Free Republic

Every day, Tabshir Forkan (C’24) walks to Georgetown’s masjid, or mosque, on campus for its daily prayer services. He steps into the sunlit, open worship space to pray. Afterward, he often finds himself in the masjid’s community space, attending spiritual discussions and dinners, studying, meeting with friends. “It’s a space I feel myself drawn to,” he says. “I can’t seem to stay away.” In spending time at the masjid, Forkan has felt his Islamic faith deepen — something he had worried about in leaving his Muslim community and masjid back home for a Catholic, Jesuit university, and forging his own...

Jesuit Father Thomas Reese: Lazy, or Liar?Religion News Service, the center-left media agency that now dominates secular newspaper coverage of religion, carries a column by Jesuit Father Thomas Reese, called Signs of the Times. It is almost always predictable viewpoints from the Jesuit who is so liberal that he was forced to resign as editor-in-chief of America Magazine thanks to Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. One column by Reese called for a ban on young Catholics attending the traditional Latin Mass.Thomas Reese, SJ, in the center of his DC Jesuit communityIn his latest column Reese decided to travel back to...

[Catholic Caucus] Controversial Jesuit, Father Martin gives interview in GermanyThe Jesuit James Martin campaigns for LGBTQ people in the Catholic Church. However, he does not want to change the teaching of the church on this. He explains how both go together - and also says what he thinks of the Synodal Path in Germany.What does the Pope think about LGBTQ people in the Church? Hardly anyone knows this better than the Jesuit James Martin from New York, who is in direct contact with Francis on the subject. He explains why he doesn't want to change anything in the Church's teaching...

Pro-LGBT Fr. James Martin calls for DeSantis to be denied Communion for supporting death penaltyThe dissident priest made his comments after a man convicted of murders in two separate incidents was put to death in Florida last week. Heretical pro-LGBT Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin has called for conservative Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is Catholic, to be denied Communion because he supports the death penalty.Last week, the Republican governor signed the death warrant for a convict on charges of a second murder committed after the man escaped from a life sentence imposed for his first murder.In response to the...

The Francis Revolution: Over the past 10 years, the pope has recovered the church’s true powerThe path was signposted at the start, but looking back after 10 years, it can be seen more clearly: Pope Francis has sought a transformation of the internal life and culture of the Catholic Church, at the heart of which is a conversion of power.He announced it in the homily of his inaugural Mass on March 17, 2013, when he asked us never to forget that true power is service. He was referring at that moment to the power conferred on him as pope: to...

Jesuits Misbehaving Yet AgainA well-known Jesuit's public rejection of transubstantiation raises a number of serious concerns about both the state of the Church and the validity of his Masses.If there’s one thing that’s true of today’s Catholic Church, it’s that Jesuits gonna Jesuit. Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J., America’s second-worst Jesuit, has a history of undermining Church teaching while maintaining plausible deniability. It’s the modern Jesuit way. So while he typically won’t outright deny Catholic teaching on the pelvic issues the Catholic Left is so obsessed with—contraception, abortion, homosexuality—he will call it into question at every opportunity. But recently, like Fr....

Fordham University, a Jesuit institution, has published a 68-page report, Taking Responsibility: Jesuit Educational Institutions Confront the Causes and Legacy of Clerical Sexual Abuse.The report, while faulting the Jesuits for stressing discretion in handling abuse cases, states that sexual abuse “is rooted not in individual pathologies but in systemic problems related to sex, gender, and power. Jesuit institutions generally appear to be ahead of diocesan seminaries and can provide healthier models for formation and ministry” (p. 46). The report also states: The only way to adequately address the causes and legacies of clergy sexual abuse is through deep and sustained...

[Catholic Caucus] Why the First Jesuit Pope Should Be the Last OnePope Francis saves the bacon of yet another corrupt fellow Jesuit. I graduated in 1994 from the Jesuit University of San Francisco (USF), a school drenched in the heresy and scandal that have come to define the modern Jesuit order. I can still remember my first day at the school. It was “condom day,” an absurd campus-wide distribution of condoms that the Jesuit president and Jesuit professors blithely accepted. I had gone to USF not because of the modern Jesuits but in spite of them. In spite of its...

Bishops need to acknowledge collateral damage from Dobbs winJust war theory requires that combatants have not only a just cause, but also that they wage their war in a just way. Thus, Catholic teaching about conflict condemns direct attacks on civilians or even disproportionate killing of civilians as collateral damage in an attack on a military target. In other words, you cannot blow up a 10-story apartment building to kill a terrorist. The same is true of politics. You may have very good goals, but you also must look at the political muscle employed in attaining those goals and ask...

I forgive Pope Benedict. I hope others can too.I first met Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1994 when I was researching my book "Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church." I was getting ready to leave Rome and he was one of the last and most important interviews for the book. Because of illness, he had to cancel our first appointment and then graciously rescheduled me for a time when most Vatican officials were taking their siestas. At the end of the interview, I asked for his blessing — something I only did with two other Vatican...

