Free Republic

Gerry Moniz didn't hesitate when asked what she thinks of the nationally publicized dispute between Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin and Patrick Kennedy over whether the congressman should refrain from taking Communion given his support for abortion rights. "I think Patrick Kennedy is wrong," Moniz, 56, said when asked to comment on Monday at an East Providence shopping plaza. A Catholic from West Greenwich, she added, "If he doesn't want to be Catholic, he should go to another church. The rules of the Catholic Church are, "We don't approve of abortion.' And he doesn't like that." At St. Francis Chapel...

Lutherans to Observe World AIDS Day Dec. 1 WASHINGTON (ELCA) -- Every nine and a half minutes a person in the United States becomes infected with HIV, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta. Globally, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS estimates the number of people infected with the virus is 33 million. On the weekend before or after World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) are invited to participate in a worship service, event or advocacy activity, and to remember and demonstrate support for people living with and...

Thanksgiving is coming! For most people, despite what the media try to tell us, the day is just that – a day to give thanks to God for all of the blessings we have enjoyed over the past year. Every year Thanksgiving is tough on some people who are facing tough times and this year that may be especially true with many Americans separated by war, some who grieve for the loss of loved ones because of that war, others without jobs and always for those who are alone. Most of us will at least offer a prayer for our...

In the past five years - before our very eyes - we have seen the nearly complete erosion and virtual extinction of conservative policies and programs in US politics. It seems that The United States is increasingly becoming more like a secular socialist State than the Representative Republic of "In God We Trust" that it was founded upon. Our Judean-Christian heritage, morality and values do not dominate our culture and society as they once did. Another reality is that many have never known any other kind of society than what presently exists. Accountability, responsibility and virtue are “hisses and by-words”...

At the bustling Church by the Glades in Coral Springs, pastor David Hughes usually preaches the gospel, the good news. But Sunday, the news was bad. ``There is brokenness, anger and a lot of hurt. This is an ugly story,'' Hughes told a sanctuary packed with several hundred worshipers for the 11:15 a.m. service. The story broke Saturday when Coral Springs police arrested one of the church's youth pastors, Russell Dion Lewis, 28, and charged him with custodial battery and 10 counts of lewd and lascivious molestation. Police said Lewis molested a 14-year-old girl and tried to rape her. Investigators...

Homosexual behavior has been successfully marketed as a "rights" issue. For instance, if you dare to oppose homosexual marriage, even though the vast majority of Americans do and have demonstrated in referendum after referendum, those in the public eye run the risk of vilification and ostracism for articulating such positions. On Friday, more than 150 Christian leaders, most of them conservative evangelicals and traditionalist Roman Catholics, issued a joint declaration reaffirming their opposition to homosexual marriage on the basis of protecting religious freedom. While I agree that government's granting of special "rights" based on aberrant sexual behavior is a religious...

The outcome of the health care reform legislation in the House demonstrates that while the Republicans don't have the votes to stop it, the Catholic Church has the votes to pass it. Could the same thing happen in the Senate? On Nov. 7, Catholic lobbyists working for the church's bishops finalized a deal with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. An anti-abortion amendment by Rep. Bart Stupak, a Catholic Democrat, was offered and passed. The bishops then came down officially in favor of a bureaucratic plan that could spell the end to freedom of choice in health care. The turn of events...

As Barack Hussein ObamaHussein Obama, Marxist Muslim, continues to gather about him anti-Christian cohorts, particularly as czars in his shadow government, Christians do what Jesus told them to do.

Bishop Tobin has released a response to Congessman Kennedy's earlier statements on not being allowed communion because of his position on abortion. Statement of Bishop Thomas Tobin in Response to Congressman Patrick Kennedy's Published Interview of November 22, 2009 Bishop Tobin says: I am disappointed and really surprised that Congressman Patrick Kennedy has chosen to reopen the public discussion about his practice of the faith and his reception of Holy Communion. This comes almost two weeks after the Congressman indicated to local media that he would no longer comment publicly on his faith or his relationship with the Catholic Church....

The Roman Catholic bishop of Rhode Island says he asked Rep. Patrick Kennedy to stop receiving Holy Communion in 2007 because of the lawmaker's stand on what he called moral issues. Kennedy told The Providence Journal in a story published Sunday that Bishop Thomas Tobin "instructed" him not to receive Communion because of his abortion rights stance. Kennedy said diocesan priests have been told not to give him Communion, but he did not explain how he knew that. Tobin said in a statement Sunday that he "has never addressed matters relative to public officials receiving Holy Communion with pastors of...

