Free Republic

The modern day LGBT movement wants you to believe that the people featured in the new documentary “Desire of the Everlasting Hills” really don’t exist. They are figments of the fevered imaginations of the Christian right.Meet Dan, Rilene and Paul, all refugees from deep enmeshment in the LGBT life, each finding a home in sexual sobriety and, not incidentally, the Catholic Church.It is impossible to watch this important documentary without tears, and not sad tears either, but happy ones, tears that come from a joyful movement of the spirit.These are people who have been deeply wounded by the choices...

Christians in Mosul, Iraq, have been told that they must leave, convert to Islam or accept dhimmitude, or die. A communique from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) gave Christians a deadline of June 19, saying that if they do not leave or accept Islamic rule, "their destiny is the sword." The Aleteia web site, citing local sources, said that this message was being broadcast on loudspeakers by mosques in Mosul. Bishop Saad Sirop, an auxiliary of the Chaldean Catholic patriarchate in Baghdad, told Aid to the Church in Need: "In the last hours, the jihadists of...

Islamic State sets new rules, raising possibility of martyrdomChaldean Auxiliary Bishop Saad Sirop of Baghdad has confirmed a troubling report from Mosul that the Islamic State is now presenting Christians in that city with a final ultimatum of conversion, subservience or death. According to sources known to Aleteia, but kept anonymous due to security concerns, a number of mosques in the city of Mosul, and through loudspeakers, called on Christians Friday to leave the city. They said in their appeals that the reason was due to the rejection of the bishops to meet elements of the Islamic State to dictate...

Featured Term (selected at random:HUR An Israelite aide to Moses. During a battle with the Amalekites, the Israelites fought bravely so long as Moses stood on the hilltop holding aloft the staff of God. But when his arms tired and the staff wavered, the efforts of his men waned. So Aaron, his brother, and Hur seated Moses on a stone to rest him, and supported his arms to that the staff remained high and steady (Exodus 17:10-12). The battle ended triumphantly for the Israelites. Further evidence of confidence in Hur: when Yahweh summoned Moses to climb the mountain to receive...

Q: Please help me with a matter weighing on my conscience. My husband and I married in our parish church 16 years ago, but I agreed to get married there only because that’s what my parents wanted. Unlike my husband, I wasn’t really practicing my faith, I just went through the motions… gradually I had a reawakening of faith, and now am fully committed to the Catholic Church. But I’m afraid our marriage isn’t valid because I didn’t embrace concepts like indissolubility at the time of our wedding, nor did I want children, although I later changed my mind…. What...

One of the greatest liturgical shifts in the last 60 years has been in the area of language and the spoken word. The almost complete disappearance of Latin is to be lamented, but the use of the vernacular has arguably produced many positive effects. The augmentation of the Scriptures used has also been notable and helpful. In addition, greater emphasis has been placed on preaching and preparing the clergy to preach well.Great controversy and debate have accompanied these changes. The earliest debates concentrated on the use of Latin vs. the vernacular. Other debates centered on the nature of the Homily (or...

July 18, 2014Friday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time    Reading 1 Is 38:1-6, 21-22, 7-8 When Hezekiah was mortally ill,the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, came and said to him:“Thus says the LORD: Put your house in order,for you are about to die; you shall not recover.”Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD: “O LORD, remember how faithfully and wholeheartedlyI conducted myself in your presence,doing what was pleasing to you!”And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah: “Go, tell Hezekiah:Thus says the LORD, the God of...

The TV critic at The New York Times is keeping an eye on the tube, so we don’t have to. Reading this, describing what’s coming into our living rooms this summer, I have to think that’s a very good thing: In case you missed the news that traditional courtship is dead, naked people on VH1 stand ready to enlighten you. And in case you thought that television networks had evolved beyond trying to attract viewers with cheesy titillation — ditto.Yes, it’s time for “Dating Naked,” a reality series beginning Thursday on VH1 in which just-introduced strangers looking for love are...

With hindsight, we can see that the real battle in the Church of England has been with her founding principles. She was founded in the Protestant Revolution on an essentially liberal principle: that the circumstances and situation in the current culture determine the identity and mission of the church. She was now, and always has been the Church of ENGLAND. Therefore, the circumstances, personalities and cultural factors determine which way she will go. As society became increasingly secular, liberal and antipathetic to a Catholic worldview, the Catholic tendency in the Church of England could not survive. From the first discussions...

Brethren, Peace be with you! From time to time I have discussed here  the role of the faithful of the whole Church in receiving, proclaiming, and in a certain sense, "sanctioning" the faith of the Church. I receive with great joy the news that the Holy See has published a new document about this issue of the "sensus fidei" titled: Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church. I believe this document will serve a twofold purpose: First, the document will help us frame our discussions with our Sister Churches in the Eastern Orthodox communion for whom "active reception" of...

