Free Republic

Talk about being in the right place at the right time. David Harvie was at a regional meeting in Brooklyn of the Interparish Collaborative, a group of about 15 Catholic parishes in the tri-state area that minister to the LGBT community. He was seated next to Redemptorist Father Francis Gargani and talked about how there are so many beautiful church edifices that deserve to be seen. "I am a church architecture geek," Harvie said, mentioning, for example, the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark. Gargani, who resides at the Redemptorist Provincial House in Brooklyn, said he would bring...

The past few weeks have again seen a number of ordinations of new deacons and priests in the dioceses of northwestern Europe. 24 of them, in 13 (arch)dioceses, to be exact. In total, the area in question (the countries of Germany, the Netherlands, the Flemish part of Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland) is covered by 46 dioceses or similar circumscriptions, which means that 33 of them had no deacons (permanent or transitional) or priests to ordain on or around Vocations Sunday.Of the newly ordained, 6 are permanent deacons, 14 are transitional deacons and 4 are priests. At the...

Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, praised New Ways Ministry at the group’s annual conference in Chicago last week. “New Ways Ministry made me want to come here,” the bishop said, extolling the group for its outreach to people who are “really struggling” with Church teaching on the immorality of homosexual acts. The bishop’s appearance was a breakthrough for New Ways Ministry. The organization drew a caution from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1999, and in 2011 the US bishops’ conference issued its own statement that New Ways Ministry should not be regarded as a...

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of His Beatitude Gregory III Laham from pastoral office. The Spiritual leader of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church retired on Saturday after Pope Francis accepted his resignation.Melkite Greek Patriarch of Antioch, His Beatitude Gregory III Laham resigned from pastoral office on May 6.A letter from the Holy Father to the Patriarch-emeritus and all the Melkite bishops explains that His Beatitude presented his resignation during the course of a special audience with the Holy Father in February, and that the Holy Father has decided to accept the resignation.In the letter, Pope Francis thanks the 83...

The Greek Orthodox bishop, Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus, sent a lengthy letter to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in which he detailed some of the differences between Christianity and Islam and called on Erdogan to convert to Orthodoxy or face "eternal and unending" suffering in Hell, along with Muhammed and his followers. In the letter, Metropolitan Seraphim criticizes Islam and says Muhammed was a "false prophet" and that the Quran is not a "holy" or "sacred" book. He presents examples of where the Quran uses material from the Bible and other religious texts, and he also discusses some of the...

Venerable Solanus Casey. (CC 3.0). Servant of God Nguyen Van Thuan. Credit: Thuy Ho (CC 3.0). Vatican City, May 4, 2017 / 10:47 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis on Thursday approved decrees of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints advancing the causes for canonization of 12 individuals, including the American-born Capuchin Solanus Casey and the Vietnamese cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan.In his May 4 meeting with Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the congregation, Pope Francis recognized a miracle attributed to the intercession of Venerable Solanus Casey, which allows for his beatification.Venerable Casey was known for his great faith,...

The Pontiff criticised 'rigid' Christians who lack mercy, and those who are hypocritical and hide their sinfulnessPray that those who are too rigid learn to follow the way of Christ and his meekness, Pope Francis said on May 5 during his early morning Mass in the chapel of his residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae. With the day’s first reading dedicated to the conversion of Saul — who went from fiercely persecuting Christians to patiently evangelising all peoples — the Pope used St Paul’s life story as an example of an honest, idealistic person of faith, who had been “convinced” of...

The President of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation said the title creates more theological problems than it solvesArchbishop Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation, has said he does not agree with calling Benedict XVI “Pope Emeritus’. Speaking at a presentation of the book Il Papa del coraggio (the Pope of courage) by Italian journalist Mammo Muolo, the archbishop said the title “theologically creates more problems rather than solving them”. “I respect it, but I will not use it,” he added, saying he would wait for “another expression” to describe the former pontiff. In...

I received this email yesterday. The subject line, as you could guess, was “Compassion”:Matt, you call yourself a Christian but you have no compassion. The Jesus I believe in just wants people to be compassionate towards each other. We are not told to be judgmental to others because of who they love or what lifestyle they choose to have or what gender they identify as. Who are you to say what is wrong or right? We shouldn’t be focused on talking about “sin” or telling other people that they might be going to Hell. You have no right to say...

Pope Francis, the pontifex maximus, went to Cairo on the latest and perhaps most important mission of his four years as Bishop of Rome to try to “build bridges of peace, dialogue, fraternity, justice, and humanity.”Those were the very words he used in a video message to the people of Egypt just days before his brief, Friday-Saturday visit to the nation’s capital.The pope described Egypt as “the cradle of civilization… where God, benevolent and merciful, the almighty and one God, made his voice heard.” He said he was going to a “land where patriarchs and prophets lived” as a “friend”...

