Free Republic

Washington D.C., Nov 25, 2016 / 03:59 am (CNA).- When the Democratic Party makes its decisions about leadership at the end of the month, the House Minority Leader will be a self-proclaimed “pro-choice Catholic.”Both current House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, and her challenger, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), profess to be Catholic but also support legalized abortion.Pelosi (D-Calif.) has been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives since 1987. She has consistently advocated in favor of legal abortion, and has earned high ratings from pro-abortion groups including Planned Parenthood Action Fund and NARAL.Ryan represents a district in Northeast Ohio...

A week after the election, the Huffington Post published a blog entry in which Progressive Christians suggested what like-minded Christians should do in order to “take back their faith.” Still reeling from the election in which Donald Trump was elected president, several progressive Christians pondered the necessary steps to draw a stronger contrast between their brand of kindhearted progressive Christianity, and the kind of conservative, evangelical Christianity that helped elect Donald Trump. The responses were predictably representative of left-wing Christianity, which centered on re-emphasizing social justice issues and identity politics as the “loving,” compassionate, anti-Trumpian counterpart to the hate-filled Christianity...

An influential seminary affiliated with The Episcopal Church has announced that it will no longer issue degrees starting next year, and is reporting a net loss of $7.9 million in assets since last year. The Episcopal Divinity School of Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced in July that they will stop granting degrees at the end of the 2016-2017 academic year. Last week, the divinity school sent out an update to supporters and members of its campus community wherein they noted that the net assets of the seminary had declined rapidly over the past couple of years. "At our meeting, we also accepted...

Late at night the day after the election, I picked up a phone call from one of my sons. He called to share how he and his friends felt moments after the election had been called for Mr. Trump. There was an urgent and fearful tone to his voice that I have never sensed before from him.It did not take long before we got right to the core of his concerns: “Dad, my friends and I are very worried. Some of us were crying last night and wondering if Mr. Trump would continue to say the kinds of hurtful things...

The newly selected Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church in the USA (PCUSA), Rev. Dr. J Herbert Nelson II, recently released a statement about the presidential election entitled, “When Incivility Becomes the Norm.” Nelson characterized his missive as a “response to the violence on America’s streets after the election of Mr. Donald Trump as President–Elect of the United States of America.” One might think, upon reading this introduction, that the venerable Reverend Doctor would be making an appeal for peace and calm. After all, peaceful protests are a proud legacy of the church, while violence and riots are generally discouraged...

Bill Donohue comments on Hillary Clinton’s speech at an African American church in Philadelphia yesterday: Hillary Clinton took her campaign to Mount Airy Church of God in Christ yesterday afternoon. According to one report, “she urged parishioners of a black church in Philadelphia’s West Oak Lane neighborhood to choose ‘hope over fear’ and vote to send her to the White House.” Another story described how she stood “at a wooden lectern in the center of a purple-carpeted altar,” making her pitch to the faithful. There has been no complaint from the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State,...

Thanks to WikiLeaks, we learn that in preparation for the U.S. Papal September visit, the Vatican proactively sought input from the most radical fringe of the Democratic Left. Is this Pope Francis’ idea of his peaceful ‘dialogue and encounter? All roads to the Francis Vatican lead back to George Soros. The secret roadmap is provided by both the WikiLeaks’ release of John Podesta emails and DCLeaks documents from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. These emails corroborate that Soros operatives are collaborating with top Vatican cardinals, at the behest of George Soros. In August 2016, DCLeaks documents hacked from Soros’ Open...

In a historic moment for the Archdiocese of Newark, Archbishop John J. Myers on Monday is expected to announce his successor, Cardinal-designate Joseph W. Tobin, currently the archbishop of Indianapolis, NJ Advance Media has learned. Tobin, a moderate leader who has supported a greater role for women in the church, has also expressed the need for more dialogue over gay parishioners and has sparred with Indiana Gov. Mike Pence over the resettlement of Syrian refugees. Tobin has served as archbishop of Indianapolis since October 2012. Pope Francis named him a cardinal last month. The designation takes effect. Nov. 18. The appointment...

During Barack Obama’s war on Hobby Lobby his administration said flatly; “We Can and Will Force Christians to Act Against Their faith.” This is what they believe. This is how they see Christians. This was the opening battle in the Democrats’ War on Christians. It was directed by a quintessential stereotypical Democrat. Their Christian attacks are usually led by phony “Catholics” so as to more easily deflect rightful criticism for their dirty business. Putative Catholic Kathleen Sebelius was joined in her war on Hobby Lobby by putative Catholic Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in what was fortunately a losing effort....

GOP nominee’s ‘concept of the human person and the human body’ is incompatible with Judaism’s teachings, say spiritual leaders. ... The letter, entitled “Women Rabbis Condemn Trump Hate Speech,” was deliberately planned to coincide with Simhat Torah, the annual time of year in which Jews around the world conclude and then restart their reading cycle of Judaism’s holiest text. One of its signatories, Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly who delivered an invocation at this year’s Democratic National Convention, said in an email to reporters that the idea derived from a similar letter sent by Christian...

