Free Republic

With North Korea breathing nuclear threats against America and Japan, China ramping up their nuclear arsenal and navy, Russia's deadly but silent presence ever looming and Iran in the process of possessing nuclear weapons the world today more than ever is ready for a massive nuclear global holocaust. A popular prophetic question that is always asked is, “Is nuclear war mentioned in the Bible, and if so, when will it take place?” Nuclear war is not mentioned specifically in the Holy Scriptures, but in looking at the context of events pertaining to the last days, we can see without a...

In the March/April 2013 issue of the Defend Life newsletter an article of mine appears on page 17 (note: below the jump break I'll reproduce the unedited article for therein are some links to referential material.)  The main thrust of the article is to outline why I strongly believe that the underlying philosophy behind the current push for "gun control" is actually anti-life.  Despite what the "seamless-garment" groupies incessantly chant, the movement to restrict access to the tools of self defense constitutes significant dissent from Catholic Church teaching. I won't rehash my article; you can read it for yourselves.  I'll...

Joe Biden’s heart bleeds for defenseless babies. The Vice President told us so last month, while advocating a ban on assault weapons. “Think about Newtown,” said Biden, and “those 20 beautiful babies” that were shot and killed by Adam Lanza. “Think about how many of these children…may be alive today,” he said, if only the baby-killer hadn’t possessed a Bushmaster. Well, I might think the Veep’s lamentations for Newtown’s tender-aged victims genuine if I heard him express similar grief for other beautiful babies that have been so remorselessly killed. Like those killed at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Biden’s home...

The controversial Planned Parenthood lobbyist who put the Florida chapter of the nation’s largest abortion business on record supporting infanticide was once a member of the board of directors for a local Catholic Charities branch. Now, representatives of that group say Alisa Lapolt Snow lied to them by saying she was pro-life while she worked for the organization. As LifeNews initially reported, Snow defended the practice of allowing babies not killed in an abortion to be allowed to die afterwards. She said the decision on whether to provide such children with medical care is between the mother having the abortion...

In a shocking example of just how high anti-Christian feelings go in the United States, the Defense Department came under fire last Thursday over a U.S. Army presentation on domestic extremism and extremist groups. Among the slides in the presentation is a list of religious extremist groups. In that list, alongside Al Quaeda and the Ku Klux Klan (which is labeled as Christian, by the way) are: Evangelical ChristianCatholicismUltra-Orthodox (e.g. Hasidic) Judaism Yes my friends, our own government now considers Christians and Jews to be examples of religious extremism. More than half of all Americans, and 40 percent of active...

In the absence of agreement with the rest of society on human nature and the good life, Catholics must remain a sign of contradiction.Last month I noted that Catholics need settings in which they can lead a Catholic life among Catholics. For most of us, loving God and living as Christians take schooling and support, which we aren’t going to get from the world at large. That may be one reason the Apostle Paul’s letters focus more on the practical internal life of Christian communities than on evangelism. The ultimate ideal may be the New Jerusalem, in which the distinction...

The Left has always held a dim view of parental rights, seeing them as an obstacle to centralized planning. But usually the Left’s spokesmen are a little more circumspect in their pronouncements than MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, who blurted out in a promotional ad for the channel that “we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents” and see them as “our children.” Harris-Perry’s paean to collectivism makes explicit the principle that is implicit in many of the policies of the Left—from its resistance to home schooling to its propagandistic sex education in public...

The archbishop of Detroit, Allen Vigneron, told the Detroit Free Press on Sunday that Catholics should not receive Communion while advocating gay marriage: For a Catholic to receive holy Communion and still deny the revelation Christ entrusted to the church is to try to say two contradictory things at once: “I believe the church offers the saving truth of Jesus, and I reject what the church teaches.” In effect, they would contradict themselves.....

CAIRO (AP) — The leader of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church on Tuesday blasted the country's Islamist president over his handling of recent deadly sectarian violence, including an attack on the main cathedral in Cairo. The remarks by Pope Tawadros II underscore rising Muslim-Christian tensions in Egypt. They were his first direct criticism of President Mohammed Morsi since he was enthroned in November as the spiritual leader of Egypt's Orthodox Christians. They are also likely to fuel political turmoil that has been roiling the country since the ouster of autocrat Hosni Mubarak two years ago. Egypt is already divided between two...

All Your Kids Are Belong To Us, Love NBC. The only time anyone at MSNBC interests me is when they actually say things that the left believes wholeheartedly but know that actually verbalizing it would mean a p.r. disaster. This is an MSNBC commercial. And it should scare any parent that watches it. MSNBC personality Melissa Harris-Perry says, according to the transcript from Newsbusters, "We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to their communities." Wait, what!? Sarah Palin tweeted that...

