congregants and making national headlines. The Oct. 13, 2010, sermon sparked a mass exodus from the church. Attendance dropped from approximately 2,500 on any given Sunday to only about 500. The church was forced into foreclosure on its massive property and is now renting one of the buildings back from the bank for worship. The Georgia Voice spoke with Swilley last year about his coming out, and recently...

This is no nursery rhyme but rather the cast of characters lining up to appear at the 2012 Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly meeting in Pittsburgh. ACT I: An assault on marriageThe chameleon:  This character will attempt to lead commissioners to see marriage differently than the Church has historically defined it. Separating marriage from the Biblical narrative of creation and the Biblical witness of Jesus' affirmation between one man and one woman, the assembly will be asked to see a "new normal" that is inclusive of gay marriage. Presented plainly, the redefinition of marriage will arrive at the assembly through...

The couples losing their virginity? Finn and Rachel and…Kurt and Blaine! Yep, the couple — who was featured on the cover of EW’s Gay Teens on TV issue – finally decide to take the next step in their relationship. It’s all handled very delicately and is incredibly moving. I can’t think of another network series that’s taken a teenage gay relationship so far or been so progressive.

The following letter was sent to “my Sister”. - - - - - - - Dear “my Sister”, Thank you very much for putting on the web the pictures of the family last November. I finally got around to downloading them. It took a while because there were over 500 pictures! On our last phone call for your birthday, I told you that I do not heat my apartment next to the church in the winter so as to give my savings to Jesus who is dying of hunger in Brazil and Africa. Did you know that 100,000 die every...

(snip) I'm sure that some among you think that the point of my mental note is that, since all politicians make mistakes in judgment, it's unfair to single out any one of them in particular? But that's not what I was thinking. I was thinking that mistakes in judgment are inevitable when you agree to participate in a system that makes winning the only standard that matters. Mistakes in judgment are inevitable when you base the conduct of politics on an understanding of government that makes "getting things done" the only standard that matters. Mistakes in judgment are inevitable when...

It is not understood definitively anywhere when the decline came. What is understood and easily seen is that we are a culture and society in deep trouble. There are proofs and evidence everywhere for those who care to look for such things. We were warned by one of the greatest men of the 20th century that our civilization would fall if we lost our core beliefs and our identity. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Soviet prisoner of conscience, author of Gulag Archipelago, and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, a titan of moral clarity warned us about the coming

Rome, Italy, Apr 11, 2011 / 05:55 pm (CNA).- A society dominated by moral relativism “fosters the spread of Satanism,” an expert recently explained.Carlo Climati told CNA on April 5 that Satanism “destroys those universal values that are written in the hearts of each human being.” It creates “a society that is turned on its head, in which good becomes evil and evil becomes good.”Climati is the press director of the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University in Rome.He said young people become captivated “by the illusion of a life that appears to be free of all rules” and by a deceiving...

“…Today I authorized the Armed Forces of the United States to begin a limited military action in Libya, in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians…”Thus began a press conference with President Barack Obama. It was Saturday March 19th. While traveling in Brazil, he took a few minutes to announce that a military response to the Gaddafi crisis was underway. Calling the matter “a limited military action in Libya” that would “protect Libyan civilians” was an earnest attempt at a positive spin. But this fact remains: after spending the first two years of his presidency insisting that the...

Having recently started to use Facebook, I had an experience I have to share with ya'll. I actually met and got to do some verbal jousting with the future Prime Minister (PM) of New Zealand - Dean Campbell. THE PM SAID,, “muslims terrorist physically attack but the christians do it in a mental way to make... their way to power”,, and then the PM went on to say "if a man broke into my house i would discuss why he did it and how he could change even if he had a gun to my head. just so you know...

Let me start with one big OUCH and a preface. Plus I’ll drop a few kool quotes along the way. I was raised in a family with Mormons and Oneness Pentecostals. As a result I have studied Christian Cult apologetics and world religions since 1985 and have worked full time cult apologetics ministry for 10 years. All the way back to 98 when I decided to get into that fight, I have been called ever name in the book. I could literally list thousands of words and names that have been hurled at me to try to silence me, even...

As we all know by now, Israel has lost the battle for public opinion in the west. Even the Israel government is now acknowledging this fact. Israel and its defenders have been outclassed and outmanoeuvred in a war of the mind being waged on a battleground it never even acknowledged it was on. Calls for more and better hasbara, however, are meaningless if the message or narrative promoted by Israel and its defenders misses the point of the attack being waged upon it. And it does miss that point, by a mile. You cannot resist or overcome a threat unless...

