Free Republic

Chicago, Oct 9, 2008 / 01:07 am (CNA).- Vision Vocation Guide and the VocationMatch.com web site have reported that over the past year more than 6,900 people interested in Catholic religious vocations completed online profiles and requested information from religious communities through the web site.The web site gathers information from inquirers and matches their profiles against the profiles of religious communities to produce recommendations, similar to the way matches are made at dating sites. Vision Vocation Guide says in a press release that VocationMatch.com users become “more qualified discerners” who have considered practical questions about a religious vocation, such...

Welcome to chaos: Arab nations hit hard as world markets crash Posted By John Higgins On September 26, 2008 @ 1:26 pm The long tables set every evening at the entrance of Cairo’s Khal el-Khalili bazaar are a traditional sight. They represent efforts by the Egyptian government, the city of Cairo and charitable organizations to feed hundreds of residents who lack the means to buy the basic foodstuffs for Iftar, the meal that breaks the daylong fast during the Ramadan holy month. Although this gesture is not enough to satisfy the millions of Egyptians who earn less than $1 a...

"DOTHAN, Ala. (AP) - Larry Blumberg is looking for a few good Jews to move to his corner of the Bible Belt. Blumberg is chairman of the Blumberg Family Relocation Fund, which is offering Jewish families as much as $50,000 to relocate to Dothan, an overwhelmingly Christian town of 58,000 that calls itself the Peanut Capital of the World. Get involved at Temple Emanu-El and stay at least five years, the group's leaders say, and the money doesn't have to be repaid."

<p>LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) — The Amish are expanding their presence in states far beyond Pennsylvania Dutch country as they search for affordable farmland to accommodate a population that has nearly doubled in the past 16 years, a new study found.</p>

A new congressional study has found that more than 20 Muslim nations deny entry to American and other foreign religious workers, WND has learned, even as the U.S. State Department grants entry to hundreds of clerics from their countries each year. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and most other Middle Eastern countries still refuse to offer religious visas, they and deny entry to U.S. clergy as official policy, according to a report by the Law Library of Congress, the foreign legal research arm of the U.S. Congress. In a shocker, U.S. allies Afghanistan and Iraq also made the...

Nil desperandum! Never despair!12+ years ago when I first started to get the clue that what was being handed to me as “Catholic� in school was not kosher, what resources did I have? Now we have the net, more orthodox books being written and more reprinted than EVER before in history.Thousands of Catholic websites and resources for teaching, apologetics, spirituality, Church history…In 2 years the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter will turn 20 - they are celebrating ordinations monthly. I am no insider, but from what I hear, their seminary in Nebraska - Our Lady of Gudalupe - is...

Should Christians mourn on July 4, given what a disaster the United States has been for the world? Much of the Religious Left thinks so! Undoubtedly speaking for many left-wing seminary faculty and clergy, Ted Smith of Vanderbilt University penned an editorial for this month’s Christian Century magazine called: “The Fourth of July: How Does a Christian Celebrate?”

Barack Obama targets the religious Right By Alex Spillius in Washington Last Updated: 8:46PM BST 11/06/2008 Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama is aiming to lure members of the religious Right, as the movement that twice helped George W Bush win the White House. His campaign is set to launch the Joshua Generation Project, an initiative that will include household gatherings, blogs and concerts, to attract young evangelicals and Catholics ahead of November's US presidential election. The campaign has noted an "unprecedented energy" among young religious people for the Illinois senator and aims to bring them into a new coalition of...

This video and its song, I Have Everything, sung by Evangelist Ezekiel Cash, from Jamaica, has a beautiful scenic mountain river view in autumn and graced with a butterflies flight.

