Free Republic

The YouTube controversy involving Hate Speech against Catholics continues with the the apparent reposting of sacriligious, blasphemous videos of a student desecrating the Blessed Sacrament. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines sacrilege with these words: "2120 Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God. Sacrilege is a grave sin especially when committed against the Eucharist, for in this sacrament the true Body of Christ is made substantially present for us." The Catholic League is the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization. The Catholic League...

Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented on the latest developments to surface regarding the pledge made by Paul Z. Myers, a professor at the University of Minnesota, to desecrate the Eucharist: “Myers was quoted yesterday saying, ‘I have to do something. I’m not going to just let this disappear.’ [Last Friday it was reported that he had acquired a Host.] He continued, ‘Something will be done. It won’t be gross. It won’t be totally tasteless, but yeah, I’ll do something that shows this cracker has no power.’ “The biology professor made it clear that he would never disrespect Islam the...

A Minnesota university instructor is jousting with a national Catholic watch dog group over a kidnapped communion wafer, which the associate professor dismisses as a "frackin' cracker." Paul Z. Myers, who teaches biology at the University of Minnesota, Morris, on his blog this week expressed amazement that a Florida college student who briefly took a wafer "hostage" has been receiving death threats. Under the headline, "It's a frackin' cracker!" Myers wrote in an at-times profane blog entry: "Crazy Christian fanatics right here in our own country have been threatening to kill a young man over a cracker. This is insane."...

On Monday, Episcopal Bishop Marc Handley Andrus, of the Diocese of California (the San Francisco area) issued a pastoral guideline calling for all couples, regardless of sexual orientation, to follow the same pattern for marriage, seeking a civil ceremony first followed by a church blessing. This will allow, the bishop said, for all couples to enter marriage on the same footing. He is even going to personally volunteer to perform the ceremonies as a Deputy Marriage Commissioner. In other words, he wants those whose marriages the church can sanction to seek a civil ceremony instead, followed by a church blessing......

Lesson 34: The First Commandment "Come let us praise the Lord with joy:  let us joyfully sing to God our savior.  Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; and make a joyful noise to Him with psalms.  For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.  For in His hand are all the ends of the earth:  and the heights of the mountains are His.  For the sea is His, and He made it:  and His hands formed the dry land.  Come let us adore and fall down:  and weep before the Lord that...

A controversial new public relations campaign by animal-rights group PETA proclaims Jesus Christ to have been a vegetarian, and portrays the Last Supper ? complete with 12 "disciples" including Beatle Paul McCartney and lesbian country-music singer k.d. lang ? as a spectacle meant to inspire mankind to forsake eating meat. The outreach has been built into a 28-foot 1955 Silver Streak Airstream trailer wherein the "Last Supper" is re-created, surrounding Jesus with famous vegetarians, officials of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals told WND. Dallas artist Greg Metz's work first was displayed in his hometown, then in Columbia, S.C.,...

Catholic League president Bill Donohue is demanding that presidential hopeful John Edwards fire two recently hired anti-Catholics who have joined his team: Amanda Marcotte as Blogmaster and Melissa McEwan as the Netroots Coordinator. Here’s why: “Writing on the Pandagon blogsite, December 26, 2006, Amanda Marcotte wrote that ‘the Catholic church is not about to let something like compassion for girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women to bear more tithing Catholics.’ On October 9, 2006, she said that ‘the Pope’s gotta tell women who give birth to stillborns that their babies are...

John Lennon once enraged Christians by claiming that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus. The Church of England is now recognising the pulling power of rock stars by recruiting Bono, the singer and lyricist of U2, in its bid to boost congregations. A Church of England bishop is to preside at this country's first "U2-charist", an adapted Holy Communion service that uses the Irish supergroup's best-selling songs in place of hymns. US worshippers, Hymns replaced by Bono lyrics US worshippers at a U2 Eucharist sing along to lyrics of Bono In what is more rock concert than Book of Common...

