Free Republic

Some decades ago the argument from authority was often invoked as we answered some question about the faith. It was often considered sufficient merely invoke the existence of a rule. And thus, to my nagging question, “Why should I have to go to mass?” my parents would often answer, “Because it’s a rule!” Other variations of the answer would be, “Because the Church says so,” or, “Because it’s in the Ten Commandments.”Never mind that there might actually be reasons that there was a rule, or a commandment. It was considered enough in those old days simply to say, “It is...

Occupy LA Sues Over Mass DetentionsA lawsuit was filed by Occupy protesters whose demonstration at City Hall last year was broken up by police By Jason Kandel | Saturday, Dec 22, 2012 | Updated 9:02 PM PST Occupy Los Angeles demonstrators are suing the city for what they said was an unlawful “shock and awe” attack on their civil rights when 1,400 police officers swept nearly 300 demonstrators from City Hall grounds more than a year ago. **SNIP** Five people are suing in a class action lawsuit that represents 292 people detained by officers in the raid. Court documents said...

NEW YORK MILLS, N.Y. (WKTV) - Abraham Dickan, 79, of Utica, was angry with the employees at AT&T in New York Mills - anger that he had shown them many times before, but never in the way he did on Thursday, May 27. Shortly before 1 p.m. on that Thursday afternoon, Dickan walked into the cellular phone store on Commercial Drive, with a .357 magnum in his hand, and a list in his pocket containing the six names of the AT&T store employees to which he was holding such deep anger, and planned to kill as a result. "The suspect...

If we do not get anything out of the Mass or very little because we are blocking the benefits or Divine Grace by our head and our heart. BLOCKING WITH OUR HEAD: We block ourselves from receiving Grace derived from the Holy Mass due to our head. Some main reasons: we get distracted or preoccupied; we find fault in priestly celebrant, crying babies, Mass order, readings, and other people talking or disrespectful in Mass, and so on; we do not know the details of the Mass and their implications; we do not know why we celebrate Mass; we cannot hear...

BROOKFIELD, Wis. – Deputies in Wisconsin are responding to reports of a shooting near a major mall in suburban Milwaukee. WISN-TV reports a mass shooting has taken place near the Brookfield Square Mall. A spokeswoman for a local hospital says it has received four patients from the shooting, none critical, and expects three more. A woman who answered the phone at the Waukesha County Sheriff's Department on Sunday told The Associated Press that deputies are looking for an active shooter.

“The white man was a good shot and the bullet from his Winchester passed through the body of Yaholar.” This simple sentence, describing Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren’s great-grandfather, John Crawford, may finally put a bullet not simply in the long dead corpse of Native American Louis Yaholar, but also of Warren’s supposed family mythology. It comes from a turn-of-the-20th-century news story uncovered by William Jacobi at Legal Insurrection, who explains the genealogical connection between this random incident of White-on-Native-American violence and Warren’s campaign: // But, while Warren thinks she has found a safe place in her family lore,...

The Cult to Stop Gun Rights Violence (CSGV) is all giddy this morning by an article in Mother Jones regarding mass shootings. Note that they are very specific about mass shootings instead of mass killings because it would derail their whole argument. It is the typical drivel we are used to read from such rags, but what really ticked me was More broadly, attempts by armed civilians to stop shooting rampages are rare—and successful ones even rarer. And one wonders why is that civilian attempts to stop mass shooters are rare. Maybe because Mass shootings are also rare? And because...

Bioterrorism and All Hazards Emergency Preparedness Illinois 9/14/2012 Region VII Hazards Emergency Preparedness Committee Presents In The Midst of Chaos Printable brochure http://www.regionviiems.com/forms/Midst%20of%20Chaos%20Flyer.pdf

Featured Term (selected at random):MISSALE ROMANUM Apostolic Constitution of Pope Paul VI promulgating the new Roman Missal. The most significant features of this new missal are the addition of three new canons for the Mass, and the modification of the ritual. However, in each canon the Pope decreed that there be the same formula of consecration as follows: "We want the words to be pronounced thus: over the bread, "Accipite et manducate ex hoc omnes; Hoc est enim corpus meum, quod pro vobis tradetur'; and over the chalice, 'Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei, novi et aeterni testamenti, qui pro...

Lately, the music director at our church has been “tickling the ivories” during the Consecration. While at the piano, in the front of church (naturally), he has been playing tunes, based on hymms for sure, on the piano during the entire Consecration (with a well timed pause during the elevation). It’s not irreverent, but it does sound like “lounge music“. [As the non-liturgical instrument, the piano, nearly always does.] I find it annoying, and keep wondering when Tony Bennett comes on stage (I’m kidding, of course). [Put a brandy snifter with a dollar bill on the piano next time...

