Free Republic

IN A RECENT STORY, the Washington Post recognized there is revitalization and renewal within the Catholic Church after years of scandal and turmoil. Amid this renewal, however, is a disturbing trend among some of the most influential Catholics in the media - I like to call them the "three blind mice." By name, they are FOX news channel's Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, and MSNBC's Chris Matthews. In each of their cases, Catholic teaching has taken a beating and factual reporting on Catholic matters is a joke. I first exposed these maverick Catholics in my new book, "Saving Those Damned...

The Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, STL, president of Human Life International, (HLI) today said "Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-3) and seventeen other members of Congress who describe themselves as Catholic not only are ignorant of their faith but also need a civics lesson." Father Euteneuer was responding to their statement about Pope Benedict XVI in a press release from DeLauro's office which stated that the Pope's recent comments that Catholic politicians risk excommunication and should not receive Communion by saying, "Such notions offend the very nature of the American experiment and do a great disservice to the centuries of good...

FRONT ROYAL, Va., May 17 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, STL, president of Human Life International, (HLI) today said "Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-3) and seventeen other members of Congress who describe themselves as Catholic not only are ignorant of their faith but also need a civics lesson." Father Euteneuer was responding to their rebuke of Pope Benedict XVI in a press release from DeLauro's office which stated that the Pope's recent comments that Catholic politicians risk excommunication and should not receive Communion by saying, "Such notions offend the very nature of the American experiment and do...

Catholics for a Free Choice distribute bogus holy cards, blasphemous comic books in Mexico that use Blessed Virgin in pro-abortion campaign Falsifying the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the pro-abortion group that mendaciously calls itself “Catholics for a Free Choice” has for the last four years been distributing holy cards in Mexico bearing the following caption in Spanish: “The love of God and of Mary of Guadalupe is larger. For the lives of women, legal and safe abortion.” On the back of the card, the following text is printed: “Dear Mary of Guadalupe, we thank you because your love...

DENVER, Colorado, May 16, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law Monday two bills legalizing homosexual adoption and banning abstinence-only sex education. Ritter defended his decision to sign H.B. 1330, which permits homosexual couples to adopt, by claiming the law would “strengthen families and provide children with as stable an environment as possible,” The Colorado Springs Gazette reported. Jim Pfaff, president and CEO of the Colorado Family Institute, told Focus on the Family’s Citizen Link that both bills were examples of paybacks to financial supporters. “Both bills show that this was a Legislature that was willing to...

May Catholic clergy refuse communion to politicians who publicly support abortion rights? Who gets the right to choose in that case? This deeply theological question has lately assumed an odd prominence in American political life. This week, for example, according to news accounts, 18 Catholic House Democrats, including Reps. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), Patrick J. Kennedy (R.I.) and Carolyn McCarthy (N.Y.) publicly rebuked Pope Benedict XVI for reaffirming during a recent Mexico City trip that legislators who vote to permit the killing of the unborn have excommunicated themselves and may be refused communion during Mass. "Do you agree with the excommunications...

Eighteen Catholic members of the U.S. House of Representatives have publicly criticized Pope Benedict XVI’s condemnation of politicians who support abortion rights. In a May 14 statement, the Democratic congressmen said that the pope’s reiteration that Catholics who participate in the legislative promotion of abortion should consider themselves excommunicated “offend[s] the very nature of the American experiment and do[es] a great disservice to the centuries of good work the church has done,” reported The Hill. “We are concerned with the pope’s recent statement warning Catholic elected officials that they risk excommunication and would not receive communion for their pro-choice views,”...

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who supports abortion rights, on Monday during a speech at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., said both abortion-rights supporters and abortion-rights opponents sometimes use "misleading and unconstructive" language and urged both sides to find "common ground," on the issue, the Boston Globe reports (Klein, Boston Globe, 9/19). Kerry during an interview in July 2004, while running for president, said, "I oppose abortion, personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception. ... But I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or...

Jack Gannone was about to have a defining moment, one that would unite him with more than a billion people of 200 nations and 600 languages.Like most of them, he never saw it coming. The day was April 23, a Sunday, and inside the sparely modern sanctuary of St. Eleanor Roman Catholic Church in Collegeville, 6-month-old Jack squirmed on his mother's lap."Parents, do you understand what you are about to do?" the Rev. Andrew Brownholtz asked. John Gannone and Sara Benton nodded.Suddenly Jack found himself tilted head-back over a marble font. He did not howl, but gave a what-in-the-world roll...

Last January, I raised a challenge for Notre Dame: to consider how we can affirm the highest principles and practices of a university – ensuring the academic freedom to explore the full range of ideas and expressions produced by human thought and creativity - and, at the same time, to affirm our Catholic character and engage the Catholic intellectual tradition in a way that shapes and enriches the educational experience of our students. The challenge is not to do just one of these – or even to do both of them in parallel – but to promote academic freedom and...

