Free Republic

The American Founders believed religious liberty to be so essential that they enshrined it in the First Amendment. Today, however, it is treated as only another flashpoint in the culture wars. Simply look at the reaction to Georgia’s H.B. 757, a religious-freedom bill that my colleagues in the legislature and I voted to pass on March 16. In light of the Supreme Court’s decision last year in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage throughout the U.S., Georgia’s lawmakers wanted to be clear that our state’s protections for religious liberty have not changed. The bill would have protected clerics from...

Damascus, April 12, Interfax - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sees no future for his country and the entire region without the Christian presence, Hieromonk Stefan (Igumnov), secretary for inter-Christian relations at the Moscow's Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations, told reporters after a meeting with al-Assad on Tuesday. "During the talks today, Bashar al-Assad noted that Syria has traditionally been a multi-faith country, and both its future and the future of the Middle East is inconceivable without the Christian presence," he said. According to him, al-Assad noted the crucial peacekeeping and humanitarian role of the Russian Orthodox Church in efforts...

High profile corporations join coalition campaigning against legislation that would protect businesses objecting on religious grounds to same-sex marriagesMore than 60 businesses including some of Missouri’s biggest corporate names joined a coalition opposed to state legislation that would protect businesses objecting on religious grounds to same-sex marriages. Agricultural giant Monsanto, prescription drug benefits manager Express Scripts, and pet food maker Nestle Purina are among employers to join the recently formed Missouri Competes, according to gay rights advocacy group Promo, which released the list just hours before a House committee heard testimony from business, sports and religious groups. Dozens crammed in...

The picture is the iconic image of a Vietnamese girl, naked, burned by napalm as she runs down a road.The girl is Kim Phuc, and her life could have ended in that moment. It didn’t. She has taken an extraordinary journey and has not let that searing moment in her life define her: Despite the fear that no one would want her, Kim is now married and has two sons. She says her conversion from the Cao Dai religion to Christianity at the age of 19 changed everything.“And when I read in John 14:6, where Jesus say, ‘I am the...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A heart that clings to the letter of the law is closed to the Holy Spirit and God's truth, Pope Francis said at morning Mass. Such hardened hearts often were behind the persecution of innocent men and women seeking to follow God's will, the pope said April 11 in his homily during Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives. The history of the church "tells us of many people who were judged and killed, although they were innocent -- judged according to the Word of God, against the Word of God," he said. "Let's...

Like Republicans across the country, Satmar Republicans are fed up with the failed policies of the Obama administration. The burdens placed on small businesses by overregulation, higher taxes and Obamacare are felt here, too. Parents struggling to make ends meet dream of a president who will be a crusader for school choice. The administration’s hostility to religious liberty sends a chill down the spine of every religious Jewish voter, Republican or Democrat. So naturally, many Jewish Republicans are turning towards Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz achieved national renown for his efforts to defund Obamacare before it launched in 2014, leading to...

Genesis 14:20 Praise be to God Most High, Who Delivered your Enemies into your Hands.

A Vatican official is defending the decision to invite pro-abortion Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to speak at an upcoming conference on economic and environmental issues, as Pope Francis has reiterated the Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion. “No alleged right to one’s own body can justify a decision to terminate that life,” the pope writes in his latest apostolic exhortation, “which is an end in itself and which can never be considered the ‘property’ of another human being.” Francis also expresses support for adoption and opposition to euthanasia and population control. However, critics have suggested that inviting Sanders to speak...

Maaloula, April 11, Interfax - Russian parliamentarians visited the Syrian city of Maaloula. "This is the first time we can come to this city as pilgrims," Federation Council member Dmitry Sablin told Interfax on Monday. He is a member of the Russian parliamentary delegation, which also consists of State Duma deputies Alexander Yushchenko and Sergey Gavrilov. The parliamentarians visited the Thekla Monastery, which had been damaged and desecrated by the terrorists. "It is hard to describe what we have seen here. The holy places are destroyed, and the churches are burned by fires. A fire was deliberately started at the...

I am letting you be among the first to know. It is true. I am leaving the Catholic Church. I want you to know that this has not been a decision made in haste or without serious and intense research and consideration. But I can no longer remain in a church that I no longer believe in. Let me explain. I will be writing more about this soon, but for now let me just say there are five main reasons why I am leaving the Catholic Church: 1. I believe the sole rule of faith for Christians has to be...

