Free Republic

CV cannot remain on the sidelines any longer. As Iowans prepare to cast the first votes in the 2016 nomination process, we owe you our thoughts. While we are not officially endorsing a candidate at this time, we believe it is important to share some critical thoughts on the race, or at least on one candidate in particular. As Catholics, we are called to participate in the democratic process. The Church does not endorse candidates for public office. That job rests with us, the laity. No candidate is perfect, and no simple checklist is sufficient. Prudence is a necessity. Some...

Order -- A Meditation on one of God's Great Gifts Msgr. Charles Pope January 26, 2016 In this series of two posts, I ponder the glory of something we call order. I do this more in the form of a meditation than a treatise on the glory of order. In the first part (yesterday's post) I set forth how the appreciation and understanding of order has suffered in the modern age. In this second part I want to meditate on the glory of order under four headings.The English word "order" comes from the Latin ordo, which is a row...

In Italy, family is considered so sacred that marriage is lauded in the Constitution. But what kind of family? That has become a bitterly divisive question in a nation where the Vatican packs considerable political weight and where gays have grown impatient as other traditionally Catholic European countries have either allowed same-sex couples to marry or legally recognized their civil unions. On Thursday, Italy's Senate will plunge into a debate on proposed legislation to grant legal recognition to "civil unions," including those of homosexual couples, without equating the partnerships to marriage. ...

Venerable Engelmar Unzeitig, CMM, whom Pope Francis declared a martyr last week. Credit: (c) Archiv Redaktion Mariannhill, Reimlingen via engelmarunzeitig.de. Vatican City, Jan 26, 2016 / 06:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Fr. Engelmar Unzeitig, a young priest with Czech roots serving in Germany and Austria, was arrested by the Nazis on April 21, 1941.His crime? Preaching against the Third Reich from his pulpit, particularly against their treatment of the Jewish people. He encouraged his congregation to be faithful to God and to resist the lies of the Nazi regime.As punishment, Fr. Unzeitig was sent to what has been called the "largest...

January 27, 2016 Wednesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 2 Sm 7:4-17 That night the LORD spoke to Nathan and said:"Go, tell my servant David, 'Thus says the LORD:Should you build me a house to dwell in?I have not dwelt in a house from the day on which I led the children of Israel out of Egypt to the present, but I have been going about in a tent under cloth.In all my wanderings everywhere among the children of Israel, did I ever utter a word to any one of the judges whom I charged to...

As an influential evangelical Iowan, Bob Vander Plaats experienced what it was like to be friends with Donald Trump. The New York billionaire invited Vander Plaats and his family to visit New York several times, refusing to allow them to pay to stay at one of his hotels and lavishing kindness. Then Vander Plaats - president of the Family Leader, which is opposed to abortion and gay marriage - decided to endorse Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) for president instead of Trump. On Tuesday, Trump skewered Vander Plaats on Twitter, calling him "phony" and "a bad guy." The attacks came as...

Order, Order! A Meditation on the Glory of Order in God's Creation Msgr. Charles Pope • January 25, 2016 • In a series of two posts I would like to ponder the glory of something we call order. I do this more in the form of a meditation than a treatise. Some may argue that I am oversimplifying complex philosophical concepts. That may be true, but I am a pastor not an academic. And though I summarize here, I do not think I have been inauthentic in setting forth the concepts and problems that have birthed the modern age....

Gregory III Laham, the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem and All the East, has proudly declared: “We, the Arab Christians, always defend Islam and our Muslim brothers – no one defends Islam like the Arab Christians do.”

January 26, 2016 Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus, Bishops Reading 1 2 Tm 1:1-8 Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of Godfor the promise of life in Christ Jesus,to Timothy, my dear child:grace, mercy, and peace from God the Fatherand Christ Jesus our Lord. I am grateful to God,whom I worship with a clear conscience as my ancestors did,as I remember you constantly in my prayers, night and day.I yearn to see you again, recalling your tears,so that I may be filled with joy, as I recall your sincere faiththat first lived in your grandmother...

Monday is the beginning of National School Choice Week, featuring over 16,000 organized events across the country, an attempt to take on the anti-choice progressive left in America, the Democrat Party that prefers a government monopoly in the nation's school system in order to continue brainwashing children with their godless and anti-American Marxist ideology. Constitutional conservative presidential candidate Ted Cruz, a long proponent of school choice in America, came out with a video both celebrating and supporting school choice on Monday - calling it the "civil rights issue of the 21st century."...

