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Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE and AMERICA: Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. —1 John 5:14 Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. Please join us in prayer for our country.

‘Inclusion, Not Individualism’: Pope’s Recipe for “Integral Development” Francis Observes the 50th Anniversary of Paul VI’s Encyclical “Populorum Progressio” April 5, 2017Federico CenciPapal Texts PHOTO.VA - L'OSSERVATORE ROMANO “Only the path of integration between peoples guarantees a future of peace and hope to humanity.” Pope Francis drew a line of continuity with his Predecessor Paul VI who, 50 years ago, wrote the encyclical Populorum Progression, in which the meaning was specified of “integral development,” stressed Francis. It was in fact the concept of integration that Francis wished to examine in his address to the participants in the Congress promoted by...

Moscow, March 31, Interfax - A site for building St. George Chapel was consecrated near the village of Novosyolovo in the Vladimir Region where first cosmonaut Yury Gagarin crashed. Dean of the Kirzhach District Archpriest Dimitry Yershov conducted the consecration, among those who attended the ceremony were twice heroes of the Soviet Union cosmonauts-pilots Alexey Leonov and Boris Volynov, first woman cosmonaut and hero of the USSR Valentina Tereshkova, the deanery press service reported. The chapel will be built near the memorial to Gagarin and his pilot instructor Vladimir Seryogin opened in 1975. A monument consists of a 16-meter wall...

CHICAGO -- Pope Francis wrote a letter to Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, the Archbishop of Chicago, conveying his thoughts and prayers to the people of the city and those who have suffered loss in the face of violence.In the letter, the pope assured Cardinal Cupich his support for what the cardinal and other local community leaders are doing to promote nonviolence as a way of life in the city.The pope also expresses concern over discrimination and the "otherizing" of groups of people. He cites Dr. Martin Luther King's efforts in nonviolence, quoting his remarks about how humanity "must evolve for all...

Although the Catholic Church has taught since its inception that marriage is between one man and one woman for life, the new superior of the worldwide Jesuit religious order, Fr. Arturo Sosa Abascal, claims that despite Jesus Christ's words about marriage (Matthew 19: 3-9), "no one had a recorder to take down his words," which must be "contextualized," and that doctrine implies a "hardness" like "stone" while "human reality is much more nuanced" and "never black and white." Fr. Absacal, from Venezuela, was elected superior of the Jesuits, the Society of Jesus, in October. The Catholic religious order for men...

Left: "The Return of the Prodigal Son" by Pompeo Batoni (1773); right: Detail from "Cain and Abel brother murder on painting Ghent Altarpiece" by Jan van Eyck (circa 1390–1441) [Wikipedia] In his homily at the beginning of the 2005 conclave, which would elect him pope, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger delivered a now-famous line: “We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.” This phrase not only accurately described the situation of that moment, but presciently encapsulated the essence of the movement that would take...

Moscow, April 3, Interfax - The body of Vladimir Lenin should have been buried straight after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but now the matter requires public consensus, according to Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations. "Streets and squares should not be named after executioners. Monuments to these people must not stand on our squares. The mummified bodies of these people must not be lying on display for everyone to watch," the hierarch told the "Church and the World" program on Rossiya-24 television channel. At the same time, currently no one is...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP/VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE and AMERICA: Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, and the Media. 1 John 5:14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. Religion Forum threads labeled Prayer are closed to debate of any kind. Please join us in prayer.

Is it time for a dramatic flourish from U.S. bishops on immigration? In Analysis, Church in the USJohn L. Allen Jr.April 2, 2017 EDITORCardinal Sean P. O’Malley blessed a family Tuesday along a border wall separating Arizona and Mexico. The visit was part of a bid to bring awareness to immigration reform. (Credit: Matt York/Associated Press.)Gestures often speak louder than words, and in 2014 Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston and eight other bishops delivered a powerful one by celebrating Mass at the U.S./Mexico border - a statement that registered even in far-away Rome. Given the way things are going today,...

The Duma set to discuss a regulation on the matter. The Moscow Patriarchate says it "offends human dignity" and should be banned both on a commercial and voluntary basis. Children of "surrogates" will be baptized only after the period of parental penance. The proposed adoption by infertile couples. Russia passes from atheism to religion, while the West goes in the opposite direction.Moscow (AsiaNews) - For the Church, headed by the Moscow Patriarchate surrogacy whether it is commercial or voluntary is unacceptable. This method of generating children "offends human dignity” according to Vakhtang Kipshidze, vice-chairman of the Synodal Department of the...

