Free Republic

Certainly this new Vatileaks season prompts us to reflect on the way Pope Francis is carrying out his reform. Three years after the first big Vatileaks episode, it seems that the same old Vatican world that opposed Benedict XVI is still alive and active behind Pope Francis. The only difference is that this world elected Pope Francis. Pope Francis owes his election to it. We should look back to Benedict XVI's reform in order to understand the basis on which Pope Francis' reform is grounded. The issues have remained the same. Pope Francis perhaps is trying to overcome them through...

On the nativity fast - the preparation of the soul Written by M.C. Steenberg. A reflection on the role of the Nativity Fast, which might seem the opposite of Christmas joy, in preparing the human heart for the true joy of encountering Christ's incarnation.   'Make ready, O Bethlehem: let the manger be prepared, let the cave show its welcome. The truth has come, the shadow has passed away...' {footnote}Sticheron at the Royal Hours, by St Sophronius of Jerusalem.{/footnote} The herald of the pending miracle begins. It is the Eve of the Nativity as these words are sung. The...

The time of preparation before the great feast of the Nativity of Christ (i.e. “Christmas”) is, through the wisdom of our holy fathers, intended to be a time of purposeful asceticism, almsgiving, and learning to say “yes” to God while saying “no” to one’s own desires. Christmas (especially in the present day) has become a time of great anxiety and materialism for many, despite the fact that most every song one hears, most every retail ad that one reads, and most every film with “Christmas” as a theme that one watches will try to convince them that Christmas is a...

The trials and tribulations of the Crawley family have enthralled Downton Abbey viewers for six series. But some have questioned why Christianity, which would have formed a central part of the lives of the aristocracy in the early 20th century, is largely absent from the show. Now the man tasked with ensuring the historical accuracy of the series has revealed why Downton does not do God. Alastair Bruce, who serves as the show’s historical advisor, said that executives in charge of the series had ordered producers to “leave religion out of it”, for fear of alienating an increasingly atheistic public....

Kaliningrad, November 16, Interfax - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia called terrorism a new form of obsession and called for it to be fought not only using military methods, but also through education and culture. "The world is now faced with a different obsession, a different madness, which we call terrorism," the patriarch said after a liturgy in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Kaliningrad on Sunday. He said the tragedy that has occurred in Paris indicates "people's obsession to achieve political goals using any methods, even by destroying innocent people." "The fight against terrorism should not...

Sergiyev Posad, November 16, Interfax - The Russian Orthodox Church has called on people to learn the right lessons from the terrorist attacks in Paris and mobilize to fight terrorism. "I am deeply grieved for people, and those are right who sympathize and pray for victims killed in the French capital. Eternal memory to these people. May the Lord be merciful to them in His judgement. What has happened is not only a reason for grief, it's also a reason to ask yourself: is it not a lesson to us all, can Europe continue living like it lived before? And...

Paris. The City of Lights was turned dark when Islamic extremists imposed punishment on the French people through a coordinated attack that ended over one hundred lives. Their crime? Not being Muslim. This planned and coordinated invasion and subjection of Europe to Islamic culture and practices will have long-term consequences. Unless and until world leaders admit that we are in a religious war, no nation will be safe from the effects of this cultural invasion. When combined with the "I need a safe space" mantra of the brain-dead college students on campuses all across the US who are now "offended"...

The Peacemakers Metropolitan Younan al-Souri of Zahleh      Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God (Matthew 5:9). Can a person make peace!? And what do you think peace is...?! The Lord says, " Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" (John 14:27). No one makes peace-- that is, no one gives peace-- apart from those who have peace, Christ's peace. One who has Christ's peace is not troubled and...

Since 1964 the United States Governments (Federal and State) have transferred over five trillion dollars from the middle class and the rich to the poor. Are the poor better off today or have they become more enslaved and dependent on government? How much is five trillion dollars? A billion dollars is one thousand million dollars. A trillion dollars is one thousand billion dollars, thus five trillion dollars is five thousand billion dollars. That amount is inconceivable to the human mind. That is how much government has taken from the middle and rich class and transferred it to the poor. This...