(IsraelNN.com) President Shimon Peres said recently that he hoped to reconcile the secular and religious communities in Israel in honor of the state’s 60th Independence Day. “There is no Israeliness without Judaism,” he said, according to the weekly paper Mishpacha. Peres denounced scorn for religious and hareidi-religious Jews, saying, “There is no place for condescension, derision, or mockery.” Peres said just weeks earlier that secular Israelis “must stop treating the ultra-Orthodox public with contempt.” In addition, he called on the secular community to “return to our roots” by studying the Torah.

. (AP) Senator Barack Obama has told members of his denomination that some conservative Christian leaders have exploited and politicized religion to sow division. In a 30-minute speech before the national meeting of the United Church of Christ, which supports gay marriage, the Democratic presidential candidate said, "Faith got hijacked, partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what divides us." Obama said, "They've told Evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion...

It’s one thing for Barack Obama to have a minister, friend, and sounding board who supports and admires Louis Farrakhan and whose church gave him an award. It’s another thing for Obama to dissemble about it. That’s what Obama did recently when he told Jewish leaders in Cleveland, “An award was given to Farrakhan for his work on behalf of ex-offenders, completely unrelated to his controversial statements.” In fact, the award, named for Obama’s minister Jeremiah Wright Jr., was given for “lifetime achievement” and for Farrakhan’s “influence on the African-American community.” The presentation of the award last December and the...

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Fed up with violence and economic hardship, voters in the deeply conservative northwest have thrown out the Islamist parties that ruled this province for five years — a clear sign that Pakistanis are rejecting religious extremism in a region where al-Qaida and the Taliban have sought refuge. Instead, voters in turbulent North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan, gave their support to secular parties that promised to pave the streets, create jobs and bring peace through dialogue and economic incentives to the extremists. That may conflict with U.S. pressure to step up the fight against armed militants...

On every side, one can read obituaries for the religious right. Jim Wallis’s new book, “The Great Awakening,” carries the subtitle, “Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America.” E. J. Dionne Jr.’s book, “Souled Out,” is subtitled “Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right.” The subtitle of David P. Gushee’s new book, “The Future of Faith in American Politics,” poses “The Public Witness of the Evangelical Center” against that of the religious right. Sometimes stated outright and sometimes between the lines is the hope that the decline of the religious right will ease what Americans have come...

This song has from 1967 to present date, bin an inspiration of peace and blessing. I am not a great singer but I chose to sing this in a video that I put together for God’s Glory, not myself. Please click the link and listen. Revski ( o7jimmy )

In an age of cynicism, nothing is sacred and everything is for sale. Religious artifacts are being auctioned off to private collectors in the United States and Europe, writes Jennifer Green. The trend has some asking, 'If this religious heritage is valuable for the Americans, why not us?' CREDIT: Bruno Schlumberger, the ottawa citizen Ron McDermid is a warden at Gatineau's St. Thomas church. In 1993, thieves stripped the building of its contents, including the church's stained-glass windows. Priests' robes used as paint rags. Magnificent church carvings tossed out for garbage collection. Gold and silver altarware melted down. Chalices for...

Religious right is deadBILL PRESS 26.DEC.07 No matter who becomes the next president of the United States, the American people have already won a great victory — with the total disintegration of the once all-powerful religious right. Starting in 1979 when Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority, Christian conservatives have been the most powerful voting bloc in the Republican Party. Ironically, they began by casting out of the White House a born-again Christian who continued, as president, his lifelong practice of teaching Sunday school, and replacing him with a divorced and remarried man who seldom stepped inside a church. But...

DALLAS - When a pair of Mormon missionaries knocked at the door of Jerry Pierce's home in a north Dallas suburb last month, he marshaled his arguments and stood his ground. "I look forward to encounters like that. I like to talk to them about the nature of Christ and who Jesus is," said Pierce, a staunch Southern Baptist, the biggest Protestant denomination in the United States. Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is running into similar resistance as he tries to win over Southern Baptists and other evangelical Protestants in the race for the Republican Party's nomination for the 2008 U.S....

