Free Republic

PHOENIX, September 22, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Statistically church-going Catholics are pro-life, and pro-family.  However, many nominal Catholics (in some parts of North America, the majority of Catholics) are non Church-going and thus tend to fall in with the general population in terms of adherence to life and family values.  However, an innovative media company is changing those statistics by airing a series of powerful commercials which have been shown to drive Catholics back to church in droves.   Catholics Come Home Inc., an independent, non-profit is the group behind the current TV advertising campaign that is contributing to thousands of...

Dutch police raided the home of Gregorius Nekschot (a pseudonym meaning "Gregory Deathblow"). Mr. Nekschot makes rude and often sexually explicit cartoons that poke fun at the multicultural society and at religious people, especially Muslims. The police confiscated his computer and a number of drawings. The cartoonist was also arrested and jailed for 36 hours but has been released until his court case is due. "Gregory Deathblow" — the first name refers to Pope Gregory IX who established Papal Inquisition — hides behind an alias.. made drawings for Mr. van Gogh's Web site until it ceased publication in 2004, after...

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...

As the election season proceeds apace, we can expect to see increasing attention to the influence of religious figures on the Republican leadership. It made the headlines when the chancellor of Bob Jones University, a fundamentalist Christian school, endorsed Mitt Romney. Similarly, televangelist Pat Robertson’s endorsement of Rudy Giuliani was big news. Religious leaders are portrayed by the press as kingmakers in conservative politics. In contrast, we rarely hear about the links between nonbelievers and political power. The assumption is that nonbelievers are disorganized and relatively politically weak. Indeed, this is the explicit lament of some high-profile atheists. In a...

Green MartyrdomSeveral months ago I heard a provocative description of martyrdom from Fr. Robert Cook, President of the new Wyoming Catholic College. His idea was that martyrdom in the modern age is not necessarily one of bloody (red) martyrs who die violently for the Faith. Neither is it the daily, silent and sacrificial (white) martyrdom of humble believers. He says that modern martyrs will manifest their heroic courage economically; that is, we will be called to pay dearly for our principles, not necessarily at the cost of lives, but at the cost of dollars. This is “green” martyrdom, and it...

Tristan Emmanuel says secularists, like cockroaches, 'seem to thrive on filth' "I'm sure you've heard the saying: "You'll attract more bees with honey than with vinegar." The adage equates using honey with "being nice." And the point seems to be that if we are "nice" - if we are sweet - then we'll be able to win others over to our way of thinking. It sounds nice. But in a war it is totally useless. And frankly, foolish. Too many free-market traditionalists have tried to advance their agenda with this sappy strategy. The thinking - the unspoken hope of some...

Newsweek's Anna Quindlen recently wrote that a presidential victory for Rudy Giuliani "wouldn't be a good thing for this country, but his candidacy may wind up being a good thing for his party," which Quindlen obviously believes has been hijacked by the Christian right. Giuliani's strong poll numbers, said Quindlen, perhaps "indicate that the end is nigh for the stranglehold the Leviticus Lobby has had on the GOP." It's no longer surprising that those screaming most loudly against Christianity and its influence on public policy in America often employ the same tactics and represent the same dangers they falsely attribute...

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...

Two recent press releases from the Democratic National Committee reflect the party's continuous struggle to understand evangelicals in America. A March 30 press release entitled "DNC Offers Passover Greetings" included a joint statement by Chairman Howard Dean and DNC Vice Chair Susan Turnbull. The release was appropriate and timely and included their definition of the event, though it ignored the religious aspect. "On Monday night, Jews around the world will begin celebrating Passover, a week-long holiday that commemorates the Israelites' freedom from persecution and slavery." Then, a week later, the DNC celebrated Easter with another statement from Dean, including his...

Falwell, Dobson, and Robertson: the left’s favorite targets for pointing out the undeniable truth that Christians are both human and flawed. I thought about these three men when reading Howard Fineman’s piece on the Orlando conference of religious broadcasters. Mr. Fineman’s headline labels them the “Three Kingmakers”. Each of the men have had moments in their lives in which the glare of the spotlight has magnified their spoken words, causing the casual observer to wonder who these men think they are, and the committed left to have their worst fears confirmed, and even supporters to question the wisdom of their...

