Free Republic

President Barack Obama's policies “have become progressively more hostile toward Christian civilization,” Cardinal Raymond Burke,head of the highest court at the Vatican, said in a recent interview. Cardinal Burke added that Obama wants to restrict religious freedom and force the individuals, outside of his or her place of worship,“to act against his rightly-formed conscience,even in the most serious of moral questions.”… “It is true that the policies of the president of the United States of America have become progressively more hostile toward Christian civilization. He appears to be a totally secularized man who aggressively promotes anti-life and anti-family policies.” “Now...

Thousands of rare manuscripts until now accessible only to scholars at the Vatican will go online over the next four years, thanks to help from a Japanese information technology company. Officials of NTT DATA Corporation and the Vatican Library announced their joint project at a news conference March 20. The library, founded by Pope Nicholas V in the 15th century, preserves some 82,000 manuscripts dating back to the early centuries of Christianity. Among its treasures are an illustrated edition of the works of the Roman poet Virgil, produced around the year 400, and illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy by the...

On March 9, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, America’s foremost Catholic prelate, appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and commented as follows on the “coming out” of a “gay” college football star: Good for him… I would have no sense of judgment on him…. God bless ya. I don’t think, look, the same Bible that tells us, that teaches us well about the virtues of chastity and the virtue of fidelity and marriage also tells us not to judge people. So I would say, “Bravo.” “No sense of judgment…. Bravo.” That is how a Prince of Church in the Year of Our...

In an earlier blog post, I made the point that the role of St. Peter and his successors is made remarkably clear in Matthew 16:18-19 and its immediate context: And I tell you, you are Peter (Gr.—petros—‘rock’), and on this rock (Gr.—petra—‘rock’) I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Jesus here promises infallible authority to Peter that...

(Reuters) - Pope Francis has played down the notion that he is a "superman" who will bring sweeping reforms to the Roman Catholic Church, stressing that its ban on contraception and opposition to gay marriage will remain in place.

Pope Francis stunned a live audience in St. Peter’s Square Sunday when he accidentally dropped the Italian equivalent of the F-bomb instead of a similar-sounding word he meant to use. “If each of us were to accumulate wealth not only for ourselves but to put at the service of others, in this f*** — in this case God’s providence would manifest itself in this gesture of solidarity,” he said. The pontiff apparently meant to use the word “caso,” which means “example” in Italian. Instead, he said “cazzo” — a simple mistake, but one that came along with wildly different context,...

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis celebrated Mass in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta residence in the Vatican this morning. In remarks following the readings of the day, the Holy Father focused on the beauty of marriage and warned that the Church must accompany – not condemn – those who experience failure in married life. He explained that Christ is the Bridegroom of the Church, and therefore you cannot understand one without the Other. The Holy Father also warned against giving in to the temptation to entertain “special pleading” in questions regarding marriage. The Pharisees, he noted, present Jesus with...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Catholic Church needs to find a way to offer healing, strength and salvation to Catholics whose marriages have failed, who are committed to making a new union work and who long to do so within the church and with the grace of Communion, Cardinal Walter Kasper told the world's cardinals. Jesus' teaching on the indissolubility of sacramental marriage is clear, the retired German cardinal said, and it would harm individuals and the church to pretend otherwise. However, "after the shipwreck of sin, the shipwrecked person should not have a second boat at his or her...

The Vatican is sorting out all the final technical details before the Pope’s Facebook page goes public GIACOMO GALEAZZIvatican city Francis will soon have his very own profile on the world’s favourite social network. The Vatican is just working on some final technical aspects before the Pope’s Facebook page is made visible to the public. The Curia has told Vatican Insider that the process is in the final stages and the Vatican’s tech experts are working on the page. IT technicians are currently looking into ways to prevent offensive or inappropriate messages and other  material from being posted on the...

The founder of liberation theology, the Latin American-inspired Catholic theology advocating for the poor, received a hero’s welcome Tuesday at the Vatican as the once-criticized movement continues its rehabilitation under Pope Francis. The Rev. Gustavo Gutierrez of Peru was the surprise speaker Tuesday at a book launch featuring the head of the Vatican’s orthodoxy office, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller; one of Francis’ top advisers, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga; and the Vatican spokesman.

