Free Republic

SALT LAKE CITY (RNS) An LDS apostle reaffirmed recently that Mormons who support gay marriage are not in danger of losing their temple privileges or church memberships — even though the Utah-based faith opposes the practice.

If the Supreme Court decides that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, will that signal the end of social conservatism? People have long predicted the end of the religious right and, increasingly, even the demise of “white Christian America.” These obituaries typically prove premature. First, why assume a loss at the Supreme Court will end the religious right’s reason for existence? Organized social conservatism was built from such defeats, including high court rulings against school prayer and legalizing abortion. The school prayer decision will turn 53 in June. Roe v. Wade turned 42 in January. Neither of those...

Cardinal Dolan's handlers play rough.

The Newland family, owners of Hercules Industries, who won a permanent injunction against the HHS mandate March 16, 2015. Photo courtesy of Alliance Defending Freedom. Denver, Colo., Mar 17, 2015 / 02:51 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A Catholic-owned company’s victory in its fight against a federal mandate to cover drugs and procedures that violate Catholic moral teaching shows the importance of putting God first, one of its co-owners has said.  “Oftentimes businesses can feel that their direction is dictated by market conditions, to which they must be reactive,” William Newland, a co-owner of Hercules Industries, told CNA March 17. “This final...

NEW YORK, March 17, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan led Manhattan’s St. Patrick’s Day parade on Tuesday as grand marshal, despite backlash from faithful Catholics unhappy with the organizers’ decision to allow an openly homosexual activist group to march in the event.“I’m as radiant as the sun, so thanks be to God for the honor and the joy,” said Cardinal Dolan on Tuesday morning, as he led 250,000 marchers down Fifth Avenue – including a delegation from “Out @ NBC Universal,” a group of gay activists who work for NBC, the network that televises the parade.Catholic...

Several months ago, your GetReligionistas created our "What is this?" logo to salute a question that we have found ourselves asking over and over during the past decade. Here's the deal. So you are reading something in a newspaper or online source that is supposed to be producing old-school hard news. Then you hit a passage or two that, simply stated, are wildly opinionated or built on what appears to be secret information, without a source that is shared with readers. In other words, you hit a patch of blatant opinion in the middle of a "news" article, like a...

The Lod District Court has ordered Yated Ne’eman, the highest-circulating haredi daily newspaper, to publish an election campaign advertisement from U’bezchutan, a party seeking the haredi women’s vote. The decision was made on Friday, but the newspaper has appealed, casting into doubt whether or not it will be forced to print the ad before election day on Tuesday. An appeal hearing has yet to be scheduled. U’bezchutan, led by Ruth Colian, has objected to the lack of any women on any of the electoral lists of the haredi parties – Shas, United Torah Judaism and Yahad – saying the needs...

“The Democratic Party is facing a Catholic apocalypse,” Patricia Miller warns at Salon.Her article does a good job of marshaling statistics, but when she assesses the reasons for the apocalypse she makes a critical error.“White Catholics are now identifying as Republicans by historic margins,” she says, and lists the evidence.• She cites Pew data showing that 53% of white Catholics favor the GOP, versus 39% who favor Democrats.• Catholics voted for John McCain over Barack Obama in 2008’s presidential race by 5 percentage points, she says — but chose Mitt Romney over Obama by 19 points four years later, she says.• The U.S....

The Church's mission is to proclaim the truth about man and the world—a mission which comes ahead of political alliances for limited goods that are quite obviously intertwined with intrinsic evils. Stubborn differences on political and social issues usually come out of problems regarding basic understandings. It’s not always obvious what the problems are. Most often they have to do with something that goes without saying for at least some of those involved. The result of that situation is that people see their opponents as willful, perverse, or irrational—as people who simply refuse to accept what’s obviously right. Examples include...

(Is.54:8) It's with Everlasting Love that I'm Tenderly Caring for you.'

Social media is ubiquitous in a way that the lives of previous generations never had to deal with, and everyone from the high and mighty to the lowly and rowdy are learning hard lessons. Here are some spiritual truths that are reflected in social media scandals. 1. We cannot rid ourselves of sin. “To uproot sin and the evil that is so imbedded in our sinning can be done only by divine power, for it is impossible and outside man's  competence to uproot sin.” —St. Macarius, Homily 3.4 Hillary Clinton’s email system is teaching her a lesson many have...

