Free Republic

When Science is Betrayed – and What Lessons We Should Learn By: Msgr. Charles PopeThere is a great reverence for science in our culture. On the one hand, rightly so. Science has made enormous strides that have changed life as we know it. Profound discoveries have eradicated diseases, improved health, increased the world’s food supply, led to a computer revolution, drawn us higher into outer space and deeper into inner space, revealed hidden mysteries of nature, and produced technologies unimaginable to even our recent ancestors.On the other hand, the reverence of science has tipped perhaps too far in the direction of a...

Reverend Mother Dawn Frankfurt just finished leading her congregation of St. James Episcopal Church of Wichita, Kansas in celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus. Carols were sung, liturgies were performed and communion taken, all in the name of the miracle baby who was sent from Heaven to save the world. The congregation was invited to contemplate and rejoice over the mysterious miracle of God incarnate, formed in Mary’s womb by the power of the Holy Spirit, giver of life. Perhaps the participants in St. James’ Christmas Eve service had warm and fuzzy feelings as they saw a customary Christmas...

Tending to St. James Episcopal Church’s Facebook page typically isn’t a lot of work for the Rev. Dawn Frankfurt, the church’s rector since 2011. That changed last week. That’s when people started posting they were outraged that the church on East Douglas in College Hill was playing host to a “Chili for Choice” fundraiser Jan. 22 – the anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that affirmed abortion as a constitutional right. The fundraiser for Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri will benefit Wichita’s clinic, which provides reproductive care such as well-woman exams and contraceptives but doesn’t...

...would it help the Church here more, or hurt it?

Christianity is under attack in America, and it’s losing.  Meanwhile, the Church is, in general, sitting out the fight and hoping the problem goes away. Hope is not a strategy.  It’s time to act. Since its inception, the United States has been a predominantly Christian nation, though open-minded and founded on religious tolerance.  Our sense of personal freedom and tolerance, backed by a thoroughly Judeo-Christian worldview, has contributed mightily to this nation’s greatness.  That worldview, and the Christian faith behind it, is being whittled away by the media, our popular culture, and a newly emboldened “activist atheist” movement.  The...

A judge in South Dakota ruled the state constitution's definition of marriage is unconstitutional because it does not allow same-sex couples to marry. In a decision rendered Monday, district court judge Karen E. Schreier ruled the South Dakota's Amendment C unconstitutional, but put a stay on her decision pending appeal. Schreier drew a parallel to the Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, which declared interracial marriage bans unlawful. "In Loving, the Supreme Court addressed a traditionally accepted definition of marriage that prohibited Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving from marrying," wrote Schreier. "Plaintiffs have a fundamental right to marry. South Dakota...

Colombo (AFP) - Pope Francis on Tuesday cancelled a planned meeting with Sri Lankan bishops, with one security official saying he was "exhausted" after a long journey from the airport exposed to the hot sun. The 78-year-old, who arrived in Colombo Tuesday on an Asia tour that will also take him to the Philippines, took over an hour to travel into the city from the airport on roads thronged with well-wishers.

Very long... suggest reading at the link. Basically he seems to blame women and feminization for the ills of the church, for loss of manliness, and even for homosexuality!

Nearly three-quarters of the public (72%) now thinks religion is losing influence in American life, up 5 percentage points from 2010 to the highest level in Pew Research polling over the past decade... The share of Americans who say churches and other houses of worship should express their views on social and political issues is up 6 points since the 2010 midterm elections (from 43% to 49%). .. It finds a slight drop in support for allowing gays and lesbians to marry, with 49% of Americans in favor and 41% opposed – a 5-point dip in support from a February...

"And God heard their moaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God looked upon the Israelites and God took notice of them." The Divine took notice, a verse in this week's Torah reading tells us. What does it mean to take notice, especially to notice something or someone others fail to notice? Andy Warhol once said, "I always notice flowers." Well, Andy, flowers are almost always noticeable. We are drawn to look at that which brings us pleasure, not that which brings us pain, especially inanimate objects of beauty which don't challenge our sensibilities. We turn...

To quote a friend of mine, “Trying to understand Church issues through mainstream secular media is like trying to understand global economics through a 13-year-old girl’s Instagram account.” In short, it just won’t happen. The personnel aren’t equipped, and likely don’t want to take the time to become equipped, to speak well and foster understanding about nuanced issues in the Church. They’re only after eyes, likes, and shares, (and I don’t know that they deny it) so why, OH WHY do we fall for this every. single. time? A bit of background: Cardinal Raymond Burke, former bishop of the Dioceses...

