Free Republic

It's the Culture of Death, silly! Brothers and Sisters, Peace be with you. Like many of you, I've been perusing the more "thoughtful" introspections by writers of national recognition. One by Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker's blog caught my eye. It's titled Newtown and the Madness of Guns. Here's an excerpt: The people who fight and lobby and legislate to make guns regularly available are complicit in the murder of those children. They have made a clear moral choice: that the comfort and emotional reassurance they take from the possession of guns, placed in the balance even against the...

In a recent commentary on the Torah portion Parshat Miketz posted in The Times of Israel, Shawn Ruby presents the biblical story of Joseph in Egypt as evidence that having a government-managed economy works. Specifically, he casts Joseph as the first “Keynesian” economist, that is, the first person to realize that a powerful executive with the authority to make economic decisions on behalf of the people can plan consumption patterns more wisely than a group of disorganized individuals, and thereby become the salvation of everyone.Mr. Ruby writes:Whether the famine was supply-side or demand-side in origin, Joseph’s example teaches us...

Ireland is to legalise abortions when the mother's life is at risk, including when she is suicidal, in an historic move expected to spark a major battle with the Roman Catholic church.Ireland’s cabinet took the decision on Tuesday following a huge public outcry over the death of Savita Halappanavar, a pregnant woman in October who died after her repeated requests for an abortion were refused while she was suffering a miscarriage. The Irish government has decided to repeal legislation that makes abortion a criminal act and to introduce regulations setting out when doctors can perform an abortion when a woman’s...

Istanbul, December 18 (World Watch Monitor) — Three years after a Syrian Orthodox foundation applied to build a church in Istanbul, the Greater Istanbul Municipality has granted them a large plot of land and a building permit. Banner headlines in the Turkish media praised the early-December decision as “a first in the history of the Republic,” declaring that never before had Turkey allowed a non-Muslim minority to build an official new house of worship. Still, Syriac Christians were far from pleased. For one thing, the land they were “granted” by the municipality is, in fact, a Latin Catholic cemetery. “We...

Muslim Council of Britain says it is appalled by 'utterly discriminatory' legislation on same-sex marriageMuslim leaders have demanded the same legal exemptions as the Church of England in legislation to introduce gay marriages. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), with more than 500 affiliated mosques, charities and schools, said it was "appalled" by "utterly discriminatory" legislation on same-sex marriage set out by the government. The proposals would allow faith groups to conduct gay marriages but would ban the CofE and the Church in Wales from doing so. The MCB secretary-general, Farooq Murad, said his organisation had strongly opposed gay marriage...

“Wicked.” “Crazy.” “Extremist.” Those are the words Americans United For Separation of Church and State uses in reference to the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. But the organization, which claims to fight to “ensure religious freedom for all Americans,” is not using those words to describe Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old who shot and killed 27 innocent souls. No, its reproach is directed at the “religious right,” including such figures as Mike Huckabee and William J. Murray, for daring to suggest that the eviction of God from the nation’s public schools just might have contributed to the rise of school-related violence and...

. . . When tragedies like these occur, why do we respond with such shock and awe? Psychiatrist Keith Ablow said, “This kind of shock registers with people…because it seems like the unthinkable keeps moving into the sphere of our reality.” The “unthinkable” first surfaced in mankind thousands of years ago when Cain killed his brother Abel out of mere jealousy and rivalry. God had warned Cain, “Sin is crouching at your door,” but Cain ignored God’s word and committed murder. God punished Cain for taking innocent life but the violent shedding of blood has continued for centuries. Why? The...

The government of Quebec is forcing Catholic schools to replace the Christian religion with the state’s “neutral” alternative based on moral relativism. That’s how defenders of religious freedom have responded to last week’s court ruling that a private Catholic high school must teach the state’s “secular” Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC) course. Barbara Kay slammed the judges’ decision in the National Post on Wednesday, arguing that it empowers a government to “compel a faith community to jettison its driving beliefs in order to promote the state’s secular religion of multiculturalism; or indeed, in the future, to compel promotion of any...

Recently I saw a t-shirt that said, "The Virgin Mary was an Unwed Teenage Mother." That's true and it reminded me of an interruption that took place at a Quebec pro-life conference back in October of this year. LifeSiteNews.com says about a dozen pro-choice protestors descended upon an evangelical church where the conference was being held, chanting blasphemous slogans, one of which was a French pro-abortion sing-song against the Virgin Mary: Ah si Marie avait connu l'avortment, on n'aurait pas tous ces emmerdement.s. Translated this means, "Oh, If Mary had known about abortion, we wouldn't have to deal with all...

