Free Republic

POPE FRANCIS ABANDONS CHRISTIAN SYRIAN REFUGEES, TAKES ONLY MUSLIMS TO VATICAN INSTEAD Spokesman Massimiliano Signifredi called the incident 'regrettable' - adding: 'The problem here is the three Syrians arrived after the March 20 deadline. They arrived just after the agreement between the European Union and Turkey. Mr Signifredi said: 'Our staff went to Lesbos and spoke with the people who were selected. But everything was decided by the Vatican. CHRISTIAN BROTHER AND SISTER REFUGEES FROM SYRIA SAY THEY HAVE BEEN ‘LET DOWN’ BY POPE FRANCIS AFTER HE LEFT THEM BEHIND IN A LESBOS REFUGEE CAMP DESPITE PROMISES THEY WOULD BE...

You don't need to have "Istanbul, Not Constantinople" memorized to know that Turkey is a Muslim country built by Muslim colonists and settlers on the back of a Christian civilization. Some of its mosques used to be churches. And quite a few Muslims in Turkey would like to turn all the remaining churches into mosques ... Unlike the state-funded mosques, Turkey’s ancient church buildings – some of which pre-date Islam – have been managed, historically, by church foundations. ... While Obama welcomes Erdogan's megamosque in America, Christians have trouble with churches in Turkey. But Obama instead lobbies Greece to make...

A requirement that all students who sit the Arabic exam in the Leaving Cert must study the Koran is to be reviewed by education authorities. Ever since the subject was introduced to the Leaving Cert in 2004, extracts from the “Holy Koran” have been prescribed material for all candidates. However, a Syrian father whose Christian daughter is due to sit the exam says the requirement is unfair for students and discriminatory. “She, as a Christian, has never studied the Koran,” said Marwan, who asked that his surname not be used. “I am very distressed that having arrived in Ireland and...

A new study released Tuesday found that Pakistan’s public school textbooks negatively portray the country’s religious minorities, including Hindus, Christians and Ahmadis, as “untrustworthy, religiously inferior, and ideologically scheming.” […] The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) sponsored the study, which was conducted by the Pakistan-based NGO Peace and Education Foundation (PEF). The study found 70 new instances of bias in addition to finding that some problematic content found in a 2011 study conducted by USCIRF had remained and even been expanded upon. “Pakistan’s public school textbooks contain deeply troubling content that portrays non-Muslim citizens as outsiders, unpatriotic, and...

CHRISTIAN communities in China have been left horrified after the government started tearing down thousands of crucifixes in a crude bid to eradicate the faith in the country. More than two thousand crosses have now been forcefully removed from churches as part of a government campaign to regulate "excessive religious sites". ... Several members of the public have since been arrested for attempting to halt the government's crude attempt to suppress the Christian faith. Among the arrested was prominent human rights lawyer Zhang Kai, who was detained after he mounted a legal campaign to challenge the removal of the crosses....

On the Sunday morning before this year’s South Carolina primary, Dr. Carl Broggi, the pastor of Community Bible Church in Beaufort, turned over his pulpit—emblazoned with the Protestant watchword “sola scriptura,” to GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz. I am not sure if it is fair to call Cruz’s speech that morning a “sermon.” The candidate did not open up a biblical text and carefully explain its meaning in the way that I am sure Dr. Broggi had been trained to do at Dallas Theological Seminary and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Cruz did mention a few verses from the Bible during...

If you needed proof that America has lost it corporate mind, here are 5 compelling examples. 1. In New York City, Cooper Union College has decided to remove all “gender markings” from its bathrooms. As reported by The Guardian, “Last fall, the oldest building on the Cooper Union campus underwent a sudden renovation. A group of students, agitating for their transgender classmates, stripped the words ‘men’ and ‘women’ off the doors of the Foundation Building’s restrooms.” But rather than discipline the unruly students, “the Cooper Union administration this month moved to remove the gender designations from all the bathrooms on...

The Drudge Report took up a leftie talking point against Ted Cruz this weekend in a HUGE HEADLINE that just happens to bash the common and meaningful practice of Christianity, and Michelle Malkin lets him have it. Calmly and with dignity, Malkin takes this smear apart.

One is theater. The other is terrifyingly real.​ FLINT, MICHIGAN--This is something that He, Trump said on Saturday night. I mention it because I think it marks a severe downturn in He, Trump's campaign. He prospered as a vulgar talking yam. Then, he became the most boring person on earth--the endless bore in the clubhouse bar who talks you through his entire round. "I hit a ball 280 yards. Stand up! Do I hit good? Do I hit it long? Is Trump strong? I simply held up the hands. They're fairly large, actually." First of all, I don't believe He,...

The United States has admitted 478 Syrian refugees since the Islamic terrorist attack in San Bernardino on December 2. Just three of the newly admitted Syrian refugees are Christians. According to the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center, since December 2 the Obama administration has admitted one Syrian refugee identified as a “Christian,” one identified as a “Greek Orthodox,” and one identified as “Orthodox.” Another 461 Syrian refugees admitted in that timeframe were “Moslem Suni,” three were “Moslem Shiite,” ten were “Moslem,” and one identified as “other religion.” The Obama administration has said it wants to resettle at least 10,000 Syrian...