Defining Ministry or Muddling It? A Reflection on an Article "Assigned" to Me Msgr. Charles Pope -- January 24, 2016 -- Recently one of my readers sent me a collection of sayings or proverbs on the topic of ministry. The collection is entitled Defining Ministry. The reader, who apparently does not think I follow modern trends very well, scolded me for being out-of-touch and recommended that I review the list. That reader apparently believes that those "proverbs" describe what I should be like, but am not.I took my "assignment" seriously and read each one of the sayings. And I'm...

January 25, 2016 Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, Apostle Reading 1 Acts 22:3-16 Paul addressed the people in these words:"I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia,but brought up in this city.At the feet of Gamaliel I was educated strictly in our ancestral lawand was zealous for God, just as all of you are today.I persecuted this Way to death,binding both men and women and delivering them to prison.Even the high priest and the whole council of elderscan testify on my behalf.For from them I even received letters to the brothersand set out for Damascus to...

Stranded on buses overnight by a monster snowstorm that has shut down parts of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, hundreds of Catholic high school students from Nebraska and elsewhere nevertheless seemed to have things relatively in hand this afternoon. Returning from Washington D.C., where they took part Friday in the annual March for Life, they at least had food and water on board, said Tim McNeil, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Omaha. A nearby maintenance building gave them access to bathrooms. And while there was nothing resembling a chapel anywhere near the cars, buses and trucks stopped westbound between the Bedford and...

* See above slide show of 22 photos sent to LifeSiteNews from pro-lifer marchers at the scene. Click on blue arrows to advance photos.* Update 9:10 p.m. Sat: This just now from Mandie DeVries who has two middle school girls and a four month old baby. She said baby is sleeping peacefully. Dubuque County RTL bus started moving at 7 pm. Iowans for LIFE bus about 40 min later. The backup was said then to be 32 miles long and some won't get out tonight. No idea about any of the many others PENNSYLVANIA TURNPIKE, January 23, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) –...

On The Wonder of the Word of God -- A Homily for the Third Sunday of the Year Msgr. Charles Pope- January 23, 2016 - The gospel for this Sunday is continued next week, so I will postpone the analysis of it until then. Instead, I will focus on the first reading, from Nehemiah 8. It is a wonderful meditation on the glory and wonder of the Word of God and it deserves our attention.The background of the text is that in 587 BC, Israel had been conquered by the Babylonians and the survivors of the war were led...

A post on Facebook describes the scene: Amazing site from Pennsylvania. Dowling Catholic [High School, in Iowa] students stuck on the Pennsylvania Turnpike meet kids on the bus from Missouri. They have a priest. And create a snow altar for mass in the middle of this stand still. Very proud of all you Dowling Catholic students.WBAY from Green Bay reports on another stranded band of marchers: A group of 150 people from the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, mostly students, is stranded in their buses by the East Coast blizzard.The group was in Washington, DC, for the "March for...

January 24, 2016 Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Neh 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10 Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly,which consisted of men, women,and those children old enough to understand.Standing at one end of the open place that was before the Water Gate,he read out of the book from daybreak till midday,in the presence of the men, the women,and those children old enough to understand;and all the people listened attentively to the book of the law.Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the occasion.He opened the scrollso that all the...

Vatican City, Jan 23, 2016 / 04:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The martyrdom of a 16th-century Samurai who died for his Catholic faith was approved this week by Pope Francis, making the Japanese warrior one among nine other causes that advanced toward sainthood. Takayama Ukon was born in 1552 in Japan during the time when Jesuit missionaries were becoming introduced within the country. By the time Takayama was 12, his father had converted to Catholicism and had his son baptized as "Justo" by the Jesuit Fr. Gaspare di Lella. Takayama's position in Japanese society as daimyo allowed him many benefits, such...

God in Winter -- Finding God in the Falling Snow Msgr. Charles Pope - January 22, 2016 - Holy Comforter Church Washington DCIt's snowing today in Washington, D.C. and I had a beautiful walk coming back from the March for Life this afternoon. Tonight I will enjoy another walk through the winter wonderland.Not everyone likes snow but it is an amazing work of God. He takes a barren winter landscape and creates it anew. I can almost hear the Lord saying, "Behold, I make all things new!"In the modern world we often walk past the glory of God hardly...

January 23, 2016 Saturday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 2 Sm 1:1-4, 11-12, 19, 23-27 David returned from his defeat of the Amalekites and spent two days in Ziklag.On the third day a man came from Saul's camp, with his clothes torn and dirt on his head.Going to David, he fell to the ground in homage.David asked him, "Where do you come from?"He replied, "I have escaped from the camp of the children of Israel.""Tell me what happened," David bade him.He answered that many of the soldiers had fled the battle and that many of...