Free Republic

[Chuckles @ LGF] Johnson’s comment seems to me radically unfair. Pawlenty is a model of sensible modern conservatism. His answers to Newsweek’s barbed questions indicate an instinct for practical compromise, even as he eschews any personal support for creationism. That said, the interview – and Johnson’s reaction – bespeak a religious problem for Pawlenty that will require much tact on his part and that of his campaign team. Pawlenty now attends an evangelical church, but he was born and raised a Roman Catholic. He changed denominations at marriage, accepting his wife’s evangelical faith. Without pretending any insight into the souls...

In February, 2000, presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain’s campaign staff made phone calls to prospective voters in Michigan reminding the party faithful of candidate George W. Bush’s visit to Bob Jones University. The message was as follows: “Bob Jones has made strong anti-Catholic statements, including calling the pope the anti-Christ and the Catholic Church a satanic cult.” After first denying that these calls were sponsored by the McCain campaign, officials later admitted they were. Catholic League president Bill Donohue saw the irony in this: “Yes, Bob Jones has a long record of demonizing Roman Catholicism, but so does Pastor John...

The decision to study the primacy of the bishop of Rome in the universal Church of Christ indicates that the Orthodox;Roman Catholic consultation is moving towards the centre of the issues that have separated our respective communions. In this process, our deliberations must take seriously into account the theological statements of the bilateral dialogues between Roman Catholics and Anglicans, Lutherans and others. It must also take into consideration the reflection of Roman Catholic theologians who are seeking to reform; but not to reject ‑ the primacy of the Roman church.[1] Orthodox‑Roman theological reflection of the primacy of the Roman church...

Few men in the 2,000-year history of Christianity have had such a great and spiritually positive influence upon the Catholic Church as Bishop Fulton Sheen. The author of many books and the first televangelist, he touched the lives of millions of people all over the world. What made this man of God so special was a keen intellect combined with a profound humility. He often said that the secret to his great success in touching hearts and winning souls for Christ was that every day of his life he would set aside an hour of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament....

As World War II ended, Vietnam began to suffer the same types of persecution and martyrdoms that Communism brought to China and Korea. But at that very moment a spiritual story was unfolding that shows how grace operates even in the most terrible circumstances. Marie-Michel Marcel Van, who was born in 1928 in the small village of Ngam Giao, between Hanoi and Haiphong in the Northern Tonkin Delta, was having visions in which he conversed with the French saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Like Thérèse, he only wrote down his experiences in obedience to a religious superior. Most of those visions...

On October 19, 1984, Father Jerzy Popieluszko was returning from some pastoral work in the town of Bygdoszcz to his parish, Saint Stanislaw Kostka, in Warsaw. Three state security officers stopped his car without bothering to hide what they were doing. They tied him up, beat and tortured him to death, then threw the body, weighted down with stones, into the Vistula River. When he did not turn up home at the time expected, everyone feared the worse. Since 1982 he had been repeatedly accused of crimes, harassed by police, and subjected to intimidation. After a bombing attempt, workers from...

On October 27, 1947, Bishop Teodor Romzha, head of the Mukachevo-Uzhorod diocese of Trans-Carpathian Ukraine (or Ruthenia), was returning from the reconsecration of a restored church in the small village of Lavky to the diocesan seat. Two priests and two seminarians from the village accompanied him in his horse-drawn cart — the Soviets would not allow him to use a car. At a relatively deserted point between two small towns, the cart had an “accident” with a Soviet armored vehicle. Everyone survived the crash, however soldiers jumped out of the vehicle to finish the job with rifle butts. The clergymen...

The story of Romanian persecution and martyrdom is virtually without equal in the 20th or any other century. As L'Osservatore Romano wrote in 1948, when the persecution was only starting: "No similar story of moral violence, of persecution, of the Via Crucis of liberty, of personality, and of human dignity can be read in all the pages of history." Given the two millennia in which the Church has existed, these are strong words indeed, but probably no more than just. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Christianity first came to Romania in 106 AD when the armies of the Roman Emperor Trajan conquered the region...

Church History abounds with holy and loving priests who served as educators of young boys. Standing out as a shining example is St. John Bosco. He was the founder of the Salesian Order and over the years cared for more than 800 boys who looked to him for inspiration and guidance. He dedicated his life to the abandoned children of Turin, Italy, and began youth clubs for them. He then started hostels and boarding schools, where he taught them trades. The educational philosophy of John Bosco can be condensed in three words: reason, religion, and kindness. The basic principle of...