Free Republic

No doubt you’ve heard friends – even Christian friends – and you hear them say, “Well, why shouldn’t gays be able to marry like anyone else? What will it hurt? It won’t affect marriage, and it will help them build stable families.”Certainly that’s the line of thinking that won the day in New York, which just legalized so-called gay marriage.But nothing could be further from the truth, as illustrated by a recent New York Times article entitled “Married, With Infidelities.” The writer, Mark Oppenheimer, asked whether “we make unrealistic demands” on marriage. The “unrealistic demands” he's talking about are monogamy.For...

The wedding was a glittering affair, the likes of which have not been seen since Prince Rainier III married Hollywood icon Grace Kelly in Monaco more than half a century ago. ....But as the couple took their vows, Prince Albert’s colourful past threatened to overshadow the proceedings. It has now been revealed that, following the couple's civil ceremony, a senior palace official confirmed rumours that Prince Albert is likely to undergo the test after claims that he has fathered a third child. ....Albert already has a six-year-old son, Alexandre, through a former Togolese air hostess, Nicole Coste, and a 19-year-old...

Catholic Colleges and Universities are an indispensable missionary resource for the New Evangelization. The task we face in the West requires the solid preparation of young men and women, fully formed in the fullness of faith and equipped with the excellence which an only an authentically Catholic education can provide. That is why I am pleased to write about Catholic Colleges and Universities which are worthy of the name. In the Apostolic Constitution on Catholic Universities, From the Heart of the Church (Ex Corde Ecclesia) the Venerable John Paul II explained the vital link between the mission of the New...

The go go days of the 1990s was the heyday for growth oriented stock picking fund families like Fidelity. Their star manager system - led by legendary Peter Lynch - and huge funds (Lynch's Fidelity Magellan was once the largest in the country) made them the most prominent fund family in America. But the past decade has not been so kind as "close your eyes, throw a dart, long only is the way to go, and stocks just go up almost every year in a magical way" investing of 1983 to 1999 came to abrupt end in 2000. [Feb 5,...

With the ink of President Obama's signature on the Barney Frank-Chris Dodd financial reform bill barely dry, the next bank bailout already has begun. How can that be, you might ask? Weren't we promised that this "landmark" legislation would end bank bailouts? Weren't we promised that this legislation ushered in a new era of transparency on Wall Street? Could it be that the politicians lied to us? Say it ain't so - but it is. If this brings to mind the backdoor bailout of Wall Street banks by AIG, it should. At just these three big banks, the taxpayers are...

Under a little-noticed provision of the recently passed financial-reform legislation, the Securities and Exchange Commission no longer has to comply with virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act. The law, signed last week by President Obama, exempts the SEC from disclosing records or information derived from "surveillance, risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities." Given that the SEC is a regulatory body, the provision covers almost every action by the agency, lawyers say. Congress and federal agencies can request information, but the public cannot. That argument comes despite...

In order to restate the obvious for consumption of the media here at home and around the world, the Tea Party USA has resolved to be a non-violent protest movement, which seeks to restore each citizen's Constitutional rights.Take the pledge of non-violence below. Show the world the only way forward.

Jesus brought into the New Testament the same counsel for married couples.

The sanctity of human life from the moment of conception throughout all of life up to and including a natural death is the only foundation our society will ever be able to stand upon if we hope to flourish as a truly free people. It’s quite obvious our foundation is crumbling. To repair it, we must go back to square one and correct our ideas about sex. Unless we give sexual intercourse its due reverence, we’ll never give human life its due reverence. The two can never be separated, as Pope Paul VI tried to tell the world in his...

...There is so much good news which we need to proclaim about the Catholic Church. We need to raise our voices to be heard over the cacophany of dissent. We have the privilege of living in the age of the late Servant of God John Paul II and now receiving the extraordinary tutelage of Benedict the Builder. The “ecclesial movements” are flourishing, a sign of a new missionary age and a seed of springtime. New religious communities are being birthed and old ones are recovering their charisms and missionary impulse. New Catholic Colleges are being founded and older ones are...