Midterm election result could change her job dramatically WASHINGTON -- As the chief lobbyist for atheists in the nation's capital, former state Sen. Lori Lipman Brown is keeping a close eye on the Nov. 7 midterm elections. Democrats may gain a majority in the House and possibly the Senate. For Brown, 48, such a result might change her job dramatically. "There are some things we would like to see moved that haven't gone anywhere under current (Republican) leadership, and some things that we would prefer not to be spending our time fighting against," Brown said. For example, Brown would like...

Bob Beckel claims to be a born again Christian...Fox News,Hannity. Bob Beckel says he is a born again Christian.Speaking as a sinner saved by grace,I challenge! He went on to bear false witness within a minute of his claim. God bless Bob Beckle,but I dont believe a Christian can continue in the democrat party,arguing for abortion,gay rights and banning the name of Jesus from the public square. I challenge the term "Christian democrat" all togeather. I don`t buy it for a moment.I don`t believe Jimmy Carter is a Christian either.To continue to support abortion etc, after being supposedly saved,does not...

Washington, D.C. - The Secular Coalition for America (SCA) today released its House and Senate Scorecards of the 109th Congress. The SCA, an advocacy group for atheists, humanists, freethinkers, and other nontheists, provides roll-call votes to demonstrate the members' commitment to the separation of church and state and their willingness to protect the interests of the nontheistic community. The scorecards cover votes taken from January 2005 until August 2006. The SCA used ten key votes in both the House and Senate. Votes include: allowing organizations that receive federal funds to discriminate based on religion; promoting narrow religious beliefs over secular...

Religion and morality are critical to how college students view political issues ranging from stem-cell research to the government¡¯s Hurricane Katrina response, according to a survey released Tuesday. Most of the 1,200 students surveyed for the Harvard University Institute of Politics study consider religion important in their lives. But Republicans and Democrats are sharply divided as to how much of a role religion should play in politics and government. Only 21 percent of college Democrats said they wanted politicians to talk about religion, while 56 percent of college Republicans did. And 54 percent of all those surveyed are concerned about...

Publication of a number of caricatures of the Prophet of Islam, initially in a Danish paper, has created an unprecedented media-hype and violent protests amongst the worldwide Muslim community. These protests turned deadly in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and Nigeria resulting in at least 100 deaths, which continues to rise by every passing day. Danish and other European embassies have been attacked, torched and even burned in countries like Syria, Iran, Indonesia and Lebanon. Churches have been burned in Pakistan and Nigeria. A Pakistani Cleric offered $1 million reward for killing each of the cartoonists. An Indian Muslim Minister offered $10...

For approximately one thousand years after the fall of Rome, European civilization comprised a religion (Roman Catholicism), a morality (based on the revealed word of God and the natural law implanted in man by his Creator), and a political hegemony (in which the Church was both a secular ruler and a moral and spiritual influence on other rulers.) This “Catholic Civilization” was not seriously threatened by numerous dissenters who, from time to time, sought to weaken the Church and obtain a greater freedom either for themselves or for one of the new Nation-States. The Protestant Revolution (to give it its...

It’s the same argument we’ve heard so many times before, except now with increasing frequency and intensity: The world’s troubles are caused by religion. If only people would at last abandon these silly superstitions and get with the times.Late this summer Zenit, the international Catholic news agency, reported on an increasing tendency in the Western press—particularly in the wake of the July bombings in London—to criticize not simply “Islamic fundamentalism� but also religion in general as sources of discord and violence. Thus in the pages of Scotland’s Sunday Herald Muriel Gray declared that “the cause of all this misery, mayhem,...

