Free Republic

According to Joel Osteen – Pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, these first century apostles are wrong and outdated and he has come out boldly to infer indirectly that Apostles Paul, Peter, and John whom wrote much of the New Testament were wrong and need to be corrected and rebuked. When asked directly if people whom are openly practicing homosexuals are accepted into the Kingdom, Joel Osteen responded with “Absolutely, anybody is.” We all need to listen carefully to the words that this “man of God” speaks as he goes on interviews so we too can find the errors...

If reports are to be believed, a compromise is in the works that will amount to nothing less than an endorsement of the gay identity in the 2015 NYC St. Patrick's Day parade. The Irish Times reports that under pressure from NBC, not only will a group be allowed to march in the parade with a gay identity banner (something previously banned) but that none other than Timothy Cardinal Dolan will be Grand Marshal.A gay group of employees from NBC will march in next year’s New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade behind their own banner, a source with knowledge...

[Catholic Herald] While visiting the Vatican earlier today, Mr [Former Israeli President Shimon] Peres asked Pope Francis to head a parallel United Nations called the “United Religions” to counter religious extremism in the world today. Peres said the United Nations and its peacekeepers “do not have the force or the effectiveness of any one of the Pope’s homilies, which can draw half a million people just in St Peter’s Square alone.” “So given that the United Nations has run its course, what we need is an organisation of United Religions,” Mr Peres said, as “the best way to counteract...

Increasing numbers of food cooperatives around the country are refusing to carry products sold by Eden Foods, a leading organic food company. Eden’s CEO, Michael Potter, is a Catholic, and the company filed a lawsuit in 2013 in opposition to the HHS mandate. Two Months On From Hobby Lobby Ruling, Grocery Co-ops Dump Eden Foods Products From Shelves (Forbes)

The blood of martyrs has proven to be the seed of the Church in China, as vibrant communities thrive despite government interference and restrictionsPart 4, Resurrection “We should be glad and rejoice. As the Shanghai Catholic youths said: ‘We are greatly honored to have been born and lived at this important time.’” — Cardinal Kung Pin-mei, Sermon for Catholics in China (Rome, June 30, 1991) When I published my book, China’s Saints, in 2011, I thought that only a few interested scholars would read it. I wrote it, after all, as an academic study, a work for curmudgeonly professors like...

Why do Catholics who are aligned with Democrats on social welfare and Republicans on abortion usually vote Democrat? Recent political science research suggests an answer. Some Catholics who vote for Democratic candidates incorrectly assume those candidates are pro-life. Catholics are often used as an example of "cross-pressured voters" due to the political party positions on abortion and welfare. Laura Hussey, associate professor of American public policy and administration at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Geoffrey Layman, professor of political science at University of Notre Dame, however, found that a minority of Catholics were both pro-life and pro-welfare, and those...

We can’t carry on like this. We just can’t. Today the Government has announced its latest measures to tackle what it will describe as the “Isil terror threat”. “Isil” is a code word. It actually means Muslim terror threat. Last week the nation was confronted with the graphic, grotesque horror of the Rotherham child rape cases. They had, we were told, been perpetuated by “Asian sex gangs”. In this case the code word was “Asian”. They were in fact Muslim sex gangs. In July we were confronted with the Birmingham “Trojan Horse” school scandal. The weren’t Trojan Horse schools. They...

The article below was written by one of the worlds foremost experts on the Crusades. I saw it over at Shoebat.com and was so impressed by it I wanted to post it here. It kinda long but it is written very well and is an easy read. I would deem this as a MUST READ and I’m sure many of you will.With the possible exception of Umberto Eco, medieval scholars are not used to getting much media attention. We tend to be a quiet lot (except during the annual bacchanalia we call the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo,...

This contradiction was laid bare recently when the Holy See, acting in secret, threw the protective cloak of diplomatic immunity over Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski — the papal nuncio in the Dominican Republic and an alleged serial abuser of minors. In a show of toughness, church officials defrocked Wesolowski and promised to try him according to the laws of Vatican City. In effect, though, church officials once again shielded a predator priest from civil jurisdiction.

CARACAS (Reuters) - A member of Venezuela's Socialist Party has rolled out a variation of the classic Christian "Lord's Prayer" to implore beloved late leader Hugo Chavez for protection from the evils of capitalism. "Our Chavez who art in heaven, the earth, the sea and we delegates," red-shirted delegate Maria Estrella Uribe recited on Monday at the PSUV party Congress. "Hallowed be your name, may your legacy come to us so we can spread it to people here and elsewhere. Give us your light to guide us every day," she said in front of an image of Chavez. "Lead us...

