Free Republic

NEW YORK - President Donald Trump is “channeling Archie Bunker without the charm,” says Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami in response to Trump’s alleged comments that African nations are “sh*thole countries.” Trump’s remarks are said to have come during a Thursday meeting with lawmakers regarding DACA and immigration reform. Bunker is the popular 1970s sitcom character from the television show “All in the Family,” which often used bigoted remarks and salty language as a source of humor for the show. In an interview with Crux, Wenski said the president’s remarks were “disappointing” and likely came in an effort to assuage...

One in 12 Christians around the world are persecuted for their faith and are the target of violent attacks including rape, a shocking report has found. According to a study by Open Doors USA, an organization that studies Christian persecution, 215 million Christians live in areas with high levels of persecution worldwide. The report also goes on to state that over 3,000 Christians were killed and nearly 800 churches were damaged in the last year. 'The most significant findings were that Christian women are among the most violated in the world, in maybe a way that we haven't seen before,'...

Interview with Father Michael Czerny, Undersecretary of the Migrants and Refugees section of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development in view of World Migrant Day, “There is no “common good” based on fear and marginalization”. The Church can do more” ... Many do consider excessive the obsession with national security and closing borders at the cost of fleeing people’s rights and dignity. Many do consider excessive the media’s bias for sensational stories which feed xenophobia and isolationism; and many consider very excessive the way in which politicians create or exaggerate a sense of crisis in order to...

As the human element of the Church is seemingly being transformed into what Antonio Socci has called “a social assistant to the New World Order,” Europe is suffering the brunt of the Leftist exaltation of immigrants, especially illegal Muslim immigrants, as a privileged class to which everyone must be subservient. Implicit in this operation is the planned destruction of whatever is left of Europe’s Christian identity, a plan only Hungary and Poland are resisting successfully. Socci’s column compiles some astounding facts, both large and small, of just how bad the Left’s apotheosis of the “migrant” has become in Italy. He...

Join Freepers throughout the world to pray for PRESIDENT TRUMP and VICE-PRESIDENT PENCE and for AMERICA: All Levels of Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, Health Care Systems and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. —1 John 5:14 Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. Please join us in prayer and in blessing our Lord and Savior..

In an interview with German newspaper Bild, Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban called the migrant crisis an invasion. He said: “We do not consider these people to be Muslim refugees, we regard them as Muslim invaders.” “One has to cross four countries to arrive from Syria in Hungary”, Orban said. “Those people do not run for their lives but seek a better life. The refugees should have requested admission in advance, but instead they had breached the border illegally.” According to Orban what Europe has seen was not a wave of refugees, but an invasion. He mentioned that he never...

In Yoder v. Sugar Grove Area Sewer Authority, (Commonwlth. Ct. PA, Jan. 5, 2018), a Pennsylvania state appellate court, in a 2-1 decision, upheld the denial of an injunction sought by an Old Order Amish couple who object to the requirement that they connect to the local sewer system using an electric pump. The dispute has wound its way through the courts for over five years. (See prior related posting.) The majority said in part: Owners did not establish the injunction would not harm the public, or that the harm in denying the injunction outweighed the harm in granting it....

Moscow (Agenzia Fides) – Thanks to Russia's military intervention in the Syrian conflict, the "genocide" of Christians was stopped. And now, the Russian Orthodox Church will take on the task of supporting the reconstruction of Syrian churches, but also of mosques and historical monuments. This was stated by Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias, in the traditional television interview broadcast on Rossija channel 1 on Sunday 7 January, the day when Russian Orthodox Christians celebrated Christmas. In the interview, focusing on the condition and recent trials the Middle Eastern Christian communities have had to face, the Primate of...

The President intervened at the Coptic Christmas Eve Mass, to show the strong bond that in this historic moment, strengthens the largest Christian community to the Middle East and to Egypt's current strong manWe love you, we are with you President, long live Egypt”. So the Copts shouted yesterday evening, during the Christmas Eve mass, while President Abdel Fattah al Sisi, flanked by Patriarch Tawadros, walked down the nave of the new Cathedral of the Nativity, built in record time in what will be Egypt’s new administrative capital. When he reached the altar, the Head of State exchanged the expressions...

WASHINGTON DC, January 5, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The Trump Administration has already established a sterling record of solid judicial nominees, and his nomination of Howard C. Nielson, Jr. to the federal bench continues that trajectory. The Washington, DC attorney, who has yet to be confirmed by the Senate, has come under fire for saying that gay judges shouldn’t hear cases involving issues that affect the LGBT community. Nielson first came to national attention when he served as one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs in Hollingsworth v. Perry, better known as the “Proposition 8” case. In 2008, California voters approved...

