Free Republic

Against a grim backdrop of rising suicide rates among American women, new research has revealed a blinding shaft of light: One group of women — practicing Catholics — appears to have bucked the national trend toward despair and self-harm. Compared with women who never participated in religious services, women who attended any religious service once a week or more were five times less likely to commit suicide between 1996 and 2010, says a study published by JAMA Psychiatry. [snip] Among devout Catholic women — those in the pews more than once a week — suicides were a vanishing phenomenon. Among...

To Catholics, the week before Easter is Holy Week, a time to prepare for the most special feast day of the year: celebrating the resurrection of Christ. To Hollywood, it is a time to flog the Catholic Church with vicious portrayals of corruption and hypocrisy. Hollywood insists that its products reflect a market demand. But there is no market demand for this. It is Hollywood, and only Hollywood, that wishes to vocalize its bigotry toward Catholics. This year, there are entire shows that mock God and Catholics on a weekly basis. On Tuesday, ABC's announcer actually told viewers, "It's Easter...

"Americans who regularly attend worship services and hold traditional religious views increasingly vote Republican, while those who are less connected to religious institutions and more secular in their outlook tend to vote Democratic," according to a major study by the Pew Forum. Some of the conclusions of this report were already evident in the exit polling data. For example, voters who attend church more than once a week (16% of all voters) chose Bush over Kerry by a margin of 64 – 35. Likewise, those who attend Church on a weekly basis (26% of voters) supported the President by a...