Free Republic

Trump tweets Archbishop Viganò’s open letter published by LifeSiteNews: ‘I hope everyone…reads it’ 'So honored by Archbishop Viganò’s incredible letter to me,' wrote the President in a Tweet WASHINGTON, D.C., June 10, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – President Donald Trump has responded to Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s open letter to him, published June 6 by LifeSiteNews.  “So honored by Archbishop Viganò’s incredible letter to me,” wrote the President in a Tweet.    “I hope everyone, religious or not, reads it!” he added.   In his powerful letter, Archbishop Viganò warned the President that the current crises over the coronavirus pandemic and the George Floyd riots...

May 20, 2020, 7:21 p.m. EST: BREAKING: The Minnesota Catholic Conference and The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod in Minnesota sent Governor Tim Walz separate letters today announcing that they will resume worship services on May 26 despite Governor Walz’s current COVID-19 executive order which allows retailers to operate at 50 percent capacity but caps church worship services at ten people. Governor Walz’s latest re-opening order allows the Mall of America to open its doors to those seeking retail therapy but disallows churches from providing spiritual healing to their congregations. At the same time, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty sent Governor...

As progressive Americans continue to express bewilderment about white evangelical Protestants’ support of President Donald Trump, a new Pew Research Center survey offers findings that help explain this important electoral community’s commitment. As the 2020 presidential election cycle accelerates, Pew released results Thursday about its recent research which explores the links between religion and politics, including perceptions of evangelical Protestants and other faith groups’ views of Trump. “White evangelicals largely see Trump as fighting for their beliefs and advancing their interests ...,” the Pew report said, “... and they feel their side generally has been winning recently on political matters...

The victories that were won leading to the current situation (in which polyamory is being mainstreamed and physically healthy thirteen-year old girls are being subjected to hormone treatments and mastectomies because they believe they are actually “boys trapped in girls’ bodies”) were not inevitable. They were won because too many Catholics, Evangelicals, and other believers in marriage reality and traditional norms of sexual morality failed to muster the courage to fight. They cowered in fear. They stood on the sidelines. They wanted “other people” to do the work, contribute the money, and stand boldly for what is true and good...

Pope Francis has apologized after he appeared to lose his cool when a woman violently grabbed his hand while he greeted pilgrims at the Vatican on New Year’s Eve. A video that went viral on Twitter showed an unidentified woman abruptly grabbing Francis’ hand from behind a barrier and yanking him towards her just after he reached out to greet a child during a visit to the Vatican’s nativity scene on Tuesday night. It seemed like the woman would not release Francis’ hand, so the pontiff slapped her hand before pulling his free. Frowning in anger, he turned and strode...

If the Vatican wanted to destroy the Church, how would it behave differently? December 11, 2019 (Turning Point Project) — Are you confused? If you follow Catholic news media, you can't help but notice the explosion of bewildering innovations being enacted or proposed for the Church on an almost weekly basis. The Amazon Synod itself was chock-full of novel ideas — that the Amazon region is a source of revelation, that pantheism and polytheism are valid forms of religious expression, and that the Catholic Church needs to conform itself to Amazonian spirituality. The Synod organizers seemed to be proposing...

James Rosen, a great reporter, asked Nancy Pelosi at a press conference last week why she hates the duly elected president of the United States. In her response, Pelosi detoured into another dimension, denying that she hates Donald Trump. “As a Catholic,” she lectured, “I resent your using the word ‘hate’ in a sentence that addresses me. I don’t hate anyone.” “My goodness!,” I thought to myself. “How utterly frustrated, bemused — even furious — sincerely devout Catholics must feel listening to this cheap politician, who represents billionaires in a district teeming with homeless, cloaking her hatred for President Trump...

Every year, Catholics around the world donate tens of millions of dollars to the pope. Bishops exhort the faithful to support the weak and suffering through the pope’s main charitable appeal, called Peter’s Pence. What the church doesn’t advertise is that most of that collection, worth more than more than €50 million ($55 million) annually, goes toward plugging the hole in the Vatican’s own administrative budget, while as little as 10% is spent on charitable works, according to people familiar with the funds. The little-publicized breakdown of how the Holy See spends Peter’s Pence, known only among senior Vatican officials,...

If House speaker Nancy Pelosi is a "practicing Catholic," then Sen. Elizabeth Warren is an American Indian. If she is a practicing Catholic, then one hopes that one day, she gets it right. You cannot be in fundamental disagreement with a fundamental doctrine of the Catholic Church and then wrap yourself in its vestments to proclaim you don't hate anybody. Funny: Cafeteria Catholic Pelosi doesn't invoke her Christian conscience when she supports her caucus's abortion-until-birth infanticide policy, the ultimate separation of mother from child.

BANGKOK - When Pope Francis celebrates Mass in a Bangkok sports stadium Nov. 21, tens of thousands of Catholics from across Thailand will be there to celebrate with him. Several devout Catholics may not be among them, however much they might love to join. Ucanews.org reported that by venturing outdoors to attend the Mass in person, these believers would run the risk of being detained by authorities. They are Pakistani Christian asylum-seekers who fled their homeland in fear for their lives in recent years. They were driven away by the increasingly militant form of Islam that has come to dominate...