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has voiced his support for over-the-counter access to birth control, a position that Church representatives say goes against Catholic teaching on contraception. “The Archdiocese of New Orleans disagrees with Governor Jindal’s stance on this issue, as the use of birth control and contraceptives are against Catholic Church teaching,” Communications Director for the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Sarah Comiskey McDonald, told EWTN News on Dec. 14. Robert Tasman, Associate Director of the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops, also echoed the archdiocese’s statement. Gov. Jindal, a Catholic, argued in a Dec. 13 editorial for the Wall Street Journal...

A vacancy occurs within a church (as in the pastoral position), and let's say an interim pastor steps in for a certain amount of time until a replacement pastor is voted in. Let's say 4-5/6 licensed/ordained ministers within that denomination apply for the open position and thus for a chance to preach before the church - and the church members who will later hear those ministers will pray about which one they desire to be their pastor and eventually vote one in. Should the board get to toss any of those names from consideration, if those licensed/ordained ministers are in...

Hebrews 4:16 Let us therefore Come Boldly unto the Throne of Grace, That we May Obtain Mercy, And Find Grace to Help in Time of Need.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…. Proverbs 1:7 What is truly detestable about the state of public schools in this country is how far they have strayed from their historical roots. Most of the schools in this country, as well as many of the prestigious Ivy League universities were founded for the sole purpose of educating the populace in the Scriptures. Noah Webster, one of our nation’s leading educators, said, "In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to...

FOR the first time, a Catholic spokesman has acknowledged that the church in Australia covered up sex abuse, according to a reform group of Catholics. The group praised Francis Sullivan, CEO of the yet-to-be-formed Catholic Truth, Justice and Healing Commission, for admitting to the media this week that he was personally scandalised and disillusioned by the church's history of cover-ups. Peter Johnstone, chairman of Catholics for Renewal, said on Friday the church had previously acknowledged that it had mishandled abuse cases, but not cover-ups. He welcomed this week's announcement of the lay-led Catholic council to advise the bishops about sex...

Denver, Colo., Dec 13, 2012 / 02:16 am (CNA).- In 1968 Joe Mahoney was serving with the Marines in South Vietnam, where he met Father Paul Nguyen Thanh Hoan, whom he always thought was killed when the North overran the region in 1975. Many priests were imprisoned and killed when the South was overtaken, and so Mahoney was “quite confident he was dead” and never looked up Fr. Paul. But earlier this year, he finally discovered that God had preserved Fr. Nguyen, made him Bishop Nguyen, and helped him found a religious community. “He's an amazing guy spiritually, very prayerful....

Brethren, Peace and Good to all of you. As you know, every year during the holiday and Christmas seasons, religion-objectors redouble their efforts at proscribing religious displays on government buildings and other common areas in our cities, towns, and villages. The mainstream media’s (MSM’s) strategy has been to declare that there is no “war on Christmas” but Bill Donohue from the Catholic League already took the MSM to task. Of course, I often share many of Bill Donohue’s observations across many other social platforms including Twitter, and it was in Twitter where I got a couple of respondents who are...

While many families are wrestling with trying to find money to buy their child the latest Xbox, Wii or iPhone, Catholic Charities is working hard to collect food donations to give out hearty and healthy food baskets to their clients for the holidays. Catholic Charities operates food pantries in South Bend and Auburn. “We have a different menu each week made up of 15-20 pounds of food based upon family size. This usually includes about 15 items or enough food for four meals,” said Claire Coleman, the West Region administrator at Catholic Charities. “This might include two canned vegetables, one...

(Reuters) - France will deport foreign-born imams and disband radical faith-based groups, including hardline traditionalist Catholics, if a new surveillance policy signals they suffer a "religious pathology" and could become violent. A French Islamist shooting spree last March that killed three soldiers and four Jews showed how quickly religiously radicalized people could turn to force, Interior Minister Manuel Valls told a conference on the official policy of secularism. His warning came two days after President Francois Hollande announced the creation of an agency to track how the separation of church and state is upheld in this traditionally Catholic country with...

President Barack Obama is the most divisive man to ever occupy the White House –period! Yet, 95 percent of black Americans worship him as if he’s the messiah. Why? Actor and comedian Jamie Foxx recently took the stage at the Soul Train Awards and told the audience, “Thank God, and our lord and savior, Barack Obama!” Foxx called on the audience to stand up and clap for Obama. His outrageous remarks were broadcast on national television, yet not one nationally known black leader repudiated Foxx. Barack Obama’s ability to seduce people is well-known. He can bring his biggest critics into...

Godfather movies are still a huge industry, it seems. By Godfather movies, I do not mean films about gangsters as such, but more the sort of films that have been spawned by Francis Ford Coppola’s great movie. We’ve just been treated to an example of the genre on Channel 4, entitled The Fear. The Fear harked back to The Godfather in several ways. First of all it lifted the plot from The Godfather. Ritchie, our Brighton gangster had two sons, Cal who was rather wild and wanted to go in with the Albanian gangs, and Matty who was altogether more respectable....