There is an old hymn written by Fanny Crosby, sung at generations of camp meetings, which exclaims: "Crown Him! Crown Him! Prophet, and Priest, and King!" Since the emergence of evangelicalism as a cultural force in the 1950s, three approaches to politics, represented by three personalities, have emerged. They are the prophet, the priest and the kingmaker. The prophet has been psychologist James Dobson, who dispenses child-rearing advice on the radio from his Colorado ministry, Focus on the Family. On family issues, Dobson's counsel is moderate and broadly appealing. On politics, his tone sharpens. He rails against compromise on social-conservative...

Fort Collins task force releases holiday policy proposalRebecca Boyle, (Bio) rboyle@fortcollinsnow.com November 9, 2007 FORT COLLINS -- If city leaders adopt a proposed holiday policy announced Tuesday, Fort Collins' official holiday celebration will include an educational museum display, plain wreaths and garlands on city property, and trees with white lights. If there is a Christmas tree at the Fort Collins Museum, it will be part of a display including other religious and cultural symbols. There will be no specified Christmas tree nor a Hanukkah menorah in Oak Street Plaza, home to a Christmas tree in the past, but there's hope...

Some Christian conservatives are so disenchanted by the 2008 Republican field for president that they are mulling whether to desert the GOP and form a third party. We're tempted to say "go ahead." But if religious conservatives don't want to marginalize themselves, they will instead take former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's advice and resist subjecting candidates to a litmus test on abortion or any other single issue. Giuliani and his fellow Republican candidates spoke over the weekend to more than 2,000 "values voters" assembled in Washington by the Family Research Council and other conservative groups. They were literally...

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his rivals for the Republican nomination will face a tough crowd when they address the religious conservatives at the Values Voter Summit starting Friday. “I think what we can expect is a lot of folks talking about how dissatisfied they are with the choices they have,” former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) said. Giuliani’s positions on abortion and gay rights continue to dog him as he looks for support within the leadership of the religious conservative movement, and those leaders say they want to hear more from the former mayor this weekend than...

Everyone knows the potent force of the Christian right in American politics. But since the mid-1990s, an increasingly influential religious movement has arisen on the left, mostly escaping the national press's notice. This new religious left does not expend its political energies on the cultural concerns that primarily motivate conservative evangelicals. Instead, working mostly at the state and local level, and often in lockstep with unions, its ministers, priests, rabbis, and laity exert a major, sometimes decisive, influence in campaigns to enforce a "living wage," to help unions organize, and to block the expansion of nonunionized businesses like Wal-Mart. The...

You know the religious right is in trouble when some of its leaders threaten to bolt the Republican Party if it nominates a candidate who supports abortion rights. But the well-publicized warning directed against Rudy Giuliani this month is decidedly not the most important sign that religious conservatives are facing the disintegration of their movement. What matters more is that a new generation of evangelical leaders, tired of the rancid partisanship, is breaking away from the culture wars. The reach of this new evangelical politics will be tested with the release tomorrow of a statement under the very biblical title...

The National Public Radio (NPR) website today (10/2/07) reports a discussion on their daily radio show, “All Things Considered”, about the religious right’s new stand on the possibility of Rudy Giuliani winning the Republican presidential nomination: “This weekend in Salt Lake City, Utah, a group of leading social conservatives — all members of an organization called the Council for National Policy, agreed on a resolution: If the Republican Party nominates a “pro-abortion” candidate, the group will consider running a third-party candidate.” From the context of the NPR article, and because of the quotation marks around it, it is difficult to...

Prayer to End Climate ChangeReligious Leaders Join Scientists in Environmental Concerns on Greenland's Melting Glaciers From World News with Charles Gibson By CARRIE MCGOURTY Sept. 7, 2007 Religious leaders from all over the world met at the mouth of a melting glacier in Greenland today to say a silent prayer for the planet, appealing to mankind to address the impact that humanity is having on life on Earth. A group of nearly 200 scientists, theologians and government officials sailed into the ice fields of the Illulissat Icefjord, the largest glacier in Greenland that is bearing the brunt of global warming....

