Free Republic

An undocumented immigrant is taking refuge at a church in Denver while she fights to remain in the country. Jeanette Vizguerra, a mother of four, was scheduled to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Wednesday morning. She wanted to extend the stay on her deportation order, which expired last week, while she applies for a special visa. It was denied. She now faces separation from her American-born children, the youngest of whom is just 6. Vizguerra’s attorney appeared in court for her, saying she probably would have been taken into custody if she appeared. She is now taking...

With each passing day it becomes more apparent that Antonio Socci was not exaggerating when he wrote that with the unexpected defeat of Hillary Clinton by Donald J. Trump — a rude shock that has driven the worldwide liberal establishment to the brink of collective insanity — none other than Pope Francis has become “the only point of reference for the international Left, deprived of a leader…” Whoever doubts it need only consult a revealing editorial in the Washington Post, one of the most prominent organs of international Leftist opinion. Under the telling editorial category “Global Opinions,” one Emma-Kate Symons...

Kishinev, February 13, Interfax - Moldavia faces a scandal connected with the distortion of national flag demonstrated during president Igor Dodon's visit to Iran. The Moldavian leader, who is also a president of the chess federation, participated in the ceremony of opening the world chess championship among women in Iran. The national flag of Moldavia was set up behind the president's back. The coat of arms depicted at the flag lacked the cross in the eagle's beak and scepter. Dodon posted the photos in Facebook right after the ceremony. Certain mass media paid attention to the distortion of the flag....

The Chairman of the Synodal Department for Church and Society and Media Vlaidmir Legoida has stated that the steps taken in the US to ban funding of abortions from the state budget are welcomed by the Moscow Patriarchate, and resonate with its own initiative to remove abortion from Russia’s obligatory medical insurance. The US House of Representatives passed a bill in late January that forbids allocating budget funds for abortion and the granting of tax creds to employers who buy their employees insurance that includes abortion. Additionally, on January 23, President Trump signed an executive order abolishing the financing of...

Steve Bannon in his natural plumage: no Magna Cappa Everyone loves a conspiracy theory, and of late English-language media have been giddy with speculation that Trump mastermind Steve Bannon and American Cardinal Raymond Burke, seen as a leading traditionalist critic of Pope Francis, have formed a pact to “legitimize extremist forces that want to bring down Western liberal democracy,” in the words of the Washington Post. (What the specific aim of this alliance may be isn’t terribly clear, since nobody seriously believes a Trump-backed Vatican palace coup is in the offing. Presumably, the idea is to encourage and embolden...

Kremlinology was supposed to have gone out with the end of the Cold War, but the murky connections between the Trump administration and Vladimir Putin may be bringing it back into fashion. Vaticanology, on the other hand, never went away, and with reports on the links between Stephen Bannon, Cardinal Raymond Burke, and conservative elements in Rome, it seems a more vibrant area of study every day. Just consider how the most influential papers in the United States have taken up the topic of Bannon and Burke lately, with the New York Times featuring multiple stories and the Washington...

President Donald Trump’s chief strategist and the driving ideological force behind his “America First” agenda is a Catholic whose Islamophobia and reactionary nationalism have found an audience among a band of aggrieved church leaders openly hostile to Pope Francis. In a deep-dive report from Rome, the New York Times chronicles how Steve Bannon has skillfully networked with Cardinal Raymond Burke and other Vatican operators to push his dark vision of right-wing populism: When Stephen K. Bannon was still heading Breitbart News, he went to the Vatican to cover the canonization of John Paul II and make some friends. High...

'We hope that President Trump and his administration will take action soon,' said Baltimore Archbishop William Lori. Talk of President Donald Trump possibly signing an executive order on religious freedom — which drew both criticism and praise — has been replaced with discussion about what happened to it and what a final version, if there is one, will look like.A draft version of the executive order, called Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom, had been widely criticised in late January by those who said it would legalise discrimination and was too far-reaching. It then failed to appear on...

So, the inevitable has finally occurred: Pope Francis has speculated openly that President Donald Trump may turn out to be the next Adolf Hitler. I wish to note at the outset that I am not at all interested (at the moment) in defending the incoming American administration, or even in considering it directly. Let’s wonder instead about the characteristic way in which this Holy Father consistently tries to demonize others who might conceivably stand in the way of the accomplishment of his agenda. Since he has brought it up, let’s focus on this particular way--on Pope Francis playing the Nazi...

On the far-left MSNBC cable television channel Sunday, Father James Martin said that Steve Bannon is a “radical traditionalist” opposing Pope Francis’s reforms and pining “for a time when the Church was purer.”In a segment titled “Steve Bannon vs. the Pope,” Martin suggested that Bannon uses Church teaching to promote “racist, misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic sentiments.”Apparently, in Father Martin’s version of the gospel, it is wrong to oppose radical Islamists, but it is fine to bear false witness against a fellow Christian, running him down with baseless slanders and slurs.Bannon is not only an anti-Pope Francis, Martin alleged, “I would also...

Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput told a radio talk show host Monday that he believes fewer than 25 percent of those working in the “mainstream … elite” media have religious faith, and expressed surprise at what he termed was media hostility to President Trump. “It’s just amazing to me how hostile the press is to everything the president does,” Chaput told the California-based Hugh Hewitt, a Catholic conservative. “I don’t want to be partisan in my comments here, but it seems to me if we are really serious about our common responsibilities, we support the president,” Chaput said, “whether we...

Many of us have praised Pope Francis for his humbleness and for his tolerance toward victims of discrimination who had long been neglected by the Vatican, but it’s time to tell him loud and clear: Get out of Venezuela. The Vatican’s mediation effort in Venezuela has been — to use a word much in vogue in Washington these days — a disaster. It has legitimized that country’s authoritarian ruler Nicolás Maduro, throwing him a lifeline when millions of protesters were demanding his resignation on the streets in October 2016. And it has helped him get back on his feet by...

A top Chinese official has cautioned that the Beijing regime has not reached an agreement with the Vatican on the appointment of bishops, and dismissed any possibility that bishops of the “underground” Church will be recognized by the government. In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Liu Bainian, the head of the Catholic Patriotic Association, said that the “underground” bishops (who have been recognized by the Holy See but not by the government) are “unfit for the [Communist] Party to work with.” Liu Bainian was reacting to an article in which Cardinal John Tong Hon of Hong Kong...

<p>ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) - Thousands of people in Russia's second-largest city held competing demonstrations Sunday for and against the return of the renowned St. Isaac's Cathedral to the Russian Orthodox Church.</p> <p>The cathedral, one of St. Petersburg's top tourist destinations, was seized by the state after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and became a museum. The city announced last month that it would be returned to church control.</p>

On January 13, Robert González Nieves, archbishop of San Juan, revealed Pope Francis’ role in Barack Obama’s pardon of terrorist mastermind Oscar Lopez-Rivera. Speaking from the Cathedral of San Juan, Nieves announced that although the Holy Father made no public statement of his involvement, he had indeed worked behind the curtain on behalf of the unrepentant, bloody-handed Lopez-Rivera. The archbishop was pleased to say: “I know that there have been efforts made through diplomatic channels. The pope is very aware. We are grateful to the Holy Father for his support.” Papal complicity in this politically charged act received little notice...

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said that President Donald Trump's 90-day ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries is "a religiously based ban," and "if they can ban Muslims, why can't they ban Mormons." This has become the position of the Democratic Party and the mainstream media, which has influenced not only the American public but has convinced the majority of the world that America is "bad." How can we blame the world, and even a good segment of American citizens, for hating America when such disingenuous and misleading claims are aired to the world from US officials and broadcast...

Join with Fellow FREEPERS to Pray for our PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP/VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE and AMERICA: Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, and the Media. 'And this is the Confidence that we have in Him, that, if we Ask Anything According to His Will, He Heareth us.' 1 John 5:14 Religion Forum Threads Labeled [Prayer] are Closed to Debate of Any Kind. Psalm 116:5 God is Gracious—it is He Who Makes Things Right, Our Most Compassionate God. God Takes the Side of the Helpless; When I was at the End of my Rope, He Saved me.

The Trial of Blessed Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac: - Hailed by Pope Pius XII as the "most important priest in the Catholic Church." - Beatified by Pope John Paul II - So hated by the Nazis that they demanded Pope Pius XII remove him (Pius refused) - Imprisoned by the Communists - Laid down his life for those most persecuted during and after World War II - Died of complications from his imprisonment for defending the rights of Christ the King - Denounced Martin Luther as a "False Prophet" - Blamed Protestantism for the “hell in which human society suffers today”...

Media are positively frothing with stories suggesting a showdown between President Trump and Pope Francis, with conservative Catholics worldwide (but especially in America) as the prize that the two leaders will fight over.Here’s a piece from NBC that pretends that a theological satire by wearied faithful Catholics in Rome of the pope’s increasingly Progressive newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, is an instance of politicized “fake news.” You know, the kind of conservative news and opinion pieces from sources like Breitbart that the European Union, Google, Facebook, and Angela Merkel are scrambling to censor.Next we see a much more ambitious story — a...

On 9 February, the Washington Post ran a disgraceful and bizarre opinion piece designed to join the burgeoning propaganda efforts to link Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke to U.S. presidential adviser Stephen Bannon and President Donald Trump’s White House. From that alliance, the story goes, Bannon, through Burke, is plotting to bring the Trump administration into a conflict with Pope Francis. The Post opinion piece is linked here. There there have been several other similar “news” stories run over the last several days at major outlets, including on the NPR website. The point of this obviously coordinated campaign is entirely unclear....