Hurt by the recession and decisions by some Lutheran congregations to withhold their support, the Chicago-based Evangelical Lutheran Church in America acted last Sunday to reduce its budget by 10 percent and eliminate more than 40 full-time positions. Many Lutheran congregations, including some in Rowan County, have redirected their mission support to the ELCA in protest of the national organization's recent vote to allow gays and lesbians to serve as clergy. In October, about 450 Lutherans met at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Rowan County to discuss the ELCA's change in ministry policies. Those assembled approved a resolution to form...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman's support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.

Washington – The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, today responded to the “Manhattan Declaration” produced and released by 145 evangelical, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders indicating that they will not cooperate with laws that conflict with their beliefs, including those recognizing same-sex couples. The document also references the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) as a threat to religious liberty. Yet ENDA – which prohibits workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity – broadly exempts religious organizations. The declaration also argues that religious groups that receive public funds...

.....A closer look at Belgium, the laboratory of Europe, shows, however, that the country lacks more than patriotism. It also lacks democracy, respect for the rule of law, and political morality..... ....I am not sure what happened next, however. Maybe word had reached the leadership of the Christian Democrat Party that Herman, a brilliant economist and intellectual, was considering leaving politics; perhaps they made him an offer he could not refuse........ Our paths crossed at intervals until 1990, when the Belgian Parliament voted an extremely liberal abortion bill. The Belgian King Baudouin (1930-1993), a devout Catholic who suffered from the...

Conservatives shouldn’t just allow same-sex marriage. They should insist on it. The conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks made that argument in a 2003 column, and the liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. recalled his words when he was in Providence on Nov. 8 to speak at the Central Congregational Church. Brooks’ argument is worth revisiting now that Governor Carcieri, a conservative Republican and Catholic who opposes same-sex marriage, has vetoed a bill that would give domestic partners the right to claim the bodies of — and make funeral arrangements for — their loved ones. The bill passed...

My friends, I ran into Sarah Palin a week or so ago. Well, not the Sarah Palin — and not comedian Tina Fey, either. Temporarily away from my mission work and visiting old friends at an Irish parish, I was enjoying the (rare) sunshine after Mass, greeting parishioners as they left church, when I noticed a young mother pushing her daughter in a baby carriage. Her child — like all children — was radiant to me, with a shock of orange hair and a smile of beautiful wonderment at just about everything. Her head rolled back and forth as if...

When I was in 6th grade I got in trouble for cussing.  In an effort to clean up my language, I asked my teacher what the worst thing was you could call someone.  "Repulsive," he replied. I have always remembered that word, but have used it sparingly.  What I am about to report is, indeed, repulsive.  Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, released a statement yesterday morning -- "Gay Activists Bully DC Priests."  The instrument being used to bully is a Web site, ChurchOuting.org, which encourages people to report any priest, gay or straight, who may be "romantically involved," but...

Sign The Declaration! Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family. We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are: --the sanctity of human life --the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife --the rights...

Pontius Pilate would feel very much at home in our culture. His cynical question — “What is truth?” (Jn 18:38) — captures the prevailing mindset of our day. It provides a three-word summary of relativism — the view that objective truth does not exist, that there is not objective “right” or “wrong” about human behavior. Relativism refuses to limit or define human behavior. All is relative and depends on the situation, the culture, the person, etc.Although often depicted as a courageous rebellion against forces of intolerance and persecution, relativism is really cowardice. Because truth requires something of us. Pontius Pilate...

Prior to the opening of formal conversations between officials of the Holy See and leaders of the Lefebvrist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), which began on Oct. 26, the mainstream media frequently misrepresented these discussions as a negotiation aimed at achieving a compromise that both sides can live with. That was to be expected from reporters and commentators for whom everything is politics and everything is thus negotiable. Alas, similar misrepresentations came from “Vatican insiders” who suggested that the teaching of the Second Vatican Council was under joint review by the Holy See and the SSPX, which only made...

www.catholicnewsagency.com USCCB: Senate health care bill 'morally unacceptable' Washington D.C., Nov 20, 2009 / 08:02 pm (CNA).- As the Senate prepares for the discussion of its health care reform bill this weekend, several bishops have sent the Senators a letter on behalf of the USCCB, calling the current version of the health care bill both “a huge disappointment” and “morally unacceptable.”The letter, signed by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Chairman of the Committee on Pro-life Activities; Bishop William F. Murphy Diocese of Rockville Centre, Chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development and  Bishop John Wester, Chairman of the...

