Free Republic

VIENNA — There is open rebellion among the clergy of Austria's Catholic Church. One highly placed man of the cloth has even warned about the risk of a coming schism as significant numbers of priests are refusing obedience to the Pope and bishops for the first time in memory. The 300-plus supporters of the so-called Priests' Initiative have had enough of what they call the church's "delaying" tactics, and they are advocating pushing ahead with policies that openly defy current practices. These include letting nonordained people lead religious services and deliver sermons; making communion available to divorced people who have...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87vo2jkmJUg

Wow. I didn't think that the National Catholic Reporter could get any stranger. But they did. And not just by a little. Get this, NCR writer Michael Sean Winters writes a letter to Speaker John Boehner as if he were Pope Benedict. Yeah, you read that right. Michael Sean Winters is pretending to be Pope Benedict. I'm unsure if any dressup was involved but that would only make it marginally stranger. In it, the pretend Pope Benedict accuses the bishops of lying about Obamacare and questions Boehner's motives. Then he tosses out a liberal wish list right out of Nancy...

AUSTRALIA'S senior Catholic cleric, Cardinal George Pell, has denounced Catholic politicians who defy church teachings on controversial issues such as same-sex adoption. Cardinal Pell sharply rebuked MPs who "fly under the Christian or Captain Catholic flag" but "blithely disregard Christian perspectives" when they voted in parliament on moral issues. Federal MP Teresa Gambaro recently sparked concerns from church leaders in her Brisbane electorate after hinting at supporting gay marriage. "If a person says, 'look, I'm not a Christian, I've a different set of perspectives', I disagree but I understand," the Archbishop of Sydney told The Sunday Mail."If a person says...

Quixicated emphases in color and/or bold appear below within some paragraphs. The headings in bold are in the original. Some extra paragraphing also injected.].... Every time I hear someone claim to be an “ex-Catholic”, a sense of sadness comes over me.  In just about every case, people leave the Catholic Faith due to a lack of understanding.  What unmitigated balderdash! What a cop-out! What a brazen distortion of reality! Far from "just about every case," probably a major chunk of such folks were heavily well trained in the hallowed halls of the Institution. Many were instructors--even Catechism instructors for...

Hundreds of people on Saturday staged a protest outside Spain's highest court to demand the suspension of a new more liberal abortion law, two days before it was to take effect. The Socialist government's new abortion reforms -- which notably allow all women to end their pregnancies up until 14 weeks -- take effect on Monday. Last year around 115,000 abortions were carried out in Spain, according to the health ministry. The vast majority took place in private clinics and were justified on the grounds that the pregnancy posed a "psychological risk" for the health of the woman.

At a huge rally in the capital, Cardinal Antonio Rouco, the leader of Spain's Roman Catholics, told protesters the birth rate in Europe will be depleted unless Christian values are maintained.Catholics attended a huge open air mass beside Real Madrid's Bernabeu stadium.The mass marked the Feast of the Holy Family. But Catholic leaders from across Europe joined their local counterparts and members of the Spanish centre-Right opposition to castigate the socialist government's policies."Europe will be practically without children," warned Cardinal Rouco, 73, the conservative Archbishop of Madrid. "Who denies to defend a human being so innocent and weak, already conceived...

In 1922, the Vatican promulgated an instruction to do with what it called crimen solicitationis (the crime of solicitation within the confessional) and what it called the ‘‘worst crime’’ - the sexual abuse of children. The document was issued in Latin. No authoritative version was produced in English. The document was circulated only to bishops and under terms of strict secrecy. A new version of the guidelines was produced in 1962, but this, according to the Murphy Commission, was unknown within the Dublin diocese until some time in the 1990s. Desmond Connell, the former archbishop, told the commission he had...

Statistics released Nov. 24 by the FBI show hate crimes against religious groups increased by 9% from 2007 to 2008.USA Today reported that in 2008, there 1,519 incidents against people based on their religion, the statistics show.The figures reveal that while anti-Jewish attacks made up the highest percentage of the attacks (17%), there was an increase in hate crimes against Catholics — 75, up from 61 in 2007.Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said the increase may be due to the Church becoming more vocal on life issues such as abortion and homosexual unions.As...

In pictures: Pilgrimage unites Sri Lankans The church sits on a site where there has been a shrine to the Virgin Mary for hundreds of years. Catholics, both Tamil and Sinhalese, and members of other faiths revere it.