Citizens of the world should be concerned about religious extremism whether it’s in Iran or America, says author Salman Rushdie, who was once marked for death by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini. Rushdie compared the emergence of religion into public life in Kansas with similar movements across the world in a lecture Thursday at the Lied Center. “I would really love never to mention that word again: religion,” Rushdie said. “But now it seems to be coming right at us all. I don’t just mean radical Islam, by the way. I believe we have some problems right here.” Rushdie received a standing...

In a message to over 250 Catholic bishops at the Vatican today, Pope Benedict XVI said it was hypocritical to exclude God and religion from public life. "A tolerance which allows God as a private opinion but which excludes him from public life, from the reality of the world and our lives, is not tolerance but hypocrisy," the pope said in the homily he gave at a three-week-long synod's opening mass in St Peter's Basilica. "When man makes himself the only master of the world and master of himself, justice cannot exist. Then, arbitrariness, power and interests rule." Today marked...

Dear Colleague:   The abortion revolution is putting on a big push in Colombia, the latest victim of First World-funded efforts to impose abortion-on-demand in Latin America.   Steven W. Mosher, President   PRI Weekly Briefing, 30 September 2005, Vol. 7 / No. 38   Pro-Abortion Court Revolution Targets ColombiaBy Joseph A. D'Agostino   A tyrannical global revolution in law is underway, and the leaders of this international movement have targeted the small, turbulent country of Colombia.  By their own admission, they want Colombia to be on the leading edge of legalizing abortion in Latin America.  They may have their...

So the courts have struck down The Pledge of Allegiance in three Sacramento, California elementary schools. So what else is new? A little history as to how this hostility toward God in our schools began begs our review. In 1932, it was Communist Party USA founder, William Z. Foster, in his book, Toward Soviet America, who outlined “the elementary measures the American Soviet government will adopt to further the cultural revolution.” His target: America’s schools. His strategy: "[S]tudies will be revolutionized, being cleansed of religious, patriotic and other features of the bourgeois ideology. The students will be taught on the...

In his book, “The Cube and the Cathedral,” Catholic scholar George Weigel explains why the proposed constitution for the European Union, a 70,000-word document, does not contain the word Christianity – in other words, why its framers deliberately ignored 1,000 years of European history. Weigel writes: “In the minds of many Europeans, Christianity was not simply a non-factor in the development of contemporary European public life; Christianity was (and is) an obstacle to the evolution of a Europe at peace, a Europe that champions human rights, a Europe that governs itself democratically.” This also explains the Judeo-Christophobia of the U.S....

[Cue the Darth Vader theme] ACW II isn’t over. 48% of the U.S. did not have an epiphany and conversion experience after President Bush’s election. The Liberals will strike back. Their front ranks will be filled with clerical collars. ‘Blue’ churches like Blue states will be the base for counter-attacks on ‘value voters’ on many fronts. The blue churches are the Religious Left – mainline Protestant churches with declining membership, lapsed, cafeteria Catholics and secular Jews. And all the other Pagan faithful who are ‘spiritual not religious’, Wiccan, Vegan, etc. The Liberals will come back hard, because they’re infuriated that...

PARIS - Secularists criticized the French government Monday for lowering flags to half-staff out of respect for Pope John Paul II, calling it an attack on the country's century-old separation of church and state. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin's office ordered that flags at public buildings be lowered for 24 hours following the pope's death Saturday "in keeping with republican custom." But critics said France's republican custom is secular, pointing to the law enacted last year that bans Islamic head scarves and other conspicuous religious symbols from schools. "The French Republic should not descend to such a level," said Socialist Sen....

From where do your rights come? Not the right to bear arms, or freedom of the press. I’m talking about those unalienable rights our founding fathers spoke of: Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. At face value, it’s quite a simple question; who, or what, gives you these rights? It seems to me there are two possible answers, God or government. Though it seems like a simple question, the implications of either answer are quite severe. Either your rights come from an objective, unchangeable higher authority, or a manmade power with the potential for corruption. The danger in assuming that...

