Free Republic

It's one of the most striking details in Texas State Senator Wendy Davis's life uncovered by Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater: in 2005, Davis, apparently eager to advance her career, relinquished custody of not just her child with her second husband, Jeffry Davis, but also her first child from another marriage. "It's not a good time for me right now” Davis said at the time, explaining her decision, according to Jeffry Davis. Wendy Davis's first daughter Amber, born during her first marriage to Frank Underwood, was 23 at the time – an adult. Her daughter with Jeffry, Dru, was...

What if you had to pay for justice? What if you couldn't afford it? Would you be left with lawlessness, clutched in the grip of oppression? The makers of the independent documentary film Divorce Corp. seem to think so, as they charge the family court system with being "a dark corner of the judicial system where fiefdoms and tyrants still thrive..." First-time writer and director Joseph Sorge experienced the complexities of the family law system -- observing the injustices practiced in the family courts. Through his research he discovered that divorce affects nearly 50 percent of American households and 41...

With invitations warning guests to ‘EBYC’ — Eat Before You Come — and rumours they’ll be dancing to star turns from Beyonce and her rapper husband Jay Z, it won’t be your usual White House knees-up. Michelle Obama was 50 yesterday and President Barack Obama will be feting his redoubtable First Lady tonight with a party that will give them the chance to let their hair down and forget their troubles for a few hours. The email inviting guests to the ‘snacks & sips & dancing & dessert’ advised them to wear comfortable shoes and practise their dance moves. Purse-lipped...

The Enquirer has earned a measure of respectability in Washington with its reporting of political scandals - most notably its exposure of the double life of John Edwards, a former senator and once a Democratic presidential contender. Yet its so-called bombshell Obama report was based on nothing more substantial than the vague allegations of an unnamed "Oval Office insider" who claimed the first couple "are now sleeping in separate White House bedrooms" - tame stuff compared with the adventures of the president's French counterpart Francois Hollande.

The leader of the German bishops' conference has defended a plan by the prelates to offer Communion to divorced Catholics, saying he feels "strengthened" by Pope Francis on the matter despite opposition from the Vatican's highest doctrinal official. Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, chairman of the German Episcopal Conference, says that in reflecting on the opposition to the plan from Archbishop Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he remembers that "a prefect is not the pope." "As President of the Bishops' Conference I have, in recent years, after our spring and autumn meeting, traveled to Rome...

The Catholic Church’s view of marriage July 31, 2012 by Ronald Ayers The Catholic Church views marriage as not merely a necessary union in order to create more humans, but in fact as a holy covenant between a man and a woman which mirrors the relationship of Christ and His Church. The Catholic  Church’s views marriage as permanent and only between a man and a woman, and divorce as an abomination. The importance of the teaching & Scriptural supportMany people do not view marriage as essential or even important; it is viewed as a means to avoid sexual sin and provide...

I have proposed before on this blog that we may be coming to a point where we should consider dropping our use of the word marriage. It  is a simple fact that word “marriage” as we have traditionally known it is being redefined in our times. To many in the secular world the word no longer means what it once did and when the Church uses the word marriage we clearly do not mean what the New York Legislature or an increasing number of states mean.The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines Marriage in the following way: The matrimonial covenant,...

It would seem that figuring the divorce rate would be a rather simple thing. But like most sociological phenomena, there are many complicating factors (especially today when even simple definitions are breaking down). But however you measure divorce, it would seem that practicing Catholics fare far finer than any other group, believer or non-believer.I recently read a CARA (Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate) study and would like to share a few thoughts from it. The fuller commentary by Mark Gray is over at the CARA blog here: Divorce Still Less Likely Among CatholicsFirst, the question arises as to...

'...with his public approval rating plummeting after  the disastrous roll­out of his 'Obamacare' health plan...  now he’s walked smack into the worst marital crisis of his life' Reports in the tabloid National Enquirer (don't laugh- they broke the John Edwards story when the candidate himself dismissed it as 'made-up' and most everybody else thought it too crazy to be true) have President Obama and his beard wife basically separated and no longer sharing the presidential bed these days. With the last straw being his flirting with the blondie Danish PM at Nelson Mandela's wake, 'inside sources' also had her locking him...

A reader sent the following.  Cardinal Meisner of Cologne gave an interview to Deutschlandrundfunk. You might be interested in this interview with Cardinal Meisner:In his third answer, he says the following (it’s my translation in English, probably very bad):“At my last meeting with Pope Francis, I had the opportunity to talk very open to him about a lot of things. And I told him that some questions remain unanswered in his style of spreading the gospel through interviews and short speeches, questions which need some extended explanation for people who are not so involved. The pope looked at me “with big eyes” and asked me to...

