Free Republic

Paglia used charity funds to renovate apartment Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia diverted hundreds of thousands of euros allocated to support missionary and charitable works while he served as president of the Pontifical Council for the Family. Paglia used much of the money to finance building projects in Rome, including the renovation of his personal apartment, The Pillar has learned.According to multiple independent sources with knowledge of the events, Archbishop Paglia confirmed in a 2015 memo to Holy See financial officials that hundreds of thousands of euros had been paid to an Italian construction contractor instead of going to missionary and charitable...

Insider and several other news organizations have identified 76 members of Congress who've recently failed to properly report their financial trades as mandated by the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012, also known as the STOCK Act. Congress passed the law a decade ago to combat insider trading and conflicts of interest among their own members and force lawmakers to be more transparent about their personal financial dealings....

[Catholic Caucus] Lying and Cheating: How the Vatican and the Archdiocese Destroyed the Philadelphia CarmelPhiladelphiaCarmelites.org reports how the Vatican, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and a modernist association of Carmelite nuns hijacked Philadelphia Carmel.- 2017: Philadelphia Carmel is dying out. Archbishop Chaput, 78, invites Roman Rite Carmelites from Nebraska to take it over.- January 2020: Archbishop Perez replaces Archbishop Chaput. - April 2021: The Roman Rite Carmelite Sisters unexpectedly return to their former community. Mother Pia, the last Philadelphia Carmelite (since 1964), stays.- 2021: Francis' document Cor Orans (2018) is used to close Philadelphia Carmel.- June 2021: The Nebraska Carmelites announce...

Vatican vendettas: Alleged witness manipulation jolts trialThe text message to the Vatican monsignor offered forgiveness along with a threat: “I know everything about you … and I keep it all in my archives,” it read. “I pardon you, Perlasca, but remember, you owe me a favor.”The message was one of more than 100 newly revealed WhatsApp texts and other correspondence entered into evidence at the Vatican courthouse last week that have jolted a financial crimes trial involving the Holy See’s money-losing investment in a London property. The texts have cast doubt on the credibility of a key suspect-turned-prosecution witness and...

Vatican Awaits Developments as It Investigates Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga and Honduras’ Catholic UniversityQuestions have been raised about the attempt to transfer ownership of the university from the local Church to a foundation headed by the rector, ahead of the cardinal’s impending retirement.VATICAN CITY — A Vatican investigation into one of Pope Francis’ closest aides and the rector of the Catholic University of Honduras over alleged mismanagement of the university’s finances and personnel has currently stalled as the Vatican awaits more information, the Register has learned. The Pope ordered the investigation last year after repeated complaints were made against Cardinal...

Just yesterday, Elon Musk revealed devastating internal Twitter emails that prove what conservatives already knew: that the social media giant was actively working with the Democrats to control the flow of information during the 2020 presidential election. Musk, Twitter's new head, tweeted a link to the account of journalist Matt Taibbi, who posted a thread of tweets including screenshots of emails from Twitter employees. twitter image Taibbi's tweets refer to an email sent on Oct. 24, 2020, showing Biden's team asking Twitter to "review certain tweets." There is a reply to a previous email that the Tweets had been "handled."

President Joe Biden praised House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday after she announced her decision to exit Democrat leadership. “When I think of Nancy Pelosi, I think of dignity,” he wrote in a more than 500-word statement released by the White House. “History will note she is the most consequential Speaker of the House of Representatives in our history.” Pelosi announced her decision to step down from a leadership role while continuing to serve in Congress. The White House said that Biden phoned Pelosi earlier in the day to congratulate her for her years of leadership.

Now we’re learning, or at least we’re starting to connect the dots.We’re still in the early stages here so this is still speculation at this point, but the puzzle pieces are all starting to fit together.Here is most likely how it went.The U.S. takes billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars and funnels those over to Ukraine. Ukraine then puts those billions into FTX (remember, it appears to not be a real company, more like a government plant).Now, in case you did not know, FTX is owned by Sam Bankman-Fried.Bankman-Fried takes billions of dollars invested into the company and donates them...

Thousands of officials across the government’s executive branch reported owning or trading stocks that stood to rise or fall with decisions their agencies made, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found. More than 2,600 officials at agencies from the Commerce Department to the Treasury Department, during both Republican and Democratic administrations, disclosed stock investments in companies while those same companies were lobbying their agencies for favorable policies. That amounts to more than one in five senior federal employees across 50 federal agencies reviewed by the Journal. A top official at the Environmental Protection Agency reported purchases of oil and gas...

Frank Carone, Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ chief of staff, announced his upcoming resignation Monday amid questions about whether his recent cruise in France was taxpayer-funded, according to The New York Times. Carone told administration officials he would resign by the end of the year, according to the NYT, only hours after Adams refused to answer questions about Carone’s recent European travel. Carone spent some time on a Norwegian cruise in Normandy last month as part of the administration’s research into possibly housing migrants on cruise ships. Carone, who has served as Adams’ chief of staff since January,...