Political elections are as much about those doing the electing as it is about those eventually elected. If each vote represents what a voter believes and hopes for, then the person elected is really a magnification of the desires voters happen to have. This is why national elections are so fascinating. Every four years, Americans collectively paint and present to the world a picture that communicates their aspirations and fears. It is a picture that enables us to see the character of a nation.

A student is punished for refusing to "stomp on Jesus," a Christian baker faces a year in jail for refusing to cater faux marriages, two men are arrested for reading the Bible aloud near a government building, a school "purges" Christian works from its library. Critics asserting the existence of an institutional anti-Christian bias, and a resultant war on the faith, have often been labeled paranoid. But now two University of North Texas sociologists have produced research showing that just such an agenda exists — among America’s most powerful people. Professors George Yancey and David Williamson shared their findings in...

Last month, a town hall was held in Brentwood, Tenn., to discuss Islam in schools. The crowded town hall was filled with concerned parents questioning the motives of the seventh grade textbook in question. Complaints ranged from the textbook's clear bias toward Islam to possible "indoctrination" of the impressionable minds of young students. Some parents also complained about "supplementary" material supplied by the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). [...] On Jan. 20, Tennessee state legislators Rep. Matthew Hill (R-Jonesborough), Rep. Timothy Hill (R-Blountville) and Rep. Micah Van Huss (R-Johnson City) introduced legislation "to officially stop Islamic religious indoctrination in Tennessee...

A public high school has been accused of radical Islamic indoctrination by forcing children to profess the Muslim statement of faith, ordering them to memorize the Five Pillars of Islam and teaching that the faith of a Muslim is stronger than the average Christian, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday. Thomas More Law Center filed the lawsuit on behalf of John and Melissa Wood. They accuse La Plata High School in Maryland of subjecting their teenage daughter to Islamic indoctrination and propaganda. And when Mr. Wood complained – the school banned him from campus. Defendants forced Wood’s daughter to...

A Satanic group is set to deliver an opening prayer at an upcoming meeting of the Phoenix City Council, sparking controversy. The local Satanic Temple will deliver the invocation at the Council’s Feb. 17 meeting after winning approval -- and at least one Councilman is calling that a joke, Fox 10 reported Thursday. "Well it's definitely going to be making a mockery of everything, they want to mock the City of Phoenix, the taxpayers, and the people who want to take this stuff seriously," the councilman Sal DiCiccio told that station.

A public high school has been accused of radical Islamic indoctrination by forcing non-Muslim children to profess the Muslim statement of faith (the same statement used to convert people to Islam), ordering them to memorize the Five Pillars of Islam and teaching that the faith of a Muslim is stronger than the average Christian, according to a federal lawsuit just filed. A Maryland high school punished a student for refusing to profess faith in Islam, gave her failing grades for a series of assignments that violated her Christian beliefs then threatened her father with arrest for complaining, a federal lawsuit...

Donald Trump's refusal to debate in Iowa is being diagnosed as just part of some radical-new-political strategy based on proving Trump can do whatever he wants without losing supporters. However, Barack Obama already proved this is possible in 2008. Many Americans refused to believe their lying eyes when it came to Obama's alarming relationship with Jeremiah "God-Damn-America" Wright. In fact, Donald Trump's campaign spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, is one of those Americans. Today, Ms. Pierson is not Jeremiah Wright reincarnated, but she should definitely be more of an issue than Trump's decision to skip the debate in Iowa. The Daily Caller...

A federal appeals court wrestled on Wednesday with whether local government leaders in North Carolina are violating the Constitution by holding exclusively Christian prayers at their meetings - the first time a court at that level has addressed the issue since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a town government's favor in a similar case in 2014. An attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union urged a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the lower court's ruling that the Rowan County Commissioner's practice of opening their meetings with prayers that almost always referred to...

(CNSNews.com) – A couple who hosts occasional wedding ceremonies on their New York farm have lost an appeal to overturn the $13,000 in fines levied against them by the state’s human rights agency, which ruled that their refusal to host a wedding for two women was discriminatory. On Jan. 14, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department, upheld the agency’s order and the fines, a decision the Alliance Defending Freedom - which represented Robert and Cynthia Gifford - said amounted to confirming, “that the government can punish the Giffords for declining to coordinate a ceremony that conflicts with...

The United States has approved the settlement of 483 Syrian refugees since the Paris terror attacks last November heightened concerns about potential security risks in the refugee admission program--and only one of them (0.2 percent) is a Christian. One-quarter of the 483 Syrian refugees admitted into the United States since Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) terrorists attacked the French capital on November 13--125 of them--are men between the ages of 14 and 50. The sole Christian among the 483 is identified in State Department Refugee Processing Center data as an adherent of the Greek Orthodox Church. ...