"How in the world would I sum up my life except to say 'God, at the end of the day I have really nothing but my faith, my reliance on You Lord…'" ...

HINSDALE, Ill. — Sister Donna Quinn referred to herself as a “peacekeeper” when she escorted women into a Chicago-area abortion business to shield them from pro-life advocates.But leaders of her Sinsinawa Dominican community, saying they fully support Church teaching on abortion, have told her that her actions violated her profession as a religious sister. Now, Sister Donna may be facing further discipline as the bishops of Madison, Wis., and Joliet, Ill., and the archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Francis George, consider whether she formally cooperated with abortions by volunteering at the business. Under canon law, the penalty for formal cooperation with...

Minneapolis, Minn., Nov 20, 2009 / 03:54 am (CNA).- Following the decision of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to allow sexually active homosexual clergy, an objecting Lutheran group has begun to form a new church body for those Lutherans who want to “remain faithful to the Orthodox Christianity of the last 2,000 years.”Lutheran CORE leaders on Wednesday said their working group would immediately begin drafting a constitution and taking other steps to form the new denomination. They hope to launch the denomination by next August.Rev. Paull Spring, a retired Pennsylvania ELCA bishop and chairman of Lutheran CORE said...

Lutherans Concerned / North America (LC/NA) responded with sadness to yesterday's announcement proposing a new church body to be formed by and for former ELCA members and congregations opposing the full inclusion of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities in the life of the church. In August 2009, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, by a 2/3 majority, passed a social statement on sexuality. The statement, "Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust" described as faithful four positions on beliefs within the denomination on the inclusion of people in same-gender relationships. The four positions ranged from the view that same-gender...

www.catholicnewsagency.com Unprecedented coalition of religious leaders call Americans to stand for sanctity of life, marriage, and religious freedom Washington D.C., Nov 20, 2009 / 06:21 am (CNA).- An unprecedented coalition of prominent Christian clergy, ministry leaders, and scholars has crafted a 4,700-word declaration addressing the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty. The declaration issues “a clarion call” to Christians to adhere to their convictions and informs civil authorities that the signers will not “under any circumstance” abandon their Christian consciences. The statement,  called “the Manhattan Declaration,” has been signed by more than 125 Catholic, Evangelical Christian, and Orthodox...

When Bill O’Reilly asked Sally Quinn questions regarding Sarah Palin’s faith on The Factor, Quinn was all over the answer board.

I was recently delighted to learn that Ave Maria University was the recipient of a Four Million dollar ($4,000,000.) gift from a man named Tom Golisano. The first words which came into my heart upon reading the news were from St. Paul, “Rejoice with those who rejoice…” (Romans 12:15) I am convinced that the most important work being done in this new missionary age is the preparation of the next generation of faithful, well educated young Catholic men and women, prepared to respond to the call to every Christian vocation and to participate in the mission of the Church. It...

Hosanna! Lutheran, the Lakeville mega-church that made headlines this month with its pending decision to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, isn’t alone. Community of Hope in Rosemount, which was launched in 2002 by four local congregations, ended its ELCA affiliation on Nov. 1. According to the St. Paul Area Synod of the ELCA, those were the only of its churches to pull out as of Nov. 12. But the action that preceded the defections – the ELCA’s August decision to allow ordination of gay clergy people living in committed relationships – continues to stir debate. “Our church is...

The White House has a curse upon it. It is real. It is powerful. It will not go away until a particular act takes place. The curse came upon the White when President George W. Bush placed the Koran with great aplomb in the White House library.

ELCA Council Approves Charter, Hears Secretary's Report, Elects Leaders 09-263-JB CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) approved a charter for a comprehensive study of the ELCA and its future mission. A task force will conduct the study with the goal of bringing a report with recommendations to the 2011 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Orlando. The council is the ELCA's board of directors and serves as the legislative authority of the church between churchwide assemblies. It met here Nov. 13-15. The project, "Living into the Future Together: Renewing the Ecology of the Evangelical...

