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COLLEPARDO, Italy — Inside the stone walls of the Trisulti monastery, for more than eight centuries, monks have lived in quiet seclusion, praying, reading and concocting medicinal remedies with herbs from the surrounding forest. But now, only one 83-year-old monk remains. A longtime chef-gardener still lives there, as well, along with several dozen feral cats. The other resident at Trisulti is the newcomer: a 43-year-old Briton who is one of Stephen K. Bannon’s closest associates in Europe and who hopes to transform the monastery into a “gladiator school for culture warriors.” One recent morning, Benjamin Harnwell, the Bannon acolyte, grabbed...

Underground Catholics in Jiangxi May Lose Their Churches Authorities are harassing underground Catholic churches in the Diocese of Yujiang, intimidating believers into joining the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. Bitter Winter has recently reported that underground Catholic meeting venues in the Archdiocese of Fuzhou, in the southeastern coastal province of Fujian, have been suppressed by the authorities and even shut down. Members of the Underground Catholic Church in the central province of Jiangxi face the same predicament, suffering frequent coercion and harassment at the hands of authorities. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) interprets the Vatican-China deal of 2018 to the effect...

A modern verification of an ancient event and tangible evidence of an ancient person. And once again, biblical history is verified.Our team of thinkers and writers at the Colson Center are archaeology nerds. Seriously, we get giddy whenever another archaeological discovery sheds light on biblical narratives or confirms their historical accuracy. And even more fun, it seems to happen all the time these days.Keep in mind that biblical faith is grounded in historical events, events to which the Bible testifies. This is one of the factors that sets the Bible apart from other religious texts. Recently, two announcements made illustrate...

Media reports over the last several months have trumpeted that witches in the U.S. now outnumber Presbyterians.It’s great religious click-bait but the assertion, to the extent it’s based on anything, rests on a false comparison.In 2014 Pew Research Center estimated that 0.4 percent of Americans, about 1 to 1.5 million people, identify as Wiccan or Pagan. This statistic, cited in all the media reports, is evidently the most recently available data, although it is four years old. But faddish stories can sometimes be ginned up based on old numbers.Media reports have compared this number of supposed Wiccans/Pagans with 1.4 million...

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Toymaker Mattel, the producers of the Barbie and Ken dolls, has reportedly scheduled a meeting to enter into talks with two homosexual men who want the company to create same-sex “wedding” dolls in order to be inclusive of children who have homosexual family members. Matt Jacobi tagged Mattel in a recent Instagram post outlining that he plans to “wed” a man in May, and wanted to buy a gift for his niece to mark the occasion. He said that because Mattel doesn’t make a Barbie wedding set with two grooms, he “had to get creative” and buy...

What is happening in China? Why is Chinese leader Xi Jinping, raging against religion, including Buddhism, Islam, and especially Christianity? Psalm 2 poses the question rhetorically, in the context of what has proven to be a historic phenomenon: Why are the nations in an uproar (a rage) And the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand And the rulers take counsel together Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying ‘Let us tear their fetters apart And cast away their cords from us!’ From Nero to Lenin and Stalin, Hitler, the Kims of North...

Join Freepers throughout the world to pray for PRESIDENT TRUMP and VICE-PRESIDENT PENCE and for AMERICA: All Levels of Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, Health Care Systems and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. —1 John 5:14 Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. Please join today's prayer for all those working for PRO-LIFE causes in our nation.

The Catholic Church is increasingly caught in the middle of an escalating crisis in Cameroon’s North West and South West regions with priests shot dead, property destroyed and frequent detentions by armed separatists, according to a high-ranking church official. “They threatened that they’re going to kill us,” said Bishop Michael Bibi of the Bamenda archdiocese, following a recent detention by armed separatists. Bibi was detained twice this month by armed groups. On 5 December he attempted to travel from Bamenda, the capital of the North West region, to Kumba, 170 kilometres to the south west, intending to celebrate mass. However,...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Pilgrims from around the world flocked to Bethlehem on Monday for what was believed to be the biblical West Bank city’s largest Christmas celebrations in years. Hundreds of locals and foreign visitors milled in Manger Square as bagpipe-playing Palestinian Scouts paraded past a giant Christmas tree. Crowds flooded the Church of the Nativity, venerated as the traditional site of Jesus’s birth, and waited to descend into the ancient grotto. Palestinian Tourism Minister Rula Maaya said all Bethlehem hotels were fully booked, and the city was preparing to host an “astounding” 10,000 tourists overnight.

