Free Republic

Sydney McLaughlin, New Jersey's 16 year-old sensation, will attempt to become one of the youngest U.S. track and field Olympians when she competes in the finals of the women's 400-meter hurdles at Sunday's U.S. Olympic Trials at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. McLaughlin, who turns 17 on Aug. 7, needs to finish in the top three in her race to make the Olympic team, which will compete in the Olympic Games next month in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The 400 hurdles race is scheduled for Sunday at approximately 7:03 p.m. EST. and will shown on NBC. McLaughlin, who will be...

First, some historyThe Vatican Library was established in 1475 and is one of the oldest libraries in the world, and also one of the biggest and most safely guarded. Currently, Vatican Library holds about 75000 codices, 85000 incunabula and about 1.1 million books. Apart from all these, there are around 400000 coins and medals, millions of  photographs, prints, drawings. The library stores a large collection starting from the pre-Christian era to the present day collection. Vatican Library  is a huge collection, consisting of many languages from the west to the east, and has added Mathematics, Science, Social Science and other important subjects. What it...

In an interview on the 10th anniversary of his appointment as the Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Donald Wuerl says most people seem enthused by Pope Francis, warns against "secular hegemony" and "silence" on anti-Christian persecution, and says priests are grateful for the pope's approach on the family.Despite an undercurrent of criticism of Pope Francis in some sectors of social media, the blogosphere, cable TV talk shows, and so on, Washington’s Cardinal Donald Wuerl says he’s experienced tremendous enthusiasm for the pontiff, and that those “threatened” and “unhappy” are “very few.” Marking his tenth anniversary as the Archbishop of Washington, Wuerl...

Some Thoughts on Recent Tragedies and Racial Tensions Msgr. Charles Pope • July 10, 2016 • For some twenty-four of my twenty-seven years as a priest I have lived in and ministered to largely African-American parishes and communities. It has been a great blessing to me spiritually, liturgically, and personally.As you may imagine, I get a lot of questions from people when racially charged events appear in the news. I’m asked what my parishioners think as well as what I think.This past week began with the death of two African-American men, Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, in interactions with...

While recently discussing how President Obama’s relationship to Islam is undermining U.S. security, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly offered up some strange analogies: Barack Obama has deep emotional ties to Islam. Now to some extent I can identify with Barack Obama on the religious issue. As a Roman Catholic I was appalled when the priest pedophilia scandal broke. There’s absolutely no excuse for the Catholic Church covering up many horrendous crimes…. However, like Barack Obama I do make the distinction between the faith and the people who abuse it.

July 11, 2016 Memorial of Saint Benedict, Abbot Reading 1 Is 1:10-17 Hear the word of the LORD,princes of Sodom!Listen to the instruction of our God,people of Gomorrah!What care I for the number of your sacrifices?says the LORD.I have had enough of whole-burnt ramsand fat of fatlings;In the blood of calves, lambs and goatsI find no pleasure. When you come in to visit me,who asks these things of you?Trample my courts no more!Bring no more worthless offerings;your incense is loathsome to me.New moon and sabbath, calling of assemblies,octaves with wickedness: these I cannot bear.Your new moons and festivals I...

Love Lightens Every Load – A Homily for the 15th Sunday of the Year Msgr. Charles Pope • July 9, 2016 • One could easily reduce today’s Gospel to trite moralisms: Help people in trouble; Be kind to strangers; etc. While these are certainly good thoughts, I would argue that it is about far deeper things than human kindness or ethics. This is a Gospel about the transformative power of God’s love and our need to receive it. It is not a Gospel that can be understood as a demand of the flesh.Let’s look at the Gospel in three...

July 10, 2016 Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Dt 30:10-14 Moses said to the people:"If only you would heed the voice of the LORD, your God,and keep his commandments and statutesthat are written in this book of the law,when you return to the LORD, your God,with all your heart and all your soul. "For this command that I enjoin on you todayis not too mysterious and remote for you.It is not up in the sky, that you should say,'Who will go up in the sky to get it for usand tell us of it, that we may...

Introduction : Saint Bridget, daughter of Birgir -- Royal Blood Prince of Sweden was born about the year 1302 of highly pious parents. Having lost her virtuous mother soon after birth, little Bridget was raised by one of her highly virtuous aunts. She could not speak before the age of 3, but as soon as she spoke, she began praising God. In early childhood, serious discourses on Religion pleased her and grace powerfully filled her heart so that only pious readings attracted her. At the age of 10, she was particularly touched by a sermon she heard on the Passion...

CFN intro: Leftist Cupich is notoriously pro-homosexual. He is now positioned by Francis to recommend men of his ilk to become bishops in the United States. The Francis disaster continues full throttle and will further poison the Church in America and worldwide. Oremus - jv Crux Staff, July 7, 2016 By naming Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago to the Vatican's all-important Congregation for Bishops, Pope Francis effectively has positioned him, in tandem with Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., to be the American "kingmakers" on this pope's watch. Pope Francis on Thursday named Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago to the...