RUSH: Boy, I tell you folks, some immediate observations from watching television over the weekend, reading a lot of newspapers, the juxtaposition of the Terri Schiavo story with the death of Pope is breathtaking. It is spellbinding. On the one hand -- I'm referring here to the primary media, the mainstream media -- in the case of the Schiavo story the attitude is, "Get it off the screen!" Peter Jennings was lamenting it was more than a one day story. (doing impression) "Can't we get rid of this?" "How long are we going to go with this?" Everybody was getting...

How the Liberals Will Promote ‘Blue’ Churches [Cue the Darth Vader theme] ACW II isn’t over. 48% of the U.S. did not have an epiphany and conversion experience after President Bush’s election. The Liberals will strike back. Their front ranks will be filled with clerical collars. ‘Blue’ churches like Blue states will be the base for counter-attacks on ‘value voters’ on many fronts. The blue churches are the Religious Left – mainline Protestant churches with declining membership, lapsed, cafeteria Catholics and secular Jews. And all the other Pagan faithful who are ‘spiritual not religious’, Wiccan, Vegan, etc. The Liberals will...

Some Americans must be living in fear that the Tooth Fairy is going to force them to believe in her. I am convinced they must live in mortal terror that the Easter Bunny is going to hop into their homes and force them to color hardboild eggs turning their homes into some multicolored slave labor camp. Perhaps they are worried beyond measure that a Leprechaun will take away their freedom and cast them in an ocean of bad green beer and make them wear funny green bowler hats everywhere they go. I would posit that this fear laden segment of...

America was not founded on the concept of a "wall of separation between church and state," it was founded upon pluralism. The "wall of separation" phrase does not appear in any of our founding documents; it is taken from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson. To base our laws on the correspondence of Jefferson, rather than the Constitution ratified by representatives of each of the original " united states ," is in direct opposition to our system of representative government. Jefferson was a brilliant man, but he also favored slavery and was fanatical about macaroni and cheese. However, slavery was...

Topics include ‘queer families’ ‘gays’ in sports and ‘heterosexism.’ Students in Newton, Massachusetts, will be treated to an entire day of pro-homosexual propaganda on December 15. “To BGLAD Day” features workshops and speakers who will make students feel good about homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism. “This is so incredibly objectionable,” Brian Camenker, who heads the Article 8 Alliance and the Parents Rights Coalition, said of To BGLAD Day. “The parents are so outraged that this is being pushed on their kids that they don’t know what to do. To use children’s minds this way without even letting the parents know is...

The first battle was joined about a week ago. My unit’s enemies had been enjoying many victories (all against the weak and defenseless) on battlefields outside of my area of operations when they finally showed up in a place my growling troops could get at them. I quickly consulted my small-unit leaders, analyzed the intelligence I was being provided with, called the enemy to let them know they were about to get whomped (I like to fight fair and have found that telling the enemy they are about to get their asses handed to them has a way of rattling...

Many of us secular types are rattled when those religious types implant themselves into the political debates of the day. Agitated or not, Denver's Archbishop Charles Chaput, as the conscience of the Catholic Church in this community, not only has the right to voice his opinion on social issues, he has the obligation. Since Chaput has publicly opined on abortion and embryonic stem-cell research this election season, his right to free speech has been challenged, ironically enough, by groups purportedly advocating freedom of choice. A pro-choice group, Catholics for a Free Choice, recently filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue...

CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian cleric based in Qatar and often described as a moderate has ruled that it is a religious duty for Muslims to fight Americans in Iraq, including U.S. civilians, his office director said Thursday. But Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi said that two French journalists kidnapped in Iraq should be freed immediately. Qaradawi gave his opinion at a meeting Tuesday evening at the Egyptian journalists' syndicate in Cairo. "All of them (U.S. military personnel and civilians) are invaders who came from their country to invade our country and fighting them is a duty," said his office director Essam...

FR SWAT TEAM ACTION PROJECT John Kerry recently said he is "unsure" about The Passion of The Christ, the film Christians of all tempers are flocking to see, "I don't know," Kerry said when asked if he would see Mel Gibson's blockbuster film. "I am concerned," Kerry told reporters. "I think we have to be careful," he said echoing secularist critics complaints about Mel Gibson's depiction of Christ's last 12 hours. (Reuters, "Democrat Kerry Urges Caution on 'Passion,' 26 February 2004, by Patricia Wilson). John Kerry also said he is "not sure" God is on America's side in the war...