[Catholic Caucus] The Rupnik Scandal: Leading canonist dissects handling of startling case Ever since the Father Rupnik scandal broke earlier this month — alleging that the Slovenian Jesuit artist serially abused women religious of a community he helped to found — questions have been asked about how it has been handled and whether the Vatican and the Jesuits reacted with the transparency and accountability that both institutions claim to advocate.Fr Mark Ivan Rupnik, SJ, has been accused of serially abusing half of the Loyola women’s religious community and was temporarily excommunicated in 2020 for the crime of using the...

Consultor For Francis' Banana Republic: Francis' Friends Are Above Francis' LawsFrancis kept Father Marko Rupnik SJ as a consultor at several Vatican Congregations after he was excommunicated for sexual abuse.Italian media report that the May 2020 excommunication was pronounced because of the sacramental absolution (2015) to one of his sexual accomplices, a religious novice.Most accusation stem from thirty years ago and regard Slovenian sisters whom Rupnik served as chaplain. Rome Auxiliary Bishop Daniele Libanori who investigated the accusations called them true.The Jesuits admitted to know about the accusations at least by 2019. They claim that Rupnik’s ministry was “restricted” in...

[Catholic Caucus] EXCLUSIVE: Alleged Rupnik Victim Pens Open Letter to Jesuits, VaticanVATICAN CITY —The Remnant has obtained a copy of a letter sent six months ago by an alleged victim of Jesuit artist Father Marko Ivan Rupnik to top Church leaders, asking why no action had been taken as the Slovenian priest continued to be held up as a reliable teacher in the Church. The letter dated June 5, 2022 and sent by a former religious sister pseudonymously called Anna — who earlier this week gave an explosive interview to Italian media detailing the extent of the depravity she allegedly...

[Catholic Caucus] The Rupnik Affair: How Deep Priestly Perversion Was Normalized By Francis and His JesuitsYou could be totally forgiven for not having the slightest idea who Marko Rupnik SJ is, but you are more likely to remember some of his strange contributions to the Franciscan papacy.As Dr. Peter Kwasniewski remarked this week “I'm not the only one who finds Fr. Rupnik's art creepy? It's just plain weird, these bulbous pop-eyed slinky figures with cartoon cut-out profiles... to me there's something inhuman about it. I'm not saying one can deduce from his art that he was a mega-pervert who, in...

‘Descent into Hell’: An alleged Rupnik victim speaks outAn alleged victim of Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik has detailed the sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse she said she suffered as a religious sisterAn alleged victim of Slovenian Jesuit artist Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik detailed on Sunday the sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse she said she suffered as a religious sister, in a new interview with Italian media.Allegations against the Jesuit priest have become a point of scandal in the Church, after Rupnik was accused of serially abusing Slovenian consecrated women in the 1980s and 1990s.The allegations were sent to the Dicastery...

Pope Francis allies claim Western Christianity ‘no longer works’Canadian Jesuit Cardinal Michael Czerny spoke at a December 2 book launch at the John Paul II Institute for Family and Marriage for Fr. Tomáš Halík’s 'The Afternoon of Christianity: The Courage to Change'.Cardinal Michael Czerny S.J., prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human DevelopmentMichael Haynes/LifeSiteNewsVATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — A cardinal of the Roman Curia has praised a new book by a fellow Jesuit that proposes “a new Christianity” that cannot be centered in Europe or Rome. Canadian Jesuit Cardinal Michael Czerny spoke at a December 2 book launch at the...

[Catholic Caucus] Jesuit Expert in the Fight Against Abuse: Vatican Dicastery Must Respond Regarding Father RupnikFather Hans Zollner, a Jesuit priest and an expert in the fight against abuse, said the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith “must respond” to questions surrounding the case of Father Marko Rupnik, a member of the Society of Jesus accused of abuse.Father Zollner is one of the leading experts in the field of safeguarding from sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. He is a member of the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors since its creation in 2014 and is the...

Pope Francis Meets with Father James Martin at Vatican (again)The meeting in the Apostolic Palace lasted 45 minutes. VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis received Jesuit Father James Martin, in a private audience in the apostolic palace inside the Vatican on Friday.In a tweet published after the encounter, Father Martin wrote he was “was deeply grateful to meet with Pope Francis in the Apostolic Palace this morning for 45 minutes.”The conversation covered “the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties, of LGBTQ Catholics,” Father Martin added, writing: “It was a warm, inspiring and encouraging meeting that I’ll never forget. “

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Francis makes pro-contraception Jesuit priest a full member of the Pontifical Academy for LifeFr. Humberto Miguel Yanez, S.J., whom Francis named this month as an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, openly dissents from Catholic teaching on contraception.ROME (LifeSiteNews) – Among Pope Francis’ new appointments to Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAL) is a Jesuit priest who dissents from the Church’s teaching on contraception. Fr. Humberto Miguel Yanez, S.J., a Professor of Moral Theology at the Jesuit Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, holds that the use of contraception may be morally licit...

NORTH BETHESDA, Maryland — For the past two and one-half years as he helped lead the nation’s efforts to confront the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci has become became a familiar face to Americans. He’s usually speaking at White House press briefings or in TV appearances to urge people to take safety measures like wearing face masks when appropriate and to get the COVID-19 vaccination and booster shot to protect themselves and others against the spread of the virus. On Sept. 18, Fauci appeared in a different setting, the Our Lady of Lourdes Chapel at Georgetown Preparatory School in the...