Free Republic

News broke this week that Thomas Tobin, the Catho lic bishop of Providence, RI, had in 2007 asked Rep. Patrick Kennedy to refrain from receiving Communion because of the congressman's support for legalized abortion. The ensuing howls of protest almost universally missed the point. Some Catholic writers charged that Tobin was sowing division within the church and "politicizing" the sacrament. On the pro-choice left, Tobin was flayed for everything from "religious blackmail" to -- inexplicably -- violating the separation of church and state. Perhaps the strangest comment came from former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, who predicted that if pols...

The BBC has abandoned plans to screen a ballet featuring a deformed Pope who rapes nuns that it had announced as one of the highlights of its Christmas schedule. Last month the corporation said it would televise "In The Spirit Of Diaghilev" from London's Sadler's Wells Dance Theatre as part of a season of ballet programs. The tribute to the Russian impresario comprises four acts, each by a groundbreaking choreographer, with the entire production due to be screened on BBC Four next month.

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan has condemned The New York Times -- blasting the Gray Lady and its columnist Maureen Dowd for what he says are examples of unfair, prejudicial and just downright mean anti-Catholicism. Dolan used his blog last Thursday on the Archdiocese of New York's Web site to rail against the Times a day after the paper refused to print his critique as an op-ed piece. He singled out Dowd -- a poison-penned, Pulitzer winner and former Catholic-school girl -- for "the most combustible," "intemperate and scurrilous" "diatribe" she wrote on Oct. 25, which "rightly never would have...

Where is Tom Hanks when you need him? Something sinister is happening in the Catholic Church, at least according to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. And the way she writes about it, it reads like the beginning of a treatment for a Dan Brown extravaganza. Her plot, you see, is just that absurd. Dowd was convinced that Catholic religious sisters were unhappy when she was in the fifth grade, and she remains adamant. She writes: “Nuns were second-class citizens then and — 40 years after feminism utterly changed America — they still are.” I can’t speak for “the formidable...

This is a brief post scriptum to Part 4, warranted by a series of most interesting comments thereto by a Mr. W. Lindsay Wheeler, and counter arguments by other readers, for whose positive comments I am thankful. It is strange indeed that the Roman Catholic faith still harbors such a high percentage of Antisemites, particularly on the periphery of Europe bracketed by Ireland on one side and Poland on the other. Part of it has to do with the limited teaching of the Bible in Catholic education – at least the kind I know from Europe. Many traditional Catholics have...

Promoting Capitalism: A Love Story, Michael Moore is beating the drum of his Catholicism in a way that he hasn't previously. Check out this clip from Moore's appearance last night on Sean Hannity's TV show. When Hannity suggests possible political labels for Moore, the filmmaker responds: "Christian." Then Moore quizzes the Fox News host, a fellow Catholic, on the last time he's been to mass. Trying to out-church him, Moore implies that Hannity is fibbing about having attended mass last weekend. It's no accident that Moore's new openness about his religious faith is coming now, after the Democratic Party has...

Well, I must say that at least the CCCB is listening to the concerns of lay Catholics. That’s a good sign, indeed. In a statement published today by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the bishops had this to say about Dr. Gaillardetz’s invitation to speak to them at their Plenary Assembly scheduled for October 19-23 in Cornwall, Ontario:

Today The Cardinal Newman Society published a new, second edition of The Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College, a free online resource for parents and students seeking a faithful Catholic education. This comprehensive Guide recommends 21 Catholic colleges and universities in the United States plus eight international, online and unique programs based on the strength of their Catholic identity. In addition, the Guide includes several essays to help families better understand the search for a strong Catholic college. The culmination of four years of research and hundreds of interviews, this edition of The Newman Guide builds substantially on the...

In light of these different foundations, therefore, it is important to point out to our opponents that their very conception of equality is fundamentally different than our own. There is a false assumption that both sides view equality in the same way. As we can see, however, that is not a valid assumption at all. It is no surprise, therefore, to find that there is a divergence of opinion on the issue of women’s ordination. Feminists believe they don’t have equality in the Church because they are denied a function, but this is a distortion of what true equality is....