Seeing Rosie O’Donnell condemn President Bush just after she “married” her girlfriend, Kelli Carpenter, was bizarre in a tiresome sort of way. O’Donnell claimed, “We were inspired to come here by the sitting president and the vile and vicious and hateful comments he made.”If O’Donnell had any sense of humor or irony, she would look at herself and say, “Gee, for such a tolerant, open-minded person, I sure do condemn and vituperate an awful lot, especially on what should have been the happiest day of my life.”Maybe I’m some sort of pervert, but I don’t recall bearing anyone in the...

Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry is not sure God is on America's side in the war terrorism. Kerry made the startling comments during the Feb 29 Democrat presidential primary debate in New York City. Elizabeth Bumiller of the New York Times asked Kerry: "President Bush has said that freedom and fear have always been at war, and God is not neutral between them. He's made quite clear in his speeches that he feels God is on America's side. "Is God on America's side?" Kerry replied, "Well, God will -- look, I think -- I believe in God, but I don't...

WANTED: A New Enlightenment for America On Thursday, March 25, CFI-Metro New York is proud to present Dr. Paul Kurtz, founder and chairman of the Center for Inquiry, in a lecture and public forum on the urgent need for a 21st Century American Enlightenment. Kurtz, who needs no introduction to CFI members, notes that Americans today “are rightly concerned about the political crisis facing this country.” However, Kurtz stresses that the nation is facing a broader and more basic cultural challenge. “We are confronted by irrational forces that threaten to overwhelm society,” he notes. “Although we are a technological superpower,...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Christian warrior under fire by Pat Buchanan Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin, the former Delta Force commander, seems to be exactly the kind of warrior America needs to lead us in battle against the kind of fanatics we face. The general is an evangelical Christian, and from his deep Christian beliefs he derives his convictions about the character of the war we are in and his courage to fight it. But these beliefs may yet cost this splendid soldier his post at the Pentagon, where he has been put in charge of the U.S. campaign to run...

Over the last week, we witnessed a number of people being arrested while defending the public postings of the Ten Commandments in a public building in the capital of Alabama. Many historians believe that the Ten Commandments form the foundation for U. S law. (Refer to the writings of Founding Fathers John Adams, James Madison, and George Washington to find out.) What the "secular" media fails to tell us is that the very court that turned down the legal request for delaying the removal of the Commandments monument has carved on its own walls these same Commandments and a statue...

The secularists are gloating. They got a court order to remove the Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building and another court order to suspend Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore who put it there. But anyone who thinks this confrontation in Montgomery is just about an inscribed rock and a defiant judge is out of touch with reality. The Ten Commandments dispute is the tip of the iceberg in the ongoing battle to obliterate every acknowledgement of God except behind the closed doors of churches. The goal of the secularists and the atheists is...

The Godless Party Media Bias & Blindness— And the Big Story They Missed by Rod Dreher As a practicing Christian, a political conservative and a professional journalist, I often find myself explaining how newsrooms work to my fellow believers, and trying to disabuse them of the notion that reporters and editors begin their days thinking, "How can we trash Christianity and/or conservatism today?" Even at this late date, over a year into the Catholic sex-abuse scandal, it is possible to find stalwart Roman Catholics—not only bishops, believe it or not—who are convinced that the whole thing is a put-up job...

Our Secularist Democratic Party By Louis Bolce & Gerald De Maio Anyone who has followed American politics over the past decade cannot help but feel some concern about the supposed fundamentalist Christian threat to democratic civility, pluralism, and tolerance. At the very least, the attentive citizen would find it hard not to regard the cultural and political positions of fundamentalists as outside the mainstream, given the volume of media stories that have conveyed this point. At the same time, the media's obsession with politicized fundamentalism distracts public attention from the changing role of religion in political life today. In particular,...