Free Republic

Exorcists warn involvement in Freemasonry exposes the soul to the demonicMsgr. Charles Pope, a seasoned priest in exorcism and deliverance ministry, criticized public dialogue among prelates and Freemasons, emphasizing the grave sin and spiritual danger of Freemasonry, which he says invites demonic influence.While Italian cardinals “dialogue” with Freemasons, exorcists say they regularly cast out demons that plague families due to Masonic curses invoked upon multiple generations, warning that any involvement in Freemasonry is inviting the demonic into one’s life and that of one’s children. READ: Vatican cardinal calls for ‘permanent’ Catholic-Freemason dialogue at ‘historic’ joint event Earlier this month several...

While those who tend to our physical health, who work our grocery stores, who answer their call to duty are so often lauded as noble front-line workers, our country shames a priest working to save our souls. WASHINGTON, DC — Capitol Hill’s Monsignor Charles Pope has the coronavirus. To anyone lucky enough to know the archdiocese’s most charismatic Catholic, that won’t come as a surprise. Not because he has written and preached against Christians cowering in fear of death, as an equally unsurprising Washington Post article will have you believe, but because unlike the vast majority of us, from politics...

Popular US priest urges Americans to not give into ‘demonic’ fear over pandemic Monsignor Charles Pope warned that ‘Satan wants us to fear and even detest one another.’ WASHINGTON, D.C., July 21, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Prominent blogger priest Monsignor Charles Pope is exhorting America and the Catholic Church to “man up” and not give in to “crippling fear” of the coronavirus pandemic, which he believes is a “far more serious ailment” than the disease itself. “My pastoral concern is that we as a nation and as a Church have succumbed to excessive fear, which bespeaks a spiritual problem,” Msgr. Pope...

Posted on July 21, 2019July 21, 2019 by Msgr. Charles Pope Tolerance: A Brief Consideration of a Widely Misunderstood Virtue Tolerance is often bandied about today with a meaning far removed from its original definition. It has come to mean agreeing with or supporting what someone else is saying or doing; one is deemed tolerant to the degree that he goes along with another’s words or behavior.However, if one supports another’s position or actions, one doesn’t need to “tolerate” it. We don’t tolerate what we love; we tolerate what we hate; we tolerate people with whom we disagree, not...

New York cardinal: Excommunicating pro-abortion politicians ‘not an appropriate response’ NEW YORK, January 25, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Archbishop of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan responded to calls for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's excommunication for his role in enshrining a “fundamental right” to virtually-unlimited abortion in the state, saying via a spokesperson that excommunication is "not an appropriate response." Asked by CNN Religion Editor Dan Burke about the calls for Gov. Cuomo to be excommunicated over New York's new abortion bill, Dolan’s spokesman said he would “not discuss any individual,” but that “excommunication should not be used as a...

Envy Illustrated Msgr. Charles Pope • January 17, 2018 • The Deadly Sin of Envy, Hieronymus Bosch (1480)In the reading at daily Mass for Thursday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time, we encounter an envious Saul. Upon David’s return from slaying Goliath, the women sing a song praising him. Saul should rejoice with all Israel but instead he is resentful and envies David:Saul was very angry and resentful of the song, for he thought, “They give David ten thousand, but only thousands to me. All that remains for him is the kingship.” And from that day on, Saul...

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...

On the Demise of the True Love of Friends in an Age of Lost Innocence Msgr. Charles Pope • January 3, 2016 • One of the casualties of the sexual revolution has been the love that is friendship.The Greek language has several different words for love. The love between friends is phileo, and is different from eros (physical, sensual love), storge (family love), and agape (selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love of God or another). Modern English sadly lacks such distinctions. However, in the past we were pretty well able navigate the different types of love and not read inaccurate motivations into...

Why Christmas Is Celebrated at Night Msgr. Charles Pope December 22, 2015 Some sing, "O Holy Night." Some sing, "Silent Night." Some sing, "It Came upon a Midnight Clear." Christmas, it would seem, is a festival of the middle of the night. Jesus was born when it was dark, dark midnight. We are sure of it. And why shouldn't we be?Even though we are not told the exact hour of His birth, we are sure that it must have been at night. Scripture does say that the shepherds who heard the glad tidings were keeping watch over their flock by...

Monsignor Charles Pope has held his title in the Catholic Church for 10 years.“More people call me ‘Monsignor’ than call me ‘Charles,’” the soft-spoken Washington, D.C.-area priest told FoxNews.com on Thursday.So Pope was perplexed earlier this week when Facebook informed him, after six years using the social-networking service, that they didn’t think he was using his real name.“I thought it was a scam,” Pope said.It wasn’t.Facebook’s policy is to not allow titles on personal site profiles, a spokesman explained, something that goes for religious figures just as much as for politicians and celebrities. There is more flexibility for a Facebook...