The ultra-wealthy elites of Martha's Vineyard launched a GoFundMe fundraiser over the island's "humanitarian crisis" of (*finger-counts*) 50 migrants sent ashore by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). That's right. The trust fund babies and Old Money socialites on Martha's Vineyard, a well-known magnet for millionaires, CEOs, and celebrities, were soliciting online donations from middle-class Americans on the crowdfunding platform. As of Friday afternoon, the affluent community's "urgent plea" has raised over $42,000. The proceeds are benefiting the Martha's Vineyard Community Foundation (MVCF) whose mission includes putting "charitable contributions to work for the people of Martha's Vineyard by making grants that address...

New emails prove ‘beyond all doubt’ Joe Biden obstructed justice with Hunter’s Ukraine deal: fact-checkerDocumentation of this illegal scheme begins with a widely overlooked email on Hunter’s laptop in which a top executive of the Ukrainian firm describes the plan. (Just Facts Daily) – Newly discovered emails prove beyond all doubt that the “true purpose” of Hunter Biden’s lucrative deal with a Ukrainian energy company was for Hunter to get “high-ranking US officials” to visit Ukraine and persuade the nation’s leaders to “close down” all criminal “cases/pursuits against” the firm’s primary owner, a notoriously corrupt oligarch with alleged ties to...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday that 'no one is above the law' and noted the FBI raid on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home would have had some legal justification. Pelosi, who repeatedly sparred with Trump when she was speaker and he was president, said she had no special knowledge of the Monday raid. 'All I know about that is what is in the public domain. I was surprised that it flashed on my phone last evening,' the speaker said on MSNBC's Morning Joe.

...Somehow, despite the accusations and criticisms from some of the most credible people in the race grievance industry, King has continued to raise money. It appears he’s used that money to make some very important purchases in the fight against racial injustice. Among those purchases is a $40,000 dog, a Mastiff for his family they named Marz. King’s PAC, Grassroots Law, has handed over the sum in a pair of payments to Potrero Performance Dogs in California since December, the Washington Free Beacon reported. The PAC paid Protero $10,000 in December, followed by a $30,650 payment in February. Days after...

Two top Arizona election officials abruptly quit their jobs before the state's primary elections, citing continuous threats from former President Donald Trump's supporters after the 2020 elections, multiple reports say. Leslie Hoffman, the elected county recorder in Yavapai County, said on Friday that she was stepping down later this month after facing two years of "nastiness" from election deniers, The Washington Post reported. Hoffman said elections director Lynn Constabile, who had worked for the county for 18 years, was leaving for the same reason, The Post reported. Constabile did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Trial testimony: Vatican wanted to pay off London brokerVATICAN CITY (AP) — The former head of the Vatican’s financial watchdog testified Tuesday that the agency launched an intelligence investigation into a suspicious London real estate deal after it learned about it but had no power to stop the Vatican secretariat of state from concluding it. The testimony by defendant Rene Bruelhart in the Vatican’s big fraud and extortion trial again put the spotlight on Pope Francis and the No. 2 in the secretariat of state, Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra, who Bruelhart said made clear the deal had to be concluded...

A federal grand jury has indicted Monica Cannon-Grant, a high-profile local activist in Boston’s racial justice movement, and her husband on allegations they defrauded donors of the nonprofit they founded, Violence In Boston; committed unemployment fraud; and lied to a mortgage lender, prosecutors announced Tuesday. Cannon-Grant, 41, and Clark Grant, 38, were charged in an 18-count indictment alleging the couple spent financial donations to the nonprofit on themselves, using the cash to pay for hotel reservations, gas, restaurant meals, food deliveries, nail salon services, and personal travel, while concealing their transactions from bookkeepers, directors, and financial auditors.

The Denver District Attorney's office has decided to drop the second-degree murder charge against the man accused in a fatal shooting at an October 2020 rally in downtown Denver. Lee Keltner, 49, got into a confrontation with Matthew Dolloff, 32, as crowds from a pair of rallies in Civic Center Park dispersed. The rallies included a “Patriot Muster” and a “BLM-Antifa Soup Drive.” Dolloff was working as security for Denver Gazette news partner 9News.

Speaking to The Guardian, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who went on a mansion-buying spree, claimed that she was the "fall guy" for the organization, "a movement," she said, that is much bigger than her.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Richard Blum, husband of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, died Sunday after a long battle with cancer. He was 86. Feinstein announced her husband’s death in a statement Monday morning that said her “heart is broken today.” She said her husband, a wealthy San Francisco investor, “left things better than he found them” and was devoted to his family. She described his work for the people of the Himalayas and noted he was a longtime friend of the Dalai Lama. “My husband was my partner and best friend for more than 40 years,” Feinstein said in the statement....