Boston-based Fidelity Investments is one of General Motors’ largest unsecured creditors, owed some $12 million for overseeing the auto giant’s pension plans and other employee benefits. GM’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition yesterday listed Fidelity as the automaker’s 26th largest creditor, with $11,980,946 due. All told, GM listed $172.8 billion in debt. Fidelity and other vendors run GM’s pensions, health insurance, workers compensation and other employee-benefit plans

MANILA, Philippines, May 12, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A group of Catholic medical professionals based in the Philippines has stated that condom promotion has failed to curb the spread of AIDS.  The group said that it agreed with a widely-criticized recent statement by Pope Benedict XVI in which he endorsed a renewed respect for sexuality in facing the AIDS epidemic, rather than condom use. "Condoms are highly dangerous," said Yolly Eileen Gamutam, head of Asia's Catholic Association of Doctors, Nurses and Health Professionals (ACIM-Asia), in an article on the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines website. "If we are promoting truthful public information...

US Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is probably among the most despised members of Congress these days. As Chairman of the House Banking Committee, most people have seen his arrogant, condescending manner in various television interviews over the past several months. Well, it turns out that not everyone is upset with ol' Barney. Boston-based Fidelity Investments wants to make sure that Frank wins his next election. So a few weeks ago they "reached out" to him and threw a fund-raiser for Frank at their downtown Boston offices, netting $28,000 for Frank's campaign fund, which was reported in the Boston Herald last...

Thursday March 19, 2009 Harvard AIDS Expert Says Pope is Correct on Condom Distribution Making AIDS Worse By John-Henry Westen   March 19, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, has said that the evidence confirms that the Pope is correct in his assessment that condom distribution exacerbates the problem of AIDS.  "The pope is correct," Green told National Review Online Wednesday, "or put it a better way, the best evidence we have supports the pope's comments."  "There is," Green added, "a consistent association...

It’s the summer of talking about the summer of ‘68. And back during that infamous summer, there was sex — an encyclical on sex, that is: Humanae Vitae, from Pope Paul VI, issued on July 25. Its message is being heard and misheard as much now as then. It would be for the benefit of all — Catholics and non-Catholics alike — to give it a 40th-anniversary look. Even Jessica Valenti, author of the new book He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut, and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know, might find it more helpful than she’ll care to...

VIRGINIA, June 27, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a research brief this month, Bradford Wilcox, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia, analyzed three national studies in order to discover if "there is any evidence that religion is playing a role in encouraging a strong family orientation among contemporary American men?"   His research led him to conclude that men who regularly attend Christian services are engaged in happier and stronger marriages and are more involved in the lives of their children than men who do not. "70 percent of husbands who attend church regularly report they are 'very happy'...

Supreme Court justices take an oath promising to "faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties . . . of the Supreme Court of the United States under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God." They do not take an oath to "faithfully and impartially perform all duties . . . except when personally offended, or when having pangs of empathy for the poor or trying to be a standup guy or gal." Listening to Barack Obama, you may think they do. And though the Bush administration cared little for the Constitution, the next...

July 26, 2007 (Computerworld) A senior database administrator at a subsidiary of Fidelity National Information Services who was responsible for defining and enforcing data access rights at the firm took data belonging to as many as 8.5 million consumers -- not 2.3 million, as originally disclosed by the company. The new number was disclosed yesterday in filings by Fidelity National with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company warned of the possibility that even more data may have been compromised in the breach. Jacksonville, Fla.-based Fidelity National, which is not connected with the more widely known mutual funds...

It's hard to believe that, in 2007, you can put 1,000 adults in one room and nobody is divorced. But that was the scene yesterday in the polished magnificence of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Northeast Washington, where more than 500 married couples from throughout Maryland and the District gathered to renew their wedding vows. And these weren't vows they had originally made five or 10 years ago. We're talking Olympic-level marriage achievement here. The ceremony for Catholic couples, hosted by the Archdiocese of Washington, was for couples who had been married 25 years...

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