The Washington Post’s religion writer Anthony Stevens-Arroyo had a lot of praise for Teddy Kennedy’s funeral Mass but not because of its religious content. Stevens-Arroyo thought that the thing that made the Kennedy funeral “the most Catholic” was the constant allusions to things political. Stevens-Arroyo began his piece asking, “So, did Kennedy's liberal politics interrupt a ritual meant to unite and not divide?” His answer seems to reveal his own liberal politics instead of any understanding of American Catholicism and he certainly comes down on the side of those that saw no reason not to impose political matters on a...

Fr. Tom Rosica, the CEO of Salt + Light TV, has posted a scathing, malicious, and bizarre attack on the pro-life community in the Catholic Church on his blog, wildly accusing critics of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s public funeral of “division, destruction, hatred, vitriol, judgment and violence…destroying and killing others“. ...

There is much truth to the adage that many of our wounds are self inflicted. This has been especially true for the Catholic Church in the United States and the Archdiocese of Boston in particular. Recall that the clergy sex abuse scandal first came to light there because of their egregious nature and the laxity of the then Archbishop Bernard Cardinal Law in handling them. According to statistics the Church is still reeling from the aftershocks. On Wednesday the Church further diminished her credibility when it was announced that a Mass of Christian Burial would be celebrated for Senator Edward...

Time’s Amy Sullivan seems to have a special assignment to try and play up the religiosity of liberal Democrats despite their libertine policy stands, from Barack Obama to Ted Kennedy. On Thursday, Sullivan underlined "Ted Kennedy’s Quiet Catholic Faith." How does that match with his ultraliberal political record on abortion and homosexuality, his perfect 100-percent scores with NARAL or the Human Rights Campaign? Sullivan simply ignores that obvious problem. (HRC’s YouTube channel proudly shows Kennedy suggesting Jesse Helms might be in Hell at a March 2008 dinner. So much for Christian charity.) Kennedy "fully embraced" the Catholic Church, Sullivan claimed:...

Christianity Without ConvictionbyPaul L. Williams, Ph.D.thelastcrusade.org On Saturday morning, a funeral Mass for Senator Edward “Teddy” Kennedy will be held at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica on the outskirts of Boston. A Kennedy family statement says that the Basilica “took on special meaning as a place of hope and optimism” for the Senator. What kind of hope? What source of optimism? Before Vatican II, a man with Kennedy’s record of cardinal offenses could never expect his corpse to be blessed in a Roman Catholic Church - - let alone a Basilica. In its “Declaration on Procured Abortion, published...

August 28, 2009 Dear Priests, Deacons, Religious and Faithful of the Diocese of Fargo, At this time in our nation’s history, we continually face new challenges as we witness to the Gospel in an ever increasing secularized society. Currently our civil leaders are discussing different proposals to provide greater access to health care in our country. Indeed, the Church has officially manifested her teaching, since Pius XI to Benedict XVI, in the recognition of the great importance of ensuring that all peoples have access to health care. In principle, the Church ought to always promote wider and more complete access...

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments today on remarks made yesterday by Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood: Planned Parenthood is getting restless knowing that its abortion-happy health care reforms are on the skids. Cecile Richards is now accusing the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops of seeking to make “American women second-class citizens.” And that’s just the danger they are doing at home. Abroad, “their hard-line opposition to women’s rights also endangers millions of women around the globe.” Why they haven’t been locked up, she does not say. Richards was recently summoned to the White House to discuss health...

THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY A Roman Catholic Dogma Originating with Heretics and Condemned as Heretical by 2 Popes in the 5th and 6th Centuries. By William Webster The Roman Catholic doctrine of the assumption of Mary teaches that she was assumed body and soul into heaven either without dying or shortly after death. This extraordinary claim was only officially declared to be a dogma of Roman Catholic faith in 1950, though it had been believed by many for hundreds of years. To dispute this doctrine, according to Rome’s teaching, would result in the loss of salvation. The official teaching of...