Dear friends, How are you? I hope my Christmas greeting finds you well! For many people Christmas is a joyful season because THEY HAVE BEEN FORTUNATE enough to have received from their parents or from other faith communities a knowledge and a first hand experience of what Christmas means in the lives of people around them. Many others, who HAVE NOT BEEN SO FORTUNATE to have experienced a true communion of love with God personally and with others, have taken refuge in the less demanding belief of deism. They believe that God is a supreme being; at the beginning of...

The clash of civilizations, the collision between cultures, forecast by Samuel P. Huntington, has long since become an obvious fact in modern-day Europe, finding its clearest expression in the confrontation of Islam with the remnants of European Christianity. This collision not only is echoed in form of terrorist attacks but also in form of a bitter fight of ideals between two systems of values that could hardly be more opposed to each other, namely the archaic-totalitarian value system of Islam and the one represented by post modern European Enlightenment.

Editor: Reminds us of the old saying, "we'll get to you through your children", or the Jesuit adage, "give us a boy till seven, and I'll show you the man" The following was translated from the website, "The Catholic Church in Germany" put out by the German Bishops, thank you very little. It's a children's book which features a visit by two friends of different confessional backgrounds to each others churches. Lena is Protestant. She and Laura are good friends. Last Sunday Lena asked: "Would you like to go with me to Protestant Service?" And Laura said yes. There was...

Archbishop Charles Chaput Spisske Podhradie, Slovakia, Aug 25, 2010 / 05:48 am (CNA).- Addressing the first session of the 15th symposium for the Canon Law Association of Slovakia on Tuesday, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver called for Catholics in America and Europe to oppose the rise of a “state-encouraged atheism” which reduces religion to “an individual lifestyle accessory” incapable of influencing the world. The archbishop exhorted Christians to respond to these trends by rediscovering their historic faith as the only sound basis for a just society.Recalling the historical experience of the Slovakian Church under Communism, Archbishop Chaput told the assembly...

Now that Barack Obama has decided to be for the Ground Zero mosque before being implicitly against it (perhaps), discussion about his faith has once again reached a fever pitch. To many, his stance proves he's a Muslim, with a recent poll showing that almost 20 percent of Americans hold that opinion; to others, it just reflects a desire to be faithful to the Constitution (now, that would be change). The truth, however, is a bit more nuanced. Obama is not religiously Muslim. Culturally, though...well, that's a different matter altogether. In reality, calling Obama a "Muslim" gives him too much...

I always find it intriguing to monitor the news for indicators of religious relativism. There has been no shortage in the supply over the past few days, affecting Catholicism, Anglicanism and even Islam. Each case is instructive.The uproar in Quebec over Cardinal Marc Ouellet’s recent statement that abortion is a moral crime that cannot be justified even in cases of rape has been about as revealing as anything can be. The National Assembly of Quebec voted unanimously to express support for free access to abortion. Quebec, of course, was at one time a thoroughly Catholic province in terms of belief,...

A group of 40 or so mistresses of Italian priests, including Stefania Solomone (pictured), want you—and especially Pope Benedict—to know that they don’t like priestly celibacy. That’s why they’ve written the Pope a letter (Italian original) on the subject. The occasion was Pope Benedict’s statement that “The horizon of the ontological belonging to God also constitutes the proper framework for understanding and reaffirming, in our day too, the value of sacred celibacy which in the Latin Church is a charism required for Sacred Orders and is held in very great consideration in the Eastern Churches . . . “It...

There is a quote from Archbishop Oscar Romero that both traditional and progressive Catholics love to latch onto, because each feels Romero was speaking for them: A church that doesn’t provoke any crisis, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a Word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, what kind of gospel is that? Preachers who avoid every thorny matter so as not to be harassed do not light up the world! In truth, Romero was speaking for Christ. His words are a challenge to all of us, from the happy-clappy-God-is-Love-so-let’s-not-judge mushes to the stern God-is-Justice-and-you’re-going-to-hell prunes. It is...

A 10-minute historical look at one of the most enduring theological debates within the Christian religion. The scholars in the video make a case for how and why Arminianism (Free Will theology) is the root of the vast liberalism we see in the professing church today (and arguably the liberalism we see in the greater Western culture and modern world.)