ROME (Reuters) - Two leftists in Italy's ruling coalition on Wednesday outraged fellow lawmakers by placing four dolls representing homosexual couples near the baby Jesus in the official nativity scene in parliament. The two parliamentarians from the small "Rose in the Fist" party said their gesture was to promote the legalization of gay marriage and granting legal recognition to unmarried couples. Bruno Mellano and Donatella Poretti placed the Barbie and Ken-type dolls in the parliamentary nativity scene, each couple lying down embraced among the shepherds witnessing the birth of Jesus. Each of the two doll couples, which parliamentary ushers removed...

THE Church is facing another onslaught from film-makers. After the furore over The Da Vinci Code, it is now contending with an allegedly blasphemous account of the life of St Teresa of Ávila. Geraldine Chaplin heads the cast of Teresa: Death and Life, a feature film about one of the great Christian figures. The writings of the saint — a mystic who said that Christ conversed with her — are revered as spiritual masterpieces four centuries after her death. But film-makers don’t do spirituality as easily as sexuality and, in exploring the saint’s sex life, they find themselves accused of...

Howard Gensler | Madonna to Russian mob: Shove-sky this MADONNA MAY BE a kidnapping target of the Russian mob. According to a report in the London Sun, Russian gangsters have threatened the Material Girl and her two children with abduction should Madonna go ahead with her Confessions tour in Moscow next month. But tough-gal Madonna is like "Law & Order's" Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), refusing to bow to Russian mob pressure. "Madonna is well aware of the kidnap threats," said a source, "but she is brave and even a little nonchalant when it comes to her own safety." Her husband...

For millions of pilgrims, a visit to Lourdes to take its miraculous healing waters is an intensely spiritual experience. Since Bernadette Soubirous witnessed the first of 18 apparitions of the Virgin Mary almost 150 years ago, the shrine has become a place of quiet contemplation and religious devotion. Hail Mary or Bloody Mary? Lourdes is home to tacky gift shops and numerous bars and clubs But now the town's peace is being shattered by thousands of British tourists whose behaviour has become so bad that officials have brought in riot police. The decision to deploy officers from the notorious...

Like Catholic priests everywhere, Bishop Peter Hickman dons a white tunic each Sunday to celebrate Mass in a sanctuary laden with incense and crosses. Unlike most, he'll often have lunch with his wife and children afterward. "Marriage promotes growth," says Hickman, 50, who has fathered five children, been married three times and divorced twice. "People who've never been married have a hard time knowing themselves." Marriage and children aren't the only things separating Hickman from nearly all Roman Catholic clergy. The church he has pastored for more than 20 years, St. Matthew in Orange, operates much like any other Catholic...

Diamonds are forever -- and now mom, dad and grandma can be, too -- thanks to a process that converts ashes from their cremated remains into gems. ``My wife and I had already decided on cremation when we die,'' said Scott Mason of the Adams-Mason Memorial Chapel in Akron. ``She never wants me to talk about business at home, but when I brought up the diamond option, it piqued her interest. ``We like the idea that when we die, we will be able to leave a lasting gift and a special memory to our family.'' The ashes-to-diamond cremation option was...

In what many consider to be one of the most notorious holy site desecrations in recent history, nearly 100 Palestinian terrorists in April, 2002, holed up inside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem while fleeing a massive Israeli anti-terror operation. One of Christianity's most sacred sites, the church is believed to be the birthplace of Jesus. Israel surrounded the Church area but refused to storm the structure. Gunmen inside included wanted senior Hamas, Tzanim and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorists reportedly involved in suicide bombings and shooting attacks. Over 200 nuns and priests were trapped in the church...

Vetting advertisements for a magazine is always a little tricky. Editors have a financial responsibility to keep the publication going, and it’s a fairly well-established practice in the trade to accept ads that don’t necessarily match the magazine’s editorial line—I suppose on the principle that if, say, the people at MoveOn.Org somehow believe their money is well spent trawling for converts with an ad in the John Birch Society’s newsletter, it’s not the business of the John Birch Society to correct them. Still, there are limits. Take, for example, the ad on page 36 of the December 5 issue of...

from the attacks of blasphemers at the first night of the play "Our Lady of Flanders" at the Flemish theatre in Brussels, KVS (logo behind the banners) 150 demonstrators were met with some three van loads of police - some of whom were friendly others a little less so. Advertising for the play in the foyer. Those who attended the state-subsidised play were noticeably "middle class". The whole charade has more to do with bourgeois liberal guilt than anything else. It is not just American universities that are victims of this guilt!