In pictures: Pilgrimage unites Sri Lankans The church sits on a site where there has been a shrine to the Virgin Mary for hundreds of years. Catholics, both Tamil and Sinhalese, and members of other faiths revere it.

CatholicsComeHome.org was the brainchild of Arizonan Tom Peterson, who, according to the group’s website “while on a Catholic retreat in 1997… had a profound reversion experience.” Now Peterson speaks at Catholic and pro-life events around the country. Among those serving on his Theological Advisory Board are Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs, Scott Hahn, and Peter Kreeft. Three award-winning videos which have a 2008 copyright have now been made into a CD to share with others. The first, called “Epic,” details the contributions of the Catholic Church over the ages:...

Editor: David Schindler, provost/dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family at Catholic University and editor of the quarterly theological review, Communio, took the rare step of writing an editorial in the front of the Spring, 2009 issue, an issue that arrived in subscribers’ mailboxes mid-July.) (1) In its invitation to President Obama, Notre Dame started a controversy it surely could have anticipated would exacerbate divisions among Catholics in America. The controversy was not necessary: it did not come to, but was brought about by, the university. To say that the university went ahead with the...

CHURCH FATHERS Protestantism is closer than Catholicism to the beliefs of the Church fathers Many Catholic doctrines were only introduced centuries later and were corruptions Initial reply In fact, the exact opposite is true: the fathers as a whole were much more "Catholic" in their beliefs than they were some kind of primitive "Protestants", and this is amply confirmed by Protestant Church historians themselves. Extensive reply Ten major "distinctively Catholic" doctrines will be supported by documentation (that early Church fathers largely agreed) from the Protestant historians listed below: Bible, Church, and Tradition, not Bible Alone (sola Scriptura) as the...

The morning sun has barely crept above the horizon when 13 beginning seminarians emerge from dormitory rooms and wander into the chapel of their religious compound. "God our Father . . . let not temptation ever quench the fire that your love has kindled within us," they recite from their liturgy books. Inside the Junipero Serra House of Formation, at the base of a rock-strewn mountain 60 miles east of Los Angeles, these men -- the youngest just 19 -- are getting their first taste of the priesthood, devoting themselves to prayer, obedience and celibacy. They are a precious commodity...

Now that was a week: a new social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”), from Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday; a meeting between the pope and Pres. Barack Obama on Friday; heavy-duty polemics on Wednesday and Thursday, largely reflective of the determination of certain Catholic parties in the United States to turn the encyclical into a pontifical endorsement of Obamanomics, Obamacare, etc., in anticipation of the Vatican summit. The high, or low, point in the exchange of counter-battery fire in the blogosphere may have come Thursday, when former Maryland lieutenant governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend issued a broadside arguing that...

EDITOR’S NOTE: What follows is adapted from remarks delivered before a Portsmouth Institute session celebrating the life and faith of William F. Buckley Jr. Let me begin by confronting the canard spreading through this conference that I am here under false pretenses. Not true. I am an Episcopalian, which is to say that I’m here under real pretenses. Indeed, according to a recent survey conducted by the Gallup organization, I may not be just an Episcopalian but the Episcopalian. Perhaps I should present myself to your monastery as a kind of anthropological exhibit. Let me note, however, in a transparent...

LISTEN TO THE REAL REVEREND JESSE ON THE INTERNET OR A RADIO STATION IN YOUR AREA......BOND Action, Inc...Educating, Motivating and Rallying Americans! The Jesse Lee Peterson Radio Show Streamed live online from 6-9 a.m. PST / 9-12 a.m. EST. Call in the same times usually. For Live Questions or Comments Call 1-888-77-JESSE(5-3773) You can email comments and questions to radio@bondaction.org For more information on getting The Jesse Lee Peterson Show picked up on a station in your local area call Ermias Alemayehu at 1-877-WE ACT77 (932-2877)

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict called on Tuesday for a "world political authority" to manage the global economy and for more government regulation of national economies to pull the world out of the current crisis and avoid a repeat. The pope made his call for a re-think of the way the world economy is run in a new encyclical which touched on a number of social issues but whose main connecting thread was how the current crisis has affected both rich and poor nations. Parts of the encyclical, titled "Charity in Truth," seemed bound to upset free marketeers because...

