Free Republic

“‘He will not quarrel, nor cry out; nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. A battered reed He will not break off, and a smoldering wick He will not put out’” (Matthew 12:19–20). The Lord Jesus did not cajole or browbeat people with the gospel like some inflammatory demagogue who stirs up his listeners by pandering to their emotions and prejudices. Christ always spoke plainly, with dignity and control—His only persuasive technique was the truth. He never resorted to the lies and scheming of His enemies. As the Son of God and Messiah, He never attempted to gain...

A judge heard lawyers’ arguments Monday in a years-long lawsuit brought by a Jewish woman against Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban. A ruling could happen soon. Jessica Kalb has been waiting over three years for a court to decide if Kentucky law, including its ban on abortion, violates her religious freedom and puts her at risk of criminal prosecution if, as a patient pursuing in vitro fertilization, she eventually discards any frozen embryos that she doesn’t need. Kalb launched this lawsuit when she was 32 years old, just a few months after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed justices overturned Roe v....

A reckoning is inevitable. Blasphemers who pass themselves off as clergy have been given more than enough rope to hang themselves with. Consider Rebecca Todd Peters. Via Brave: Rebecca Todd Peters is a feminist Christian social ethicist, ordained Presbyterian minister (PCUSA), and Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University, where she also founded and directs the Poverty and Social Justice Program. Her scholarship centers on globalization, economic and environmental justice, and reproductive justice. “Reproductive justice” is Liberalese for killing babies as a political cause. The unholy minister has hands-on experience. Hear her preach: “I felt God’s presence with me as...

Nothing less than a clear and firm correction of the priests who conspired to abuse the sacraments and confuse the Catholic Church’s unambiguous teaching on homosexuality will suffice.Gio Benitez, an openly gay-identified ABC News anchor, was recently confirmed into the Catholic Church, accompanied by his “husband” — who served as his “sponsor.”The confirmation Mass took place last month at the brazenly pro-LGBT Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. The historic landmark is the mother church of the Paulist Fathers – a, as writer Glenn Stanton noted, “rapidly dying” liberal order of priests. There were 98 active Paulist priests...

The simple effort of religious sisters sending postcards and Christmas cards can be a lifeline to workers feeling trapped and searching for a way out of the abortion industry. A beautiful, behind-the-scenes project has been taking place during the Christmas season for the past five years. Religious sisters from convents across the country have been sending Christmas cards to abortion centers, letting the staff there know they are prayed for, and that help is available if they’re interested in finding other work. Sr. Christina Nazareth, a Capuchin Sister who lives in a Williamsport, Pennsylvania convent, received a letter from And...

Hundreds of pro-life students from Christendom College prayed outside a Virginia abortion facility as part of the annual “Mega Shield” event. Students from the Front Royal Catholic college traveled an hour and a half to Falls Church, Virginia for the November 15 event. Students in the Shield of Roses Club regularly pray outside the abortion facility on other days as well. The group said more than two hundred students attended – the school’s total enrollment is just around 550. The event is part of the students’ “identity” as Catholics, the club’s president told The College Fix. “Mega Shield is an...

Late preaching professor Calvin Miller once quipped to Christianity Today that many Southern Baptist churches “probably could hardly spell Advent” in the early 1990s. Not so anymore. So why the shift? Church historian Stan Norman said Baptists have begun to see the usefulness of traditions once viewed as too liturgical or high church. Advent wreaths, calendars and readings “seem to provide a bit of structure in a tradition that has maybe gone too far without structure,” Norman, provost of Oklahoma Baptist University, told Baptist Press. The focus on Christ inherent in Advent celebrations is needed “in a cultural context in...

The Christmas tree tradition emerged from the “sacred trees” of Northern European mythology such as Yggdrasil, the giant ash tree at the center of the Norse cosmos that holds all the worlds in its roots and branches. It is said that St. Boniface came upon one such sacred tree during his mission to the Germanic tribes in 723. Upon finding devotees preparing to sacrifice a child to Thor at the “Thunder Oak,” Boniface intervened and miraculously chopped down the tree with one swift swing. He used its wood to build a Christian chapel, and in the spot where the oak...

Nigerian human rights advocate: Cardinal Parolin is ‘emboldening’ Muslim attacks against ChristiansCardinal Parolin downplaying the Islamic genocide of Nigerian Christians ‘provides cover for those perpetrating the violence’ and ‘emboldens’ Muslim terrorists, Emeka Umeagbalasi said. The board chair of a Nigerian human rights organization, during an interview last week with Crux, slammed Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin for downplaying the role of Islam in the brutal genocide against the country’s Christians and said that he is encouraging further acts of Islamic terrorism against the faithful.During the interview, which was published on November 27, Emeka Umeagbalasi, the board chair of...

The program is about 48 minutes long. Click on the link at the Source URL.