There was a theologian who, when discouraged, would keep repeating to himself, “I have been baptized.” Since the Prince of Lies has discouragement as his chief strategy and purpose, the Rite of Baptism includes an exorcism: an explicit renunciation of Satan, and all his works, and all his empty promises. Jesus our Encourager did not have to be baptized, for he had no sin to wash away, but by plunging into the waters of the Jordan and rising up, he was setting an example of dying and rising, which in daily life is played out by overcoming obstacles and refuting...

After I published the story that a Wichita church will be hosting a celebration of abortion for Planned Parenthood, Christians across the country were appalled. The church, St. James Episcopal Church is hosting a “fundraiser” for Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid Missouri on January 22, 2015, the anniversary of the 42nd Roe V. Wade Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion on demand. They are calling the event: Chili for Choice. By definition, “choice” in the Planned Parenthood world indicates a right to kill a human baby in the womb for any reason at any stage of pregnancy. A man...

On Saturday, January 3 in Kansas City, Georgia Walker attempted to do what no woman had done before:  She tried to become a Roman Catholic priest.And she’s got the pictures to prove it:  Georgia smiling, arms raised in triumph, vested in red and white, processing down the aisle at St. Mark Hope and Peace Lutheran Church.  Her friend, “Bishop” Bridget Mary Meehan, smiles proudly at her side.  Attending the ceremony were members of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, a group of similarly deluded women who imagine themselves to be ordained.Here’s the thing, though:  WOMEN CAN’T BE PRIESTS.No, really!  Women...

“You can follow thousands of catechism courses, thousands of spirituality courses, thousands of yoga or zen courses and all these things. But none of this will be able to give you the freedom as a child (of God). Only the Holy Spirit can prompt your heart to say ‘Father.’ - Pope Francis, 9 January 2015 As we move closer to the Schimod on the Family 2015, I expect more homilies like this. Before the vine is planted the ground needs to be prepared. Papal homilies seem to be the rotavator. The placement of the Catechism of the Catholic Church -...

(Rome) Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, Cardinal Patron of the Sovereign Order of Malta , was received on Thursday by Pope Francis in audience. The American cardinal, born in 1948, was ordained a priest by Pope Paul VI after completing his theological studies at the Gregorian University in Rome in 1975 by Pope Paul VI. In the United States he was active in counseling and education, then completed a doctorate in canon law at the Gregorian University and returned in 1984 to the United States where he worked in pastoral care and as Vice-Chancellor of his home diocese in Wisconsin. Because...

A Dublin priest received a standing ovation from his congregation this week as he called for same sex marriage equality in Ireland and came out to his parishioners. Father Martin Dolan, who has been a priest at Church of St Nicholas of Myra in Francis Street in Dublin’s city center for 15 years, opened up to his congregation at the Saturday night Mass. He also confided in his Sunday morning congregation. Dolan is the only priest in the parish. Calling on his Dublin city congregation to support same sex marriage in the upcoming Irish referendum, set for the end May,...

Remember when Houston's lesbian mayor, Annise Parker, tried to subpoena five pastors' sermons in a case over the controversial transgender rights ordinance there? This same lesbian mayor is trying her level best to deny these pastors the right to a jury trial. She wants a "special master" to review the evidence. Here's the backstory, as Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) explains it: City officials got upset over a voter lawsuit filed after the City Council rejected valid petitions to repeal a law that allows members of the opposite sex into each other's restrooms. ADF attorneys jumped into the fray, contending the...

The “Francis effect” appears to be driving Mark Shea over the edge as he doggedly stays the neo-Catholic course of defending the indefensible no matter how indefensible it becomes. Given a Pope who has just cooperated with the Abortion President to sell out the oppressed Catholics of Cuba, with thanks from both Obama and Cuba’s communist dictator, and who approved a synodal document calling for appreciation of the “positive elements” in concubinage and “valuing” the “orientation” and the “gifts and qualities” of “homosexual persons,” Shea is now faced with a growing army of messengers that have to be shot, including...

NPR’s bold headline reads that after 522 years, Spain is inviting me home. It feels good; it feels like something is being done to right a historic wrong. About 15 years ago, we discovered that my maternal grandfather’s family fled Spain during the Inquisition to Meppen, a small town in northern Germany, a few miles across of the boarder with The Netherlands. He chose to buy a Sephardic burial plot and his family heirlooms include allusions of a Spanish heritage. Beyond this loose collection of genealogical evidence, I have no claim to the Sephardic tradition but in this news I...