Free Republic

RICHMOND, Virginia, July 26, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Pro-abortion Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Senator Tim Kaine received a standing ovation at his parish on Sunday and several Catholic priests praised his nomination. Meanwhile, as Catholics call for Kaine to be denied Communion in accord with the Church’s laws, his bishop in the Diocese of Richmond has issued a statement saying that Catholics have a duty to determine their own worthiness “through an upright and informed conscience.” Kaine and his wife were “like every other married couple going to church on a Sunday morning — if every other couple were met by...

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 25, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — A Catholic priest asked that pro-abortion Vice Presidential nominee Tim Kaine “do us both a favor” and not show up in his Communion line. “I take Canon 915 seriously. It'd be embarrassing for you & for me,” tweeted Dominican Father Thomas Petri, the vice president and academic dean of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies. Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law instructs that those “persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches,...

Pope Francis is set to arrive Wednesday in Poland, but the homeland of Saint Pope John Paul II – Francis’ most popular modern-day predecessor -- is not rolling out the red carpet for the pontiff whose social agenda has alienated many in the conservative nation.

And with Sweet Sleep Mine Eyelids - A Meditation on a Beautiful Hymn of the Night Msgr. Charles Pope • July 25, 2016 • One of the great night prayer hymns, “All Praise to Thee My God This Night,” appears in numerous hymnals of the English tradition. Sadly, it is not in our current breviary, but I hope that the new one might feature it. It was written by Thomas Ken in 1709 and is most often sung to the beautiful tune of Tallis’ Ordinal, which you can hear in the video below.Ideally, night prayer should include acts of...

“When Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law” (v. 14). - Romans 2:14–15 If there is only one, true creator God, then only the law of our Creator can serve as the fixed, transcendent basis for human ethics. We find our Creator’s law in Scripture, particularly in the Mosaic law, which includes ceremonial and civil regulations designed for ancient Israel as well as moral commandments that apply in every time and place. In particular, as Christians from nearly every...

I had a very weird college experience. My memories aren’t of frat parties, of slugging down drinks in games of quarters or beer pong, of losing my voice cheering at big football games, and of hearing how evil Western civilization is in the classroom. Instead, when I think of my four years at Thomas Aquinas College, I think of drawing Euclidean propositions on a chalkboard, of lively debates about Aristotle’s claims about ethics, of earnest discussions about things as obscure as the nature of being.

Tim LaHaye, the best-selling author best known for the Left Behind series, “graduated to heaven” early this morning after suffering a stroke at age 90. His family announced the news of his passing at a San Diego hospital on his ministry Facebook page. On the eve of his death, ministry partners, fans, and friends urgently asked for prayer on social media this weekend, offering a wave of early tributes that spread through end-times prophecy circles and chapters of Concerned Women for America (CWA), the 600,000-member public policy organization founded by LaHaye’s wife, Beverly. Some circulated a statement by LaHaye’s daughter...

PARIS –  Two attackers reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar" before slitting the throat of an 84-year-old priest and critically injuring at least one other person during a Tuesday morning terror attack on a church near the Normandy city of Rouen, officials said.The terrorists, who French President Francois Hollande said had pledged their allegiance to ISIS, were later shot and killed by police."[ISIS] has declared war on us," Hollande said Tuesday. "We must fight this war by all means, while respecting the rule of law -- what makes us a democracy." The priest, identified by Sky News as Jacques Hamel, was dead...

"To obtain an inheritance which is . . . reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Pet. 1:4-5). Your eternal inheritance is doubly secure: it is reserved for you, and you are reserved for it. When Peter wrote his first epistle, attitudes toward Christians in the Roman Empire were not at all favorable. Because they would not worship the emperor as a god, or enter into other sinful pagan practices, Christians were looked upon with suspicion and disdain. In addition,...

“And in your godliness, brotherly kindness . . .” (2 Peter 1:7). Real Christian discipleship will include practical brotherly love. A genuine love for God will invariably lead to a love for others. That’s what Jesus said of the two great commandments (Matt. 22:36-40) that summarize the Ten Commandments. The apostle John also related love for God and love for others: “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). The...