A blog post by Bishop Thomas Tobin came after Pope Francis said helping the homeless was always right A month after Pope Francis endorsed giving money to the homeless, the Catholic bishop in Rhode Island has described three reasons not to.Pope Francis was asked last month by an Italian magazine for the homeless “if it is right to give alms to people who ask for help on the street,” according to a transcript of the interview posted on the Vatican website. He replied that there are many arguments to justify not giving money, such as being concerned the person will...

RICHMOND, Va. — The Democratic governor of Virginia has vetoed a religious freedom bill which would have prohibited the government from punishing those who believe in biblical marriage and conduct their public lives in accordance with that conviction. “Although couched as a ‘religious freedom’ bill, this legislation is nothing more than an attempt to stigmatize,” Gov. Terry McAuliffe asserted in a statement on Thursday in rejecting S.B. 2314 and H.B. 2025. “No person shall be required to participate in the solemnization of any marriage, or subject to any penalty by the Commonwealth, or its political subdivisions or representatives or agents,...

WASHINGTON (CNS) – When the Conservative Political Action Conference, popularly known as CPAC, met near Washington in late February, the event’s main organizer did everything possible to separate the annual gathering from a fringe group it said it wants no part of and whose members don’t reflect their values. “There is a sinister organization that is trying to worm its way into our ranks and we must not be duped,” said Dan Schneider, executive director of the American Conservative Union, which hosts the CPAC gathering, referring to the self-described “alt-right” movement, whose followers espouse white nationalism, populism and white supremacy....

Gov. Gary Herbert on Tuesday signed a bill that keeps polygamy a felony in Utah and increases the penalties for polygamists convicted of committing frauds and abuses. Herbert's approval of HB99 affirms the position Utah has held since statehood — that polygamy is against the law. Yet it's unclear how much of the bill will ever be used. Polygamists and some sympathetic attorneys have said HB99 will be unconstitutional if it's applied to consenting adults who choose to live as such a family. Joe Darger, who has three wives and was the most vocal opponent of the bill, has dared...

While all the focus is on the upcoming Revelation 12 Sign in September, it occurs to me that a parallel, earthly sign has been developing right under our noses.  This parallel sign is not the fulfillment of Revelation 12, but its similarity is pretty stunning.  Could it be the sign of the enemy? A woman: For the last half-century the nations of Europe have voluntarily given up their sovereignty and pooled their resources to form the 28-nation European Union (now 27 members after Brexit).  The continent of Europe is named after a woman - the Phoenician princess Europa - and is...

Giulio Meotti: Islam, Not Christianity, Is Saturating Europe

In hiring Kaiser Aslam as a full-time Muslim chaplain for the community, Rutgers became the first public University to offer this type of spiritual guidance to Muslim students. Aslam’s position provides a combination of advising and counseling, and his services are open to all students. Immediately after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Kaiser Aslam said he was mortified about the social implications of praying in public at an airport. Now, he is worried about the legal ramifications of simply boarding a flight. As Rutgers’ first full-time Muslim chaplain, Aslam is tasked with providing spiritual guidance to thousands of...

Pope Francis calls for elimination of all nuclear weapons In VaticanCharles CollinsMarch 28, 2017 MANAGING EDITORAn atmospheric nuclear test conducted by the United States at Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands, on November 1, 1952. (Credit: US government file photo.)In a letter to a UN congress promoting the elimination of atomic weapons, Pope Francis wrote that nuclear deterrence is ineffective against the principal threats in the twenty-first century, mentioning in particular terrorism, asymmetrical conflicts, cybersecurity, environmental problems, and poverty. The pontiff said the international community must consider “the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences” that would follow from any use of nuclear...

The Vatican has announced that the Fatima seers Jacinta and Francisco, already beatified by John Paul II, will be canonized by Pope Bergoglio, following the recent approval of a second miracle attributed to their intercession. The ceremony will probably take place in May, during the Pope’s pilgrimage to Fatima. Good news indeed. And long overdue. But there is something else that is long overdue respecting the Fatima event: the canonization of Sister Lucia. She is clearly the primary visionary who was accorded a long life on this earth for the purpose of recording and making known what the Blessed Virgin...

Since President Donald Trump's election, monthly lectures on social justice at the 600-seat Gothic chapel of New York's Union Theological Seminary have been filled to capacity with crowds three times what they usually draw. In January, the 181-year-old Upper Manhattan graduate school, whose architecture evokes London's Westminster Abbey, turned away about 1,000 people from a lecture on mass incarceration. In the nine years that Reverend Serene Jones has served as its president, she has never seen such crowds. "The election of Trump has been a clarion call to progressives in the Protestant and Catholic churches in America to move out...