Free Republic

Six decades after the Treaty of Rome, the European Union is in deep trouble. But is the Catholic Church capable of helping Europe change course? In 1985, the then-European Economic Community which eventually became today’s European Union formally adopted what’s known as “The Flag of Europe.” Consisting of a circle of 12 golden stars on an azure background, many believe that the flag, first used by the Council of Europe in 1955, combines the traditional Marian blue with the crown of twelve stars worn by the Woman Clothed in the Sun portrayed in the Book of Revelation. The overseer of...

The process will be national and not diocesan in scope. It covers two groups: Korean martyrs killed between 1785 and 1879 and those killed in modern Korea, from 1901 to Communist persecution after the Korean War (1950-1953). The first group includes John Baptist Yi Byeok, killed for the faith along with his whole family. The second group includes the bishop of P’yŏng-yang, presumed dead in a concentration camp, and Mgr Patrick James Byrne, Maryknoll missionary, taken to the North who died from exhaustion. For Mgr Lazarus You, the candidates are already saints for the faithful.Seoul (AsiaNews) – The special committee...

NASA confirmed the discovery of seven new exoplanets not too far from Earth, bringing humanity one step closer to finding other livable planets and, possibly, extraterrestrial life. Does Catholicism have the means to survive such a discovery? The pope, experts and theologians say yes. In a highly anticipated press conference on February 22, NASA declared that seven Earth-sized planets have been discovered orbiting a relatively close dwarf star. For space enthusiasts, trekkies and stargazers, the possibility of finding alien life forms just got one step closer to reality. The tiny “salmon-colored” star is unassumingly called Trappist-1. Held tightly in its...

Father Dominic Fan Hong Bin of the Diocese of Zhouzhi, China,celebrates Mass at the Cenacle Retreat Center in Ronkonkoma, N.Y., Aug. 20, 2014. (Credit: CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz.) A new study shows there are now 4,000 foreign-born women religious studying or serving in the United States, building on a rising tide of foreign-born priests. While there are headaches, these ministers are ambassadors of the 94 percent of the Catholic world that isn't American. If American Catholicism has an Achille’s heel, it’s sometimes an attenuated sense of how we fit into the rest of the Catholic world. A bit of basic...

Crux has the scoop: https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2017/03/08/pope-francis-signals-openness-ordaining-married-men/ Pope Francis has expressed openness to a renewed consideration of married priests in the Catholic Church, especially the possibility of ordaining the so-called viri probati, meaning tested married men, who could be called into clerical service. “Then we have to consider what tasks they could perform, for instance in isolated communities,” the pontiff said. While the question put to Francis specifically referred to ordaining viri probati as deacons, many theologians and some bishops have also suggested they could be considered for priestly service. The pope’s comments came in a new interview with the German newspaperDie...

As soon as the news broke last week that Disney’s new Beauty and the Beast movie would feature an “exclusively gay moment,” Franklin Graham called for a boycott of Disney in a Facebook post that has since been shared almost 100,000 times. The next day, a drive-in theater in Alabama announced that it would not show the movie, while, even before Franklin Graham’s comment was posted, the conservative group One Million Moms called for a Disney boycott, with a clear warning: “Alerting all parents! In a first for the Disney Channel, a Disney XD show subtly displayed several gay kisses...

In 1970, I took part in an early anti-abortion protest in Washington D.C. at George Washington University Hospital. It was intended to be a sit-in at the offices where hospital employees interviewed women seeking abortions. The hospital was violating the laws of the District of Columbia, which back then still prohibited abortion. But abortions were being performed at the hospital nonetheless. Our purpose was simply to demand that the hospital comply with the laws of the District of Columbia. Protesters never got beyond the entrance to the office building and were hit with pepper spray to force them from the...

Madrid, Spain, Mar 6, 2017 / 03:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After an anti-clerical childhood and adolescence, filled with hatred for the Church, Fr. Juan José Martínez says he discovered “that God exists and wants me as his priest.” “Sunday mornings I would peer out of the balcony of my house, and when the people were going by on their way to Mass, I would spit on them. I told them that the Church was a sect that wanted their money,” explained the priest, who ministers in the Diocese of Almeria, Spain.Fr. Juan José's parents were not believers, and he had...

What The Shack gets right by Lita Cosner Published: 7 March 2017 (GMT+10) It would be easy to write a standard, outraged review of The Shack. They portray God the Father and God the Spirit in human form, as females! They put words in God’s mouth that He never said! They substitute correct doctrine for mushy platitudes that sound like they came from Oprah! All those things are true, and they’re all problems, and those problems have been very thoroughly laid out elsewhere in reviews of William Paul Young’s best-selling 2008 book of the same title, so go there and...

