Free Republic

A Catholic high school in Georgia is facing a legal complaint from a former teacher whose contract was not renewed after it was discovered through Facebook that, contrary to Catholic teaching, “he plans to marry a man,” National Public Radio reports. The school, Mount de Sales Academy in Macon, reportedly “released a statement saying they have to consider an employee’s ability to teach Catholic doctrine when making staff decisions.” Former teacher Flint Dollar is reportedly “working to change” federal anti-discrimination laws which do not prohibit employers “from hiring or firing people on the basis of sexual orientation.” NPR reports: Since...

KISS star Gene Simmons says sports reporters hold morally upright athletes like Tim Tebow to a different standard that those who find trouble wherever they go. "It's interesting to me that media often picks on the good guys and lets the bad guys get a pass," says Simmons, the entrepreneurial rocker who recently expanded his empire to include a professional sports team.

The Church of England is set to vote on whether women should be allowed to enter its top ranks as bishops. […] Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby told the BBC that he hopes the vote will go through, saying “the votes, I think, are there.” …

July 14, 2014Memorial of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, Virgin    Reading 1 Is 1:10-17 Hear the word of the LORD,princes of Sodom!Listen to the instruction of our God,people of Gomorrah!What care I for the number of your sacrifices?says the LORD.I have had enough of whole-burnt ramsand fat of fatlings;In the blood of calves, lambs and goatsI find no pleasure. When you come in to visit me,who asks these things of you?Trample my courts no more!Bring no more worthless offerings;your incense is loathsome to me.New moon and sabbath, calling of assemblies,octaves with wickedness: these I cannot bear.Your new moons and festivals...

The Price of the Vision " In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord . . . —Isaiah 6:1 " Our soul’s personal history with God is often an account of the death of our heroes. Over and over again God has to remove our friends to put Himself in their place, and that is when we falter, fail, and become discouraged. Let me think about this personally— when the person died who represented for me all that God was, did I give up on everything in life? Did I become ill or disheartened? Or did...

July 13, 2014Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time    Reading 1 Is 55:10-11 Thus says the LORD:Just as from the heavensthe rain and snow come downand do not return theretill they have watered the earth,making it fertile and fruitful,giving seed to the one who sowsand bread to the one who eats,so shall my word bethat goes forth from my mouth;my word shall not return to me void,but shall do my will,achieving the end for which I sent it. Responsorial Psalm Ps 65:10, 11, 12-13, 14 R/ (Lk 8:8) The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.You...

Dozens of Rialto eighth-graders questioned whether the Holocaust occurred in essays written for an in-class assignment this spring. Rialto Unified School District administrators, besieged by criticism after the assignment became public in May, claimed at the time that none of the students who completed the assignment questioned or denied the Holocaust, but a survey of the students’ work by this news organization found numerous examples of students expressing doubt or flatly denying that the Holocaust occurred. :snip: “Students got high praise and grades for writing that the Holocaust was a hoax. I’m sick about that, I’m sick about that,” said...

The Spiritually Self-Seeking Church " . . . till we all come . . . to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . . —Ephesians 4:13 " Reconciliation means the restoring of the relationship between the entire human race and God, putting it back to what God designed it to be. This is what Jesus Christ did in redemption. The church ceases to be spiritual when it becomes self-seeking, only interested in the development of its own organization. The reconciliation of the human race according to His plan means realizing Him not only in...

Some Papal Quotes that somehow and in some way beyond my meager intellect are in continuity with each other, or something. First Quote Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441. ex cathedra (infallibly defined): “The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so...

July 12, 2014Saturday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time    Reading 1 Is 6:1-8 In the year King Uzziah died,I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne,with the train of his garment filling the temple.Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings:with two they veiled their faces,with two they veiled their feet,and with two they hovered aloft. They cried one to the other,“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!All the earth is filled with his glory!”At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shookand the house was filled with...

Speak to Your Mountains Today's Scripture “And Jesus answered them, Truly I say to you, if you have faith (a firm relying trust) and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, Be taken up and cast into the sea, it will be done.” (Matthew 21:21, AMP) Today's Word from Joel and Victoria We’ve all had seasons when the challenges of life feel overwhelming. During those times, it’s tempting to talk about how bad things are. Maybe you received a bad medical report,...