The Body God Gave Us Doesn’t Lie – A Meditation on the Sexual Confusion of Our Day By: Msgr. Charles PopeThe latest tragic twist in the “Bruce Jenner saga” (more on that below) illustrates yet again one of the great errors of our day: the rejection of the truth that our bodies have something to tell us about who we are and what we are called to do and be. Most moderns see the body as merely a tool of sorts. Assertions are made that one can do as one pleases with one’s own body, and that a person’s sex (male or female) is purely incidental—merely an arbitrary...

Beware the Strangest Idol of All – A Reflection on How Even Works of Charity Cannot Eclipse Obedience to Christ By: Msgr. Charles PopeThere is a passage in the gospels that breaks conventions and cuts to the core of what has come to be called the “Social Gospel.”  Before looking at the passage we need to define “Social Gospel.” The phrase “Social Gospel” emerged in the Protestant denominations but has also come to be used in Catholic circles as well. The Social Gospel is an intellectual movement that was most prominent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The...

Monsignor Charles Pope writes, "The gospel from Sunday (John 15:1-8) presents us with an important meditation on the difference between love and kindness. Perhaps some further reflections from this gospel are in order today. There is an unfortunate tendency in our times to reduce love to kindness. Kindness is an aspect of love, but so is rebuke. It is an immature notion of love that reduces it merely to affirming, or that refers to proper correction as a form of “hate.” We saw in yesterday’s gospel that proper care involves the Lord “pruning” us so that we bear more fruit....

Equal in Dignity and Responsibility: Ministering to Those With Same-Sex Attraction By: Msgr. Charles PopeA conference is being planned in August to ponder an authentic pastoral response in ministering to those with same-sex attraction. Dr. Janet Smith is the organizer; Courage International and the Archdiocese of Detroit are the sponsors. It looks to be a  fine gathering of solid speakers. Though I am clearly a “back-bencher” among the fine speakers being lined up, I was asked to submit a paper for possible inclusion in the book that will likely be published by Ignatius Press just prior to the conference.As a...

What Effect Will Pressure to Accept Same Sex Acts or “Marriage” Have on Church Teaching? None! By: Msgr. Charles PopeLast week was Holy Week, so sure enough there were many critical issues in the news that needed attention but we in the Church were off doing more important things like worshipping God and pondering our need for salvation. Permit a brief summary and some predictions from me based on the latest unpleasantness in Indiana last week.I am not a lawyer and neither know nor understand all the legal implications of the law signed by the Indiana governor and then later...

When Science is Betrayed – and What Lessons We Should Learn By: Msgr. Charles PopeThere is a great reverence for science in our culture. On the one hand, rightly so. Science has made enormous strides that have changed life as we know it. Profound discoveries have eradicated diseases, improved health, increased the world’s food supply, led to a computer revolution, drawn us higher into outer space and deeper into inner space, revealed hidden mysteries of nature, and produced technologies unimaginable to even our recent ancestors.On the other hand, the reverence of science has tipped perhaps too far in the direction of a...

A Recent Article Ponders the Rarity of Earth And How Astronomical Are the Odds Against Complex Life in the Universe! By: Msgr. Charles PopeWe have discussed on the blog before the potential flaws in the mere statistical presumption that because there are so many stars there must be billions of other Earth-like planets in the universe that likely support life similar to ours. Why? Because it is not just one or two things that make Earth what it is; it is many, many essential things that make Earth capable of sustaining life for long enough that our civilization has...

Monday’s decision by the Supreme Court not to take up numerous state appeals regarding same-sex unions pretty much signals that the secular redefinition is here to stay. This is really no surprise given the rather deep confusion about sexuality and marriage in our culture. The polygamists and any number of other groups demanding recognition for their aberrant notions of marriage are sure to follow with all due haste. And what is to stop them, legally, at this point? The word “marriage” is now largely meaningless since, if marriage can mean anything, marriage means nothing, in the linguistic sense. At my...

In yesterday’s post we pondered that being holy is more than being nice. Today we do well to ponder that that being loving is not the same as being kind.Here too we live in a reductionist culture that has tended to reduce love to kindness. The results are often quite problematic as we shall see.Kindness is a very great thing and has an important place in our relationships. Kindness is evidenced by goodness and charitable behavior, a pleasantness, tenderness and concern for others. According to Aristotle, kindness is an emotion manifesting itself by the desire to help somebody in need,...

Late last week on the blog I made mention of the sins that “cry to heaven for vengeance.” The traditional list, is summarized in the Catechism which states The catechetical tradition also recalls that there are “sins that cry to heaven”: the blood of Abel, the sin of the Sodomites, the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt, the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan, injustice to the wage earner (# 1867).It probably does not surprise you that I got push-back from certain homosexuals who wrote in to “remind” me that the sin of Sodom “has nothing...