Free Republic

Last Saturday I had the privilege of consecrating the restored church of Old St. Patrick. This is the oldest existing Catholic church in Kansas City. It will serve as the Oratory for the Latin Mass community which first began here under Bishop John Sullivan, and for many years has shared the parish of Our Lady of Sorrows. One of the beauties of the Traditional Latin High Mass that I celebrated is that it highlights a most profound aspect of the Mass, namely our participation with the Communion of Saints. The high altar, multiple candles, incense and Gregorian chant, collectively give...

Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph Kansas City, Oct 23, 2008 / 03:35 am (CNA).- With the presidential election only days away, Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph is calling his flock’s attention to the gravity of the choice they face and is urging them to join him in prayer. Bishop Finn describes the coming election in the opening lines of his column for The Catholic Key by quoting Deuteronomy: “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live.” Finn also turns to...

In his upcoming column for the Catholic Key, Bishop Finn responds to the question "Can a Catholic vote, in good conscience, for a candidate who supports abortion?" He says he is asked this question "over and over again", and this is his response. (You will remember, at the outset, that Bishop Finn co-authored this excellent pastoral letter along with Archbishop Naumann of Kansas City. Finn made it into AmP's '06 coverage: Everyone Loves Bishop Finn - "and with good reason!" I added at the time.) First of all, Finn explains that a politician who seeks the Catholic vote on...

We buried little Finn on Saturday. He’s near Harpers Ferry on a hill overlooking the Shenandoah River. Frank and Meg Roque with baby Finn Above him is a Marine guard, a casualty of the response to John Brown’s raid. (Why was Robert E. Lee, a Colonel of Army Engineers, commanding United States Marines?) Finally, I thought, our family ordeal is over. Finbar William was my grandson. Finn was anencephalic, a rare condition where the brain fails to properly form in the womb. It is always fatal. Of course, we had known for months, thanks to sonograms and other wonders of...

HELSINKI, March 19 (Reuters) - A Helsinki court on Friday acquitted Finland's first woman prime minister of charges related to the leaking of secret documents on Iraq, a scandal that forced her to step down a year ago. The court cleared Anneli Jaatteenmaki of a charge of inciting or assisting the breach of official secrets, a scandal dubbed "Iraq-gate" by Finnish media that shocked a nation known abroad for its lack of corruption and straight-laced politics. But it said Martti Manninen, a former presidential aide who fed hundreds of pages of information to Jaatteenmaki by fax, should pay 3,600 euros...

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finland's first woman Prime Minister Anneli Jaatteenmaki said she would resign on Wednesday evening after she used leaked secret state information on Iraq during March parliamentary elections. "If trust goes, it goes. I do not have that trust," Jaatteenmaki told a packed news conference at the parliament. "I did not ask for secret papers." The resignation caps a tumultuous two days triggered by the admission by a presidential aide that he leaked secret government information on Iraq to Jaatteenmaki during the election campaign. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Antti Kalliomaki will take Jaatteenmaki's place on a...

Marita Ertomaa Al-Yitayim has lived in Iraq for almost 45 years. She understands why nowadays the Iraqis sometimes long for the days of Saddam. By Anu Nousiainen Marita Ertomaa Al-Yitayim moved to Iraq in 1959. The country had undergone a revolution the previous summer: the Prime Minister and nearly the entire royal family had been shot, and the British-supported monarchy had been declared a republic. Ertomaa had met an Iraqi student in France while working as an au pair, and the couple had married. She was 30 years old, and the early days in her new home country were not...

The body of my son Vincent died today. His soul like a small child was taken into the arms of Christ Jesus the Lord.At the time of the death of his body our friend the Maronite priest was present and we all witnessed a great shining from within him. I held him as he breathed his last breath in this world, and I trust Our Lord Jesut Christ held him as he breathed his first breath in that land where there is no crying or grief but life everlasting. I thank all of you for your prayers. I beg your...

Drunk Finn crashes with 10 cars in eight minutes Tue Feb 17,12:29 PM ET HELSINKI (AFP) - A drunk Finnish driver was arrested after colliding with no fewer than 10 cars in the space of eight minutes before driving head-on into a wall, it was reported. When tested, the 40-year-old was found to have about 2.0 grammes of alcohol per litre in his blood, far in excess of the national drink-drive limit of 0.5 grammes, Finnish news agency FNB quoted police as saying. The man had not actually endangered anybody's life during his one-kilometre drive down a Helsinki street since...

The US is preparing to reshuffle top officials with responsibility for Afghanistan, expand the number of staff serving in the country, and award an additional $1bn (?870m, £620m) in assistance in a bid to re-energise its reconstruction effort, according to US and Afghan officials familiar with the plans. The policy shift, whose motto is "Accelerate Success", was a response by US State and Defense Department officials to a chorus of concern about the Afghan reconstruction process, officials said. The US government was eager to point to Afghanistan as a success story as it faced difficulty in getting the situation in...

HELSINKI, March 22 (Reuters) - A young man was caught trying to sneak explosives onto a domestic flight in Finland in the first such incident recorded in the Nordic country, police said on Friday. Security officers at an airport near Finland's eastern border with Russia found 200 grams (7 ounces) of explosives, a fuse and primers in the hand luggage of the 19-year-old suspect when he entered the security check on Thursday evening. "You can do serious damage with that (amount of explosive). If we think in terms of an aeroplane, it would become crumbs if this amount exploded," police...