Free Republic

At last week’s annual NAACP convention in Philadelphia, one pastor protested the group’s support for legal abortion, using a huge, attention-grabbing poster of the confederate flag side by side with the picture of an aborted child. Under the confederate flag were the words: “Evil done to us?” while the words under the 10-week-old fetus were: “Evil done by us?” Rev. Clenard Childress, the black pastor of the New Calvary Baptist Church in Montclair, N.J, is campaigning to have the NAACP reverse its 2004 decision to endorse abortion, asking pointedly whether the black lives of aborted children matter to the NAACP....

It is really upsetting that top Democrats across the country are refusing to denounce Planned Parenthood’s abortion business, especially after the recent video showing their top doctor, Deborah Nutatola, discussing their negotiations with a business called Stem Express that purchases aborted babies’ body parts for experimentation. However, what’s even more upsetting and quite frankly unimaginable is Christians standing with Planned Parenthood. In an article posted on July 20th, writer Dan Wilkinson says he still supports the abortion giant even though he is a Christian . In summary, his reasoning is that there is nothing wrong with “donating” fetal “tissue” for...

If the role of religion in America today is to teach the faithful to bend over and kiss the ring of postmodernity and beg for forgiveness for actually believing something, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod just failed spectacularly, flubbed its lines, and fell off the stage. I, for one, am elated. Tuesday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch revealed the grand faux pas with this somewhat ironic lede: “The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod recently carried out what various members consider the equivalent of a modern-day heresy trial.” My enthusiasm is, of course, mixed with sadness. The Rev. Dr. Matthew Becker (the hero/victim of the breathlessly...

At sundown each day during Ramadan, which ended on 17 July with the Eid-al-Fitr celebrations, observant Muslims customarily broke their fast at their evening iftar meal by eating dates. A week prior, on the evening of 10 July, 16-year-old Fawzi Osama was on the street in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria, handing out dates to those hurrying home before sundown. In a country that is 90 per cent Muslim, nearly every passer-by was, almost by definition, Muslim. Osama, however, is a Coptic Christian, and in each small plastic bag of dates he also had included a slip of paper...

Much has changed in America since the last year... since the last few months and weeks even! The hope and joy that once filled American has turned to great despair and dread concern. We have had many great challenges before in our nation's past but we have never experienced an inward hostile take over of our three branches of government as we have last week. The years of leftist preparation and incrementalism have finally paid off and they have seized the power and are now implementing their socialistic secular lawless tyrannical agenda full bore. This present state of helplessness and...

The Progressive coup has already taken place here in America and has won the day, and I challenge anyone anywhere to prove what I am saying is wrong. However the poetic justice in all this is that the Left's delusional godless Utopian visions are heading them straight into the Day of the Lord (Rev. 6-19) with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ready to greet them (Rev. 6). O Fools!! There can NEVER be a Utopia where lawlessness super abounds and apart from the saving grace of Jesus Christ and His RIGHTEOUSNESS (Dan. 2:43-44, 7:13-14, Rev. 21-22:1-5). While Conservative talk...

The remarks come from a "National Geographic" piece, which posits that Francis was elected by "more progressive cardinals" Pope Francis speaks to journalists aboard his flight from Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, to Rome June 6. At left is Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) The August 2015 edition of National Geographic has a lengthy essay, "Will the Pope Change the Vatican? Or Will the Vatican Change the Pope?", that has some of the usual stuff—Francis emphasizes the poor over doctrine, he has lots of Protestant/Pentecostal friends, he lives simply—but also a few things of interest. For example, the...

On 16 July [column 766 ff] the House of Lords debated a motion moved by Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB), as follows: “That this House takes note of worldwide violations of Article 18 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the case for greater priority to be given by the United Kingdom and the international community to upholding freedom of religion and belief”. He began by quoting Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief,...

ROME – This morning, Pope Francis formally announced Father Robert Barron's appointment as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Bishop-Elect Barron is the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, host of the award-winning CATHOLICISM film series, and since 2012 has served as the Rector/President of the University of Saint Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary outside of Chicago, IL. His website, WordOnFire.org, reaches millions of people each year. His regular YouTube videos have been viewed over 13 million times. Next to Pope Francis, he is the most-followed Catholic leader on social media.

ou are listening to one of the 33 songs from the album "Benedicta.” Those voices belong to the Benedictine monks of Norcia, and they are singing sweet words and pious prayers to the Virgin Mary. The album begins like this. Those are bells from their monastery. When they stop ringing, the monks intone responses and hymns in the grand tradition of Gregorian chant. They provide for many of their community's needs with profits from sales.