Yesterday, Senate Democrats their bid to approve legislation to “overturn” the Supreme Court’s decision protecting Hobby Lobby and other companies from being forced to comply with the HHS mandate that compels them to pay for abortion-causing drugs for their employees. Republicans were able to sustain their filibuster against the bill atedcruz7nd prevailed on a 56-43 vote, with Democrats voting to move to a vote on the pro-abortion bill and almost all Republicans uniting to vote against it. During the debate, pro-life Texas Senator Ted Cruz let Democrats have it. “If you’re litigating against nuns, you have probably done something wrong,”...

Featured Term (selected at random:REVOLUTION A radical and generally violent effort to overthrow a civil government or constitution. Essential to a revolution is that the change of regime is not brought about by peaceful evolution or mutual agreement between the power that withdraws and the power that takes over the new government. Revolutions are caused either by the masses or by an act of high officials in the government. In the latter case it is called a coup d'état. In the twelfth century John of Salisbury (1115-80), followed by others, held that the murder of a tyrant was permissible even...

Growing up in New Albany, Ind., during the 1950s, I never heard the term “domestic church,” but I knew what it meant. I knew it because my parents and my friends’ parents made their homes domestic churches, even before that phrase from our Catholic tradition was retrieved during the Second Vatican Council. I guess you could say that my childhood friends and neighbors were at home in church and in church at home. But what did it mean in practical terms that we experienced the family as a domestic church? For one thing, it meant that nearly every Catholic family...

My alma mater, The University of Chicago, was recently in the news for an overtly politically correct act for replacing its historic Bond Chapel's pews for Muslims to worship. This act is raising hackles reminiscent of the university's other, recent, tone-deaf decision to demolish the childhood home of former President Ronald Reagan, on its campus, and replace it with a parking lot and a commemorative plaque.The school, founded by the Rockefeller family in the late 19th century as a Baptist-affiliated institution of higher learning, with an English-style undergraduate college, and German-style graduate research school, today positions itself as completely non-denominational...

July 17, 2014Thursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time    Reading 1 Is 26:7-9, 12, 16-19 The way of the just is smooth;the path of the just you make level.Yes, for your way and your judgments, O LORD,we look to you;Your name and your titleare the desire of our souls.My soul yearns for you in the night,yes, my spirit within me keeps vigil for you;When your judgment dawns upon the earth,the world’s inhabitants learn justice.O LORD, you mete out peace to us,for it is you who have accomplished all we have done. O LORD, oppressed by your punishment,we...

Catholic News Service photo Bishop Elias Zaidan visits Portland the weekend of July 19-20. Catholic Sentinel photo by Ed Langlois Abouna Jonathan Decker and Monk Anthony Joseph Alles at the Maronite monastery in Beaverton in 2011. Ed LangloisOf the Catholic Sentinel The variety of Catholic tradition and the plight of Christians in the Middle East will be at the forefront this weekend in Portland. The leader of Maronite Catholics in the western U.S. is visiting to ordain a Portland monk on the path to priesthood. Bishop Elias Zaidan of the St. Louis-based Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon...

A canon lawyer alleging a widespread cover-up of clergy sex misconduct in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has made her most detailed claims yet, accusing archbishops and their top staff of lying to the public and of ignoring the U.S. bishops' pledge to have no tolerance of priests who abuse.

Featured Term (selected at random:JUS JURANDUM A sworn oath. Any one of the oaths that the Church at times requires of the faithful, and especially of her priests. Such was the Oath Against Modernism, required of those teaching in seminaries, prescribed by Pope St. Pius X. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Mosul (Agenzia Fides) - The jihadist militiamen of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who since June 9 control Mosul and have proclaimed the Islamic Caliphate, have ordered civil servants to suspend any provision of food aid and gas cylinders to the Shiites, the Kurds and the few remaining Christians in Iraq's second city. This is confirmed to Fides Agency by Christian sources in Mosul, after the news had been launched by the Arab website www.ankawa.com. According to what was reported by the local official Fadel Younis, representatives of the Islamic Caliphate have announced that any infringement...

I begin with a piece, spotted by Fr Tim Finigan and reported in his indispensable blog The Hermeneutic of Continuity, which had been published in Sandro Magister’s blog—not his English one, Chiesa, but his Italian language blog for L’Espresso, Settimo Cielo.A few days ago, Magister told the story of a parish priest in the Italian diocese of Novara, Fr Tarcisio Vicario, who recently discussed the question of Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried. This is how he explained the Church’s teaching on the matter: “For the Church, which acts in the name of the Son of God, marriage...