I am as Catholic as the moon is round. It's not visible, sometimes, the moon, my Catholicism, but it's there, pulling the tides, shaping the earth, pulling and shaping me. I knew who made me before I knew who I was. God made me. ''Why did God make you?" the catechism asked. ''God made me to show His goodness and to make me happy with Him in Heaven," the catechism taught me. I was a child who loved being a Catholic. I loved bowing my head at the name of Jesus, kneeling, lighting candles, inhaling incense, listening to Latin prayers...

“Catholic” Democrats in the House believe that if they claim they are good Catholics, they can vote for abortion. For the record, I am a Catholic and at one time was a registered Democrat. These reflections are as someone who is committed to restoring protection to all innocent human life. As president of Arizona Right to life, I remind the reader that AZRTL is committed to restoring legal protection to the unborn child and as an organization AZRTL will support committed pro-life candidates of whatever party who seek to end the slaughter of the unborn. AZRTL has a long and...

Minnesota churches will soon see a sign of protest in collection plates. Gay Catholics and their supporters plan to mark their donations to send a message to let the church know who exactly is giving them their money. Cash donations will be marked with a pink triangle around the pyramid on the back, while checks will have a notation in the memo field. “If you want our money, then support us,” says parishioner Tom Degree. “They need to know how much they are receiving from GLBT congregants.” Degree and others are concerned about several positions the Catholic church has taken...

The mother of a Loretto High School student obtained photographs that exposed a drama teacher as a former Planned Parenthood volunteer, a revelation that led to the teacher's firing last week. It wasn't the first time Wynette Sills raised her anti-abortion views on the all-female, private Catholic campus. Sills, who leads anti-abortion rallies outside Sacramento-area Planned Parenthood offices three times a week, complained to school administrators last year about a classroom presentation on domestic violence, said Gail Erlandson, a theology teacher for 11 years at Loretto. Sills objected to brochures listing agencies that offer help for women because they included...

In 2004, there was the scandal of Loyola University Chicago School of Law, a Catholic institution, giving an award to strongly pro-abortion Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Despite pleas from concerned Christians and even from Francis Cardinal George, Loyola refused to cancel the award. Well, it seems history is once again repeating itself. The Women's Council of St. Ignatius College Prep, located in the city of Chicago, will have Madigan as their featured speaker at their 7th Annual Women's Council Dinner on September 22, 2005. Madigan once pledged to close down Illinois crisis pregnancy centers — which she deems "phony"...

“It’s about a learning experience …” This is the primary response from Fr. Guy Massie, our commission’s director, when asked about the essential purpose of ecumenical and interreligious dialogue. His words summarize the truth behind why the ecumenical commission lives, moves, and has its being. The New York area is a prime environment in which to encourage, enable, and enthusiastically invite people from all walks of life to dialogue concerning faith. Because the population of our city is so diverse, no one group of people or person truly speaks for the majority, especially on matters of faith. Interreligious and ecumenical...

The Vatican on Thursday said too many Roman Catholics were not taking their religion seriously and that those faithful who receive communion and still support abortion rights were behaving scandalously.In an 88-page working document for a synod of bishops to be held in October, the Vatican also decried dwindling attendance at Sunday Mass and reaffirmed a rule that Catholics who divorce and remarry outside the Church cannot take communion.The document on the theme of the Eucharist said many Catholics had lost the sense of the sacred surrounding communion, which the Church teaches becomes the body and blood of Christ during...

Stresses Scandal of Receiving Communion while supporting Abortion VATICAN, July 7, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Vatican held a press conference today to present the "Instrumentum laboris" (working document) for the Eleventh Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, scheduled to be held in the Vatican from October 2 to 23, 2005 on the theme: "The Eucharist: Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church." The document, drawn up on the basis from Church leaders throughout the world to a draft called the "Lineamenta", lamented "the fact that too many faithful receive communion without having sufficiently reflected...

Charlie Angus and Celina Symmonds had their lives turned upside down when they were told by their parish priests that they could no longer take communion because their stands on social issues conflicted with church teachings. Angus, a New Democrat MP who represents a northern Ontario riding, ran afoul of the Roman Catholic church over his support for the federal government's controversial same-sex marriage bill. "It's quite disturbing,'' said Angus, pointing to what he called "the rising militancy of language within the church. I went to Ottawa feeling that I would be speaking as someone rooted in a faith tradition...

The Textbook that Should Disappear I have a simple wish for the new pope, Benedict XVI. I hope that he will encourage Georgetown Prep in Maryland to scrap the use of its erroneous religion textbook. Granted, this is a specific request, but the media has been demanding many things of the new pontiff. Liberals have been crying for female priests, married priests, and permission to use contraceptives, without once examining the catechism to find why the church forbids such practices. Specifically, I believe Pope Benedict should order a review of the religious textbooks used in many Catholic schools. The new...