With its annual collection coming up this Sunday, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development is fighting back against the organized effort encouraging Catholics to ignore the collection.   CCHD's woes began last year, when its grants to ACORN were terminated following the allegations of voter fraud and embezzlement brought against them during the 2008 election. Since then, a growing number of other CCHD grantees have been found to advocate either abortion or same-sex marriage -- or both. Rob Gaspar of Bellarmine Veritas Ministry, Stephanie Block of the Catholic Media Coalition, American Life League, and Human Life International have published...

Last Sunday, as part of my commentator duties at the close of Mass, I read an announcement reminding parishioners of this SundayÂ’s collection for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). Moments later, I left church with a copy of Our Sunday Visitor in hand. This Catholic weekly newspaper carried an article warning that a number of CCHD grants funded organizations that act against Catholic teaching. The CCHD have given millions of dollars to groups that participate in such things as abortions, promotion of homosexual marriages and some recipients were involved in cases of alleged embezzlement and voter registration fraud.What...

Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl Washington D.C., Nov 18, 2009 / 06:32 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Washington’s announcement that services would have to be cut if the District of Columbia City Council recognizes same-sex “marriage” without religious exemptions was not a “threat” or “ultimatum” but a simple recognition of the policy’s consequences, the Archbishop of Washington said in an opinion essay in the Washington Post.Without strong religious freedom protections, the proposed legislation would force the Church to choose between expressing Christ’s love in service to others and defending the nature of marriage, Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl wrote in his...

M-O'M DISCLOSURE CAUTION: CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS IN YOUR ARTICLE AT YOUR OWN RISK.A new Web site hopes to use the oldest trick in the book to combat the Catholic Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage: A good, old-fashioned forced outing!At ChurchOuting.org, you’re invited to scroll through a list of every Achbishop, Bishop, and Reverend in the Archdiocese of Washington, zero in on one you know is gay, and then submit your “detailed account of how you know the priest in question is being hypocritical through his silence.” (Alternately, get at them via Twitter or Facebook).ChurchOuting.Org is the brainchild...

Sarah Palin, if running for President, surely will divide this Republic all the more into two definite segments-fiercely opposing segments. Already we have two primary segments: believers and secularists. Believers are those moralists who hold to the God of the Bible, particularly the New Testament God in Christ. It may be via Roman Catholicism, evangelical Protestantism, Orthodox Christians, or non-church members who hold to biblical ethics. Secularists are exampled by Joy Behar on The View. She is with conviction a non-believer who holds that this life is all there is. No deity. No hereafter. No judgment accountability. This is it;...

A Reality Check from the Discipleship Front November 19th, 2009 by Archbishop Charles Chaput What the hell don’t you understand about the term separation of Church and State. Keep your evil hands off of our Health Care Bill. Mind your own business. We don’t care about your beliefs, and if you want to meddle in our affairs, we will be coming for you. If that’s how you want to play, we will come for your pedophile priests, your ill-gotten money you stole for decades. The Catholic church is just another organized crime syndicate that should be put out of business....

NEW BRIGHTON, Minn. – The split over gay clergy within the country's largest Lutheran denomination has prompted a conservative faction to begin forming a new Lutheran church body separate from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Leaders of Lutheran CORE said Wednesday that a working group would immediately begin drafting a constitution and taking other steps to form the denomination, with hopes to have it off the ground by next August. "There are many people within the ELCA who are very unhappy with what has happened," said the Rev. Paull Spring, chairman of Lutheran CORE and a retired ELCA bishop...

Too many political conservatives with biblical values as their base have inadvertently turned their zeal into a religion without realizing it. What happens when political conservatives turn their social activism into a religion?

Baltimore, Md., Nov 18, 2009 / 03:41 pm (CNA).- The U.S. bishops have approved a document regarding the moral use of reproductive technologies for couples struggling with infertility yet desire to have children. The document, titled “Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology,” examines the procreative and unitive aspects of marriage which lead to the creation of children, and analyzes how technology can be used to assist infertile couples.The document  begins by declaring that “in marriage, man and woman are united to each other, body and soul, through a loving physical union.” This union, they explain, is essential to...

