Free Republic

Pope Francis has called for a rethink in the way the Catholic Church deals with the children of gay couples and divorced parents, warning against "administering a vaccine against faith". "On an educational level, gay unions raise challenges for us today which for us are sometimes difficult to understand," Francis said in a speech to the Catholic Union of Superiors General in November, extracts of which were published on Italian media websites on Saturday. "The number of children in schools whose parents have separated is very high," he said, adding that family make-ups were also changing.

Last week, The New York Times implicated Pope Benedict XVI in an alleged cover-up by accusing Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s deputy at the time, of stopping a canonical trial of a notrious child abuser-priest, Fr. Lawrence Murphy. Even though no decision was made by Cardinal Ratzinger himself, the implication is that he, as the ultimate authority on the question, was ultimately responsible in stopping this canonical trial. The Times's reporting was false. This petition seeks to correct the public record.

What was the most important news out of Iraq last week? That depends on what you consider ''important." Do you see the war against radical Islam and Ba'athist fascism as the most urgent conflict of our time? Do you believe that replacing tyranny with democratic self-government is ultimately the only antidote to the poison that has made the Middle East so dangerous and violent? If so, you'll have no trouble identifying the most significant development in Iraq last week: the landslide victory of the new Iraqi Constitution. The announcement on Oct. 25 that the first genuinely democratic national charter in...

If Michelle Kosinski's canoe had sprung a leak on NBC's "Today" show Friday, she didn't have much to worry about. In one of television's inadvertently funny moments, the NBC News correspondent was paddling in a canoe during a live report about flooding in Wayne, N.J. While she talked, two men walked between her and the camera _ making it apparent that the water where she was floating was barely ankle-deep. Matt Lauer struggled to keep a straight face, joking about the "holy men" who were walking on water. "Have you run aground yet?" Katie Couric asked. "Why walk when you...

For more than a week, the mainstream media have been beating up the Republican Party over an alleged "GOP talking points memo" that, they argue, proves the Republicans took up the Terri Schiavo case in hopes of political gain. We, on the other hand, have questioned repeatedly whether the memo was authored by Republicans at all, and have raised the possibility that it is a Democratic dirty trick. The best short summary of the arguments and evidence is my article in the Daily Standard. The Washington Post's media critic, Howard Kurtz, has now taken up the case in an article...

"If Walter Cronkite was around today," USA Today founder Al Neuharth proclaimed in a speech in South Dakota last week, "I think John Kerry would be President" because of "the trust the people in Middle America had in Cronkite, when he returned from Vietnam opposed to the war, public opposition soon followed." As recounted by the Daily Republic in Mitchell, South Dakota, in addition to boasting of the influence of Cronkite's bias, Neuharth "said he thought if McGovern had won the presidency in 1972, U.S. troops would have pulled out from Vietnam a lot sooner with a lot fewer casualties,...

Cheney changed his view on Iraq He said in '92 Saddam not worth U.S. casualties WASHINGTON -- In an assessment that differs sharply with his view today, Dick Cheney more than a decade ago defended the decision to leave Saddam Hussein in power after the first Gulf War, telling a Seattle audience that capturing Saddam wouldn't be worth additional U.S. casualties or the risk of getting "bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq." Cheney, who was secretary of defense at the time, made the observations answering audience questions after a speech to the Discovery...

BOSTON, United States (AFP) - The Boston Globe newspaper apologised for running a photograph of graphic images purported to show US soldiers raping Iraqi women. An editor's note said the photograph was "overly graphic" and acknowledged that the purported abuse portrayed had not been authenticated. "Although the photograph was reduced in size between editions to obscure visibility of the images on display, at no time did the photograph meet Globe standards," the note said. In earlier editions, the photograph -- portraying Boston city councilor Chuck Turner and activist Sadiki Kambon showing the purported rape images to reporters --was large enough...

<p>Residential heating costs are expected to soar up to 43 percent this winter as a result of the sharp rise in world oil prices caused by the cutoff of Venezuelan supplies and a looming conflict with Iraq.</p> <p>The jump in costs for heating oil, natural gas and electricity for homes projected for the November-April period by the Energy Information Administration appears already to have helped stoke a drop in consumer confidence last month and one of the worst Christmas selling seasons in decades.</p>

What really happened at No Gun Ri? An Army major says the Associated Press' Pulitzer-winning story of American soldiers massacring Korean civilians is grossly exaggerated and dishonest. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Judith Greer June 3, 2002 | A few months before Robert Bateman's book "No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident" came out, his editor at Stackpole Books, Col. Edward Skender, received an incendiary letter from Charles Hanley. Hanley was the senior Associated Press writer on the Pulitzer Prize-winning story detailing an apparent massacre of hundreds of...