...Of course I have no idea whether the recent decision presages an upswing in hostility to Christians of traditional faith, much less a persecution of them. But even if it does, and doomsday scenarios are proved prescient, and dark times come, there is still no reason for panic or to rush around proclaiming that the sky is falling. All it will mean for us is a return to the catacombs. We were fine down there then, and we will be fine now. America has for some time regarded itself as being a Christian nation, with a Constitution and a judiciary...

Genesis 15:1 "I Am your Shield, Your Very Great Reward."

President Vladimir Putin, former KGB agent of a once-atheist nation, rebukes America, a once-Christian nation by saying that by forsaking traditional Christian values and putting same-sex marriage on the same level as traditional marriage with a man, woman, and children, the nation is forsaking God and believing in Satan and will be led into degradation and chaotic darkness. At the height of the Cold War, it was common for American conservatives to label the officially atheist Soviet Union a “godless nation.” More than two decades on, history has come full circle, as the Kremlin and its allies in the Russian...

It may be 70 years since he worked at Auschwitz, and his occupation may have been no more than clerkly; he may even, as he claims, have have protested against what was happening and attempted to extricate himself from it; but it is thoroughly and totally right that an old man should be tried, sentenced, and punished for his involvement in the monstrous horrors of the National Socialist holocaust. If is true that his actions, according to the perverted legal code in place in Germany at that time, were not illegal when he performed them, that makes not one iota...

It’s by design. As I, and others, have repeatedly warned, the establishment of so-called “gay marriage” as a newfangled federal “right,” and the free exercise of religion as guaranteed by the First Amendment simply cannot coexist in harmony. Things diametrically at odds cannot possibly occupy, with any coherence, the same time and space. The secular left is tripping over itself right now to prove my point. In the wake of last month’s Obergefell v. Hodges opinion – an opinion that somehow divined a top secret “constitutional right” for Patrick Henry to “marry” Henry Patrick – liberals are now demanding, as...

More than 200,000 Germans formally left the Catholic Church in 2014, accelerating the downward trend in the Catholic proportion of the country’s population. Germans who are officially enrolled in congregation are subject to a “church tax,” and so disaffected Catholics have an incentive to drop their registration, rather than simply stop attending Mass. The number of Catholics taking that step has increased sharply in recent years. In 2013, 178,805 Catholics formally dropped off the parish rolls in Germany. In 2014 that figure jumped by 22%, to 217,716, according to official statistic released by the German bishops’ conference.

Former Archbishop John Nienstedt said he remains “dumbfounded” by the allegations of personal misconduct that emerged last year during an internal church investigation of his behavior — a report that the archdiocese now is considering making public. “It pains me deeply that my good name and reputation have been put into question by allegations that are entirely false and based wholly on rumor, hearsay, or innuendo,” said Nienstedt last week, in written responses to questions from the Star Tribune. Commissioned by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the probe looked into claims that Nienstedt had engaged in behavior that...

An openly gay United Methodist pastor said his "I Dos" in front of more than 30 clergy members and 100 guests Friday, days after he was forced to resign for having a partner.The Rev. Benjamin Hutchison married his partner, Monty Hutchison, in a ceremony on the steps of the historic Cass County Courthouse.Hutchison called it a joyous occasion."Walking around the courthouse and seeing all the support, seeing all clergy there gathered standing there saying that they support it, they're not opposed to it, it really was a blessing today."Hutchison, 31, resigned earlier this week from his position as senior pastor...

Why are Americans being forced to consider homosexual acts as morally acceptable? Why has the US Supreme Court accepted the validity of same-sex “marriage,” which, until a decade ago, was unheard of in the history of Western or any other civilization? Where has the “gay rights” movement come from, and how has it so easily conquered America? This is a recording of two lectures given on 7/9 and 7/16 at St Mary of the Sorrows Catholic Church in Fairfax, VA. It examines, from an Aristotelean perspective, the philosophical shortcomings of the culture that led to the insanity of the Obergefell...

   Fr. Sergei SveshnikovOne of the obvious differences between the Orthodox and Western understanding of marriage is that in the West, marriage is what two people do, while in the East, it is something that is done to them. This difference is expressed in the wedding service. In the West, the two people give a set of vows, thus entering into a contract with each other. In the Orthodox service, no vows are exchanged; after the initial inquiry as to whether they want to be married to each other (more on that later), they say absolutely nothing. They also do...