Free Republic

>The conclusion of an agreement to normalize diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba has the White House treading cautiously, especially after bipartisan condemnation from Cuban-American Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez. The latter, who chaired the Foreign Relations Committee until yesterday, accused Barack Obama of “vindicat[ing] the brutal behavior of the Cuban government” and of “set[ting] an extremely dangerous precedent.” Menendez is of course a Democrat and ostensibly an ally of the White House on foreign policy.In anticipation, at least one official in the Obama administration has decided it’s better to share the credit, and preferably with someone whose...

There is a growing crisis haunting the Catholic Church. And it is a crisis larger than the events that have so greatly afflicted the American Catholic Church. The pedophilia scandals are a horrifying element of this crisis. So, too, are the bishops who covered up and excused these outrages. And so, also, the more general loss of confidence Catholics have in a hierarchy that seems oddly concerned with rank and privilege and with fighting yesterday's culture wars. Yes, these are all elements of the crisis, but the crisis is larger than this. And that something larger is both sad and...

There has been no dearth of news stories, reports, and commentary over the past few months on the epidemic of racists, whether in law enforcement or the general population, either inflicting or attempting to inflict, punishment on African Americans for being African Americans. As noted here on Tuesday, “there are certain groups who are adamant that as superior human beings they have authority to mete out punishment for violations of their beliefs that are usually borne of religion.” Despite protections in the U.S. Constitution and federal and state laws, the past six years have seen an increase in religious fundamentalists...

Activist priest Michael Pfleger was urging churches everywhere to take time out of services on Sunday for some civil disobedience, as a response to the second case of a grand jury failing to indict a white police officer who killed an unarmed black man. “I think it’s a great opportunity to show a unity in church. The church has to be vocal in this,” Pfleger said. His call for action comes one day after a Staten Island grand jury decided not to indict New York Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of 43-year-old Eric Garner. The grand jury decided...

In a new video, megachurch leader and author Rick Warren is calling for Christians to unite with Roman Catholics and “Pope Francis,” who Warren recently referred to as the “Holy Father”—a move that is raising concerns among Christians nationwide and is resulting in calls for Warren to repent. Warren made the comments following his visit to the Vatican last month, where he spoke at an interfaith conference on the “Complementarity of Man and Woman.” “We have far more in common than what divides us,” he said in the two-minute video released by the Catholic News Service on Wednesday, described as...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Mormon, says he's an unabashed fan of Roman Catholic Pope Francis. "We sure do like this new pope," Reid gushed to the The New York Times. The veteran Democrat acknowledges that he can profess his admiration even though he's "had dealings" with Cardinal Raymond Burke, a powerful Roman Catholic leader who's been demoted twice from key positions by the pope.

I’m going to say something many of my fellow secularism advocates would probably not appreciate: I like Pope Francis. Why? I like Pope Francis because, in my opinion, he is more liberal than many liberals. American conservatives already hate him for his seemingly liberal position on many issues. He’s so liberal that Sarah Palin is actually taken aback by what she calls his “liberal agenda.” The Pope is so liberal that writer Damian Thompson, in an article he wrote for “The Spectator,” had to ask if we were in the early stages of a Catholic civil war. Apparently, even Catholics...

MANILA, Philippines – Pope Francis, the Argentine pope known for espousing a simpler Church, also wants the same treatment for his upcoming visit to the Philippines next year. At a press briefing on Thursday, November 20, papal visit media relations sub-committee chair Fr Anton Pascual said the Vatican would prefer a simple papal visit with minimal expenditures. The Vatican also urged for more resources to be spent on helping the victims of Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) and the earthquake in Bohol in 2013, according to an article on the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) news site. The Pope will...

A new Pew survey found that Latin American Catholics are increasingly leaving the Catholic Church, either to join evangelical Protestant churches or are abandoning religion altogether. The survey participants cited a search for a personal connection with God as the biggest reason for their shift. The wide-ranging survey, released on Thursday, reported that although 69 percent of adults across the region identify as Catholic, in almost every country surveyed there was a reported net loss of Catholics in terms of people raised Catholic and currently Catholic. Overall for Latin America as a whole, 84 percent of the population was raised...

Republicans sealed control of the Senate with more than six seats needed, a momentum Reuters suggested the GOP owes to evangelical voters. FOX News exit polls showed that nearly 60 percent of voters who identified themselves as Protestant or Christian also identified themselves as Republican. "If Republicans win control of the Senate in the midterm elections they should say a prayer of thanks for Christian conservatives," Reuters reporter Alistair Bell wrote more than a week ago. Studies suggest the voting block may be shrinking, but it's still a considerable force. The latest Reuters-Ipsos polling shows Evangelicals are more enthusiastic about...

