Free Republic

Pope Francis delivers his blessing during the Angelus noon prayer he celebrated from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, July 3, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) In a new interview with an Argentine journalist, Pope Francis says there's a wing of the Catholic Church that "says no to everything," and while he's going ahead, he has no intention of launching a crackdown: “I don’t cut off heads. That was never my style. I’ve never liked doing that," he said. ROME-Pope Francis has vowed in a new interview that he won’t be slowed down by...

The two bloggers who have perpetuated this misinformation are Robert Scribbler, who describes himself as ” a progressive novelist, non-fiction writer and emerging threats expert,” and Paul Beckwith, who is working on a PhD with “a focus on abrupt climate system change” at the University of Ottawa. Scribbler says the cross-equator flow is a manifestation of man-made global warming, supported by the hypothesis that disproportionate heating of the Arctic is destabilizing the jet stream. “The Hemispherical Jet Streams have moved out of the Middle Latitudes more and more,” he writes. “More and more it has invaded regions both within the...

VATICAN CITY, July 1 (Reuters) - Former Pope Benedict says in his memoirs that no-one pressured him to resign but alleges that a "gay lobby" in the Vatican had tried to influence decisions, a leading Italian newspaper reported on Friday. The book, called "The Last Conversations," is the first time in history that a former pope judges his own pontificate after it is over. It is due to be published on Sept. 9. Citing health reasons, Benedict in 2103 became the first pope in six centuries to resign. He promised to remain "hidden to the world" and has been living...

The Pope Emeritus reportedly admitted to the diary in a book-length interview to be published in SeptemberBenedict XVI kept a diary throughout his papacy but plans to destroy it, according to an Italian newspaper. The retired pope apparently admitted to the diary in a new book-length interview to be published in September. The historic book, called The Last Conversations, follows the format of previous book-length interviews Light of the World and Salt of the Earth and shares the same German author, Peter Seewald. The Corriere della Sera newspaper, which has acquired the rights to publish excerpts of the book in...

A short history of Obama administration accountability: 1. No one fired at ATF or the Justice Department over Fast and Furious gun walking scandal 2. No one fired at IRS, two employees temporarily demoted over targeting scandal 3. Only 6 managers at the VA fired or allowed to resign over falsifying wait time records 4. No HHS employee fired over Obamacare exchange fiasco 5. No senior officers have been demoted or removed from CENTCOM for "cooking the books" on ISIS intelligence 6.. No EPA employee disciplined for toxic spill at Colorado mine As for that last scandal, Interior Secretary Sally...

You may not have noticed but our sun has gone as blank as a cue ball. As in, it’s lost its spots. According to scientists, this unsettling phenomenon is a sign we are heading for a mini ice age. Meteorologist and renowned sun-watcher Paul Dorian raised the alarm in his latest report, which has sparked a mild panic about an impending “Game of Thrones”-style winter not seen since the 17th century. “For the second time this month, the sun has gone completely blank,” Dorian says. “The blank sun is a sign that the next solar minimum is approaching and there...

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia's outback Aborigines will be among the worst affected by climate change as soaring temperatures likely cause more disease and spur distress about the changing landscape, a new report shows. The expert report, published in the latest edition of the Medical Journal of Australia, argues that the country's remote indigenous communities are the most vulnerable to changing environmental conditions. "Their vulnerability to climate change is intensified by the social and economic disadvantage they already experience -- the result of factors that include decades of inadequate housing and public services, and culturally inappropriate medical services," the journal said...

The superior general of the Society of St. Pius X said in a June 29 statement that the Society “does not seek primarily a canonical recognition.” “In the great and painful confusion that currently reigns in the Church, the proclamation of Catholic doctrine requires the denunciation of errors that have made their way into it and are unfortunately encouraged by a large number of pastors, including the Pope himself,” said Bishop Bernard Fellay. The prelate’s new statement comes one month after he expressed optimism about an accord between the Vatican and the Society, which was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre....

A breakaway traditionalist Catholic group accused Pope Francis on Wednesday of spreading confusion and errors about the faith, joining a chorus of conservative criticism over his perceived lax doctrine and emphasis on mercy at the expense of morals. A statement from the schismatic Society of St. Pius X suggested that a new attempt at reconciliation with Rome had stalled, or that the society itself was divided over next steps and decided at least to take a hard line against Francis. The statement, issued after a meeting of the society’s superiors, said its members weren’t primarily looking for a legal resolution...

The Bramble Cay melomys has become more famous in extinction than it ever was in life. A mouse-like rodent, the melomys amazingly survived on a 3.6 hectare grass-covered cay (a low-lying island in a coral reef) in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef like a ratty Robinson Crusoe for thousands of years. There, it thrived off just a few plant species until human-caused climate change—in the form of rising sea levels and increasing inundations of sea water on the low-lying island—wiped it off the planet. But, while the extinction has been reported widely, articles have missed an important point: the scientists who...