Anchorage, AK (Catholic Anchor) – At the end of this month, Father Leo Walsh heads to Washington, D.C. to begin a new job that deals with some of the roots of age-old human conflicts. Born, raised and ordained to the priesthood in Alaska, Father Walsh will leave his home state to work for at least three years with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, where his primary task will be to facilitate greater understanding between Catholics and Muslims across the country. Setting the table As associate director for the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, Father Walsh will do much...

When the director of the Vatican newspaper, Gian Maria Vian, declared a few weeks ago that “Obama is not a pro-abortion president” — a comment that came after an editorial which, on balance, spoke positively of the U.S. president’s first 100 days — ire was raised across the Atlantic. Many U.S. commentators on the Vatican roundly reviled him as a lone, liberal voice: unrepresentative of “real” Vatican thinking, ignorant of U.S. politics, and in charge of a paper that is not taken seriously at the Vatican. He was even called a traitor and pro-abortion. U.S. commentators may take umbrage at...

In just a few days I’m going to be walking in the footsteps of Martin Luther. I’ll explore the halls of the church in Zurich. I’ll be in Geneva when the Protestant world celebrates the 500th anniversary of Calvin’s death. And, I’m afraid the Reformers would hardly recognize the Protestant church they struggled to birth. In fact, I think Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin might think most Protestant churches are really just inconsistent Catholic churches. Five hundred years after these men and others risked their life to bring reform to the church and the Bible to the people, we’ve not only...

According to a story published Thursday on SF Gate (the San Francisco Chronicle’s online version) the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision by a federal judge to throw out a suit against the San Francisco county board of supervisors. The suit was brought by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights after the board in 2006 condemned the Vatican's "hateful and discriminatory rhetoric" and urged local church officials to defy the order by Cardinal William Levada. The Catholic League sued, contending the city was expressing hostility toward Catholicism in violation of the Constitution. The Ninth Circuit...

They did it again today. The gals at the ABC-TV show, “The View,” went off in a rambling, barely coherent discussion of Catholicism. Always led by Barbara Walters (does she secretly pine to be Catholic?), Joy Behar told us what Confession used to mean to her back in the days when she was “brainwashed.” Unfortunately, her unwashed brain now shows all the signs of corrosion. Then there is Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the ex-Catholic whose preoccupation with all matters Catholic suggests she is still not at home with her Evangelical status. She told us today that she used to say things in...

Forty years ago the major Catholic universities in the U.S. decided that the Catholic Church needed to reform her teachings, especially that of sexual morality, to conform to the times, and that they should lead that reform. In 1967, at Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin, they declared their independence from the Church, exchanged the faith of their founders for an evolutionary heresy, proclaimed themselves to be an alternate magis­terium, and transferred control from their founding religious orders to secular boards of trustees. Not coincidentally, by these actions they qualified themselves for lucrative financial grants from foundations controlled by leaders of the Culture...

In a Q&A billed as an “interview” on his own website, Brown writes “My goal is always to make the character’s [sic] and plot be so engaging that readers don’t realize how much they are learning along the way.” Or how much misinformation they’re absorbing. Quick, how did Copernicus die? Dan Brown readers "know" the answer: "Outspoken scientists like Copernicus" were "murdered by the church for revealing scientific truths," according to a tag-team history lesson by Harvard "symbolist" Robert Langdon and CERN director Maximilian Kohler in Angels & Demons, the predecessor to Brown's blockbuster sequel, The Da Vinci Code. On...