The Archdiocese of Boston has opened a new church. That news drew headline coverage, in a city that has become more accustomed to stories about church closings. To be perfectly honest, the news stories are a bit misleading. There have been a few new churches opened in Boston in the past 60 years, but they have been new buildings rather than new parishes: new churches that were constructed to replace buildings that had been destroyed by fire or by the wrecking ball. As a matter of fact, that’s also the case with the latest building, the church of Our Lady...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP/VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE and AMERICA: Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, and the Media. 1 John 5:14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. Religion Forum threads labeled Prayer are closed to debate of any kind. Please join us in prayer.

Prince, priest and missionary, Demetrius Gallitzin is known as the "Apostle of the Alleghenies." Born at The Hague, Holland in 1770, Demetrius Gallitzin was raised in one of the most illustrious families of Russia. His father, Prince Demetrius Gallitzin, was the Russian ambassador to Holland, having previously been the ambassador in France for 14 years. It was in France that his father became an intimate acquaintance of leading rationalists Diderot, Voltaire, and d’Alembert.While Gallitzin’s father was a nominally practicing Russian Orthodox, his mother had been baptized in the Roman Catholic Church and was originally from Prussia. However, they barely educated their son...

Fr. George William Rutler during a 2013 appearance on EWTN's "Bookmark" program (YouTube) Fr. George William Rutler is a well-known preacher and prolific author, having written hundreds of essays and over twenty books. A former Episcopalian pastor, he entered the Catholic Church in 1979, studied in Rome, and then was ordained to the priesthood in 1981. In addition to an honors degree from Dartmouth, Fr. Rutler has received advanced degrees from Johns Hopkins University, the Gregorian and Angelicum Universities in Rome, the University of Oxford, and others. He has also been the host of several programs on the Eternal Word...

The United Methodist Church’s highest court has ruled that the consecration of its first openly gay bishop violated church law, compounding a bitter rift over homosexuality that has brought the 13-million-member denomination to the brink of schism. In a 6-to-3 vote made public on Friday, the church’s Judicial Council found that a married lesbian bishop and those who consecrated her were in violation of their “commitment to abide by and uphold the church’s definition of marriage and stance on homosexuality.” Still, the court ruled that the bishop, Karen P. Oliveto of Denver, “remains in good standing” pending further proceedings, offering...

The Archdiocese of Boston has opened a new church. That news drew headline coverage, in a city that has become more accustomed to stories about church closings. To be perfectly honest, the news stories are a bit misleading. There have been a few new churches opened in Boston in the past 60 years, but they have been new buildings rather than new parishes: new churches that were constructed to replace buildings that had been destroyed by fire or by the wrecking ball. As a matter of fact, that’s also the case with the latest building, the church of Our Lady...

"Many refuse to face up to the Church's work of self-destruction"ROME (ChurchMilitant.com) - Prelates may fearlessly speak out on social justice issues like immigration and poverty only to fall silent on the real crisis of faith overwhelming the Church. During an April 18 interview with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), an international Catholic charity, Cdl. Robert Sarah made this point. "The Church is gravely mistaken as to the nature of the real crisis if she thinks that her essential mission is to offer solutions to all the political problems relating to justice, peace, poverty, the reception of migrants,...

ROME, Italy, April 28, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis spoke critically again of the faithful who have a strong embrace of Catholic doctrine, resorting to pejorative terms he has often used such as hypocritical and phariseeism. “You cannot be more restrictive than the Church herself,” he told, a lay association gathered Thursday morning at the Vatican, “nor more Papist than the Pope.” Addressing the Congress of the International Forum of Catholic Action in the Synod Hall, the pope told participants he wanted them to be out among the people and that there is a need for “active mercy.” The theme...

It can hardly be called a coincidence that as Pope Francis heads to Egypt, no doubt to promote "dialogue" with Islam, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has several days ago published a short letter to a Polish conference on his thought on Church-State relations, in which he echoes his thesis from his famous Regensberg address, that Islam and violence are inherently linked because of its detachment from reason itself. As Francis prepares to repeat his view to persecuted Egyptian Christians that "Muslim terrorism does not exist," and again that it is not "right to identify Islam with violence," Benedict does not...

Francis, a Dhimmi on the Chair of Peter Maureen Mullarkey April 26, 2017 Francis is on his way to Egypt, prompting George Neumayr to write: “The most liberal pope ever, of course, sees no irony in shilling for the most illiberal religion on Earth.” With that quotation, Robert Bové alerted me this morning—in what he termed “a mourning quote”—to Neumayr’s latest column in The American Spectator. Neumayr has a keen eye and an ear for cant—two qualities unwelcome among fainthearts and papal sycophants. He does not write for academics nor for readers who like to be addressed as if they...