Baltimore, Md., Nov 18, 2009 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- On the final day of their annual meeting, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops published a  pastoral letter on marriage titled “Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan,” which restates and clarifies the Church's teachings to empower those seeking to defend marriage against the cultural currents of cohabitation, contraception, divorce and same sex unions. “Thank goodness this is out there, clearly stated, with ample documentation and very reasonably put forward,” Baltimore's Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien told the Baltimore Sun. “I think it's going to be a very positive...

font size="2" color="black">Geneva (ENI). Church of Sweden Archbishop Anders Wejryd triggered outrage from a Lutheran church in Africa when he ordained an openly lesbian woman as bishop of Stockholm on 8 November. The archbishop asserts, however, that neither his church nor his country supports promiscuity, but that Sweden is a "surprisingly moral society". He said the Swedish church encourages faithful and stable relationships between people whatever their sexual orientation may be.The Church of Sweden issued a press statement when 55-year-old Eva Brunne was consecrated as the bishop of Stockholm in a ceremony at Uppsala cathedral, the mother church of the...

BALTIMORE — Fallout continues from the summer controversy over the University of Notre Dame awarding an honorary degree to President Barack Obama, who supports abortion rights. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops went behind closed doors at their fall meeting Wednesday to discuss, among other issues, what action they should take to increase oversight of the nation's more than 200 Roman Catholic colleges and universities. Chicago Cardinal Francis George, president of the bishops' conference, revealed this week that he had formed a task force charged with reviewing the issue. Its research included a look at what church law says about...

Catholics United (CU) has launched a campaign to promote health care reform and encourage Catholics to support it with the full force of a united Catholic voice. It’s called Catholics for Health Care Reform. CU cites the achievements of the USCCB and Congressman Stupak in getting safeguards for the unborn in the bill that passed the House (the one now in the Senate). They are calling upon all Catholics to join the campaign.After a closer look at this group, pro-life Catholics proceed with caution. This is the same group that gave their support to Candidate Obama, Speaker Pelosi, HHS Secretary Sebelius and...

In her new book Sarah Palin writes that one summer at Bible Camp she "put my life in my creator's hands and trust Him as I sought my life's path." For Palin, this grand divine plan was "a natural progression." She writes. And later, "I don't believe in coincidences." Which leads me to ask: What does she believe is God's plan for her? Does she have any free will or is everything preordained. Can she see something coming and change her mind despite God's plans for her? Did God plan for her to become Governor of Alaska. If so, did...

Reinstatement Process Revision Adopted by ELCA Church Council 09-261-JB CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) adopted a revision to the reinstatement process for former clergy and other professional leaders who were removed from the church's official rosters for disciplinary reasons or resigned in lieu of discipline -- solely because they were in a lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationship. The change, adopted Nov. 15, applies to former ELCA associates in ministry, deaconesses, diaconal ministers and ordained ministers. The Church Council is the ELCA's board of directors and serves as the legislative authority of the...

ELCA Churchwide Budget Reduced, Staff Positions Eliminated 09-258-JB CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) acted Nov. 15 to reduce the 2010 churchwide current fund spending authorization by nearly $7.7 million, 10 percent less than the budget authorized by the 2009 Churchwide Assembly. The council's action eliminated 40.75 full-time equivalent positions, of which six were vacant. The Church Council is the ELCA's board of directors and serves as the legislative authority of the church between churchwide assemblies. It met here Nov. 13-15. The action reduced the current fund spending authorization for 2010 to...

I just finished watching the video of a public debate recently held in England on the proposition: "The Catholic Church is a Force for Good in the World." As a Catholic who ardently believes in the truth of that proposition, this was an exchange that was not pleasant to watch. There was so much at stake vis-a-vis public opinion that was swayed in the wrong direction as a result. It could have had a much different outcome. The two Catholics who defended the debate proposition were Nigerian Archbishop John Onaiyekan and British MP Anne Widdecombe. The two men denying the...

...or so many on the Left have been saying after the Stupak-Pitts amendment passed a week ago, thanks in part to what they saw as inappropriate activism on the part of the Catholic bishops. Geoffrey Stone at the Huffington Post longs for a simpler time: Whatever happened to the America John F. Kennedy believed in? The America in which "no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials"? Bill Donohue notes the double standard in this particular brand of outrage: The following is a partial list of...

Real biblical Christians don't hate. That the Barack Hussein Obama administration does not get. That is because Obama is not a Christian. He may belong to a Protestant denomination, but that group is anti-God theologically liberal.