A Catholic church in Lyon, France, has sold off statues of monks killed by Muslims, for fear they will provoke attacks. The statues, which were to be shown at Saint Louis church, honoured monks who were beheaded by Muslims in Algeria during the 1990s. The Algerian consul in the city responded with “fury” to the statues. The church sold the statues to an institute that hosts a private museum of Catholic artifacts to prevent conflict with local Muslims. Cardinal Barbarin approved the statues to be placed in the church’s grounds last year. But the more powerful Bishop of Lyon was...

Sister Lucia dos Santos, one of the three children who witnessed the Marian apparitions at Fatima, died in 2005. But before her death, she predicted that the final battle between Christ and Satan would be over marriage and the family. So says Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, who reports that the visionary sent him a letter with this prediction when he was Archbishop of Bologna, Italy. This reported statement by Sister Lucia, expressed during the pontificate of Saint John Paul II, was recently revisited by the Desde la Fe (From the Faith) weekly of the Archdiocese of Mexico, in the midst of...

When Israel Was a Child I Loved Him - A Meditation on the Heavenly Father’s Love Msgr. Charles Pope • July 7, 2016 • We recently pondered the story of Hosea’s marriage and through it had a glimpse into the heart of God. In today’s reading from Hosea, we get another look into the heart of the Father, not from the perspective of God as husband, but as Father to Israel. In this passage we get another moving portrait of a God who loves tenderly and immensely but who is also grieved at His son’s rebelliousness and all the...

July 9, 2016 Saturday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Is 6:1-8 In the year King Uzziah died,I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne,with the train of his garment filling the temple.Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings:with two they veiled their faces,with two they veiled their feet,and with two they hovered aloft. They cried one to the other,“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!All the earth is filled with his glory!”At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shookand the house was filled with...

July 8, 2016 Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Hos 14:2-10 Thus says the LORD:Return, O Israel, to the LORD, your God;you have collapsed through your guilt.Take with you words,and return to the LORD;Say to him, “Forgive all iniquity,and receive what is good, that we may renderas offerings the bullocks from our stalls.Assyria will not save us,nor shall we have horses to mount;We shall say no more, ‘Our god,’to the work of our hands;for in you the orphan finds compassion.”I will heal their defection, says the LORD,I will love them freely;for my wrath is turned...

Were the Pagan Gods Actually Demons? The Scriptural View and Why It Matters Msgr. Charles Pope • July 6, 2016 • There is a tendency for us to simplistically dismiss the gods of the ancient world as mere figments of human imagination, but the biblical approach is a bit more complex than that.To be clear, at no time in the Scriptures were these gods ever acknowledged to be gods in any true sense of the word. There is only one God and He is the LORD.Consider the following text by St. Paul:For although there may be so-called gods in...

During his recent presentation of the book Beyond the Crisis in the Church: The Pontificate of Benedict XVI, Monsignor Georg Ganswein, who serves as personal secretary to “Pope Emeritus” Benedict XVI, inexplicably and quite mysteriously provided new depth, and thus new impetus, to the novel idea that Benedict’s renunciation of the papacy was qualified by a “changed understanding” of the papacy, according to which Benedict retained a “passive” aspect of the Petrine office while turning over its active exercise to Francis. In the course of the book presentation Ganswein made remarks that surely reflect Benedict’s own understanding of his situation,...

Rome, Italy, Jun 25, 2016 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- What is Benedict XVI's own view of his historical resignation? What has the fall-out been from his secretary Archbishop Georg Gänswein's controversial remark on an “expanded petrine office”? What about the “Prophesy of Malachy,” which allegedly sees Francis as the last pontiff? In a recent and candid conversation, veteran journalist and EWTN Rome correspondent Paul Badde sat down with Archbishop Gänswein, who gave his take on these and a number of other questions. The German archbishop currently serves Pope Francis as Prefect of the Papal Household, and has also maintained...

<p>Last week, the Navy released the results of a lengthy investigation it had completed, concerning the conduct of one officer and nine enlisted sailors after they willingly surrendered their two Riverine Patrol Craft to the Iranians and were subsequently detained for 15 hours in the Persian Gulf last January.</p>

July 7, 2016 Thursday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Hos 11:1-4, 8e-9 Thus says the LORD:When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son.The more I called them,the farther they went from me,Sacrificing to the Baalsand burning incense to idols.Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,who took them in my arms;I drew them with human cords,with bands of love;I fostered them like onewho raises an infant to his cheeks;Yet, though I stooped to feed my child,they did not know that I was their healer. My heart is...