Catholic, Orthodox Patriarchs Call for Islamic State’s Destruction by John Rossomando Investigative Project on Terrorism Genocide against Christians across the Middle East prompted the region’s Catholic and Orthodox patriarchs to call for foreign intervention Wednesday during a meeting at the Maronite patriarchate in Lebanon. Islamic State forces, along with other jihadist groups, have systematically destroyed ancient Christian communities in both Syria and Iraq since the start of Syria’s civil war in 2012. “The international community cannot keep silent about the existence of the so-called,” the patriarchs said in a statement, referring to the Islamic State. “They should put an end...

How do we decide who deserves a place in history? Generations of devoted American history buffs have spent countless hours reading and writing long books about the American Revolution without ever having come across the name of Dr. Thomas Young. Yet it was Young who came up with the idea for the original tea party—the one in Boston Harbor. And he went on from there to help kick off the Revolution in Pennsylvania, co-write the first modern constitution, and name the state of Vermont. The reason he isn’t well remembered today is just this: The grandfather of today’s Tea Party...

Self-styled Catholic critics of the free market and “Americanism” have adopted the term “social Magisterium” to suggest that there is a coherent and morally binding body of papal teaching on politics and economics, from which we can derive specific policy initiatives and firmly condemn alternatives as “un-Catholic” or even (that dreaded word) “dissenting.” Hence defenders of market economics, or opponents of mass immigration, can be tarred with the same brush as those who favor women’s ordination or homosexuality. Indeed, if we accept the premise of a “social magisterium,” we are led to believe that we can actually build up a...

Interview: the former attorney general says he fears that 'aggressive' secularism is pushing the Christian 'faith out of the public space' Britain is at risk of being “sanitised” of faith because an “aggressive form of secularism” in workplaces and public bodies is forcing Christians to hide their beliefs, a former attorney general has warned. Dominic Grieve said he found it “quite extraordinary” that people were being sacked or disciplined for expressing their beliefs at work. He described Christianity as a “powerful force for good” in modern Britain and warned that Christians should not be “intimidated” and “excluded” for their beliefs....

In an unusual gesture for a member high in the Catholic Church’s hierarchy in Cuba, the Apostolic nuncio Bruno Musaro spoke openly about Cuba’s “extreme poverty and human and civil degradation.” Musaro made his controversial remarks while on vacation in Italy after holding a Mass in the San Pio de Pietrelcina park, in the Italian municipality of Vignacastrisi. The Cuban people are “victims of a socialist dictatorship that has kept them subjugated for the past 56 years,” Musaro said, according to the Italian newspaper, Lecce News24. “I’m thankful to the pope for inviting me to this island, and I hope...

Most antiquities scholars think that the New Testament gospels are “mythologized history.” In other words, they think that around the start of the first century a controversial Jewish rabbi named Yeshua ben Yosef gathered a following and his life and teachings provided the seed that grew into Christianity. At the same time, these scholars acknowledge that many Bible stories like the virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, and women at the tomb borrow and rework mythic themes that were common in the Ancient Near East, much the way that screenwriters base new movies on old familiar tropes or plot elements. In this...

Hardly any Americans will know of Hilarion Alfeyev, 48, a Russian Orthodox bishop who acts as the "foreign minister" of his Church, but it is important that they do. He is a bridge between not just the Orthodox Church and Catholicism but a bridge between Russia and America. As a Catholic American, I first saw him 15 years ago on a cold December day in Moscow. Hilarion, then 33, was already a rising star in the firmament of the Russian Orthodox Church. He had done his graduate studies in philosophy at Oxford — rather rare for Russian Orthodox Church leaders....

I have argued before that, in their fullest, libertarianism and Catholicism are incompatible -- but to what degree are they so? Leaders of the libertarian movement have certainly said silly, anti-Catholic things. Ludwig von Mises, for example, compared Christ to the Bolshevists and also said, "..[I]t is the resistance which the Church has offered to the spread of liberal ideas which has prepared the soil for the destructive resentment of modern socialist thought" (Socialism, Chapter 29). Translation: opposition to liberalism of one stripe must be blamed for inspiring liberalism of another. Huh? Much of the conflict between libertarians and the...

A Christian man was executed during the night by a high-profile ruler after making an uncompromising defense of real marriage. The Christian, who was renowned for his holiness, had told the ruler in public that his relationship with his partner was “against the law” of God. The Christian’s words enraged the ruler’s partner who successfully plotted to have him permanently silenced. John the Baptist was first imprisoned before he was beheaded. The Catholic Church honors him today, August 29, as a martyr and saint. While John’s death happened a little less than 2,000 years ago, his heroic stance for real...