(IsraelNN.com) Half of the IDF's young combat officers are religious Jews, according to statistics published in Ma'ariv Sunday. The report also says that about 40% of the cadets of the most recent Officer Course in BAHAD 1, the IDF's officer training school, were religious (this number refers to all officers, as opposed to just combat officers). "This says something very good about about the sons of the religious Zionist movement," opines the writer of the piece, senior correspondent Ben Caspit. "They are becoming the IDF's backbone. Their presence in the army is several times larger than it is in the...

Click photo to enlargeMitt Romney (The Associated Press)«1»WASHINGTON - Many pundits have said that presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Mormon faith will be a hindrance to his 2008 bid, but a new poll shows that voters believe he is more religious than any of the other contenders out there. A Time magazine poll hitting newsstands this week asked voters whether each candidate is a "person of strong religious faith." One in four voters say that Romney is, more than Barack Obama, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. Previous polls have all shown that a distinct swath of voters...

Schools becoming ethnic and religious ghettos By Nick Britten Last Updated: 4:15am BST 25/04/2007 Cultural diversity in inner-city schools is failing with many becoming so polarised that they are dominated by one racial or religious group, a damning report will claim. Race Equality Sandwell in the West Midlands, claims that schools in the region are becoming "all-white" or "all-Asian" despite drawing from multi-ethnic catchment areas. Derrick Campbell, the chief executive of RES, said he was "extremely concerned" that children will leave school unable to fit into a diverse society. "My biggest worry is that schools and parents are propagating the...

An article in The Wall Street Journal (April 12) breathlessly informs us of the latest fad on the Incredible Shrinking Continent -- "As Religious Strife Grows, Europe's Atheists Seize Pulpit: Islam's Rise Gives Boost To Militant Unbelievers; The Celebrity Hedonist," the headline teases. The "Celebrity Hedonist," isn't geriatric frat-boy Hugh Hefner, but Michel Onfray, a 48-year-old author dubbed "France's high-priest of atheism" in the Journal piece. Reporter Andrew Higgins describes the doyen of disbelief -- commander of the faith-less -- strutting onto the stage of Caen's 500-seat Alexis de Tocqueville auditorium, dressed in black from head to toe, to deliver...

Those who remember how quickly the leftists drove conservative blogger Ben Domenech out of the Washington Post blogging corps after three days (with no conservative replacement) should know that the liberal cast of bloggers remain untouched (and perhaps, in some cases, unread). I've been tipped to one Emil Steiner today, taking off after Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy for supporting a marriage-protection bill in Illinois. This, to Steiner, makes him akin to the religious folks who brought 9/11, not to mention foolish religious advocates of "racial purity, ethnic cleansing, and drinking the Kool Aid." Most importantly, Steiner thought Dungy's position...

A SUICIDE bomber who lured Iraqi pilgrims with cakes, and gunmen firing out of passing cars turned joyful preparations for a religious celebration into a day of carnage. At least 149 Shiite pilgrims were killed and more than 200 wounded in the attacks in Hillah, in southern Iraq, on Tuesday. The US military also announced an unusually high death toll of nine soldiers, including six victims of a huge bomb blast north of Baghdad. The deaths coincided with an optimistic assessment of his new Iraq strategy by the US President, George Bush. He told a veterans' gathering in Washington: "It...

UK: Religious Schools May Not Teach Christian Sexual Morals "As if They Were Objectively True" By Hilary White LONDON, March 5, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - After this April's implementation of the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SOR's), British religious schools may no longer be allowed to teach school children that the Christian viewpoint on sexual morality is "objectively true," a government report says. The Joint Committee on Human Rights, made up of members from Parliament and the House of Lords, has issued a report on the implementation of the Regulations recommending that religious schools be required to modify their religious instruction to comply...