Florida lawmakers are slated to pass a controversial bill banning courts from taking into account foreign or religious law — including sharia law — when deciding on family cases including divorce and child custody. The House approved similar legislation in 2012, but it never made it past the Senate floor. The Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee approved the bill by a 5-4 vote the Palm Beach Post reports, with one Republican voting against the measure and one Democrat voting in favor. Critics including the Florida Bar, the Anti-Defamation League, the ACLU of Florida and the National Council of...

Today I saw that Sarah Palin is releasing in November 2013 a new Christmas book called, A Happy Holidays IS a Merry Christmas. When I found out that Sarah was writing this book about Christmas and that it mentioned "Christ"... I had to at once see what the Left had to say about this book release and its beloved conservative author. The first thing I did was to Google Sarah's book title and what I found funny right off the bat was that the Google search results for anything Sarah Palin listed all Left wing news agencies and blog commentaries...

The video at the bottom of this post is of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. It is a fascinating excerpt from a longer video he did, where he analyzes the diabolical (anything of or relating to the Devil), from several different perspectives. In the excerpt I present, he identifies three characteristics of the diabolical by examining the story of the Gerasene demoniac, depicted in the synoptic gospels. Here is the story as Luke presents it:They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from...

In 1978 Catholic Herald editor Richard Dowden had an in-depth interview with Margaret Thatcher. We reproduce it in full hereI was given directions by the porter in the main lobby of the House of Commons and found my own way to the office of the Leader of the Opposition at the far end of the building. This caused some upset, for security reasons, but the way to Mrs Thatcher’s private room is complex. The maze-like corridors are identical and so are the panelled and green-carpeted rooms which lead off them, though one I accidentally turned into is a rather bleak...

Hattip to Matt Archbold at Creative Minority Report. After 30 years at the bar and almost a decade blogging, there are few stories that shock me any more. This one did: Spokane’s Gonzaga University has denied a Knights of Columbus group application to be recognized as an official student organization. Those seeking the status were notified of the University’s decision at a meeting on March 7.

The Obama administration came under fire last week for a presentation that classified Catholics and Evangelical Protestants as “extremist” religious groups in the same vein as al Qaeda and the Ku Klux Klan. The Washington Free Beacon has more information about the Defense Department presentation: The presentation detailed a number of extremist threats within the U.S. military, including white supremacist groups, street gangs, and religious sects. The presentation identified seventeen religious organizations in a slide titled “religious extremism.” They include al Qaeda, Hamas, the Filipino separatist group Abu Sayyaf, and the Ku Klux Klan, which the slide identifies as a...

Pope Francis says he is appreciative of the Christian values that underpinned Margaret Thatcher's commitment to service and promotion of freedom. He affirmed this in a message sent today on his behalf by his secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. The former British prime minister died today from a stroke. She was 87. "His Holiness Pope Francis was saddened to learn of the death of Baroness Margaret Thatcher," the papal message stated. "He recalls with appreciation the Christian values which underpinned her commitment to public service and to the promotion of freedom among the family of nations. Entrusting her soul...

Reagan and Thatcher in 1984 (AP Photo/Pool/Bill Rountree) My sister phoned me during lunch and I told her (nicely) that I was at that moment listening to the news of the death of Baroness Thatcher on Radio 4. I followed this up by saying I would go to London for her state funeral. “You really think that highly of her, do you?” responded my sister cautiously, and then reeled off a list of Lady Thatcher’s failings when in office: selling off the council houses, the notorious quote (taken out of context, of course) about “society”, not being keen to promote...

A few weeks ago I reported on this website that our church added a new minister. He and his family were muslims from Iran who have converted and now devote Christians. Yesterday, they took over the services. His topic was 'Building Birdges'. An interesting topic because our church is planning on replacing the old church, and this hit us kind of hard. 'We should be spending our money on building bridges to converts rather then grand edifaces and towers'. Also, he was critical of the christian churches that change their beliefs and Bible to satisfy the on-going political correctness of...

Is it possible that more Christians are persecuted (or that Christians are more persecuted) today than in the ancient world or than at any other time in history? This sounds like a trick question or like the introduction to a paradoxical argument. In fact, it is a perfectly straightforward inquiry aroused by the crisscross of two arguments that have just landed on my desk. The first is a new book, The Myth of Persecution, by Candida Moss, professor of New Testament and early Christianity at Notre Dame, and — full disclosure — my goddaughter. She argues in her book that...