The newspaper published by the Vatican, L’Osservatore Romano, has created more than a little mischief recently, featuring essays by ill-informed European journalists who imagine that they understand American history, the American political scene, and the grave moral issues being contested in these United States. Pro-administration American journalists and activists have leaped with barely concealed glee on several unfortunate articles in this genre, claiming that they demonstrate that “the Vatican” believes the U.S. Catholic bishops overreacted to Notre Dame’s award of an honorary doctorate of laws to President Obama, and that “the Vatican” is taking a wait-and-see, so-far-so-good attitude toward Obama...

WASHINGTON, June 21, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The United States of Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has adopted a statement, "Catholics in Political Life," by a vote of 183-6, which says pro-abortion politicians should not be honored by Catholic community and Catholic institutions. "They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions," says the statement. On the question of withholding Communion from pro-abortion politicians, the document leaves the final decision to local bishops. The statement came after the Task Force on Catholic Bishops and Catholic Politicians made an extensive interim report at the USCCB's...

Carla Bruni has issued a scathing attack on Pope Benedict XVI saying that she has allowed her Catholic faith to lapse because of his approach to contraception in Africa. France's First Lady said that the Church's teachings had left her feeling "profoundly secular".

The film “Angels and Demons” brings up the Catholic Church’s so-called war on science and the church’s treatment of Italian scientist Galileo Galilei. The following analysis sheds much-needed light on the case. In October 1992, Cardinal Paul Poupard presented to Pope John Paul II the results of the Pontifical Academy study of the famous 1633 trial of Galileo. He reported the study’s conclusion that at the time of the trial, “theologians ... failed to grasp the profound non-literal meaning of the Scriptures” when they condemned Galileo for describing a universe that seemed to contradict Scripture. The headlines that followed screamed...

NEW YORK CITY – An effort among Catholics to remove a homosexual activist from President Obama's White House faith-based council is gaining support in Congress. In a letter addressed to President Obama, Catholic League president Bill Donahue has called for the dismissal of Harry Knox from the White House advisory council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. "Harry Knox is a virulent anti-Catholic bigot and has made numerous vile and dishonest attacks against the church and the Holy Father," Donahue said in his letter to President Obama. "He has no business on any council having to do with faith or religion."...

Truth of Christianity 176.     Most people who are Christians cannot give a valid reason for their faith.   Will you give me a valid reason for your faith?Yes. Historically, it is certain that Christ really lived, really claimed to be God, proved that claim by His supreme command over the laws of nature established by God, taught the Christian religion, and obliged man to accept that religion. Philosophically, Christianity alone gives an adequate solution and explanation of the origin, condition, and purpose of the human race. Religiously, it infinitely surpasses all other forms of religion, and alone completely responds to the...

In a L'Osservatore Romano analysis of President Barack Obama's first 100 days in office, Giuseppe Fiorentino emphasizes that the new American president's policies do not, in general, mark a sharp break with the past. Comparing Obama to his predecessors Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, Fiorentino writes: While he has been accused by some of excessive statism, he has not really made the country slide toward socialism. Through a calmer analysis, however, one notices that Obama has moved with caution: very reluctant to face the idea of nationalizing of banking institutions, he has supported a private rescue plan for credit...

Can we criticize the Catholic Church without having our faith and loyalty called into question? It seems that the answer is “no.” A climate of theological McCarthyism has infected the institutional church, particularly around the issue of abortion. Selective public condemnations by a handful of conservative bishops are a Sword of Damocles over Catholic leaders who have experienced drive-by denunciations from the pulpit. It is unfair that a Catholic presidential nominee – or a Catholic United States senator or member of Congress – who personally opposes abortion but has genuine convictions that a blanket anti-abortion law would not work in...

I attended a Catholic church service -- a Mass -- for confirmation of young Catholics, at the Basilica of St. Mary's, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, this evening. I had been told that this basilica is the oldest one in the United States, so I was looking forward to seeing it. It's odd, too, that as I rode in on the Church bus, I was helping one of the students cram for their high school AP European history class -- I think the juxtaposition of such different topics helped fuel this article. There seem to be a few things common to different...