The Spiritually Vigorous Saint " . . . that I may know Him . . . —Philippians 3:10 " A saint is not to take the initiative toward self-realization, but toward knowing Jesus Christ. A spiritually vigorous saint never believes that his circumstances simply happen at random, nor does he ever think of his life as being divided into the secular and the sacred. He sees every situation in which he finds himself as the means of obtaining a greater knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he has an attitude of unrestrained abandon and total surrender about him. The Holy...

“Meanwhile, I am left with the Atheist on my hands,” Dorothy Sayers once penned to C.S. Lewis in a letter in which she sought some practical advice from the popular Oxford apologist. She went on to write, “I do not want him. I have no use for him. I have no missionary zeal at all.” While many Christians likely attempt to project a little more enthusiasm for evangelism, I’m not sure they do not, deep down, resonate with Sayers’ sentiment. With the relentless barrage of new atheist bravado over the last decade, believers are liable to grow weary in well-doing....

(Original title: "Well Done Phil" “It seems odd, that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what he has revealed to others.” – C. H. Spurgeon, Commenting and Commentaries (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1876), 1. “Tradition is the fruit of the Spirit’s teaching activity from the ages as God’s people have sought understanding of Scripture. It is not infallible, but neither is it negligible, and we impoverish ourselves if we disregard it.” – J.I. Packer, “Upholding the Unity of Scripture Today,” JETS 25 (1982): 414 “Although tradition does...

July 11, 2014Memorial of Saint Benedict, Abbot    Reading 1 Hos 14:2-10 Thus says the LORD:Return, O Israel, to the LORD, your God;you have collapsed through your guilt.Take with you words,and return to the LORD;Say to him, “Forgive all iniquity,and receive what is good, that we may renderas offerings the bullocks from our stalls.Assyria will not save us,nor shall we have horses to mount;We shall say no more, ‘Our god,’to the work of our hands;for in you the orphan finds compassion.”I will heal their defection, says the LORD,I will love them freely;for my wrath is turned away from them.I...

Being raised in a Protestant home, the Scriptures were (and in many ways still are) the end-all-be-all of the faith for me. However, there is a reason I am no longer a Protestant. This reason has many branches but all points back to one thing, context. Given the necessity of context, I find the whole idea of “Scripture Alone” horrifying. What it is: Sola Scriptura is the idea that Christianity ought to be based off of “Scripture Alone” (which is the English translation of “Sola Scriptura”), that is to say, it should be without ritual, or the teaching authority of...

Blessed John Paul II: Champion of Religious Freedom Most Reverend William E. Lori, S.T.D. Address at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast Washington, D.C. April 27, 2011Introduction“Ladies and gentlemen: On the threshold of a new millennium, we are witnessing an extraordinary global acceleration of that quest for freedom which is one of the great dynamics of human history. This phenomenon is not limited to any one part of the world; nor is it the expression of any single culture. Men and women throughout the world, even when threatened by violence, have taken the risk of freedom, asking to be given a...

Words Matter Today's Scripture “The Sovereign LORD has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.” (Isaiah 50:4, NIV) Today's Word from Joel and Victoria Your words are important. They matter. Even more so, God’s Word matters. When your words become His Words, that’s when you’ll see an explosion of His goodness, favor and abundance in your everyday life! Not only that, there are people God has placed in your life who are waiting for you to speak God’s...

The Spiritually Lazy Saint " Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together . . . —Hebrews 10:24-25 " We are all capable of being spiritually lazy saints. We want to stay off the rough roads of life, and our primary objective is to secure a peaceful retreat from the world. The ideas put forth in these verses from Hebrews 10 are those of stirring up one another and of keeping ourselves together. Both of these require initiative— our willingness to take the first step toward...

The Bible doesn’t mention anything about contraception or abortion, but this hasn’t stopped 89 million American evangelicals acting as if “thou shall not consume a pregnancy pill” were one of the Ten Commandments. For the benefit of my mostly American audience, it’s not. In fact, the first four of the Hebrew God’s Decalogue amount to nothing more than “maniacal throat clearing,” to steal a phrase from the late Christopher Hitchens. The decision of the five conservative justices to rule in favor of Hobby Lobby, thus granting religious personhood to 90 percent of U.S. corporations, which means that certain for-profit companies...