Free Republic

Washington - The Supreme Court agreed today to hear an appeal from a Christian student group in San Francisco which refused to admit gays and lesbians and decide whether the group's right to religious liberty and freedom of association can trump a university's ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation. The case, to be heard next year, could set new rules for campus groups across the nation. The University of California's Hastings College of Law says its officially recognized student groups must be open to all of its students. The law school also has a general non-discrimination policy which applies...

Reporting from Los Angeles and Riverside - The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles on Saturday elected the first openly gay bishop since the national church lifted a ban that kept gays out of its highest ordained ministry, a move that deepened divisions between liberals and conservatives in the faith. Clergy and lay leaders, meeting in Riverside for their annual convention, chose the Rev. Canon Mary D. Glasspool, 55, who has been in a committed relationship with another woman since 1988, from a field of six candidates. She is a canon, or senior assistant, to the Diocese of Maryland bishops. Glasspool's...

December 4, 2009 Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ, Grace to you and peace in this season of Advent anticipation and hope. At its November 14, 2009 meeting, the synod council passed two resolutions in response to the actions of the churchwide assembly votes on ministry policies and the social statement on Human Sexuality. These resolutions were passed after thoughtful conversation by a majority vote. The resolution addressing the "bound conscience" clause of the churchwide resolutions was adopted by a vote of 10 in favor, 5 opposed and 1 abstention. The memorial requesting that the ELCA church council repudiate and...

It is alarming to realize the nonchalance on the part of many concerning abortion. But it is not new. A popular newsmagazine quoted one medical opinion: “Abortion is finding its place as a perfectly acceptable and valid health measure. We no longer think of it as a crime.”

How many of us --- indeed, all of us --- have at one time or another said, "Ah ... would that I had never done that! Could I only go back in time!Confucius, in one of his well known Analects, summarized it best: "What is said cannot be unsaid." How true. What is more, in so many, many ways, what is done cannot be undone ...We are prisoners of our past --- and Time, the stern warden, it appears, has thrown away the key. We are prisoners to what we have said and to what we have done. In...

Washington D.C., Dec 4, 2009 / 10:43 pm (CNA).- Conservative blogs were buzzing on Friday with the discovery that a member of the USCCB's Subcommittee on Catholic Health Care is an active homosexual and gay rights activist. However, though Mary Kay Henry's bio states that she is a labor adviser to the U.S. bishops, the USCCB communications director told CNA "she is not a consultant." Henry, the international executive vice president for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was recently named one of the nation's "Top 25 Women in Healthcare" for 2009 by Modern Healthcare. Her biography at the SEIU...

1983 Chicago Declaration by 100 Church Leaders Resubmitted Because of a computer glitch the Chicago Declaration of 1983 that was revived and submitted on December 5 (2009) did not hold its numbering and paragraphs which made it difficult to read. Due to the good graces of the Editors of Freedom’s Phoenix we are resubmitting it for the benefit of those readers who are interested in circulating the article. Again we give thanks to a loving God of the Holy Bible and our wise Founding Fathers who gave us the inalienable right of Freedom of the press along with the others...

NOTE the post's date and then realize that the persecution continues as I type; however, Muslims respond by stating all this is bogus. Some have to read Muslim prayers in order to survive. Others have to proclaim aloud that they have converted from Christianity to Islam in order not to be slain. Still others have to read from the Koran and say they agree with what they read.

BREAKING: Diocese of Los Angeles Elects Non-Celibate Lesbian As Suffragan Bishop

Gay, Catholic and fed up with his church's efforts to quash the same-sex marriage movement, Phil Attey has come up with a controversial strategy: outing gay priests who speak out against homosexuality. (snip) He said he will out only gay priests and bishops who speak out against homosexuality. In the case of priests not publicly opposed to gay marriage but still in the closet, he said his goal is not to threaten them but to encourage them to "come out for the next generation and stand up against the anti-gay stance of the church." Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry,...

Joanna Krupa came under fire this week after unveiling a provocative new PETA ad — in which she wears only a cross — deemed "totally inappropriate" and exploitative by the Catholic League. The outrage is exactly what the Dancing with the Stars alum expected and wanted, she tells TVGuide.com, because controversy is "the only way" to alert others to a cause. "Sometimes I am ashamed of being a human being because of what we created and how we hurt the defenseless and less fortunate," Krupa says. "That is shocking and despicable to me. All I've done is to raise awareness...

