Free Republic

Italy's historic capital is on the brink of bankruptcy as its mayor plans to plead for a bailout from the national government. Mayor Ignazio Marino told the Wall Street Journal that he is in daily discussions with Italy's national government. But he stressed the parties "just needed to identify the right amount of money the government should give to Rome".

At 5:00pm Pacific Time, Ethiopian Flight 702, a Boeing 767-300 was flying over Sudan when it started squawking 7500. The transponder code, is supposed to indicate a “hijacking.” (snip) The flight, operating from Addis Abba to Rome has been confirmed by Rome Airport not to have arrived yet. As of now, it is over France, but has recently taken a steep northeast heading. Based on flight tracking, it appears the plane is headed to Geneva. Emergency crews are standing by.

hat caused the fall of the Roman Empire? A devastating plague that struck during the reign of Emperor Justinian in 541 AD, killing a quarter of the population, seems to have landed the final blow, but the identity of the infection was a mystery. Now sequencing of DNA taken from two skeletons buried in Bavaria, Germany, in the 6th century has uncovered the complete genome of Yersinia pestis, the bacteria also blamed for the Black Death that struck Europe in 1348. The find suggests that Y. pestis may have emerged to ravage humanity several times. Hendrik Poinar at McMaster University...

Pro-lifers who had just finished the third annual Italian March for Life on Sunday were surprised to see Pope Francis coming toward them in the popemobile. “It was a great joy for us because we didn’t expect this at all, we just expected his message,” said March for Life organizer Virginia Coda Nunziante. “It was extraordinary because I met the people who unexpectedly saw him coming,” she told CNA on May 13. The popemobile brought the Pope down the first block of Via della Conciliazione after he finished his first canonization Mass and the weekly Regina Caeli prayer on Sunday....

To the delight and surprise of about 40,000 participants in Rome’s Marcia per la Vita (March for Life) Internazionale in Rome on Sunday, Pope Francis left the Apostolic Palace to join them in the popemobile as they gathered in the street. In an interview with LifeSiteNews, Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro, head of the Rome office of Human Life international, said that it was highly unusual for the pope to have effectively joined the March for Life with the other participants. Though, in his short papacy, Pope Francis has developed a reputation for a fair amount of spontaneity, it appears the Vatican...

Italian police say they are searching for the sender of pig heads to Rome’s main synagogue, the Israeli Embassy and a city museum hosting an exhibit on the Holocaust. […] The deliveries were made Friday, three days before an international memorial day for Holocaust victims. …

It seems that the A&E Duck Dynasty controversy has come to a conclusion. In the aftermath of this dispute, after all the words exchanged have been reviewed, what can we learn? I believe that the public responses surrounding this recent chain of events reveal several observable trends and ideologies about us as a society. Thus, the following theses presented below are based upon what I believe is the trending American ideology and ethos towards scripture, ethics, and what it values. Thesis #1: Society is unable to apply the simple rules of grammar to scripture. In the debated GQ Interview, it...

The embrace between Rome and Constantinople is renewed. But a document from the patriarchate of Moscow freezes the discussion between Catholics and Orthodox on the powers of the pope over the universal ChurchROME, January 8, 2014 – Exactly half a century since the embrace in Jerusalem between Paul VI and the patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras, Pope Francis has announced that he too will go to the Holy Land, next May 24-26, to repeat that ecumenical gesture with the successor of Athenagoras, Bartholomew. On Saturday, January 4, the eve of the anniversary, “L'Osservatore Romano" republished the complete text of the conversation...

......"The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life has put hard numbers on the anecdotal evidence: One out of every 10 Americans is an ex-Catholic. If they were a separate denomination, they would be the third-largest denomination in the United States, after Catholics and Baptists. One of three people who were raised Catholic no longer identifies as Catholic........."Thankfully, although the U.S. bishops have not supported research on people who have left the church, the Pew Center has. Pew’s data shows that those leaving the church are not homogenous. They can be divided...

