Free Republic

President Donald Trump has increasingly infused references to God into his prepared remarks — calling on God to bless all the world after launching strikes in Syria, asking God to bless the newest Supreme Court justice, invoking the Lord to argue in favor of a war on opioids. He's also taken other steps to further cultivate a Christian right that helped elect him, granting new levels of access to Christian media and pushing socially conservative positions that don't appear to come naturally to him. One of the first interviews Trump sat for as president was with the Christian Broadcasting Network’s...

Complaints are mounting against a Utah County judge who earlier this week praised a former Mormon bishop before sending him to prison for sexually abusing two women. Fourth District Judge Thomas Low on Wednesday became emotional as he handed down a prison sentence to Keith Robert Vallejo. Julia Kirby — who was 19 when Vallejo, her brother-in-law, abused her — told The Tribune after the sentencing that she was shocked by the judge's words to her abuser. Now, she plans to file a judicial complaint against him. And she's not the only one. "He completely disregarded her," Lawrence said. "He...

“After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb” (Mt 28:1). We can picture them as they went on their way… They walked like people going to a cemetery, with uncertain and weary steps, like those who find it hard to believe that this is how it all ended. We can picture their faces, pale and tearful. And their question: can Love have truly died? Unlike the disciples, the women are present – just as they had been present as the Master breathed his last on...

Happy Easter freepers! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW0QkOUjweM

The flattering headline on the Washington Post’s story this week about Pope Francis’s open-borders activism ran, “How Pope Francis is leading the Catholic Church against anti-migrant populism.” Anti-migrant populism is the Post’s latest euphemism for the opposition of ordinary people to the violation of immigration laws. A more honest headline would have been: How Pope Francis is leading the Catholic Church against the state’s just laws. The story, of course, makes no distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. So Pope Francis is treated throughout it not as an advocate for law-breaking but as a champion of “migrants.”So much for “rendering unto Caesar the...

President Trump is following through with one of his promises to let churches participate in political activity. Sources tell the Washington Post that the repeal of the "Johnson Amendment" is being written into tax legislation that is currently developing in the House of Representatives. This repeal that would end a six-decade-old ban on tax-exempt organizations, such as churches and universities, from endorsing political candidates. Lyndon Johnson first introduced it in 1954, nine years before he became president. Trump said this would happen at the National Prayer Breakfast in February, stating: "I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson...

The relic of St Serafim of Sarov had spent six months in spaceA Russian cosmonaut who has returned to Earth after a mission on the International Space Station said on Wednesday he had taken a relic of a Russian Orthodox saint with him. Astronauts and cosmonauts routinely take small items such as their children’s toys or CDs with them as reminders of home. Sergei Ryzhikov told Russian news agencies that he would give the tiny relic of St Serafim of Sarov’s body, which he received from its home monastery last year, to an Orthodox church in Star City outside Moscow,...

The instructions laid out two months ago by the general of the Society of Jesus, Fr. Arturo Sosa Abascal, on “what Jesus really said” regarding marriage and divorce have not fallen on deaf ears.On the contrary, some among the Jesuits have been the first to apply them in full. To conclude that “once a marriage is dead” Jesus too would allow divorce today.The Jesuit who has drawn this conclusion from the premises set up by his superior general is not a nobody. He is Fr. Thomas Reese, former editor of the magazine of the New York Jesuits, “America,” and a...

The bloodshed in Tanta and Alessandria is a brusque wake-up call for Pope Francis on the eve of his trip to Egypt. The attacks in the Middle East, as in Europe, are not natural disasters, preventable through ecumenical meetings, like the one that Pope Francis will have on April 28th with the Grand Imam di Azhar, but  episodes which remind us of the existence in the world of deep ideological and religious divisions that can only be healed by returning to the truth. And the first truth to remember, if he doesn’t want to deceive himself and the world, is...

The US Embassy in Cairo issued a security alert to US citizens on Tuesday, indicating that they should avoid identifiable places of worship for the next two weeks following recent terrorist attacks on Palm Sunday that targeted churches in Alexandria and Tanta and left at least 45 people dead and over 100 injured. These attacks signified one of the deadliest days of violence against Christians in Egypt in years, which led President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to promptly declare a three-month state of emergency, saying the measure was necessary to efficiently wage war on terror. On Tuesday, a statement from the...