Neo-orthodoxy is the term used to identify an existentialist variety of Christianity. Because it denies the essential objective basis of truth—the absolute truth and authority of Scripture—neo-orthodoxy must be understood as pseudo-Christianity. Its heyday came in the middle of the twentieth century with the writings of Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Paul Tillich, and Reinhold Niebaur. Those men echoed the language and the thinking of [Soren] Kierkegaard, speaking of the primacy of “personal authenticity,” while downplaying or denying the significance of objective truth. Barth, the father of neo-orthodoxy, explicitly acknowledged his debt to Kierkegaard. Neo-orthodoxy’s attitude toward Scripture is a microcosm...

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 16, 2009 (Zenit.org).- A 12th-century scholar has a lesson for today on what makes for fair and equal treatment in law, Benedict XVI says.The Pope proposed today during the general audience the teaching of John of Salisbury, an English theologian and philosopher who served as bishop of Chartres, France, from 1176 until he died in 1180.The Holy Father explained how John taught that "there also exists an objective and immutable truth, whose origin is God, accessible to human reason. This truth regards practical and social actions. This is a natural law, from which human laws and political...

Pontius Pilate would feel very much at home in our culture. His cynical question — “What is truth?” (Jn 18:38) — captures the prevailing mindset of our day. It provides a three-word summary of relativism — the view that objective truth does not exist, that there is not objective “right” or “wrong” about human behavior. Relativism refuses to limit or define human behavior. All is relative and depends on the situation, the culture, the person, etc.Although often depicted as a courageous rebellion against forces of intolerance and persecution, relativism is really cowardice. Because truth requires something of us. Pontius Pilate...

Here are the facts concerning the Roman Polanski case: Polanski gave a Quaalude to a 13 year-old child, instructed her to get into a Jacuzzi naked, refused to take her home when she asked, performed oral sex on her as she asked him to stop, raped her (no, not the “statutory” kind, the “forcible” kind), and sodomized her. In a plea bargain Polanski pled to unlawful sex with a minor. As is common knowledge, Polanski has his defenders because he has made some terrific movies. For example, critic Tom Shales says: “There is, apparently, more to this crime than it...

Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, Secretary of the Congregation for Clergy Rome, Italy, Sep 16, 2009 / 12:27 pm (CNA).- The secretary of the Congregation for the Clergy, Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, said this week the proclamation of the word of God is an undeniable task that priests must carry out with dignity and wisdom, to show Christ to others. It is a mission that leaves no room for subjective views of the Lord or relativism, he said.In an article published by L'Osservatore Romano, the archbishop said, "No priest proclaims himself or his own ideas, nor his personal or subjective interpretations of...

In the Aristotelian tradition, virtue stands in the middle, between two extremes, a too much and a too little. Aristotle thought that a non-arbitrary middle could be found. Prudence arrived at it, but did not constitute it. Aristotle's good man lived virtuously, not just any way. Our actions were judged midst the actual circumstances in which we lived our lives. But suppose I have an argument about what is half of thirty. One man says it is twenty, the other twenty-five. Thus, their mean is twenty-two and a half. But all three views are wrong, though twenty is closer...

We usually take truth for granted in everyday life. We are hurt by lies (when we discover them). It helps when the doctor correctly diagnoses our illness. Truth matters. Freedom is something else again. On the one hand truth seems to limit our options, while on the other hand no adult wants to be relying on illusions. Who is free? A good man in jail or a rich playboy hooked on alcohol and drugs? Perhaps each is imprisoned in a different way. Should we be free to break our solemn commitments? Are we free to break the ten commandments? No...

Archbishop Francisco Gil Helin Madrid, Spain, Jun 1, 2009 / 08:39 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Francisco Gil Hellin of Burgos, Spain said last week that it has become increasingly evident that both the Catholic Church and Pope Benedict XVI are confronting the “center of the secular world, made up of significant elements of the European Union, the United Nations, and more recently, the United States.” “This center has shown itself incapable of accepting anything that is not part of its own values. And thus, despite scientific proof, the Pope has been irrationally criticized in the name of reason, and the...

