Free Republic

"What matters?" It's a question Charles Krauthammer, psychiatrist-turned-Pulitzer-winning columnist, asks in the first sentence of his new book, a memoir-ish collection. The book is called "Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics." He explains how the working title for the book had originally been "There's More to Life than Politics" and was going to include just about everything but politics. Naturally, though, a man who "left a life in medicine for a life in journalism devoted mostly to politics" couldn't disengage. Thanks be to God. There is, of course, much more to life than politics. But...

The Catholic Church came up with the concept of excommunication. But as you may have noticed, such Catholic luminaries as the Kennedy clan, Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin and Joe Biden, all spent years promoting abortion on demand and nobody in the Catholic hierarchy even raised an eyebrow, let alone said anything about denying them communion. However, let a Republican take two steps in any direction, and his fellow Republicans want him drawn and quartered. I’m not suggesting that we Republicans should follow the lead of our opponents and turn ourselves into robots. Frankly, I don’t know why Senate Democrats even...

As the country grows less religious, parents struggle to place their kids in classrooms where Catechism memorization doesn’t come standard. DUBLIN—Sarah Lennon’s son Ethan is just 7 weeks old, and she’s already stressing out about his applications for primary schools. A lapsed Catholic, she hopes to land him a spot at a sought-after multi-denominational school in suburban Dublin—one of few alternatives to the Church-run schools in her neighborhood. “It’s quite urgent to have our name down early and have the Catholic school here as a back up,” Lennon said. “But the Catholic school may not admit our son, unless we...

First Amendment: A federal appeals court has reinstated lawsuits from two religious colleges against the HHS contraception mandate, saying promises to rework it aren't enough. Can a group of nuns helping the poor be protected? On Tuesday, a chink in ObamaCare's armor developed as a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., reinstated lawsuits by Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College that had been dismissed by lower courts on the grounds the two schools had not yet suffered or demonstrated real harm by a law not yet fully implemented. The lower courts ruled the schools had to wait until the oncoming...

ObamaCare: A group of nuns dedicated to caring for the elderly poor is suing to prevent an uncaring administration from shutting down their compassionate order over their refusal to obey the contraception mandate. There is no clearer or sadder example of the Obama administration's war on the First Amendment's guarantee of religious liberty than the demand by the Department of Health and Human Services to violate their religious consciences or pay heavy fines. HHS has ruled that if the Sisters don't offer insurance policies to their employees that include free coverage for sterilization procedures, artificial contraceptives and abortifacients, these vowed-to-poverty...

Navis Pictures Producer Jim Morlino was looking for a story for his next film when a friend gave him a book with a story about a little known war in an area of Western France known as the Vendee - a story that he believed would be especially compelling to modern day Catholics. "More than just compelling, the magnitude of the story of the French Revolutionary Government's war against the Catholic Church, and the fact that these events were virtually unknown to most of the world, I found shocking," said Morlino. "How could a war which lasted for years,...

The head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Congress must seize on a "once-in-a-generation" chance to pass comprehensive immigration reform when it comes back from its August recess next week. Writing in the New York Daily News, Timothy Dolan, who is also archbishop of New York, invoked Pope Francis and Martin Luther King, Jr. in arguing that immigration reform would help families and the economy while improving the country's security.

Dear Excellencies, Reverends, Deacons and fellow Catholics - This morning I read in my Bakersfield paper that a group of Catholic Bishops and priests are planning to push the current immigration bill on 60 targeted Republican lawmakers, including my Congressman Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy has been trying to hold the fort against the complete collapse of the nation’s borders and taking flak for it from people who ought to know better. If “Obamacare II” – the draconian, poison-pilled immigration bill–is passed, all 1200 pages of it, kiss what’s left of the Republic good bye. Is Nancy Pelosi going to be here...

The Obama administration has gone to court to try to block a subpoena from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York seeking White House documents about the government's requirement of insurance coverage for birth control. The subpoena requesting documents from President Barack Obama and his senior advisers would be burdensome to fulfill, the administration said in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

California Senate Bill 131, which is ostensibly about protecting victims of child sex abuse, forces private schools to defend claims of sexual abuse as far back as 40 years ago, but exempts public schools from such claims. Because of the Democratic super-majorities in both houses of California, there is no way to stop the passage of the bill. As Valerie Schmalz wrote in Catholic San Francisco: The California state Senate narrowly approved a waiver of the statute of limitations for child sex abuse damage lawsuits – a bill that could have a devastating effect on nonprofits including Catholic Charities and...