<p>State police have charged a western Pennsylvania woman with putting child pornography on a computer in an unsuccessful effort to frame her estranged husband.</p> <p>Online court records don't list an attorney for 42-year-old Meri Jane Woods, of Cherry Hill Township, who also doesn't have a listed phone.</p>

Despite a recent strongly worded clarification from Rome, confusion is continuing to be stirred up over the Catholic Church’s practice of refusing Communion to those who are divorced and remarried. A prominent curial cardinal, and favorite of Pope Francis, has defied the Vatican’s doctrinal office, saying that he expects a change. Cardinal Walter Kasper has said bluntly, and in direct opposition to the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), that the rules will shortly be changed to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to be admitted to Holy Communion.

Another shooting, another son of divorce. From Adam Lanza, who killed 26 children and adults a year ago at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Conn., to Karl Pierson, who shot a teenage girl and killed himself this past Friday at Arapahoe High in Centennial, Colo., one common and largely unremarked thread tying together most of the school shooters that have struck the nation in the last year is that they came from homes marked by divorce or an absent father. From shootings at MIT (i.e., the Tsarnaev brothers) to the University of Central Florida to the Ronald E. McNair Discovery...

The Church strongly opposes contraception, in keeping with the historical position of Christianity. Openness to procreating life is one of the defining characteristics of marriage, which is primarily what makes homosexual "marriage" impossible. The Church also upholds the life-long commitment that is marriage. Contrast the Church's beautiful teachings on all of this against the positions of Protestantism -- those of Anglicanism, in particular. Anglicans once agreed with the Church on these subjects, up until the 1930 Lambeth Conference that approved contraception in some cases (which, of course, had a snowball effect). Here's the 15th resolution from the Conference: "Where there...

<p>Have you had to ask Google “Is my husband gay?” recently? If so, a new opinion piece in this weekend’s New York Times by Seth Stephens-Davidovitz says you may be living in a state that’s less tolerant to LGBT people. Also, you’ve probably never seen any television show created by Ryan Murphy (that’s not from the study: that’s just this blogger’s guess).</p>

CHELSEA, MICH. — Kristi and Michael Burns have a lot in common. They love crossword puzzles, football, going to museums and reading five or six books at a time. They describe themselves as mild-mannered introverts who suffer from an array of chronic medical problems. The two share similar marital résumés, too. On their wedding day in 2011, the groom was 43 years old and the bride 39, yet it was marriage No. 3 for both. Today, their blended family is a sprawling, sometimes uneasy ensemble of two sharp-eyed sons from her two previous husbands, a daughter and son from his...

Saudi man divorces wife over cigarette found in her bag Husband insists on parting ways after finding cigarette inside wife’s bag Manama: A husband divorced his wife just three months after their marriage after he found a cigarette inside her bag. A relative of the wife said that her husband became furious after he discovered the cigarette and decided to divorce her despite her pleas and her claims that she did not smoke and that the cigarette was not hers, Saudi daily Okaz reported on Sunday from the southern city of Jizan. The husband has insisted on the divorce and...

I have a faded sticker on the back of my car that reads: I (heart) Scotland. I have a feeling it was stuck there by some fellows from Strathclyde police when they came down to help with the Notting Hill carnival, and I keep it there because it reflects my general feelings. I (heart) Scotland in the way that so many of us Sassenachs do: you know, fabulous place, lovely people, gorgeous purple moors, great white beaches and an incomparable contribution to Western thought and civilisation, from Adam Smith to Andrew Neil. I (heart) Scotland so much that I once...

Media baron Rupert Murdoch and his soon-to-be-ex-wife said they were parting with "mutual respect" Wednesday after telling a judge they had reached a divorce deal. The chairman of News Corp. and 21st Century Fox and his wife of 14 years, Wendi Deng Murdoch, shook hands and briefly hugged after a brief proceeding in a Manhattan court.

<p>A Pennsylvania woman is speaking out against a judge who ordered her to stop breastfeeding her 10-month-old daughter.</p> <p>Jessica Moser is in the midst of a custody battle with her daughter Jasmine’s father and the Northampton County resident told local TV station WFMZ that two weeks ago a judge told her to stop nursing her daughter so the girl could spend two days a week at her father’s house.</p>