Higher Education and the Truth Address to Graduating Class of the University of the Incarnate Word San Antonio, Texas May 9, 2009 The Most Rev. José H. Gomez, S.T.D. Archbishop of San Antonio Congratulations, my friends! This is a very proud day for you. And I am honored that you have asked me to share it with you and your families. First of all, I would like to thank Dr. Agnese and the Board of Trustees of the University of the Incarnate Word for granting me the Honoris Causa degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. It is an unexpected honor...

At the time of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's visit to Washington, London took umbrage at an Obama official's off-the-record sneer to a Fleet Street reporter that "there's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment." Andrew C. McCarthy of National Review made the sharp observation that, never mind the British, this was how the administration felt about its own country, too: America is just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. In Europe, the president was asked if he believed in American exceptionalism,...

The Books of Absolutes: A Critique of Relativism and a Defence of Universals William D. Gairdner McGill-Queen’s University Press Recommendation: Read Let’s play spot the flaw. In 1994, professor Mark Glazer said, “Cultural relativism in anthropology is a key methodological concept which is universally accepted within the discipline.” (It’s the very first sentence after the link.) Don’t have it yet? Then let’s remind ourselves of what cultural relativism means: “Cultural relativism is the view that all beliefs are equally valid and that truth itself is relative, depending on the situation, environment, and individual.” You surely have it by now, so...

In his homily prior to the convening of the papal conclave where he was be chosen to fill the Chair of Peter, then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger gave us a prophetic insight into the challenges of the age: “How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking... The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves - thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism;...

Birds fly, tortoises crawl and politicians lie, particularly when they feel cornered. That's the natural order of things. Big deal. I don't waste too much indignation on it. But what irks me, and should concern us all, is not the everyday disregard for this or that particular truth but the very assault on the idea that there is such a thing as truth at all. ~ snip ~ As believers in the old-fashioned idea of truth, conservatives generally have found postmodernism distasteful and have vociferously protested its emergence.

Show me a person who cannot distinguish cleverness from wisdom or a good brain from a good heart, and I will show you somebody who is a fool.These words to live by returned to mind a few weeks back when I read a complaint piece on Apocalypto by a scholar specializing in Mayan civilization. She protested: “They’re shown as these extremely barbaric people, when in fact, the Maya were a very sophisticated culture.”A quote like this can only mean that somewhere in higher education impressionable minds are being formed by somebody who knows all about the Mayans — and nothing...

In an appearance on the NBC program Meet the Press on Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a self-professed Catholic, denied that the Catholic Church condemns abortion. Referring to Barack Obama's now-notorious answer to Pastor Rick Warren to the question of when life begins, Meet the Press moderator Tom Brokaw asked Pelosi, "Senator Obama saying the question of when life begins is above his pay grade…If he were to come to you and say, 'Help me out here, Madame Speaker. When does life begin?' what would you tell him?" Pelosi responded by sidestepping the question, appealing to her Catholic faith as...

For many liberal Catholics, July 25, 1968 was the day the music died. Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae, published 40 years ago today, reaffirmed Catholicism's absolute ban on birth control. Coming on the heels of the Second Vatican Council's unprecedented opening of the Church to modernity three years earlier, the Vatican's decision to stand by a doctrine that ever fewer Catholics were obeying would reverberate far beyond the bedroom. Progressives saw the encyclical as the ultimate proof that the Church was bound to remain out of touch with contemporary reality. Traditionalists, instead, can mark it as the beginning of...

Bruce Reyes-Chow "PCUSA" is a "mainline" denomination of 2.3 million members. This is the spirit of the times (zeitgeist): certainly not the Holy Spirit. According to a story from the Catholic News Agency: San Jose, CA., Jul 8, 2008 / 11:57 pm (CNA).- Reaction continues to the decisions of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), which took place between June 21 and June 28. The assembly nullified proscriptions against sexual behavior outside of marriage and called for a vote to delete the church’s constitutional standard requiring fidelity in marriage and chastity in singleness. It also...

Multicultural Censorship by: Emily Miller, June 13, 2008 Historian and author Victor Davis Hanson argued in a lecture addressed to the Heritage Foundation that there is a new narrative defining the debate between security and liberty that is more characteristic of a post-9/11-plus-hindsight world. Hanson suggested that the government is not infringing upon American individual rights, as was generally feared in the past, but rather Americans themselves pose the greatest threat to their freedom of speech by practicing self-censorship. This consequently stifles thought and discourages freedom of expression. “Right now at this time, there is a collective mood in the...