Four Blood Moons: Michael Savage Interviews Pastor John Hagee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfuUBKWRo_c

(CNN)You would have to be made of stone to not be moved by President Obama's address on the 50th anniversary of the march on Selma last Saturday. His tribute to the "plain and humble people...coming together to shape their country's course" was poetic and principled, timely and true -- a fitting way to honor those who marched in support of voting rights in 1965. But perhaps the most striking lines from this historic speech concerned the inherent patriotism of righteous protest: "What greater expression of faith in the American experiment than this, what greater form of patriotism is there than...

I want the Church to go out into the streets,” Pope Francis told a cheering crowd gathered for World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro in July 2013, four months after he was elected pope. “¡Hagan lío!” he exhorted them, in the spirit of creative destruction: Make a mess! Take care, he added, not to become “closed in on” yourselves. On other occasions, he has urged priests to leave “the stale air of closed rooms” and has characterized traditional Catholics as “self-absorbed.” An extrovert, Francis attaches a positive moral value to extroversion — and, as if it followed by some...

Just one year short of his retirement and a pension. It could be the guy's a jerk about it but it certainly seems like his warnings about premarital sex and homosexuality are pretty standard boilerplate Christianity. Or at least what was standard Christian beliefs up to a few years ago and is now a fire-able offense. The Military Times reports:

The founder and president of a coalition of black pastors has called upon U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan to recuse themselves from the same-sex marriage case that is currently before the high court. In a recent press release, Rev. William Owens of the Coalition of African-American Pastors (CAAP) cited Ginsburg’s and Kagan’s “stated bias” as reason to recuse themselves in order to preserve the integrity of the court. Owens and his organization have launched a petition to bring attention to the alleged “lack of impartiality” on the part of the two justices. In February, Ginsburg,...

The move highlights the prudential judgments Catholic liberal arts colleges must make if they accept federal funding. LANDER, Wyo. — Wyoming Catholic College has decided to become the second Catholic liberal arts college in the United States to decline federal student loans and grants, citing the current political climate as one of the motivating factors for the move. “It’s a decision for us, not for anyone else,” said Kevin Roberts, president of Wyoming Catholic, noting that other faithful Catholic colleges have come to different prudential judgments based on their own circumstances. Wyoming Catholic, however, is a newcomer on the Catholic...

Whenever the word "nations" is mentioned in the Bible, one should understand where God is coming from when He speaks of them. The Nations of the Earth were: - Conceived in a concerted, godless rebellion (Gen 11:1-9, Rev. 17:5, Acts 17:26). - Born (brought forth) in divine judgment (Gen 10, 11:1-9, Rev 17:5, Acts 17:26). - Reared (raised) in godless unbelief and ignorance (Acts 17:26 -30, Rom 1:18-32, Eph. 2:1-3,11,4:17). - Lived out in carelessness, depravity and violence (Matt 6:6, Acts 14:14-16, Rom 1:24-32, Eph. 2:11,4:17, 1 Thess. 4:5, 1 Peter 4:3, Rev 6:4-8, 13:1-10, 18:23-24). - Terminated in vanity,...

From MEMRI, the video clip below shows Kuwaiti researcher Abdulaziz Al-Qattan making an appearance on Al-Mayadeen TV on March 3. MEMRI’s Counter-Radicalization Initiative report on the appearance highlights the following quotes from Al-Qattan, each of which would get a person branded an Islamophobe in the West: Abdulaziz Al-Qattan: “ISIS did not come out of nowhere. It’s not an aberration. By no means. ISIS adopts the Salafi-Wahhabi ideology of Al-Qaeda. If you look at Durur Al-Saniyah by Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, you will see that ISIS is implementing the ideas of that book to the letter. They are doing it...

Armando Valladares, Castro’s political prisoner for 22 years, said his Catholic faith was strengthened behind bars by hearing young Catholics shouting “Viva Cristo Rey,” for “Long Live Christ the King,” and “down with communism!” as they faced the firing squad. It has been his hope that Cuba would one day be free of communism. But he is far less hopeful now that Pope Francis has taken measures that he says “objectively favor the political and ecclesiastical left in Latin America” and could undermine the “Christian future of the Americas.” Meanwhile, Marxist writer Richard Greeman has written an extraordinary article, “Catholicism:...