The papacy is meant to unite the Church, not divide it.Almost four years into the papacy of Pope Francis, the division his teaching (or lack of teaching) is causing has reached a crisis point.Phil Lawler’s article (“This Disastrous Papacy“), published last night, deserves to be read and considered seriously. I, too, had a visceral reaction when I read Pope Francis’ homily last Friday.Now comes a report from the UK Times that the group of liberal cardinals who agitated for Cardinal Bergoglio to become pope are now convinced that he is leading the Church towards schism and he ought to...

In the Jewish tradition, there are three ways in which we are all tempted to sin: lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life. We see this understanding reflected in 1 John 2:16. The lust of the flesh represents the desires of our appetites (ie: gluttony and sexual pleasure). The lust of the eyes represents our desire for all we want (ie: greed and envy). The pride of life is our disordered desire to be greater than we are (ie: pride and vainglory). These are the temptations the world throws at all of us. Where...

Isaiah 55 New King James Version (NKJV) 1 “Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters; And you who have no money, Come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk Without money and without price. 2 Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And let your soul delight itself in abundance. 3 Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live; And I will make an everlasting covenant with you— The sure mercies of...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for: PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP/VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE and AMERICA: Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, and the Media. "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us." 1 John 5:14 Religion Forum threads labeled Prayer are closed to debate of any kind.

An Oregon couple who were forced to pay $135,000 after declining to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple had their first appearance before the Oregon Court of Appeals on Thursday, as they continue to fight back against the massive judgement. Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, are arguing that the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries — the state agency responsible for discrimination claims — violated their religious liberty, due process and free speech, after forcing the bakers to pay $135,000 to the lesbian couple at the center of the dispute. The Klein v....

ANAHEIM, California, March 3, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – A priest known for dissent from Catholic norms on sexuality and marriage peppered a talk last week with references that Church teaching is fluid and does not necessarily need to be followed. At the annual Los Angeles Religious Education Congress (LA REC), Father Bryan Massingale used sections of Pope Francis’ problematic Amoris Laetitia and other papal documents to validate statements saying conscience equates to Church teaching and Catholics shouldn’t be expected to live up to that teaching. “Conscience is taking a deeper, new self-understanding in our Catholic teaching,” he said. “There is...

“AMERICA PRAYER VIGIL ping!” To be added or dropped from this ping list, post or freepmail to stars & stripes forever. Lamentations 3:25 The Lord is wonderfully good to those who wait for Him, to those who seek Him.

Today, March 5, marks the fiftieth anniversary of “Musicam Sacram,” the last great document on this subject, published in 1967 with the joint signature of Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro, archbishop of Bologna and president of the “Consilium” for the implementation of the conciliar constitution on the liturgy, and of Cardinal Arcadio Larraona, prefect of the sacred congregation of rites, with the approval of Paul VI.And now the declaration presented below, published today all over the world, sketches an overview of the current state of sacred music in the Catholic Church half a century after that document, an overview that is inevitably...

* Instead of fighting to save what is savable, French opinion-makers are already writing the terms of surrender. * By hybridizing cultures and rejecting Christianity, France will soon end up not even teaching also Arabic, but only Arabic, and marking Ramadan instead of Easter.* Instead of wasting their time trying to organize an "Islam of France", French political leaders, opinion makers and think tanks should look for ways to counter the creeping Islamization of their country. Otherwise, we may soon be seeing not only a "Grand Imam de France", but also lashes and stonings on the Champs Élysées.Two years ago,...

A Fred’s store in Murfreesboro, TN is getting a lot of attention due to a religious display ahead of Easter. The display, pictured below has the three crosses told of in the New Testament account of the crucifixion of Jesus. According to all four gospels, Jesus was brought to the “Place of a Skull” and crucified between two thieves, with the charge of claiming to be “King of the Jews,” and the soldiers divided his clothes before he bowed his head and died. (Image at source)

Is The Shack a harmless work of Christian fiction—or a classic example of false teaching? When William P. Young's book The Shack first hit shelves 10 years ago, many pastors and church leaders praised it as a powerful story of redemption. More than 18 million copies have sold since, and The Shack movie is set to release this weekend. After taking a close look at the book in 2008, Dr. Michael Youssef was concerned that it might lead undiscerning leaders astray—so he devoted an entire sermon to addressing the book's theology. As a ministry dedicated to passionately proclaiming the Truth...