The Governor of my home state of Georgia, Nathan Deal, has been soundly, and frequently, taken to task for his recent “Craven Capitulation” on religious liberty. I don’t wish to rehash the merits of the very weak bill Deal rejected (it only protected churches, religious schools, and “integrated auxiliaries”), nor do I wish to highlight again the rampant ignorance and hypocrisy of those who lobbied Deal to veto religious liberty in Georgia. What I would like to do here is give some explanation as to why I believe Deal caved on the defining moral issue of his governorship.

Warren Throckmorton is a good man and as a leader in taking down liars and grifters like David Barton he has been a great man. He is a man of principle with integrity, both qualities in short supply in the Republican Party Yet I disagree with Dr. Throckmorton on his case for never casting a vote for Ted Cruz in the general election. Like the good Professor, if I had picked the nominee, we would not be left with a Trump, Cruz, Kasich set of options. Before I became President of The Saint Constantine School, I was a Walker guy,...

This morning was my "big moment". I woke up at 4:50AM and dragged my tired, exhortation-weary self into the shower to get ready to go on national television for the first time. I was invited to go on Fox & Friends -- "the most-watched program on cable television between 6am - 9am ET" -- to talk about Amoris Laetitia. I had a scheduled "hit" at 7:40AM, and they were sending a car for me at 6AM to take me to DC. I got dressed. I had my coffee. I said my morning prayers. The car showed up early, the black...

I think the examination of the emphasis upon sexuality and hedonism in the late Roman Empire and Modern Western society is both fascinating and scary. These are somewhat dry productions but contain a lot of truth.

Last week, under heavy pressure from powerful corporations, Georgia's Governor Nathan Deal vetoed legislation that would have protected religious institutions from being required to approve same-sex marriages or to hire openly homosexual employees. In his veto statement the governor implicitly adopted the rhetoric of the homosexual lobby, suggesting that any resistance to same-sex unions is intolerable. "I do not think that we have to discriminate against anyone to protect the faith-based community in Georgia," he said. With that veto and that public statement, Governor Deal implicitly accepted the argument that any group which refuses to endorse homosexuality is engaged in...

Nothing has done more for the world than capitalism. It has lifted people from poverty, from serfdom and from servitude. It has provided a future for people who otherwise would have been born and died in servitude to others. Still, the Pope has embraced socialist Bernie Sanders to ask him to speak on the importance of a “moral economy.” Democratic presidential candidate and middle class crusader Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will be taking a short hiatus from his campaign following the next debate to fly to Vatican City. There, he will join the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences for a...

PHILADELPHIA, April 7, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – The University of Notre Dame's decision to give Vice President Joe Biden their highest award is scandalous and undermines the Church's teaching on life and marriage, Cardinal Raymond Burke said in an interview published today. Speaking with Catholic Action for Faith and Family's Thomas McKenna, Cardinal Burke said the invitation represents what Pope Saint John Paul II, in his apostolic exhortation on the laity, called "one of the greatest evils of our time" - that is, the tendency of Catholics to separate their faith from their daily living. "And this is exactly what we...

Pope Francis said Friday that Catholics should look to their own consciences more than Vatican rules to negotiate the complexities of sex, marriage and family life, demanding the church shift its emphasis from doctrine to mercy in confronting some of the thorniest issues facing the faithful. In a major church document entitled “The Joy of Love,” Francis made no explicit change in church doctrine and upheld church teaching on the lifelong bond of marriage between a man and a woman. But in selectively citing his predecessors and emphasizing his own teachings in strategically placed footnotes, Francis made innovative openings in...

Senator Ted Cruz has often stated that Jesus Christ is central to his life. He talks about how his father had left his family but returned after receiving the gospel, how his mother turned to Christ, and how this changed his life: I was raised in the church.… When I was eight years old… [I] gave [my life] to Jesus. … [To] know that… I am redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, nothing is more important to me. I am a new creature in Christ, and it [is] central to who I am today. I couldn’t run for president...

St. Petersburg, April 7, Interfax - Mikhail Piotrovsky, general director of the Hermitage, has given Russian President Vladimir Putin proposals on possible restoration of religious sites in Syria. "We mentioned there were many other sites, both Muslim and Christian, that perish in Syria after Palmyra, and UNESCO and our state should focus on them," Piotrovsky told reporters after his conversation with Putin. He said he presented to the president proposals on possible actions in Palmyra prepared jointly with the Academy of Sciences and the Culture Ministry. Responding the question if Putin expressed his position on restoring Palmyra, Piotrovsky said that...