The American Center for Law and Justice said it plans to stand up to the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which recently called for the removal of Gideon Bibles from state-run lodgings.The group noted that the latest battle began after FFRF Co-Presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and her husband, Dan Barker, stayed at the Holmes Student Center Hotel in DeKalb, Illinois, and discovered a Gideon Bible placed in their hotel room. "No one is making any guest open the Bible. No one is making them read it. In fact, the university is not 'providing bibles;' it is allowing a Christian group to...

In the United States and in Italy the changes are most spectacular. With new “Bergoglio-style" bishops and cardinals. In Belgium, Danneels’s revenge against Ratzinger. The triumph of the St. Gallen club. Much more than reforming the Vatican curia and finances (to which he is applying himself more out of obligation than out of passion, with no comprehensive plan and too often relying on the wrong men and women), it is clear by now that Pope Francis wants to revolutionize the college of bishops. And he is doing so in a systematic way. The two talks that he gave this autumn...

A commenter writes: As an Irishman, Papism is in my blood. Irish Ultramontanism was pretty legendary and for good reason, but not for the reason most people think…The English had driven out our native aristocracy and over the ages of persecution and disenfranchisement, the priesthood was our only recourse of social leadership, the Pope was the only one who we could find succour and call our king. Was it in error? Perhaps, but you try being a Catholic in Ireland for the past few centuries and not be the same way, maybe you could find your path to Sainthood by...

To the Catholics who babble ecumenical nonsense, saying that the Koran is "a book of peace," here is what a great Saint has to say about it. If you feel you know better than he, God help you: "It would take too long to tell you all the stories about this famous impostor...Mohamed's religion consists of a monstrous mixture of Judaism, Paganism and Christianity. Mohamed propagated his religion, not through miracles or persuasive words, but through the force of arms. [It is] a religion that favors every sort of licentiousness and which, in a short time, allowed Mohamed to become...

SHOULD CHRISTIANS FIGHT COMMUNISM? Yes or No? By: Henry R. Pike Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. (Pas. 33:12) Before any attempt is made to answer this question, we must first clearly understand the term "Christian." Let's see what a Christian is not, then what a Christian is. A true Christian is not a "non-Jew, a do-gooder, a nice guy, one who goes to a church building, pays dues, sings hymns, provides for his family, etc." You should go to a place where God's word is faithfully preached and practiced, but going into a church building wil...

Flooding, snowstorms, a flu outbreak, even a fire -- any of those might have slowed a group of Wisconsin nuns who say none of it has kept their order from praying nonstop for hundreds of thousands of people over the last 137 years. The La Crosse-based Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration claim to have been praying night and day for the ill and the suffering longer than anyone in the United States -- since 11 a.m. on Aug. 1, 1878. The tradition of perpetual Eucharistic adoration -- uninterrupted praying before what is believed to be the body of Christ --...

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of...

HONG KONG (Christian Examiner) - The leader of Catholics in Hong Kong, one of China's most densely populated cities, has issued a pastoral letter to his congregants encouraging them to elect candidates for local public office who hold traditional views on the family and marriage and oppose proposals to open Hong Kong to same-sex marriage. In the letter dated Nov. 5, two days before Hong Kong's annual gay pride parade, Cardinal John Tong wrote "extreme liberalism, individualism, sexual liberation and the gay rights movement, under the guise of equality and the fight against discrimination, have all along been advocating the...

Rome, Italy, Nov 12, 2015 / 03:18 pm (CNA).- Spanish liberation theologian Fr. Jon Sobrino, whose works were censured by the Vatican nearly a decade ago, is slated to take part in an event this Saturday at Rome's Urbaniana University. The gathering is aimed at republishing the "Catacombs Pact," a document signed after the Second Vatican Council by various future members of the Marxist school of thought. It was condemned in 1984 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed at that time by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Fr. Sobrino, a Jesuit priest born in Spain in 1938, had...

In 1227 Sultan Jalal al-Din of Khwarazm and his army of Turkmen attacked Georgia. On the first day of the battle the Georgian army valorously warded off the invaders as they were approaching Tbilisi. That night, however, a group of Persians who were living in Tbilisi secretly opened the gates and summoned the enemy army into the city. According to one manuscript in which this most terrible day in Georgian history was described: “Words are powerless to convey the destruction that the enemy wrought: tearing infants from their mothers’ breasts, they beat their heads against the bridge, watching as their...