Donald Trump was booed by diners during a Catholic fundraising event last night.The Alfred E Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, an annual white-tie gala in New York, is often the last time the two presidential nominees share a stage before Election Day and is traditionally a time when campaign hostilities are set aside. The event raises money for impoverished children throughout New YorkThe speakers usually poke fun at themselves and each other. But the audience seemed to think Trump had crossed a line with his caustic language about Clinton.Trump referred to his opponent as “corrupt” during a lengthy riff on the FBI’s investigation into her use of...

While the tradition of the Alfred E. Smith dinner to invite the Republican and Democrat nominee to raise money for charity is admirable, it was disturbing to see Timothy Cardinal Dolan laughing and joking with Hillary Clinton less than twenty-four hours after Hillary announced she supports abortion up to the moment of birth.  Worse, when he spoke at the end, he made a vague oblique reference to the life of the unborn when he said some of the money raised would help poor women give birth. I understand that the dinner is to raise money and everyone tries to...

When Jen Hatmaker speaks to stadiums full of Christian women, she regales them with stories about her five children and her garden back in Austin, Tex. — and stays away from politics. But recently she took to Facebook and Instagram to blast Donald J. Trump as a “national disgrace,” and remind her legions of followers that there are other names on the ballot in November. “Trump has consistently normalized violence, sexual deviance, bigotry and hate speech,” she said in an email interview. “I wouldn’t accept this from my seventh-grade son, much less from a potential leader of the free world.”...

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri and Center for American Progress fellow John Halpin mocked conservative Catholicism as an "amazing bastardization of the faith" in new emails released by WikiLeaks.

Longtime Clinton confidante discussed infiltrating the Catholic Church with progressive ideology to foment revolution A newly leaked email shows Hillary Clinton’s current campaign chairman John Podesta and a Left-wing activist casually discussing fomenting “revolution” in the Catholic Church. “There needs to be a Catholic Spring, in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic Church,” Sandy Newman, president and founder of the progressive nonprofit Voices for Progress, writes to Podesta in an email titled “opening for a Catholic Spring? just musing.” “There...

Longtime Clinton confidante discussed infiltrating the Catholic Church with progressive ideology to foment revolutionA newly leaked email shows Hillary Clinton’s current campaign chairman John Podesta and a Left-wing activist casually discussing fomenting “revolution” in the Catholic Church.“There needs to be a Catholic Spring, in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic Church,” Sandy Newman, president and founder of the progressive nonprofit Voices for Progress, writes to Podesta in an email titled “opening for a Catholic Spring? just musing.” “There needs to...

Pope Francis announced his choices for new Catholic cardinals Sunday, promoting a number of well-known progressives while snubbing conservatives who were up for the job. In all, the Pope named 17 new cardinals, including 13 who are under 80 years old and therefore eligible to participate in the conclave electing the next pope. Notably, in his selection for cardinals from among the United States bishops, Francis named the recently appointed archbishop of Chicago, Blaise Cupich, a man with impeccable liberal credentials. He also broke with protocol by choosing Archbishop William Tobin of Indianapolis, a relatively small archdiocese never before considered...

Beginning today, a controversial sculpture depicting a nude female Christ on the cross is returning to New York’s Episcopal Cathedral, displayed on a chapel altar. “Christa”, the bronze sculpture by artist Edwina Sandys, will appear alongside the work of 21 other contemporary artists according to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine web site: “all exploring the language, symbolism, art, and ritual associated with the historic concept of the Christ image and the divine as manifested in every person—across all genders, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and abilities.”

Reading "A Declaration by American Evangelicals Concerning Donald Trump" reminded me of the truth that what a document doesn't say is often as important as what it does.A survey of the initial signers reveals that its most famous signers have long been on the Progressive wing of American Protestantism: Tony Campolo, Rich Cizik, Claiborne, Wes Granberg-Michaelson, Rachel Held Evans, Jo Anne Lyon, McLaren, David Neff, Ron Sider (of Evangelicals for Social Action), and Jim Wallis (of Sojourners). A more candid title would have been "A Declaration by American Progressive Evangelicals Concerning Donald Trump."The letter's specific objections to Trump begin in...

October 6, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Johan Bonny of Antwerp, Belgium, suggested that homosexual couples, divorced and remarried Catholics, and cohabiting pairs should be given some sort of Church blessing as part of a “diversity of rituals” that would recognize the “exclusiveness and stability” of their unions. Since the two Synods on the Family and the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, this is probably one of the most radical viewpoints to have been expressed to date in the name of “pastoral care” and “mercy” by a Catholic prelate. Bishop Bonny offers his thoughts in a book to be published October 11...