World Youth Day, a weeklong gathering of Catholic young people, has begun in Krakow, Poland. The festivities will continue until July 31. Pope Francis will arrive in Poland on Wednesday and will celebrate Mass with the pilgrims on Saturday and Sunday. Pope Francis will also make a visit to Auschwitz while he is in Poland. Krakow was announced as the 2016 host city at the conclusion of 2013's World Youth Day in Rio. World Youth Day's next dates and location will be announced at the end of Sunday's Mass. Attendance at past World Youth Days has ranged from 400,000 to...

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness . . . Hate evil and love good. Then you will be able to have justice in your courts. (Isa. 5:20; Amos 5:15)

July 26, 2016 Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne, Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary Reading 1 Jer 14:17-22 Let my eyes stream with tearsday and night, without rest,Over the great destruction which overwhelmsthe virgin daughter of my people,over her incurable wound.If I walk out into the field,look! those slain by the sword;If I enter the city,look! those consumed by hunger.Even the prophet and the priestforage in a land they know not. Have you cast Judah off completely?Is Zion loathsome to you?Why have you struck us a blowthat cannot be healed?We wait for peace, to no avail;for a time...

Footsteps of the Messiah , video at link

Many Americans say to themselves today, "How can anyone vote for Hillary? Are they nuts!!..." Well... it is much much more than that.. Let's take a look! The majority of Hillary and Bernie voters and those of the Democratic base are Liberal /progressives whose "reality and belief system" is rooted in the firm rejection of Almighty God and His ETERNAL RIGHTEOUSNESS, core moral absolutes and the practice of a sensual subjectivism, that view God ordained absolutes through the lawless prism of moral relativism and pluralism. These possess a fear of moral absolutes and believe that true freedom is to be...

A senior store detective at Macy’s has been fired from his job after he intervened when a female customer reported that a man entered the women’s bathroom. After he was asked to leave the restroom, the man complained saying he believes he is really a female. The woman and her daughter were frightened by the man’s presence. The case is now before the New York State Division of Human Rights, reports the ChurchMilitant.com.

The cardinal said the devil tries to sow doubt in Catholics' minds about defending human life publicly Cardinal Raymond Burke has revealed that his mother was advised to abort him.In a new book-length interview with the French journalist Guillaume d’Alançon, Cardinal Burke says that when his mother was pregnant with him, she became seriously ill and a doctor advised her to have an abortion.According to Cardinal Burke, the doctor said: “You already have five children, it is important for you to be in good health so as to take care of them”.“My parents refused,” says the cardinal, who is now chaplain...

What’s that old saying? You can attract more with honey than with vinegar? Brother Victor Antoine d’Avila-Latourrette proves it wrong.That long French name might ring a bell with readers who are familiar with a number of spiritually-themed cookbooks that were published in recent years, Twelve Months of Monastery Soups and The Monastery Garden Cookbook among them.But to locals in the lower Hudson Valley region of New York, Brother Victor Antoine’s name conjures up images of an essential ingredient. Turns out this hermit monk has what aficionados call a “mother,” with a lineage going back four decades.“The term refers to the...

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has decided to scrap a previously scheduled official discourse to Polish bishops on the first day of his apostolic journey to Poland, in favour of a private encounter with them during which the Pope and the bishops will be able to listen to each other and converse in total freedom. Speaking to Vatican Radio, Father Federico Lombardi SJ, Director of the Holy See Press Office, explained that the Pope wants the occasion to be as spontaneous and authentic as possible: a moment in which the bishops and the Pope will be at ease and free to...

L’Osservatore Romano has published a defense of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia by Rodrigo Guerra López, a philosopher at the Center for Advanced Social Research in Queretaro, Mexico. Stating that “it is not strange to find resistance when Christian thought takes a new step forward,” López writes that the controversy over Amoris Laetitia recalls earlier controversies over whether the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on religious liberty was faithful to the teaching of Leo XIII and whether St. John Paul II’s use of phenomenology was in accord with the Church’s philosophical tradition. “Amoris laetitia is a true act of pontifical...