Please join this opportunity to pray with fellow FREEPERS for President Trump, Vice-President Pence, and for America: Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. (I John 5:14) Religion forum threads labeled "Prayer" are closed to debate of any kind.

KAMPOT, Cambodia (ChurchMilitant.com) - Catholics in Cambodia are rejoicing after the government has returned their 100-year-old cathedral. The small cathedral, located near the top of a mountain, is currently empty, and there is no active Catholic community in Kampot. It took several years of petitioning the government and the company, who bought the property on the mountain, to give the property back to Catholic use. Environmental Minister Say Samal declares he will do anything he can to assist Catholics to renovate and preserve the building, saying, "It means that the government recognizes all religions and the people's right to practice...

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA has long since disappeared from the headlines. Officially, the brutal civil war in the former Yugoslavia ended with the signing of the Dayton Accords in 1995. But the wounds of the war are still very much in evidence–particularly in the discrimination of Catholics. During the conflict, at least half of the country’s former Catholic population of more than half a million was driven out, according to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vrhbosna.ACN reports on the life of the suffering Church in Bosnia Herzegovina, helps the Church stand up for the human rights and dignity of believers. Cardinal...

Following a lawsuit filed by three churches damaged in Hurricane Harvey last year, FEMA has reversed a policy that prevented houses of worship from accessing disaster relief funds, according to a guidance document published by the agency today. The disputed policy allowed "community centers" and other nonprofits to receive FEMA emergency funds for certain repairs of storm-damaged facilities, but specifically excluded houses of worship like churches, synagogues and mosques used primarily for "religious activities, such as worship, proselytizing or religious instruction." Under the new policy, "private nonprofit houses of worship are now eligible for disaster assistance as community centers, without...

Government Can’t Put out the Fire of FaithAnother big religious freedom case in federal court. And in this case, there’s a ray of hope. For more than three decades, Kelvin Cochran built a record of service and expertise that made him one of the most respected Fire Chiefs in the country. He was the first African-American Fire Chief in Shreveport, Louisiana. He was among the responders to Hurricane Katrina. President Obama appointed him as the U.S. Fire Administrator, whose job is to improve both fire prevention and response across the country. And until a few years ago, he was the...

Vietnam's Thien An monastery is shown in an undated photo.Leaders of a Catholic monastery in north-central Vietnam’s Thua Thien Hue province are protesting authorities’ interference in the life of their community, accusing local officials of seeking to have their senior priest removed from his office, sources say. In a Dec. 31 letter sent to top-level authorities in the province, priests at Thien An asserted their legal right to construct buildings on nearby village land owned and managed by the church since the 1940s. They also accused members of the Thua Thien Hue People’s Committee of abusing their power by proposing...

He was released from police custody yesterday. From Xining, where he was, he will go to Beijing for treatment and then return to his diocese. His liberation - it is assumed - is the result of international pressure and the campaign of prayers and fasts launched by his community. He has not signed any membership of the Patriotic Association.Wenzhou (AsiaNews) - Msgr. Peter Shao Zhumin, bishop of Wenzhou (Zhejiang), recognized by the Holy See, but not by the government, has been released. On May 18, 2017, he was taken by police and officials from the Religious Affairs Bureau and distanced...

Assumptions, understandings, impressions: 1. The Pope's results of his personality and goals appear to have created a massive and intense collection of controversial and probably more than a few unBiblical dynamics, assertions, policies, puzzle pieces currently in the RCC and on the wider global stage. 2. People of good Christian Biblical heart, values, intent, goals, feelings exist in the RCC and in Protestant circles. It 'ought' to be possible for them to be mutually supportive, iron-sharpening-iron; yoke-fellows in these dramatic and increasingly trying times. 3. What understandings, perspectives, deeds would the RCC's on FR wish to successfully transmit into the...

Religious Liberty Is Eroding in Canada. Here’s What Americans Should Learn. Outside of watching the occasional hockey game or purchase of maple syrup, most Americans pay little attention to Canada. We may know of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s colorful socks, but little of how unpopular he is among his constituency. We may discuss the single-payer health care system, but are unfamiliar with the government’s disrespect for religious liberty of our neighbors to the north. Faithful patriots in this country who are concerned by the attacks on free exercise of religion in America should also be concerned by the similar attacks...

28 Comments In Church Militant, some new Catholics have put a question for Pope Francis that we devoutly hope he will answer: A group of ex-Muslim converts to Catholicism are criticizing Pope Francis’ approach to Islam. In an open letter to the Holy Father recently published online, the former Muslims say the pope’s teaching on Islam as it appears in the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (EG) implies that Islam is a good religion in itself.If Islam is in itself a good religion, as you seem to teach, why did we become Catholic?” they ask. “Do not your words question the...