But "Da Vinci," set for release in May, is shaping up as one of the movie world's more complicated exercises - so much so that Sony has dropped a scrim of secrecy over the affair, refusing to discuss anything but the barest details. The script has been closely controlled. Outsiders have been banned from the set. And those associated with the film have had to sign confidentiality agreements. ...their silence is a measure of concern about the potentially incendiary nature of the subject matter. The book, which is fiction, takes aim at central Christian dogma, claiming that Jesus had a...

The devil and all his works are on display in the Church of Notre Dame de la Chapelle in Brussels, Belgium. Indeed the altars of the Church have been transformed into exhibition stands for the works of modern art from an art collective. The relics are still in place in these altars.

Once again, protests have been proven effective. After receiving an avalanche of protest emails, petitions and calls eBay has changed its policy and will now refuse to sell consecrated Hosts and other sacred objects. In an email sent to protestors, Kaelee of eBay’s Community Watch Team writes: “we have concluded that sales of the Eucharist, and similar highly sacred items, are not appropriate on eBay. We have, therefore, broadened our policies and will remove those types of listings should they appear on the site in the future.” The controversy began in mid April, when someone seeking to capitalize on the...

I suspect that this is a fraud, but it's horrendous if you are a Catholic. Person is selling what he purports to be a consecrated host from a 1998 mass with John Paul II. http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/item_allowed.html If this bothers you, you might want to complain to Ebay. you can get to that at http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/item_allowed.html

Catholic University hosts sacrilegious display against the Blessed Mother, offending students, faculty and Catholics nationwide Something extremely alarming and shameful occurred at the University of Dayton, where Our Blessed Mother was depicted in an exhibit amid pictures of prostitutes and pornography.1 The sacrilegious display, "Heartlands," by Derek A. Cracco, an assistant professor of art at the University of Alabama, was on public display in the Rike Center Gallery of the University of Dayton from February 22 to March 11. Ranking among the ten largest Catholic universities in the country, the University of Dayton, founded by the Society of Mary in...

FAITH UNDER FIRE 'Saint Bill Clinton' ignites religious rage Artist uses ex-president's 'holy' image to market T-shirts, lunchboxes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: September 19, 2004 10:34 p.m. Eastern By Joe Kovacs © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Americans have a wide variety of views regarding former President Bill Clinton, but a Kentucky artist's depiction of the former commander in chief as a Catholic-style saint is heating those opinions to new levels across the nation. The portrait, titled "Saint Clinton," is the creation of Scott Ritcher, a 34-year-old graphic designer who is now marketing T-shirts, posters, magnets, coffee cups, coasters and even lunchboxes with a picture...

REMNANT NEWS: Today, Tuesday, August 10, 2004 a judge of the 61st Judicial District vacated a default judgment obtained by a Buddhist group against Fr. Michael McMahon and St. Margaret Mary Church. The court’s order allows the case to proceed to trial. The case arises from the widely reported incident in which a group of Buddhists appeared at the Basilica of St. Adalbert in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to conduct a Buddhist ritual and/or concert. Fr. McMahon and a group of Catholics prayed the rosary in the basilica, and the Buddhists decided to leave. The default judgment for $316. against Fr....

New Bible translation promotes fornication Archbishop of Canterbury praises version for 'extraordinary power' A brand-new translation of the Bible – praised by Britain's archbishop of Canterbury, that nation’s senior Christian voice – flatly contradicts traditional core Christian beliefs on sex and morality. Titled "Good as New," the new Bible is translated by former Baptist minister John Henson for the "One" organization, to produce what the group calls a "new, fresh and adventurous" translation of the Christian scriptures. Archbishop Rowan Williams The 104th archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams – leader of the Church of England – describes it is a...