Lake Street Church of Evanston is a “progressive Christian theology that embraces people from all different religious denominations and religious traditions.” Led by Rev. Dr. Michael Woolf, they are affiliated with the American Baptist Churches in the USA, and proudly “cherishes its non-creedal tradition” and their bizarre church covenant. For their Nativity scene this year, they depicted baby Jesus zip-tied in his cradle, while Roman soldiers/ ICE agents look on. The church explains that “this installation reimagines the nativity as a scene of forced family separation, drawing direct parallels between the Holy Family’s refugee experience and contemporary immigration detention practices.”...

[Catholic Caucus] Towards the Francis Dream of an Extermination of Opus Dei?When Summorum Pontificum was promulgated, we had great hopes for a liturgical renewal of Opus Dei, the particular order founded by Josemaría Escrivá and later transformed in the only Personal Prelature, a novel figure created (for them, apparently) in the new Code of Canon Law.We knew many priests of "The Work" loved the Traditional Mass, that Escrivá celebrated until the end of his life. But the order from above, as far as we could discern, was that the priests of Opus should, whenever possible, refrain from the Traditional Mass,...

Pope Leo lays wreath at grave of Turkish leader Atatürk despite links to anti-Christian genocidesUnder the leadership of Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, his forces committed widespread murder and persecution of Greek, Armenian, and other Christian minorities.Pope Leo XIV paid homage at Atatürk’s tomb on November 27, 2025, at Anıtkabir in Ankara, despite the Turkish leader’s links to genocides against Christian minorities.On November 27, 2025, in Ankara, Pope Leo XIV – arriving for his first apostolic visit to Turkey – paused at Anıtkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, where he laid a wreath and signed the Honor...

Fact-Checking Leo XIV’s Claim About the Achievements of the Ecumenical MovementIn his November 23 Apostolic Letter, Leo XIV stresses that we must leave behind the theological controversies that separate Catholics and non-Catholics. Apparently indifference is no longer optional. This is arguably the highest achievement to date of the ecumenical movement launched by Vatican II and nearly perfected by John Paul II.On November 23, 2025, Leo XIV released his apostolic letter on the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea, In unitate fidei. In it, he praised various aspects of the Council of Nicea, including what he described as its ecumenical...

Daily Readings from the USCCBWhen Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I say to you, many will come from the east and the west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 8:10–11Jesus looks into the heart, not just at one’s exterior. Today’s Gospel presents us with the profound faith of a Roman centurion—a pagan and Gentile. Though not of the Jewish faith, this centurion recognized Jesus’ spiritual authority to...

🇺🇸Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem 🇮🇱(12/1/25)[Prayer]The Scriptures in Handel’s “Messiah”Isaiah 53:88 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.Holy Bible, The King James Version________________________

“‘And He shall proclaim justice to the Gentiles’” (Matthew 12:18). Contrary to Jewish thinking and expectations, the Messiah would be the Redeemer for all nationalities, not just the Jews. In fact, the Jews were to be the ones to proclaim God’s grace to the rest of the world. God told Abraham, “In you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). It is therefore rather ironic that the Jews would resist the concept that God’s good news was for all peoples. The reality that Jesus’ message would be for all mankind was readily apparent early in His...

1 December 2025Monday of the 1st week of AdventLokeren, Flemish Region, BelgiumReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: Violet. Year: A(II).First readingIsaiah 4:2-6The fruit of the earth shall be the pride and adornment of Israel's survivorsThat day, the branch of the Lordshall be beauty and glory,and the fruit of the earthshall be the pride and adornmentof Israel’s survivors.Those who are left of Zionand remain of Jerusalemshall be called holyand those left in Jerusalem, noted down for survival.When the Lord has washed awaythe filth of the daughter of Zionand cleansed Jerusalem of the blood shed in herwith the blast of judgement and the...

30 November 2025 1st Sunday of AdventSt. Andrew the Apostle Roman Catholic Church, Algiers, Louisiana Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Violet. Year: A(II).First readingIsaiah 2:1-5The Lord gathers all nations together into the eternal peace of God's kingdomThe vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, concerning Judah and Jerusalem.In the days to comethe mountain of the Temple of the Lordshall tower above the mountainsand be lifted higher than the hills.All the nations will stream to it,peoples without number will come to it; and they will say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the...

[Catholic Caucus] “Today's Modernism is more subtle, more camouflaged, more forceful and more hypocritical.”"[...] as time goes on, we need to realize more that the divergence between the two currents [one faithful to the Magisterium of the Church and the modernist one] is not of form, but of substance; it is not about the way the truth should be expressed and taught, but about the truth itself. We are in full-blown modernism. Not the naive, open, aggressive, and combative modernism at the time of Pius X. No. Today's Modernism is more subtle, more camouflaged, more forceful, and more hypocritical. It...