Commentary - Peter Schweizer: Conservatives more honest than liberals? Jun 2, 2008 3:00 AM (10 days ago) by Peter Schweizer, The Examiner The headline may seem like a trick question — even a dangerous one — to ask during an election year. And notice, please, that I didn’t ask whether certain politicians are more honest than others. (Politicians are a different species altogether.) Yet there is a striking gap between the manner in which liberals and conservatives address the issue of honesty. Consider these results: Is it OK to cheat on your taxes? A total of 57 percent of those...

Relativists claim that what is truth for one person may not be truth for another person, or what may be true for one may not be true for another. If truth is relative to one's point-of-view, who can say what is or isn't politically correct speech? Within American society who could say what is or isn't politically correct to say, if truth (and the truth of the matter even concerning political correctness) was relative to one's point-of-view? A relativist could not say that what was true for them (in terms of what is or isn't politically correct to say) would...

"Either relativism is a genuine theory in which a real assertion is made, or else it isn't. But any attempt to assert relativism without relying on just-plain truth [absolute] would inevitably fail, because it would generate an infinite regress. And, of course, any assertion of relativism that does not rely on just-plain truth would be-self defeating. So it looks like any apparent assertion of relativism is either self-defeating or else is not a real assertion, but something more like an empty slogan." (Jubien, Michael. Contemporary Metaphysics. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997) "The only way the relativist can avoid the painful dilemma...

Postmodernism is a worldview characterized by a belief in the lack of an objective truth, and wehich asserts that assertions of objective knowledge are essentially impossible. A strong part of postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from traditional approaches that had previously been dominant... Some postmodernist idea are: Truth is a "social construct," rather than objectively provable. There is no superior culture; Western culture is no better than any other (see cultural relativism)...

Your Eminence, Dear Brother Bishops, Dear Young Friends,"Proclaim the Lord Christ … and always have your answer ready for people who ask the reason for the hope that is within you" (1 Pet 3:15). With these words from the First Letter of Peter I greet each of you with heartfelt affection. I thank Cardinal Egan for his kind words of welcome and I also thank the representatives chosen from among you for their gestures of welcome. To Bishop Walsh, Rector of Saint Joseph Seminary, staff and seminarians, I offer my special greetings and gratitude. Young friends, I am very...

Both his fans and his critics hail Bill Clinton as the first postmodern president. In his personal constructions of truth and morality, his continual re-invention of himself, and his insistence that even the word "is" depends upon your interpretation, President Clinton became a poster boy for the relativistic worldview. Now Hillary Clinton is continuing her husband's political legacy. The most flagrant example of Mrs. Clinton's embrace of contemporary philosophy is her description of a trip to Bosnia in which she had to duck sniper fire, landing with no ceremony into a war zone and running from the airplane with her...

What should our reaction be when others pray for our conversion?  There recently was a story about a German Jewish leader, Charlotte Knobloch, who criticized Pope Benedict XVI for allowing a traditional Easter prayer that calls for the conversion of the Jewish people.  Her reaction raises an interesting issue, as praying for conversion isn't unique to Catholics any more that taking offense to it is unique to Jews.  And to start this topic off, I'd like to pose a question: Who do you think would be more likely to take umbrage at being the object of such a supplication,...

What can we deduce about the state of mind of those who rally, sometimes with remarkable fervor, behind a man they know nothing about? Abdication of reason. In the Emory Wheel, the student newspaper of Emory College, Josh Prywes reported, “Pollster Frank Luntz asked college students at a recent focus group to name the candidate they were going to vote for. All of them said Obama, but when Luntz followed up by asking them to name a single accomplishment of the senator, they couldn’t name one. Nobody could name a single accomplishment that Senator Obama has achieved” (emphasis mine throughout)....

The theme of this assignment is, why should we care about politics and involve ourselves in the political process. I would say that the preservation of the state of liberty is about as good as it gets. We must realise that freedom isn’t free, that ideas have consequences (especially bad ones), and that liberty requires a permanent state of vigilance against forced and unforced error.

During the days following the catastrophic terrorist events of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush called for a national day of prayer. He urged people of all faiths to pray for America. Interfaith religious services were televised from the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. and from Yankee Stadium in New York. These services included clerics from Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. They offered prayers to the God collectively addressed as "the God of Abraham, the God of Muhammad, and the Father of Jesus Christ." Popular television personality Oprah Winfrey led the service held in New York City and...