This mystery woman reminds me of Vi.

A northeast Iowa synod council is the first in the nation to defy the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s decision to allow clergy to be in committed same-gender relationships. A resolution passed last month by the council of the Northeastern Iowa Synod, based in Waverly, seeks to circumvent the controversial August decision by the ELCA’s churchwide assembly. The denomination currently requires that homosexual clergy remain celibate, and the council wants to maintain the existing regulations. If successful, the move could ultimately restrict how churches call pastors in the future because it sets a policy where none existed. The resolution was...

Arash Ghorbani-Zarin, 19, was cut through with a knife 46 times. He had been seated in an automobile in Oxford in November 2004.

  As Catholics, it comes as no surprise to us that the human brain is hard-wired for religion. We believe in a God who created us in His image so that we would come to know and love Him. But for Enlightenment thinkers, who had committed themselves to the "liberation" of human thought from the shackles of religious dogma, the news would not have been welcome at all.   If political society, as Hobbes wrote, abhors a vacuum, the same is true of religious belief. One cannot destroy without creating something else in its place. The new society or...

Abortion opponents are urging local Catholic bishops to use the power of Communion to influence the national health care debate by withholding the sacrament from politicians who favor federal dollars for abortion. Randall Terry led five protesters Friday in front of Sen. Robert Casey's office, Downtown, and St. Paul's Cathedral in Oakland. He is founder of Insurrecta Nex, Latin for "revolt against killing," a Washington group opposed to abortion. Casey is a Catholic. "Part of what we're doing on this tour is calling on the bishops to obey the teachings of the church and to enforce them," Terry said. "This...

The Catholic attitude to war 1557. You speak of a Christian solution of social troubles, but did not the Great War show the utter failure of Christianity altogether? No. Christianity did not fail. The nations failed to observe Christian principles, a totally different thing. When I say the nations, I mean those in political control of their destinies, and the general outlook of the peoples concerned. Many individuals who fought were excellent Christians, believing the cause of their own country to be just and defending the right as they conceived it with the highest motives. And this on both sides....

A father killed his daughter. She was found in a house with a man other than her husband. The man involved in the twosome was beaten and then let go. He was beaten to show the youth of the community that he acted improperly. However, apparently the father slaying his daughter was not immoral, criminal or outrageous. The father got by with murder. The man got by with adultery. The woman got killed.

SALT LAKE CITY 3 December 2009 Since the launch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Mormon Messages channel on YouTube in August 2008, its influence has grown to reach millions. Situated among the endless variety of videos available on YouTube, the dozens of videos currently available on Mormon Messages have been viewed a total of 7.5 million times. During the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, the Church posted a Mormon Messages video showing random people on the streets of New York City sharing a variety of responses to one simple question: “What are you thankful for?”...

IRON MOUNTAIN - A regional chapter of Lutheran CORE (Coalition for Renewal) will be formed when Lutherans from across Upper Peninsula, northern Wisconsin, and northern Lower Michigan gather on Saturday. The Rev. Corinne Johnson, interim pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church in Escanaba, and a member of the Lutheran CORE Advisory Council, said the meeting will begin at 9 a.m. and conclude at 4 p.m. at Our Saviour's Lutheran Church in Iron Mountain. The chapter will be formed in the afternoon. There will be about 150 people at the event, 15 of them pastors, and two keynote speakers. "After the events...

Mother Mary Clare Millea (center) with some of her fellow sisters Washington D.C., Dec 4, 2009 / 03:54 pm (CNA).- Responding to a report which claimed that the majority of women religious are not complying with the apostolic visitation, the Apostolic Visitation Office has said that “some congregations” have sent incomplete responses but the effort is moving ahead as planned. The National Catholic Reporter in a Nov. 24 article cited unnamed sources who claimed a significant number of religious congregations were not cooperating with the Apostolic Visitation.“There's been almost universal resistance” said one unnamed women religious who reportedly was...