...This is different from the scientific assault on religion that has been garnering attention recently, in the form of best-selling books from scientific atheists who see religion as a scourge. In “The God Delusion,” published last year and still on best-seller lists, the Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins concludes that religion is nothing more than a useless, and sometimes dangerous, evolutionary accident. “Religious behavior may be a misfiring, an unfortunate byproduct of an underlying psychological propensity which in other circumstances is, or once was, useful,” Dawkins wrote. He is joined by two other best-selling authors — Sam Harris, who wrote...

I commented below on a report that ZDF the German equivalent of the BBC was starting with programming aimed at a Muslim audience (and scroll down a small way). Now the General Secretary of the Bavarian Christian Social Union has criticised the ZDF plans.

The IDF has welcomed hundreds of new men and women to the ranks of combat officers with the completion of the latest combat officers' training course on Thursday. 30% of the soldiers who completed the course consider themselves religious or "traditional." The unit with the highest success rate is the Paratroopers: 97% of the paratroopers who entered the Officers' Course completed it successfully. 60% of the new officers are from the Infantry Corps (which include the paratroopers), 15% from Engineering, 8% from the tanks and another 8% from Artillery. 6% of the new officers are women.

Police and troops on Sulawesi were put on high alert, because military intelligence had picked up information indicating that Islamic radicals from all over Indonesia were moving to Sulawesi in an attempt to launch a spectacular attack on local Christians. Australia has warned its citizens to stay away from Central Sulawesi, where most of the violence tends to take place. To make matters worse, the Christians are ready to strike back if the Islamic terrorists go after them again. Over the last few years, some 2,000 people have died in religious strife on Sulawesi. The Islamic radicals need a spectacular...

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Present trends suggest a declining future for many communities of men and women religious, but religious are called to imagine a different future, Sister Doris Gottemoeller said Feb. 3. Sister Gottemoeller, former president of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas and of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and Father Canice Connors, a former provincial minister of the Conventual Franciscans and former president of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, were the main speakers at Washington Theological Union's annual Religious Life Symposium. The theme of this year's symposium was "Re-Imagining Religious Life in the 21st...

Charitable Nation America, the generous. By Jonah Goldberg Americans are better people than Europeans. Hold on, it gets better. Religious Americans are better than non-religious Americans. And religious Americans tend to be politically conservative. This admittedly tendentious rendering of reality is how some on the right are interpreting Who Really Cares? by Arthur Brooks, a professor of public administration at Syracuse University. Brooks doesn’t really deal with what makes one person “better” or “worse” than any other. But it’s fair to say that how much a person gives — of either his money or time — is usually considered an...

Young nuns from the Sisters of Life Convent play volleyball near the water on the SUNY Maritime Campus in the Bronx, September 2006 ...Over the past five years, Roman Catholic communities around the country have experienced a curious phenomenon: more women, most in their 20s and 30s, are trying on that veil. Convents in Nashville, Tenn.; Ann Arbor, Mich.; and New York City all admitted at least 15 entrants over the past year and fielded hundreds of inquiries. One convent is hurriedly raising funds for a new building to house the inflow, and at another a rush of new blood...

"Because of the prohibition of the First Amendment against the enactment of any law "respecting an establishment of religion," which is made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, state officials may not compose an official state prayer and require that it be recited in the public schools of the State at the beginning of each school day - even if the prayer is denominationally neutral and pupils who wish to do so may remain silent or be excused from the room while the prayer is being recited." --Justice Black(?), Engel v. Vitale, 1962 Contrast the 10th A. ignoring...

With little public attention or even notice, the House of Representatives has passed a bill that undermines enforcement of the First Amendment's separation of church and state. The Public Expression of Religion Act - H.R. 2679 - provides that attorneys who successfully challenge government actions as violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment shall not be entitled to recover attorneys fees. The bill has only one purpose: to prevent suits challenging unconstitutional government actions advancing religion. [snip] The attorneys' fees statute has worked well for almost 30 years. Lawyers receive attorneys' fees under the law only if their claim...