ROME (Reuters) - Director Ron Howard accused the Vatican on Sunday of trying to hamper the filming and the Rome roll-out of his new movie "Angels & Demons," and challenged Catholic critics to see the film before condemning it. The movie sequel to author Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" will premiere in Rome on Monday, with fictional symbologist Robert Langdon returning to the big screen to help the Vatican rescue kidnapped cardinals and find a ticking time-bomb. The Vatican was outraged by "The Da Vinci Code" and the Rome archdiocese made no secret about denying Howard authorization to film...

GREAT FALLS - Roman Catholic Bishop Michael Warfel of the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings has joined dozens of Catholic bishops nationwide in criticizing Notre Dame University for inviting President Barack Obama to speak to graduates. Notre Dame invited the president to give this year's commencement address on May 17 and receive an honorary law degree. Warfel became the 57th Roman Catholic bishop who, as of Friday, had gone on record against the invitation because of the president's support of abortion rights and embryonic stem-cell research. The Obama invitation sends a "shamefully ambiguous message" about Notre Dame's fidelity to church teachings,...

This coming week, Bishop Thomas Wenski of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orlando, Fla., will take the unusual step of celebrating a Mass of Reparation, to make amends for sins against God. The motivation: to provide an outlet for Catholics upset with what Wenski calls the University of Notre Dame's "clueless" decision to invite President Barack Obama to speak at its commencement and receive an honorary doctorate May 17. The nation's flagship Catholic university's honoring of a politician whose abortion rights record clashes with a fundamental church teaching has triggered a reaction among the nation's Catholic bishops that is remarkable...

(IsraelNN.com) Muslims led by a radical imam in the town where Christianity's founder was raised are not pleased at the prospect of a visit from the head of his church, and have prepared a special insult with which to greet the Pope. Radical Imam Nazem Abu Salim inspired his followers to string up a banner across the main square of Nazareth with a blatant warning for Pope Benedict XVI: "Those who harm G-d and His Messenger – G-d has cursed them in this world and in the hereafter, and has prepared for them a humiliating punishment." The words, lifted from...

Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) said he was “disturbed” by President Barack Obama’s request to have the symbolic name for Jesus Christ – IHS – covered from a pediment that was visible behind him when he spoke at Georgetown University’s Gaston Hall on April 14. “I join many Christians in expressing my outrage at this request,” Fleming said after requesting one minute to speak on the House floor. “This administration has no problem spending money imprinted with the phrase, ‘In God We Trust,’ but won’t have our president speak with any symbol of Christ in public view,” Fleming said. “We begin...

Guadalajara, Mexico, Apr 20, 2009 (CNA) -- Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez of Guadalajara in Mexico has rejected attempts by feminist organizations to intimidate the Church into ceasing its defense of the unborn's right to life, and has said he will continue speaking out against abortion. Feminist organizations, irritated by pro-life victories in several Mexican states, have launched a campaign suggesting that, by speaking out against abortion, the bishops of Mexico are “meddling in politics” and violating the country’s constitution. “The right to life will be defended at all costs and this is not meddling in the politics of the state,”...

Four years ago, Sue Lopez wanted to do something extra for Good Friday. She wanted to bring the meaning of Good Friday back to the streets of San Diego, to remind people that Jesus died for our sins, and that the most evil sin or our day is the slaughter of the innocent unborn. So she organized a pro-life Stations of the Cross in front of the federal building downtown. Several dozen people showed up to pray. The following year it rained on Good Friday, and nearly twice as many people showed up. Last year on Good Friday she took...

Hours before Easter services were to commence, a vandal or vandals decapitated a statue of the Blessed Virgin outside Santa Monica’s Catholic Church in Santa Monica, the parish where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, are members. “As many of you know or may have noticed, our statue of the Blessed Mother at the corner of 7th and California was vandalized, and is currently covered,” the church’s pastor, Msgr. Lloyd Torgerson, said in a message to parishioners posted on the parish’s web site. “It was an unfortunate and sad occurrence, and questions remain as to why someone would...