The Iraqi government has officially declared December 25 a public holiday to mark “the birth of Jesus Christ”. All citizens of the majority Muslim nation will now mark the date as a national holiday, as opposed to just Christians. “Happy Christmas to our Christian citizens, all Iraqis and to all who are celebrating around the world,” the government said on Twitter. “We extend our warmest wishes to Christians in Iraq and around the world for a very happy and peaceful Christmas,” it added. The country’s Christian population has been decimated in recent years following the chaos surrounding the withdrawal of...

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!!

Christmas choral festival at shrine of Our Lady to include the Portland Lesbian ChoirPORTLAND, Ore. (ChurchMilitant.com) - A Catholic shrine in Oregon will feature a lesbian choir at a caroling event. Located in Portland, Oregon is the National Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother, known simply as "The Grotto." Every year, this shrine puts on a Christmas Festival of Lights that lasts from late November through late December. The 62 acres of green space are decorated in Christmas lights, and there are indoor choral performances almost every night. There are also hot beverages, a petting zoo and other forms of entertainment...

Fr Amer, a Syro-Catholic priest, describes how the atmosphere in the Syrian capital resembles that of “before the war.” Parishes are crowded and streets are decorated courtesy of the municipality. Reconciliation requires solidarity with the poor Muslims of Ghouta.Damascus (AsiaNews) – Syrian Christians hope for "a Christmas of forgiveness and reconciliation", embracing "the whole country, non-Christians included”. Without a new culture, one that doesn’t forget the wounds but goes beyond them, it will not be possible to build "a future of coexistence,” said Fr Amer Kassar, of the Church of Our Lady of Fatima in Damascus. Speaking, to AsiaNews, the...

Nine Lessons and Carols in binaural sound optimized for headphone listening

The Christmas story begins in the town of Nazareth nine months before the birth of Jesus. Now, if any narrative ever cried out for attention to detail it is this one, so it’s worth taking a good look at this little town and what it might tell us about the nature and character of God. Nazareth is much more widely known today than it ever was in Jesus’ day. It is not among the sixty-three villages of Galilee mentioned in the Hebrew Talmud or the forty-five mentioned by first-century Jewish historian Josephus, who knew the area well. This was an...

As Attorneys General Close In, Pope Francis Puts Hope in the Honor System for Sex Abusers About a month ago, Pope Francis abruptly shut down the tepid efforts of U.S. Catholic bishops to make themselves accountable on sex abuse. (That is, whether they commit it themselves or cover it up.) As Chris Manion pointed out, Francis’ decision could have devastating consequences. Not only for sex abuse victims but also for the Vatican.By interfering so directly in how the U.S. Church handles itself, the pope may have undermined the legal claim that each diocese is independent of the Vatican. But that...

Politics can get very dirty. Christians try not to get dirty (in the moral sense of the word). Politics is always divisive. Christians try to unify around Jesus. Politics demands party loyalty. Christians give their ultimate loyalty to the Lord, not a party. Politics is filled with compromise and mixture. Christians are called to avoid both. Politics is sure to disappoint. Christians are accustomed to look to One who never disappoints. How, then, do we sort this out? Over and again, we work hard to get a candidate elected, then that candidate lets us down. We labor and pray for...

Responding to the question of whether or not Christians who commit suicide go to Heaven, ethicist Russell Moore said that because the blood of Christ covers sins past, present and future, the “last thing we do” does not determine where we will spend eternity. Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said he’s often asked the question by worried individuals whose loved one committed suicide. “They worry,” he said. “Does this mean because this person essentially the last act on earth was a sin, does this mean that that person is in Hell?...

HONG KONG — No Santa. No trees. No stockings. No lights. The authorities in Langfang, a city in China’s Hebei Province, have issued a ban on all Christmas displays on streets and in stores, according to a notice from city officials. Christmas may be a Western holiday, but it has been co-opted in China as a marketing opportunity, with glittering trees towering in malls to draw in shoppers. In Langfang, however, city authorities have vowed to clear out all Christmas lights and decorations from its streets, stores and schools. The notice ordered employees to do a sweep of shopping malls...

The conference aimed to develop ‘best practices’ for addressing the touchy question of how to handle the growing number of closed churches and sacred places.VATICAN CITY — As secularism spreads in the West, the number of churchgoing faithful dwindle, and diocesan funds dry up due to sex-abuse claims and other causes, what should be done with the consequent effect of an ever-increasing number of closed churches and sacred places? This was the subject of a Nov. 29-30 Rome conference that brought together bishops and specialists from 23 European countries and some from North American and Oceania. The conference, entitled, “Doesn’t...