Joanna Krupa, the Polish model on the cover of this month's Playboy magazine has released a statement countering critics of her recent advertisement for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in which she professes herself to be a practicing Catholic who is “working to stop senseless suffering of animals, the most defenseless of God's creation.” Krupa's comments came in response to statements made by Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, in reaction to Krupa's most recent ad campaign with PETA: “Be an angel for animals. Always Adopt. Never Buy.” One of the ads features Krupa wearing angel...

[cross-posted] On the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha ('Feast of the Sacrifice'), Muslims rejoice for the descending of the pilgrims back down to the earth. While Ramadan is a time of suffering and lack, where Muslims gouge themselves new wounds and cover themselves with blood in the streets after long fasting, Eid al-Adha is a time of fullness. A dark part of it, not frequently talked about with Westerners, is the torture and murder of innocent horses. The justification for the torture and murder of innocent horses is contained within Volume 3, Book 47, Number 744 of the Sahih Bukhari Hadeeths:One...

A Wisconsin group claiming to be Catholic has launched a series of television ads which state that using contraception doesn't make you less of a Catholic. The group, Young Catholics for Choice, has partnered with the Wisconsin Family Planning Health Services and is advocating the use of the controversial morning after pill. Member of Young Catholics for Choice, Marissa Valeri, told Milwaukee's Fox 6 news, “They may have heard differently from the hierarchy and they may have heard differently from their parish priest and we're here to let them know that they are not alone and that you can be...

October 14, 2009Healthcare and Catholics: True and False Arguments by Samuel Gregg D.Phil. Healthcare reform – it’s one of those causes almost everyone favors, but which almost automatically produces sharp arguments when we ask what it means and how it might be realized. You would have had to be living in a cave for the past eight months to be unaware that Americans are deeply divided on this matter, and that the division runs clean through the middle of many communities. That includes Catholic America. Of course, there are a small number of non-negotiables for Catholics, whatever their politics,...

On the night Campbell elected the youngest openly gay mayor in America, hundreds rallied in Vallejo to protest their mayor following his remarks about gays and heaven. Demonstrators bearing rainbow flags and signs outside Vallejo City Hall Tuesday night directed their ire at Osby Davis for his comments in a New York Times' article about the growing political clout of Evangelicals. Davis, who narrowly (and we mean narrowly) defeated gay rival Gary Cloutier in 2007, told Scott James that those pearly, beatific gates would remain shut for gays. "... they are in fact committing sin and that sin will keep...

PETA's new "Be an Angel for Animals" campaign is off to a controversial start with The Catholic League clearly upset that Joanna Krupa appears semi-nude while holding a rosary in one advertisement, and completely nude with a strategically placed cross in another. Adorned with feathery angel wings and a glowing halo in both photos, she floats above a sea of happy dogs within a church cathedral for the "cross" photo, and holds her canine companion Rugby in the "rosary" shoot . In a December 1st news release, The Catholic League called PETA "animal killers" and "a fraud" that "exploits Christian...

ROME, December 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A leading Vatican cardinal caused a flutter in the secular press yesterday by stating that homosexuals who act on their sexual impulses cannot go to heaven.  "Transsexuals and homosexuals will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven and it is not me who says this, but Saint Paul," said Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, a Mexican and the former head of the Vatican's Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers. The cardinal was reiterating the Catholic teaching that states that any sexual activity outside of marriage that is not repented of before death is a...

The health-care debate has provided its share of teachable moments. The one at hand has little to do with health care. The catalyst, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, supports government-guaranteed health care. However, its support hinges on an amendment barring government funding of abortions. The bishops' stance infuriated Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D., R.I.). "You mean to tell me the Catholic Church is going to be denying those people lifesaving health care? I thought they were pro-life," he told the Catholic News Service. Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, R.I., pointed out that the bishops do support lifesaving health care for...

Does being totally depraved mean we're always sinning no matter what? Yes. Romans 14:23 says, "Whatever is not from faith is sin." And so you don't even need total depravity. You just need unbelief in order to say that everything a person does who is not a believer is sin. Maybe another word on that. Why is that the case? If you have a son, and you want him to do something, and he does the thing-like unbelievers don't usually kill people, OK? So they're obeying that commandment, "Don't kill," but why are they doing that? Are they doing it...

While huge segments of Christendom go apostate by baptizing practicing homosexuality as divinely blessed, Christianity based upon the Bible as divine revelation not to be tampered with is flourishing in Africa.