Scientists at Cern will announce that the elusive Higgs boson 'God Particle' has been found at a press conference next week, it is believed. Five leading theoretical physicists have been invited to the event on Wednesday - sparking speculation that the particle has been discovered. Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider are expected to say they are 99.99 per cent certain it has been found - which is known as 'four sigma' level.

Election 2012: The truth is catching up with Elizabeth "Speaks With Forked Tongue" Warren, the lily-white Harvard leftist who falsely ID'd herself as a Cherokee "woman of color." Teepee Of Lies Professor Paleface's tall tale is crumbling, as the Washington Post and other national media weigh in at last on the mushrooming scandal. Warren is the Democrat running against GOP Sen. Scott Brown to take back Ted Kennedy's old seat. A close Obama aide, she opened his Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, while portraying herself as a straight-shooting populist. Her dissembling over the past five weeks, when the racial-preference scandal first...

They sue a Green Party politician for his statements about Bishop Williamson and their attitude to Islam

CARLISLE -- Looking to hit the spot with a savory ice cream at Great Brook Farm State Park this week? You may be out of luck. The park's popular ice-cream stand was unexpectedly shut down by state officials over the weekend, after the stand's operator made building improvements at the site without getting permission first. Mark Duffy, who has operated the dairy farm at the state-owned park for 26 years and has a lease with the state to run the stand, said armed Environmental Police officers showed up at stand on Friday evening and stood guard throughout the weekend, turning...

Sorry for the vanity, but I would very much like some advice. My daughter, her fiance, and I went down and talked to the cathedral's music director about the music for her wedding. We chose what we all think are some very nice pieces, and I made sure to confirm that no...less preferred music...would be snuck in. We received an e-mail from him today listing the music we had chosen, but calling for the Mystery of Faith -- “We Proclaim” -- and the Amen to come from the Heritage Mass, which is, the best I was able to confirm, put...

Vatican City, Apr 15, 2012 / 04:12 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Holy Mass is more than a historical re-enactment, Pope Benedict XVI said on April 15, Divine Mercy Sunday. “Christian worship is not just a commemoration of past events, or even a particular mystical, interior experience, but essentially an encounter with the Risen Lord,” he told pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square prior to the midday recitation of the Regina Coeli prayer. For while Christ now “lives in the dimension of God, beyond space and time” he is still truly present in the midst of his creation as “he speaks to us...

Sunday Mass Readings of Fourth Sunday of Lent: http://new.usccb.org/bible/readings/031812-fourth-sunday-of-lent.cfm Dearest Lord: Your royal instrument said, “Whoever, therefore, among you belongs to any part of his people, let him go up (to rebuild Jerusalem) , and may his God be with him!" Oh, we were born in iniquities, our nature, which was once pristine, is now defiled with infidelity upon infidelity. It is perpetually true that the loss of charity and sanctifying beauty of our soul always come from infidelity, the refusal to worship the Lord our God. You have given so much grace and strong foundation, the Church, to guide...

Many Crisis readers are concerned at the reports that have begun to emerge regarding Fr. Marcel Guarnizo's denial of Communion to the alleged lesbian Barbara Johnson and the subsequent loss of his priestly faculties upon the authority of Cardinal Wuerl and communicated through a letter by Bishop Knestout, the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.. Crisis has been granted permission by Fr. Marcel Guarnizo to publish his account of the event in the hopes that this may help Catholics discern with charity what has happened. Fr. Marcel Guarnizo's Statement of March 14, 2012:I would like to begin by...

An ordinary Sunday morning. No parish assignment, no preaching. So I decide to go to a church that celebrates the Latin Mass every Sunday at 11 AM. I knew it would be in Latin, but I wasn’t sure if it would be the old Tridentine or new post-Vatican II Latin Mass. Clearly it was Tridentine! One reason to attend was to see if I could feel comfortable being the main celebration of the Latin Mass. The church was half-filled, older men and women, some families with children, and a number of people in their 30’s who followed with their missals....

A Novena of Latin Masses will be offered by the contemplative branch of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate at their Ritiro Mariano Friary in Amandola, Italy. The intention of the Novena is for THE SANCTIFICATION OF ALL FAMILIES (or persons) enrolled in the Novena. The nine Masses will begin at the Easter Vigil Mass on April 7th and will conclude on Divine Mercy Sunday April 15th...