In a new book marking Independence Day, the archbishop of Los Angeles addresses immigration reform in the context of the American Dream, seeking to stir the consciences of national Catholics. “Fears about America’s future have given rise to a new nativism,” Archbishop José Gomez, a Mexican-born American citizen, wrote in “Immigration and the Next America,” due to be released July 5. “Their idea is that 'real' Americans descend from white Europeans and that our culture is based on the individualism, work ethic, and rule of law that we inherited from our Anglo-Protestant forebears.” “Our history teaches that when we get...

ATLANTA — Former U.S. President JimmyCarter says religious leaders, including those in Christianity and Islam, share the blame for mistreatment of women across the world. The human rights activist said Friday religious authorities perpetuate misguided doctrines of male superiority, from the Catholic Church forbidding women from becoming priests to some African cultures mutilating the genitals of young girls. Carter said the doctrines, which he described as theologically indefensible, contribute to a political, social and economic structure where political leaders passively accept violence against women, a worldwide sex slave trade and inequality in the workplace and classroom.

President Barack Obama, whose administration is being sued by several Catholic diocese for infringing on freedom of religion, met with a liberal nun who leads a “social justice” organization about comprehensive immigration reform. Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of NETWORK, met with Obama in the Oval Office on Thursday. She spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in the midst of the controversy over the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services mandate that insurance cover the cost of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and birth control. … Obama and the NETWORK support a Senate immigration proposal that would allow an...

The Catholic Church in Venezuela has said it is running out of wine to celebrate Mass because of nationwide shortages of basic supplies. It said the scarcity of some products had forced the country's "only wine maker" to stop selling to the Church. Critics blame the shortages on tight state control of the economy and inadequate domestic production. But the government insists that an opposition-led conspiracy and price speculations are the problem. "[Our supplier] Bodegas Pomar have told us that they can no longer make wine because they're facing difficulties," Church spokesman Monsignor Lucker told BBC News. Some of the...

The war against the Catholic Church's teachings on sexuality has a new heroine. Move over, Sandra Fluke. In the run-up to the 2012 election, the Georgetown Law School grad Fluke brought honor to the Democratic Party by exposing an archaic patriarchal religious institution and highlighting the need for unlimited free birth control for every college girl in America. In liberal circles there were none braver or more committed to the contraceptive cause than Sandra Kay Fluke. In the eyes of many Democrats, this was a woman one votive shy of being officially canonized as the patron saint of free birth...

BRUSSELS, April 23, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an astonshing display of gentleness in the face of a vile attack, the head of the Catholic Church in Belgium, Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, remained calmly seated with eyes closed in prayer Tuesday as four topless women attacked him with shouts and curses and doused him with water. It’s not the first time the bishop has been attacked for standing up for the Church’s teachings on homosexuality and expressing his concern for those who live the homosexual lifestyle. The incident took place at the ULB University in Brussels where the archbishop was participating in...

Successful Catholic schools could be enlisted to act as “sponsors” to help run community primaries and secondaries in difficult circumstances, it was revealed. The move would reverse an existing policy that prevents Catholic schools striking up federations with non-religious counterparts as part of the Government’s academies programme. It comes two years after the Church of England embarked on a similar path which has resulted in a number of secular schools adopting a faith “ethos” under Anglican control.

In the six weeks since Pope Francis' election, those who have followed him in the media have been treated to a series of tantalizing headlines about his promising views on women. The wave of excitement began during Holy Week, when Francis washed the feet of two women (and 10 men) and followed this tradition-breaking act a week later with a sermon that stressed the "special role" of women in the church. And earlier this week, the Francis-induced spiritual high continued to soar with the rumor that Francis would be handing women a record number of positions in the Holy See....

Recently, Thomas Sowell wrote an excellent piece dealing with term limits. The point he made is that if the idea behind limits was to rid us of those people who spend their entire lives doing little more than voting, we’ve gone about it in a really stupid way. For one thing, as we’ve seen here in California, it merely means that once one of these palookas has termed out in, say, the state assembly, he merely runs for the state senate or for governor or lieutenant governor or attorney general. In short, he moves on, he doesn’t move out. Another...

Brooklyn judge slams birther lawsuit as 'fanciful, delusional and irrational' and orders theorist to pay $177G. A birther's lawsuit was born of a crackpot theory. That’s what an irritated Brooklyn judge said in slapping a preeminent conspiracy theorist with a hefty bill for filing “a frivolous” suit and wasting the court’s time. Christopher Earl Strunk sought to have President Obama disqualified as a candidate. The author of some 20 other lawsuits — most of which have been dismissed — Strunk was ordered to pay $167,707 in attorney fees plus a $10,000 sanction for the 2011 lawsuit that named Obama, New...