A large church in Alabama is one step closer to creating its own police force, a move that seems to be without precedent in the U.S. The state's Senate has approved legislation that would give church police officers the same powers other law enforcement officers have in Alabama. After being approved by Alabama's Senate on a 24-4 vote, the bill now heads to the state House of Representatives, where an identical bill was sent to the Public Safety and Homeland Security committee in February. Both chambers' legislation specifically names Briarwood Presbyterian Church, a Birmingham megachurch that "says it needs its...

A Muslim woman says that 'a man who doesn't beat his wife isn't a man.'

The pro-abortion congresswoman from San Francisco cites Gospel of Matthew to support more government spending for children (those who are already born) April 11, 2017 by Admin 3 Comments Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) politicized faith at a rally in Los Angeles on Sunday.Pelosi used Christianity as her defense for Democratic proposals during a political rally about ending childhood poverty. Pelosi mentioned that it was Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, which culminates with Easter the following Sunday.“I didn’t know this until recently, that when the Gospel of Matthew, ‘what you have done for the least of my brethren, you...

Timothy D. Lusch is an attorney and writer. His work has appeared in Saint Austin Review, New English Review, and Chronicles, and at CatholicExchange.com and Crisis.com. He blogs at www.pityitspithy.com. Ed. Note: This is the first in a three-part series on the Catholic Church and Islam.

SANTA CRUZ, Guatemala — Bishops in the United States and Mexico have released new statements on the immigration issue that reflect their growing opposition to President Trump’s immigration policies. On March 22, the Administrative Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a “pastoral reflection,” entitled “Living As A People Of God In Unsettled Times.” The document is significantly less hostile to opponents of amnesty for illegal aliens than similar statements issued prior to Trump’s election victory, indicating a change not of policy but of tactics on the part of the bishops’ conference. Before the election, bishops routinely...

WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) - U.S. bishops, who administer some $2 billion a year in federal aid to social programs, are teaching that welcoming foreigners is a higher duty of government than protecting their own citizens. A recent study by Pew Research showed immigrants are committing the majority of felonies. The study found: 61% of all felony arrests in 2014 involved non-U.S. citizensNearly two thirds of all felony arrests in 2014 occurred in five judicial districts bordering Mexico In spite of this evidence showing the danger posed to U.S. citizens by illegal immigrants, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a...

In what would be a highly unusual omission, President Trump has not asked to meet Pope Francis during the president’s visit to Italy next month for the Group of Seven summit, sources said. Trump, who Francis suggested was “not Christian” if he wanted a wall on the Mexican border, is due in Sicily on May 26-27 for a meeting of the heads of the world’s richest nations. The two men have diametrically opposing positions on immigration, refugees, climate change and unbridled capitalism. Trump called the pope’s criticism of his plan to build the Mexico wall “disgraceful.”

Is a conflict of interest behind some of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ strong criticisms of President Trump’s immigration policy, in particular his two temporary travel bans? That’s the question being raised by a number of experts in foreign policy and Catholic charitable work, including a former adviser to President Bush and a leading figure in conservative Catholic media. These critics are pointing out that in Fiscal Year 2016, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) received more than $91 million in government funding for refugee resettlement. Over the past nine years, the USCCB has received a total of $534,788,660...

After centuries of lying low, Islam has reemerged as an existential threat to civilization. Its vast, decentralized army of maniacs seems unstoppable. Inevitably, driving trucks through crowds of innocent pedestrians will give way to chemical, biological, and even nuclear attacks. But the cult does have an Achilles heel: it depends on its followers believing that the unbalanced seventh century cut-throat Mohammad literally spoke for God. Destroying that belief destroys the enemy.A weapon that could help accomplish this is in our hands. Back in WWII, Hollywood took America’s side against the enemy. Imagine if it did so again, and if the...

We visit Cardinal Burke in his apartment, very close to the Vatican City. One of the first things the guest sees entering the house is a portrait of Pope Francis, who presides over the hall.  Raymond Leo Burke was born in Wisconsin on June 30, 1948. In 2003 he was named archbishop of Saint Louis, Missouri, one of the oldest and most prestigious dioceses in the United States. Given his international prestige as a canonist, in 2008 Benedict XVI appointed him Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature, in which he remained until Francis comissioned him with the Order of Malta....