A funeral mass for former Boston Mayor Tom Menino is being held [10am] at Most Precious Blood Church in Hyde Park. Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, is presiding. Boston Mayor Martin Walsh and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick offered words of remembrance... According to WBZ-TV, at the request of the family, the live video feed is not showing the distribution of Communion... Rev. John J. Connolly, Jr.: “The reason that Tom Menino is so beloved by so many … is because he recognized that each of us is blessed by God with the gift of life.".. Boston Mayor Martin Walsh:...

Scripture and Illegal Immigration In the Book of Exodus, Chapter 22, verse 21, we read, "You shall neither wrong a stranger, nor oppress him: for you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (King James 2000 Bible). This biblical verse is often used by so-called Roman Catholics as a justification for their support of illegal alien South and Central Americans coming to, and living in, the United States.  These Catholics also use this verse to encourage amnesty for all illegal aliens.  Are these Catholics right to interpret the Book of Exodus this way? Verse 21 of Exodus is written...

Conservative Catholics, angry at Pope Francis’s more moderate tone, are bucking the Church’s hierarchy. Almost from the beginning, there have been rumblings of discontent about Pope Francis I. While the world’s media fell in love with him, there were more conservative bishops who felt that Francis’s popular appeal came at the expense of carefully worked-out Church rituals and teachings. They saw Francis as chipping away at established Church teachings on sexuality, kowtowing to the liberal media, and acting aggressively towards conservative church leaders. Criticism of Francis has come to a head with the publication of the final report of the...

VATICAN CITY, October 23, 2014 (Zenit.org) - While saying that the Holy Father sees that families today have been attacked and feels their pain and brokenness, Cardinal Robert Sarah has reaffirmed that we must strongly and firmly defend the Church teachings given to us, especially Jesus' words about marriage. In an interview with ZENIT this week, the president of the Pontifical Council 'Cor Unum' says, "Stemming from the effects of a secular and relativistic society, the crisis of today's family is in how the concept of marriage and family has changed." The current culture, he explained, speaks of family without...

Like antifreeze that drips from a car and poisons cats, the statements exuded by the Vatican Synod on the Family are sweet. It is tempting to lap them up, to welcome the Church’s new proposed stance of apologizing to sinners and obscuring the nature of sin. There is no other way to describe the moral revolution proposed in the Synod’s preliminary report, which was produced by the bishops whom Pope Francis handpicked to manage the meeting. Rather than speaking prophetically in defense of the uniqueness and holiness of marriage, the task of Christians today includes “recognizing positive elements” in “imperfect”...

A half-century after the historic changes of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Francis is showing his intent to drive a comparably ambitious agenda for the Roman Catholic Church in the 21st century. The current synod of bishops in Rome, called by Francis to encourage reform and modernization, set a ringing tone of compassion this week with an opening call for a more welcoming attitude toward gay people, unmarried couples, divorced Catholics who remarry, and children in these unions. The bishops’ report on their first week of private discussions did not immediately change church doctrine. But it signaled the pope’s determination...

While the cultural commissars keep throwing praise and awards at raunchy shows on trendy Internet streaming channels, CBS has a series of highly-rated traditional police or military shows that get no attention or respect. "NCIS" keeps spinning off shows -- this year in New Orleans -- and "Blue Bloods" is a consistent Top 20 performer despite airing on Friday night. You won't see its star Tom Selleck at Emmy awards time. "Blue Bloods" deals with an Irish-Catholic family of cops, headed by New York police commissioner Frank Reagan, played by Selleck. Some Catholics became fans of the show as a...

For the better part of a half century, the New York Times, and similarly situated purveyors of news and opinion, have eagerly awaited the Great Catholic Cave-In: that blessed moment when, at long last, the Catholic Church, like many other Christian communities, would concede that the sexual revolution had gotten it right all along and would adjust its teaching and practice to suit. A Times “breaking story” on October 13, under the headline “Vatican Signals More Tolerance Toward Gays and Remarriage,” might have struck the unwary or uninformed (or those equally committed to the Times agenda in these matters) as...

If someone in Germany who is divorced and civilly remarried can receive Communion without being expected to change his lifestyle, why can’t someone in Africa who is “married” to two women do so as well? That’s the question that Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, the archbishop of Durban, South Africa, asked in a recent interview with Catholic News Service. Napier added that a better way forward for the Church than the recommendation made by the German Cardinal Walter Kasper is to recommend the traditional Christian practice of fortitude in the face of suffering; the carrying of the cross. “Jesus didn’t say ‘I...

The secular-progressive media is hell-bent on trying to shape an image of Pope Francis as a fellow liberal-progressive, just like them. Give him more time, the media suggests, and he’ll soon be allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion, allowing gays to marry within the Church, ordaining gays, ordaining women, endorsing the HHS mandate, praising Planned Parenthood, and who knows what else.It’s an incessant, incestuous, exasperating image that liberals in the media are pushing with abandon. Almost every one of Francis’ actions or statements is contorted to try to remake the man, and thus his Church, in their (the...