Her writings on faith and jurisprudence should worry conservatives. The left is engaged in full-on panic over control of the U.S. Supreme Court—which Justice Scalia once described as having become a de facto sitting Constitutional Convention, subjecting every law in every state to the views of five lifetime appointees: an oligarchy of lawyers from Harvard, Stanford, and Yale. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s health concerns continue to loom, liberals are trying to spook Speaker Mitch McConnell into swearing off confirmation hearings for any Trump appointee during an election year. At the same time, The New York Times and The New...

I’m sure this post won’t stay up long… But as a born-again evangelical I no longer feel comfortable on this site. It has become openly and aggressively pro Catholic. Catholicism is heresy. Thank you Jim for putting so much effort into this clearinghouse of ideas… But the bombardment of papers nonsense can a longer be tolerated by me. God bless all who proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord. God bless America

Why Angelus Bells Ring at Noon Hungary celebrates 15th-century defeat of Muslim Turks Do you know why the Angelus bells ring at noon? The answer traces back to July 22, 1456 and a history-altering battle in Hungary: a coalition of Christian soldiers, under the leadership of  János Hunyadi, resisting the Ottoman Turks at Nándorfehérvár, now Belgrade. János Hunyadi Hungarians have commemorated the anniversary of this battle — and the victory — on July 22, after the noon Angelus bells ring out, in front of the statue of Hunyadi in the Castle District of Budapest. Szilárd Németh, Ministry of Defense's Parliamentary State Secretary, the International Communications Office...

If you thought punching random people claiming they’re “Nazis” was bad, wait till you see this. We’ve clearly reached a whole new level of incivility with the left’s war on religion. Watch as a smiling protester violently shoves a priest perceived by the LGBTQWTF community as “anti-gay” off a high stage during mass in Cachoeira Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil: Moronic fat cow violently pushes a elderly Priest off the stage because he was apparently anti-gay, what a terrible human being she is. So now we're gone from "PUNCH A NAZI" to "PUSH THE PIREST" apparently........horrible. pic.twitter.com/HBSZkYzlBJ— ??Marcus Foo???? (@AStrongerOZ)...

The Polish conservative newspaper, Gazeta Polska, has said it will distribute "LGBT-free zone" stickers with its next issue. The stickers show a black cross superimposed on a rainbow flag. The weekly publication - which has a circulation of around 110,000 - openly supports the conservative governing Law and Justice party (PiS). The move was criticised by the US ambassador to Poland, who said the stickers promoted hatred. The newspaper's editor said his own views and those of the ambassador should both be respected. A preview of the sticker was posted on Gazeta Polska's Twitter feed on Wednesday and it is...

May 2, 2019 (The Catholic Weekly) – We are living in a unique time in history. Never has politics been so polarised, never has mainstream society come so near to amorality (although Nero’s Rome came close), and never has it been so difficult for a woman to find a good man. The latter is, I’ll admit, a bold claim but allow me to elaborate. We constantly bemoan the state of society, the youth, universities, the media, et al, which seem to be collectively falling into ever deeper rabbit holes of noxious regressive ideas, behaviours and policies. Religious affiliation and church...

We’re all perfectly aware that Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale doesn’t like Christianity. Why else would it paint the religion as a part of a theological dictatorship where women are treated like cattle, child brides are legal and men beat their wives? After all, it’s not like the show’s going to acknowledge those are very real things in the Islamic world today. Instead, we get a moment trashing Catholic priests and Christians right before taking part in a baptism in the latest episode. The June 12 episode “God Bless The Child” starts with preparation for the dedication of all the newborn...

Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz — both Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee — are calling on President Trump to withdraw the nomination of a lawyer for a lifetime federal court appointment, accusing the nominee of opposing religious freedom and expressing anti-Catholic views. The nomination of Michael S. Bogren, a Michigan lawyer who was nominated to be a district judge for the District Court for the Western District of Michigan, has been met with fierce conservative resistance for the candidate’s likening of religious beliefs to the racist views of the Ku Klux Klan. Hawley, a Missouri Republican and...

Police in Japan believe a 51-year-old man went on a stabbing spree early Tuesday morning in Kawasaki, less than 20 miles from Tokyo, near an elementary school, killing an 11-year-old girl and a 39-year-old man. Japanese media are reporting that another 16 people were injured in the attack and being treated in a local hospital. Three of those – described as “a woman in her 40s and two elementary school girls” by the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun – are reportedly in grave condition. Authorities have not revealed any motive for the attack or the identity of the man they believe...

Islamic extremist terrorists killed 3 more Catholics in the former French colony of Burkina Faso as gunmen continued the series of attacks on Christian targets this morning.The French Press Agency reports that "heavily armed individuals attacked the church... as the faithful were celebrating Sunday mass," according to their security source. The nation is two-thirds Muslim and one-third Christian and has been dealing with escalated terror attacks dor quite some time. Just last week, drive-by shooters killed 10 Catholics, including a priest on Saturday and Sunday. However, since 2016, Al-Queda militants and other branches of Islamic extremism have killed hundreds of people. Just this year,...