VATICAN CITY — Homosexuals and transsexuals "will never enter the kingdom of heaven", a leading Roman Catholic cardinal said on Wednesday. Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan said that while the Church regarded homosexuality as an "insult to God", this did not justify discrimination against gay and transsexual people. "Transsexuals and homosexuals will never enter the kingdom of heaven and it is not me who says this, but Saint Paul," the cardinal said, in comments reported by the Ansa news agency. "People are not born homosexual, they become homosexual, for different reasons: education issues or because they did not develop their own...

Communism 1533. The Catholic Church forbids a Catholic to be a communist! That is true. Communism is opposed to the law of God, is anti-Christian, and violates the fundamental rights of man. Apart from this, it will never remedy existing evils, and can only lead to the greater distress of those whom it pretends it will benefit. 1534. Your Church's solution of this terrible mess is faith! It is not. Her solution is common-sense, strict justice all round, and Christian charity based upon faith. 1535. It matters little to me whether the Christian religion be right or wrong. I stand...

 The Smallest Martyrs In the time of the Magi, the mothers mourned for their children who were murdered; today children mourn for their mothers who have become the murderers. The Colosseum of pagan Rome had nothing on the blood sport made popular today: Human sacrifice in the womb! "Yes, once again crowds of hatred gather for sport to see innocent blood spilt. Once again pathetic authority hides behind popular slogans or distorted claims to justify and consider the validity of atrocity. Once again, we are told that overall, ultimate good may be derived from inherent, naked evil. Once again those...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), said he will share priorities and hopes for the ELCA, and wants to hear stories from members about the church's work in their own contexts, when he hosts an online "Town Hall Forum" Sunday, Dec. 6. The hour-long forum begins at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time (4:30 p.m. Central Time). The program will be webcast live from Chicago, where Hanson will be joined by an audience of ELCA members. The audience will ask questions of the presiding bishop. Web viewers can watch the...

As of Nov. 29, clergy of the diocese may solemnize marriages for all eligible couples, Bishop M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE has announced.  The decision comes after a long discernment process leading up to and continuing after the action of General Convention this past July allowing that “bishops, particularly in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage is legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this church.” The full text of Bishop Shaw’s statement follows. Advent I, November 29, 2009 Christian marriage is a sacramental rite that has evolved in the church, along with confirmation,...

Monday November 30, 2009 Send Jailed Pro-Life Heroine Linda Gibbons a Christmas Card November 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Supporters of Linda Gibbons are disseminating the following information to encourage support for the Canadian pro-life sidewalk counsellor: Linda Gibbons has been a “common criminal” for many years now.  For fifteen years, since 1994, this grandmother has been in and out of Ontario prisons. Her totally accumulated jail time is seven years.  What is her crime?  Linda prayerfully and quietly witnesses in front of Ontario abortion clinics, in violation of an unjust "bubble zone" law.  This past session has been particularly...

When we sit down at the Thanksgiving table this week I am quite certain there at least a few feelings that swoop up and tug at our conscience. However we intend to celebrate this ceremonial coming together of family and friends, there is the distinct possibility that something may be missing from the table. It could be the representation of the gift of thanks from our last Thanksgiving. Just what is that gift of thanks that may be a distinctly distant memory? It could be the true meaning to what we are giving the credit for our thanks. Is it...

Peace Of Mind “Peace on earth!” announce the angels at Christmas. But how and where do we find that peace? Simple: confession. People sometimes wrongly think of confession as a place of judgment and guilt. We have good news: It’s a place of healing and peace. The Registerchallenges each reader this Advent to go to confession and recommend it to at least one other person. The guide provided here can help. After all, as Pope Benedict XVI said: “The renewal of the Church in America and throughout the world depends on the renewal of the sacrament of penance.” 1 The...

Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church and author of the bestselling book The Purpose Driven Life, drew fire last year when he was invited to give the invocation at President Obama's inauguration. His support for Proposition 8 in California, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman only, and his anti-gay-marriage views concerned many in Obama's base. Now Warren's on the defensive again, this time for his affiliation with Martin Ssempa, a Ugandan pastor who has endorsed proposed legislation in Uganda that makes certain homosexual acts punishable by life in prison or even, in some cases, death. Ssempa...