(CNSNews.com) - The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Sept. 18 ruled that German restrictions on religious-motivated home-schooling do not violate human rights, a decision that American religious rights groups fear could influence U.S. domestic policy. Some American religious rights groups worry that the decision could influence U.S. policy on religious home schooling by encouraging liberal-minded judges who increasingly rely on international law instead of American law.

Texas Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and Richardson Church versus Eugene Shubert Do Seventh-day Adventist pastors ever abuse their authority and silence individual church members they don’t like? Do they ever disfellowship believers without even granting them a semblance of a church trial? (Matthew 18:15-17; 1 Corinthians 6:1-4). Would an Adventist Christian ever join a conspiracy to silence a true believer with threats of arrest for criminal trespassing just for showing up at church? I believe that most of the pastors of the Seventh-day Adventist church favor using threats and intimidation and a direct appeal to the state for immediate prosecution,...

More than half of the countries highlighted for severe violations of religious freedom by the U.S. Department of State report Friday are located in Asia. Sun, Sep. 17, 2006 Posted: 07:25:59 AM EST WASHINGTON – More than half of the countries highlighted for severe violations of religious freedom by the U.S. Department of State report Friday are located in Asia. The eighth annual U.S. International Religious Freedom Report 2006 saw a large proportion of Asian countries on the list of nations where religious freedom is of “significant interest.” In addition to the Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) in Asia designated...

BBC did not know of 9/11 film's link to religious right David Leigh Wednesday September 13, 2006 The Guardian (UK) The BBC broadcast a controversial docu-drama, The Path to 9/11, this week without realising that it had been made by a member of the US religious right. The three-hour programme, shown over two nights on BBC2 to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the attack on the twin towers, was purchased from ABC, a subsidiary of Disney. At the last minute the US television company was forced to re-edit sequences after claims of distortion from former president Bill Clinton and members...

WASHINGTON - David Wilhelm once drew hisses when he suggested that Christians could be Republicans or Democrats. Years later, Wilhelm is spreading that message again, and he's hoping for a better response this time. With a leading poll showing only one in four Americans viewing the Democratic Party as friendly to religion, Wilhelm and a broad-based group of Christian Democratic activists are starting an Internet effort to organize religious voters whose views might be compatible with Democrats. The site, http://www.FaithfulDemocrats.com, will go online Tuesday and showcase theologians, party strategists, political leaders and bloggers in hopes of conducting a national discussion...

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea, SEPT. 4, 2006 (Zenit.org).- A religious brother of the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God was speared to death with a steel rod last week outside this capital city. Brother Augustine Taiwa, who was in his 40s, was attacked near the Xavier Institute at Bomana, where he had been attached as coordinator of pastoral courses for the past three years. The Vatican's missionary dicastery learned of the tragedy Saturday. Brother Augustine was speared while driving a van between the Vanuatu junction and the Bomana Seminary, along the road toward the Correctional Service Institution, said...

What counsel would you offer on stem cells? Embryonic stem cell research incites the passions of people both in favor and opposed to the idea of using those cells for scientific research. The debated stem cells in question are usually "extra" fertilized eggs, frozen by couples trying to conceive.Supporters tout possible scientific breakthroughs such as cures for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease that could result from the research. Opponents say life begins at conception, and, therefore, using fertilized eggs for scientific research destroys human life and crosses serious ethical and moral lines. Although widely publicized and politicized, the issue is, at...

The Washington Post warns of "Pakistan's Awkward Balancing Act on Islamic Militant Groups." But if one looks closely at the actions of Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, it is clear that he has made his choice to side with the West, there's no going back, and he is beyond the pale of reconciliation with his country's lunatic Islamists. The scale has tipped to one side. It is time for Musharraf to explicitly say so and do so, as he'll never appease Pakistan's radicals. Here's an excerpt from the Post: The basic problem for Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is that he...