Free Republic

It always seemed as if Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, was in trouble for something. A 1956 article in the New York Times describes an instance in which Day was fined $250 for being the landlord of a building that failed to comply with the fire code. In addition to the fine she was also in danger of being forced to evict the sixty tenants from her house of charity. The paper explains that as she headed to court, “there was a group of needy men about the door, awaiting the distribution of clothing. From their midst...

In a historic moment for the Archdiocese of Newark, Archbishop John J. Myers on Monday is expected to announce his successor, Cardinal-designate Joseph W. Tobin, currently the archbishop of Indianapolis, NJ Advance Media has learned. Tobin, a moderate leader who has supported a greater role for women in the church, has also expressed the need for more dialogue over gay parishioners and has sparred with Indiana Gov. Mike Pence over the resettlement of Syrian refugees. Tobin has served as archbishop of Indianapolis since October 2012. Pope Francis named him a cardinal last month. The designation takes effect. Nov. 18. The appointment...

A group of Catholic bishops, evangelical leaders and advocates pressured top House Republicans to vote this year on overhauling immigration in a series of private meetings on Wednesday. With legislation stalled in the House and prospects dimming, proponents argued that action is a moral imperative and offered the unique, united front of Catholics and evangelicals imploring the House to move ahead. Bishop Eusebio Elizondo of Seattle called it an "historic moment" and said they "reaffirmed that every day of delay, the consequences are separated families." The participants, who spoke to The Associated Press, said they received neither assurances of a...

The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Diarmuid Martin, has said that some people in the Catholic Church may be homophobic. The teaching of the church could be used “in a homophobic way”, he told RTE. He said that the Church had to be very careful that this was not done in the forthcoming debate on the same-sex referendum. […] “Anyone who grew up in Ireland would have told jokes that were pointed at the gay community; at Travelers; it is part of the culture we grew up in, but we have to grow out of it,” he said. He said church...

A popular U.S. Catholic priest and author known for his peace writings and some 75 arrests for civil disobedience actions across the country has been dismissed from the international Jesuit religious order, which says he was "obstinately disobedient" to its directives. Removal of Fr. John Dear caps 32 years in the order for the priest, who has been known for protesting a wide range of issues, including U.S. policies on Latin America, nuclear weapons development, and the cooperation of Jesuit educational institutions with American military recruiting programs such as the ROTC. The dismissal also raises the specter of Pope...

No, the pope is not supporting Occupy Wall Street. It’s been a bad three and a half decades for self-styled “progressive” Catholics.First, there was John Paul II, whom many in that camp habitually labeled a charismatic reactionary. Yet the Polish pope was a hero all over the world during an epic pontificate that bent history’s arc in a more humane direction, and did so without the aid of liberation theology. John Paul’s funeral Mass on April 8, 2005, became, in the apt phrase of NBC anchor Brian Williams, “the human event of a generation,” a moniker unlikely to be attached...

The opportunistic criticism of Pope Benedict over the SSPX controversy. By its own tardy admission, the Vatican botched the handling of Pope Benedict’s decision to lift the excommunications of four Society of St. Pius X bishops. Vatican officials failed to inform the Pope that one of those bishops, Richard Williamson, had made appalling remarks about the Holocaust. p The episode raises many legitimate questions about the Vatican’s insular mode of operation. Couldn’t Vatican officials have “Googled” Williamson’s remarks easily enough? astonished observers asked. Williamson’s status as the “Borat of the schismatic Catholic far-right” was hardly a secret, they remark. Sure,...

“Why would any Catholic organization take money from a man like George Soros? Because legitimate sources of revenue aren’t available? And why would Soros have any interest in funding Catholic groups? He doesn’t give the Catholic League any money, and if he offered, I would refuse it. “The reason Soros funds the Catholic Left is the same reason he lavishly funds Catholics for Choice, the pro-abortion group that has twice been condemned as a fraud by Catholic bishops: they all service his agenda, namely, to make support for abortion rights a respectable Catholic position. On October 17, Denver Archbishop Charles...

In a basement corner of his home-brew radio station, where a computer keyboard sits next to a copy of The Catholic Worker, Vincent Scotti Eirene fishes around and produces a sentimental keepsake of the new age: the modem he was using the night he met his wife online. "We met in an Internet vegetarian discussion group," he explains. Rebecca is upstairs, nursing their second child. The modem is obsolete, but the marriage seems to be enjoying a certain timelessness. The basement, a dank place dug a century ago, is headquarters of Blast Furnace Radio, an Internet station that carries rock...