More than a dozen Lutheran congregations in Minnesota have vowed to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) after a vote in Minneapolis this summer to allow gay and lesbian pastors in committed relationships to serve as clergy. The fifteen churches will join a new denomination called Lutheran CORE and leave the ELCA, the largest Lutheran denomination in the world. The leaders of Lutheran CORE say the ELCA has moved too far away from the Bible. "Many ELCA members and congregations have said that they want to sever ties with the ELCA because of the ELCA's continued movement away...

Bishop John Chapman has given a church in the diocese of Ottawa permission to begin offering a rite of blessing to same-gender couples who are civilly married. The Church of St. John the Evangelist could offer its first blessing as soon as a married couple asks. At least one person in the couple needs to be baptized. “Same-sex couples who are civilly married and seek the Church’s blessing of their marriage must be welcomed with the same care and solicitude that the church would extend to any other of its members,” Bishop Chapman wrote in his charge to the recent...

This month, the USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) held their fall meeting in Baltimore. On the agenda was family, reproduction, the healthcare reform bill and sex abuse scandals. The meetings ran from November 16-18. The mission of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is to support the ministry of bishops with an emphasis on evangelization, by which the bishops exercise in a communal and collegial manner certain pastoral functions entrusted to them by the Lord Jesus of sanctifying, teaching, and governing.

Could same-sex "marriage" spell the end of religious liberty as we know it? Here is the chilling answer. As more states-like Iowa-approve same-sex “marriage,” conservatives are claiming that freedom of religion is in peril. Same-sex “marriage” supporters accuse them of engaging in hysterical gay-bating. Who’s telling the truth? Let me share some stories with you from an excellent news broadcast produced by National Public Radio. Then you decide. Two women decided to hold their civil union ceremony at a New Jersey pavilion owned by the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association. This Methodist group told the women they could not “marry”...

Those in the Northeastern Iowa Synod are providing significant leadership in trying to keep their synod together in spite of the biblical and theological crisis in the ELCA. Call to Faithfulness, one of the reform groups that comprise Lutheran CORE, has provided leadership in the efforts in the Northeastern Iowa Synod. The Northeastern Iowa Synod Council has passed two resolutions in response to the Churchwide Assembly’s votes. The first resolution calls upon the ELCA Church Council to reject and work to overturn the Sexuality Statement and the Recommendations on Ministry because they are contrary to the Confession of Faith in...

The Church and the Worker 1493. Has not the state always had the support of the Church in repressing workers? Certainly not in the case of the Catholic Church. She has always condemned injustice, insisting that men should be brothers in Christ. 1494. Can you give me one case where the Church has actively assisted the lower orders against the oppression of higher powers? Certainly. In Catholic times, when the Church had power, the people of England owed Magna Charta, or the great Charter of their liberties against the royal tyranny, to Stephen Langton, the Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, and...

A decision at the highest level of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America about homosexuality has sent discontented ripples into Polk County, and a local church is holding discussions with a potential splinter group. At Abiding Savior Lutheran Church in Winter Haven on Sunday, a representative of Lutheran Coalition for Renewal, or CORE, met with about 80 parishioners to answer questions, said the Rev. Alan Ford, pastor of Abiding Savior. The Rev. Rebecca Heber of Lake Mary told those present the Evangelical Lutheran Church is moving away from its historic standards of scriptural authority by loosening restrictions on gays in...

Note the date of this post. Should not have America wakened up long ago regarding Muslim versus Christian in Barack Hussein Obama?

A Sikh advocate in Pakistan was reportedly thrashed and threatened with dire consequences recently if he did not convert to Islam, forcing his family to run for safety to a gurdwara in Hassanabdal near Rawalpindi. While the victim, Anup Singh, was yet to regain consciousness, the incident has left the Sikh community in Pakistan rattled and insecure. Talking to TOI from Islamabad, Anup’s brother, Ravinder Singh, recalled horror of November 21. ‘‘A group of at least eight men kidnapped my brother from his office and took him to Mohammad Amin’s residence, where he was stripped and photographed with Amin’s wife.’’...

The false religion is all around us. Those churches that have turned against the Word of God, Christ as God, and the proclamation of personal salvation through His forgiving mercy, aid in damning America. Those churches clustered into denominations add to the demonic force.