Hollywood fashion is looking Like a Prayer ... again. Rosary beads as a style statement, not a prayer ritual, are hot with stars. "It has come back again," celebrity stylist Charlie Altuna says. In the mid-1980s, Madonna, who was raised Catholic, raised eyebrows and launched a fashion craze by wearing crucifixes and rosaries with corsets. Eventually, the look became "cheesy" and faded away, Altuna says. But, like many '80s trends, rosaries "are cool again" with celebs. It's highly unlikely, however, that the pope will bless the trend this time around, either. Altuna suggests the new fad has roots in the...

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is at it again. To garner publicity for their radical agenda, they are denigrating the sacred person of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This time their blasphemy consists in posting billboards with a picture of a pig and the caption, “He died for your sins. Go vegetarian.” This is not the first time PETA has attacked the Faith. Just before Christmas, PETA ran a billboard which showed an image of the Holy Virgin with a dead chicken in her arms. The caption read: “Go vegetarian. It’s an immaculate conception.” Immediately, Catholics began to...

We are concerned about sacrilege against the Most Holy Sacrament of Christ in the Eucharist. Two examples of sacrilege against the Holy Eucharist are seen in reception of Holy Communion by politicians who claim to be Catholics but who vote in favor of laws that allow, promote, or finance abortion. “Since the first century, the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. The teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable” (Catechism of the Catholic Church) The Catechism also declares that “formal cooperation in abortion [including voting to legalize or to fund it] constitutes a grave offense.” The...

You’ve described quite well the implementation of the new religion that is being imposed on us. I have come to view the past 38 years as the spiritual equivalent of the Ukrainian Famine of the 1930s. Look to the example of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and you’ll see what will be happening in the immediate future in Boston and elsewhere. The sex abuse scandals will serve as a pretext. “Restructuring” (“realignment” in New York, “reconfiguration” in Boston) is used to divert attention from the raping and sodomizing of children and an opportunity to accelerate the implementation of structural changes...

One of the many nefarious parts of the great facade that has been erected by the doctrinal and liturgical revolutionaries in the past four and one-half decades is episcopal collegiality. This very important cornerstone of the great facade introduced a novelty that masked real differences among the world's bishops in the quite mistaken belief that it is better to demonstrate to the faithful and to the world a united front of episcopal solidarity than for one bishop to criticize one of his brother bishops or to take policies that put other bishops in a bad light and/or force them to...

Priests in the Archdiocese of Boston are allowed to serve Sen. John F. Kerry [related, bio] communion this Easter even though he bucks the church's stand against abortion. The Rev. John Ardis, director of the Paulist Center, where Kerry and his wife worship locally, said an archdiocesan official telephoned Thursday to tell him Kerry "was as welcome as any other Catholic to receive the eucharist." The Rev. Christopher J. Coyne, a spokesman for Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley, said in an interview yesterday, "The archbishop has made no comment about Sen. Kerry and his Catholicism, nor does he plan on doing...

Women should be allowed to hear confessions and absolve sinners, a Roman Catholic bishop has suggested. Bishop Vincent Malone, auxiliary bishop in Liverpool, said that the Church should consider choosing lay women to be confessors because some people might prefer disclosing their sins to a woman rather than a man. Writing in a new book, he also said that other sacraments reserved for the all-male clergy might be opened to lay people, including the annointing of the sick. Bishop Malone said he was merely raising questions rather than "starting a revolution", and stressed that any reforms would have to be...

An experiment in the United States has created a mixed-sex human embryo. The team involved insists that the creation of an hermaphrodite human embryo was designed to cure illness, but critics say moral and ethical standards have been breached. The process they used creates what is known as a "chimaera" - a blend of two embryos, each of which would have a distinct genetic identities. Click here to see how a mixed-sex embryo could be created But any attempt to produce such a baby would provoke a worldwide ethical storm. In experiments using donated embryos, scientists from the Centers for...

<p>NEW YORK — A Virginia couple was arrested in New York City Thursday for public lewdness after allegedly having sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral as part of a radio stunt that outraged parishioners and church officials.</p> <p>Also arrested was comedian Paul Mercurio, 40, who provided a running on-air commentary of the sex act, which took place just five feet away from worshippers praying on the Feast of the Assumption, a holy day of obligation for Catholics.</p>