CO2 is only a bit-player in the drama of world climate, while the main characters are ice, dust and albedo....Ice age cycles have something to do with precession: the slow wobble of the axis of the Earth. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks knew of precession and called it the Great Year, because it gives warm and cool seasons over its approximate 23,000-year cycle. But there is a problem with invoking the Great Year as the regulator of ice ages, because we should really get an interglacial warming every 23,000 years or so. And we don’t – they only happen every...

Backing from retired pope at event to mark his 65th year as a priest may help Francis gain favour among church conservativesBenedict XVI has endorsed Pope Francis’s ministry in an unprecedented Vatican ceremony featuring a reigning pontiff honouring a retired one on the 65th anniversary of his ordination as a priest. The ceremony in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace served in part to show continuity from Benedict to Francis amid continued nostalgia from some conservatives for the former’s tradition-minded papacy. Francis had invited the entire Vatican Curia, or bureaucracy, to celebrate Benedict’s anniversary, and prelates turned out in...

An Evangelical Christian leader went against the grain of her religious subset’s strong pro-life stance this week and endorsed pro-abortion candidate Hillary Clinton for president. Deborah Fikes is the executive advisor to the World Evangelical Alliance, which works with churches in 129 countries to spread the Christian message. The Hill reports Fikes voiced her personal support for Clinton on Tuesday after a meeting between Christian leaders and likely Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. She called Clinton “trustworthy” and Trump “un-Christian” as she gave her personal endorsement to the pro-abortion candidate. “Hillary Clinton is the leader who people of faith are...

GENEVA, Switzerland, June 10, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis’ representative to the United Nations told the World Health Assembly in Switzerland last month that the Holy See “welcomes” goal 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), focused on ensuring “healthy lives,” and the goal’s 13 targets. However, the representative is coming under fire because one of the 13 targets included in his praise, specifically target 3.7, calls for “universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services.” The UN defined these terms at the 1994 Cairo conference to mean providing women with “modern contraception” for “family planning” and with “safe...

Pope Francis says gays — and all the other people the church has marginalized, such as the poor and the exploited — deserve an apology. Francis was asked Sunday en route home from Armenia if he agreed with one of his top advisers, German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who told a conference in Dublin in the days after the deadly Orlando gay club attack that the church owes an apology to gays for having marginalized them. Francis responded with a variation of his famous "Who am I to judge?" comment and a repetition of church teaching that gays must not be...

Italy (Ammoland.com) Pope Francis spoke with a group of young people at a rally of thousands at the end of the first day of his trip to the Italian city of Turin. Francis started by attacking the Right to Keep and Bear Arms as well as accusing the allies during World War Two of being complicit in the killing of Jews, Christians and homosexuals. Francis issued his toughest condemnation to date of the weapons industry, saying. “If you trust only men you have lost,” he told the young people in a long, rambling talk about war, trust and politics after...

Pope Francis has said that the Roman Catholic Church should apologise to gay people for the way it has treated them. He told reporters that the Church had no right to judge the gay community, and should show them respect. The pontiff also said the Church should seek forgiveness from other people it had marginalised - women, the poor, and children forced into labour. The Pope has been hailed by many in the gay community for his positive attitude towards homosexuals. But some conservative Catholics have criticised him for making comments they say are ambiguous about sexual morality. Speaking to...

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (Reuters) - Pope Francis said on Sunday that Christians and the Roman Catholic Church should seek forgiveness from homosexuals for the way they had treated them. Speaking to reporters aboard the plane taking him back to Rome from Armenia, he also said the Church should ask forgiveness for the way it has treated women, for turning a blind eye to child labor and for "blessing so many weapons" in the past. In the hour-long freewheeling conversation that has become a trademark of his international travels, Francis was asked if he agreed with recent comments by...

The Environmental Protection Agency has spent millions of dollars over the last decade on military-style weapons to arm its 200 “special agents” to fight environmental crime. Among the weapons purchased are guns, body armor, camouflage equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar and night-vision gear and other military-style weaponry and surveillance activities, according to a new report by the watchdog group Open the Books. “Protecting the environment just got real. With millions of dollars spent on military style weaponry, the EPA is now literally ensconced with all institutional force,” said Adam Andrzejewski, founder of Open the Books and the author...

Turkey says Pope Francis' description of the WW1 mass killing of Armenians as genocide shows "the mentality of the Crusades". The pontiff's remarks have "no relation to reality", Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli said. Armenia and many historians say up to 1.5 million Armenian Christians were killed by Ottoman Turkish forces in 1915. But Turkey disputes the figure and denies the deaths constituted genocide. It says the deaths were part of a civil conflict triggered by WW1. The row continues to sour Turkish-Armenian relations, drawing in other countries such as Germany, whose parliament recently declared the killings to be...