Archbishop Ncube said starvation stalked Zimbabwe A prominent Roman Catholic archbishop in Zimbabwe has called for mass street protests to force President Robert Mugabe from power.The Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, told a news conference in Harare that he was willing to stand in front of "blazing guns" if necessary. Scores of opposition activists have been arrested since police broke up a banned rally on 11 March in Harare. There is increasing discontent over the country's deepening economic crisis. Archbishop Ncube said that if Zimbabweans took to the streets in their thousands to demand that President Mugabe step down,...

by Mark Finkelstein September 16, 2006 - 06:46 In a surreal clash of the sacred and the profane, the New York Times - that citadel of secularism - has declared in its editorial of this morning that Pope Benedict "needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology," for having quoted a 14th century Christian emperor who said: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” The Times is only being fair and balanced, I suppose. After...

Roman Catholic priests and seminary students with "homosexual inclinations" can be good priests and should not fear discussing the issue with their superiors, Bishop William S. Skylstad, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a statement scheduled for release this morning. As head of church leadership in the United States, Skylstad sets the tone for how Vatican edicts are carried out in this country. Skylstad made the statements in a news release timed to today's planned release in the Vatican of a document called an "instruction" that clarifies the church's stand on whether gay men can enter...

Democrats lost the evangelical vote decades ago. As the last election showed, they are now in danger of permanently losing Catholics. But the left has devised an ingenious technique for winning back disaffected Catholics – insult their Church and its leader. And they thought of this all by themselves? As part of the campaign to defeat the Republican push to end the judicial filibuster, on May 17, 2005, MoveOn.org, PAC ran an ad appealing to anti-Catholic paranoia. The broadside was an altered photo that showed Pope Benedict XVI standing outside the Supreme Court’s chambers. The pontiff appears to be holding...

New York's Gov. Al Smith not only opposed Prohibition, but in 1928 he became the first Roman Catholic ever nominated by a major party to be president. This resulted in some of America's worst anti-Catholic expressions of bigotry – including a rumor that Gov. Smith was planning to invite the pope to make an extended visit in order to supervise the conversion of this nation to a Roman Catholic country. When Gov. Smith lost to Herbert Hoover by 444 to 87 electoral votes, he had the good sense of humor and sportsmanship to announce that he had just sent a...

New Zealand viewers turned out in force to watch the funeral of Pope John Paul II, but enthusiasm for the midnight wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla was more subdued. The Pope’s funeral, broadcast live on TV One on Friday night, was watched by more than 400,000 people, according to AGB Nielsen Media research ratings. TVNZ spokeswoman Michele Camilleri said the ratings were strong, especially among older people. "I think that reflects the historical significance of the event." The timing of the nuptials of Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, was all wrong for a New Zealand audience. Just...

Column from Bahrain Times: the War on terror blamed for ‘Christianphobia:’ Jihad Watch posted it and you can refer to: http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/004183.php Hugh Fitzgerald's reply below: Twenty Points for Archibishop Lajolo: 1) If "the war on terrorism is seen linked to Western political strategy" and that this is responsible for "Christianphobia," then what explains the attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh in Kashimir? Or on Buddhists in Thailand, and the Bamiyan Buddhas -- the people and the artifacts -- in southern Thailand? Is this because Hindu (and Sikh) and Buddhist villages and artifacts have also been linked "to Western political strategy"? And...

*The Indian Express* reports an upsurge in Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists visiting Catholic shrines dedicated to the Blessed Mother. As it says in its report, [which we could not directly link due to technical problems]: "In an unexpected twist of globalization, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and other pilgrims regularly worship at famous Roman Catholic shrines to the Virgin Mary such as Lourdes in France and Fatima in Portugal. They drink the holy water, light votive candles and pray fervently to the Madonna for help with life's hardships. Many venerate her like one of their own goddesses, a view that would be...

The parishioners at a Matamata church are so upset about receiving anti-Catholic mail that they are making a complaint to the police. Anti-Catholic messages are being delivered to letterboxes of members of the Holy Angels Catholic Church in Matamata. Three other parishes in the Hamilton area have also received the mail. The Parish Priest, Eamon Kennedy, says the person responsible apparently wants to save Catholics from going to hell by attacking aspects of the Catholic faith. He says the mail has been addressed to individual parishioners in some cases and is very upsetting for some people.

ANN ARBOR, MI — A federal judge in Kansas has ruled that Washburn University did not violate the constitution by prominently displaying a sculpture that mocks the Catholic faith. The sculpture, entitled “Holier than Thou,” depicts a Roman Catholic bishop with a grotesque facial expression wearing a miter that resembles a phallus. The sculpture was selected for display by the Campus Beautification Committee , whose goal is to make the University “one of the most beautiful campuses in Kansas.” The lawsuit was brought by the Thomas More Law Center after the University refused to act on complaints by numerous Catholics...