Pope Francis on Monday revolutionized the Vatican's scandal-plagued finances, inviting outside experts into a world often seen as murky and secretive and saying the church must use its wealth to help the poor. Francis, elected nearly a year ago with a mandate for reform, used a document known as a Motu Proprio - Latin for "by his own initiative" - to implement immediate changes including appointing an auditor-general. The document says the Church must see its possessions and financial assets in the "light of its mission to evangelize, with particular concern for the most needy". A new Secretariat for the...

CARDINAL Keith O’Brien is facing a new investigation by the Vatican and may face a “trial” under canon law which could lead to him losing his red hat. Three priests in the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh have asked Leo Cushley, the new archbishop, to pass on to the Holy See their written complaints which characterise O’Brien as a “sexual predator” who used his authority to compel them into “coercive” and “abusive” sexual relationships. The priests, whose accusations led to the cardinal’s enforced retirement and disgrace last February, appear determined to force Pope Francis to make a final judgment....

The Vatican announced an immediate end to new hires, wage-increases and overtime in an effort to cut costs and offset budget shortfalls. Pope Francis, with input from the Vatican’s central accounting office, also determined that volunteers could be used to help provide the labor needed to make up for the hiring freeze and eventual attrition. Cardinal-designate Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, sent a letter, dated Feb. 13, to the heads of all Vatican offices, institutions and agencies. He said the budget forecast for 2014 “necessitated the immediate adoption of some measures needed to contain” personnel costs. In its last...

ZAGREB - Alen Budaj, an associate of the Jerusalem-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, has said that the coutries that are legal successors to the former Yugoslavia, Serbia in particular, must send a strong diplomatic protest to the Vatican over its intention declare Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac a saint. The Vatican has officially confirmed that Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac will soon be declared a saint. Immediately upon the entering of the Germans in Zagreb, on April 10, 1941, Stepinac supported the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia (ISC), which was declared a state by the Ustasha (Croatian fascist movement), and in 1945, he...

Former UNFPA head Nafis Sadik NEW YORK, February 14 (C-FAM.org) - Senior UN officials disparaged the Holy See and dismissed nations as subordinate to UN bureaucrats at a controversial conference in the Philippines. Pro-lifers picketed outside and filed a lawsuit against the conference for advocating a criminal act. A judge declined to halt the meeting, calling it an academic discussion. According to the ruling, “it was not shown by plaintiff that abortion is being practiced, tolerated, or encouraged.” Abortion is illegal in the Philippines. James Imbong, attorney for Pro-Life Philippines, disagreed. “Most of the talks are about right to abortion. How...

Barely two months ago the ecclesiastical news circuit was rocked with the revelation that Pope Francis had decided not to renew Cardinal Burke’s membership on the Congregation for Bishops.The New York Times, NPR, NBC and a host of other secular and Catholic news outlets went berserk, seeing in Pope Francis’ decision the promise of a radical reorientation of the curia.At the time, I proposed a counter-narrative: Pope Francis is not about to purge “conservatives” from the curia and we shouldn’t read too much into the Burke news.Well, my counter-narrative received a big boost last week.You shouldn’t feel bad, of course,...

"It is not the case that there has been a confrontation between the UN and the Vatican," he said in a statement. "The Holy See has always given a strong moral support to the United Nations."

ROME, February 5, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-life and pro-family groups in the US and Europe have supported the Vatican with a chorus of outrage at a report from the UN that demands the Catholic Church change its teachings on the nature of human sexuality, the sanctity of life and marriage. In a statement today, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva, said that the UN has failed to understand that the Church’s teachings are not merely “positions” or opinions that can be changed to suit the political fashions of the day. Archbishop...

Despite having a membership that includes some of the worst human-rights abusers in the world (or because of it), the UN has spent the last few weeks grilling the Vatican for its track record on child abuse. While there are certainly grounds for lengthy and detailed criticism on that point, the UN hardly has its hands clean in that area — and it turned out to be an excuse for attacking Catholic doctrine on abortion and contraception anyway: The UN has demanded that the Vatican “immediately remove” all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers, in a report released...

VATICAN CITY (RNS) In the first century B.C., a grassy hillside just north of what is now St. Peter’s Square was used as a burial place for local Romans. It remained in use through dozens of mudslides and avalanches, until the early fourth century A.D., when work on St. Peter’s Basilica began and the more than 1,000 graves were covered over. Soon after, it was forgotten as the construction of the Vatican City grew up around it. It remained that way until the 1950s, when plans to build a parking lot on what appeared to be an undeveloped field uncovered...