December 1, 2013. History, religion and archeology are all nestled in the Roman catacombs of Priscilla. One of the most recent discoveries is a fresco depicting Lazarus rising from the dead. The fresco is centuries old, but now thanks to new technology it has been restored with the use of lasers.    BARBARA MAZZEI Restorative Museum, The Catacombs of Priscilla  “In one of the areas we restored we found a representation of Lazarus rising from the dead. In addition to that, it's also interesting to see that they drew images of Peter and Paul accompanying the dead. Two martyrs of...

Two Baptist chaplains said they were forced out of a Veterans Affairs chaplain training program after they refused orders to stop quoting the Bible and to stop praying in the name of Jesus. When the men objected to those demands, they were subjected to ridicule and harassment that led to one of the chaplains leaving the program and the other being ejected, according to a federal lawsuit filed Friday. The Conservative Baptist Association of America is suing Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki; the group’s suit alleges two of its chaplains were openly ridiculed by the leader of the San...

The Vatican is planning an unprecedented public display of the relics of St. Peter, as the Year of Faith comes to a close. The display was announced by Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the president of Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, in an article appearing in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. The archbishop did not supply any details of the plans. The tomb of St. Peter, located under the altar of the Vatican basilica, was unearthed during excavations in the mid-20the century. In 1968, after extensive research and testing, Pope Paul VI announced that relics of St. Peter had been...

British parliamentarians have concluded their three-day visit to the Holy See. Eleven members of the All Party Parliament Group, accompanied by the chaplain to Parliament Canon Pat Browne, met with the Pope on Wednesday, after the General Audience. MP Edward Leigh declared after the three day visit that “The Holy See is an enormous soft power, it represent a religion of 1.2 billion people and so the British government and the British parliament is very interested in what the Vatican says.” The Group, made up of representatives of both House of Parliament and all the major political parties, has encountered...

The pope is selling his hog. The National Catholic Register reports that Pope Francis is selling his Harley-Davidson motorcycle to raise money to help the homeless in Rome. “It is a precious gift that has once again made us happy in feeling the closeness of our bishop to the poor of the Church of Rome,” Monsignor Enrico Feroci, director of Caritas Rome, said. “We are deeply grateful to Pope Francis for this.” According to The Associated Press, Harley gave Francis two classic white Harleys for the Vatican police force in June when the manufacturer and tens of thousands of Harley...

For vast numbers of people, Roman Catholicism is the religion of choice. Rome can be attractive for a wide variety of reasons. The most significant is familial, people born into and persevering in the Roman Church. But other attractions of various sorts can be readily found: theological, philosophical, liturgical, moral, psychological, and historical.Defenders of Protestantism over the centuries have entered the lists, confronting at great length all of Rome's attractions. Understandably, the discussions have often focused particularly on biblical and theological arguments. But historical arguments are of great importance as well. Rome often claims that it represents two thousand years...

A photo from the gay wedding series. Photo: Gonzalo Orquín A gallery in Rome has removed photographs of same sex couples kissing in churches after the Catholic Church threatened legal action. The series of photos, by Gonzalo Orquín, was due to be displayed at the exhibition opening at the Galleria L’Opera on Wednesday evening. “A letter arrived from the Vicariate of Rome, an organization that is part of the Vatican, which said the church is against the exhibition. I spoke to lawyers and for security reasons we decided not to show the photos,” Orquín told The Local. The Vicariate,...

In 717–18, Western civilization was hanging by a thread.Today, August 15, marks the anniversary of Constantinople’s victory over Muslim invaders in what historians commonly call the “Second Siege of Byzantium,” 717–18. Prior to this massive onslaught, the Muslims had been hacking away at the domains of the Byzantine empire for nearly a century. The Muslims’ ultimate goal was the conquest of Constantinople — for both political and religious reasons. Politically, Islam had no rival but the “hated Christians” of Byzantium, known by various appellations — including al-Rum (the Romans), al-Nassara (the Nazarenes), and, most notoriously, al-Kilab (the “dogs”). The eastern...

ROME, August 5, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Up to 500 people are expected to hold a demonstration later tonight outside the Italian parliament to protest a bill that would criminalize homophobia and "transphobia," something constitutional experts believe would shut down citizens' right to free speech, especially for Christians. The event is organized by the recently formed Italian branch of Manif pour Tous. It will be matched by a demonstration in Paris by the French branch of the group, outside the Italian embassy. The group contends that the bill would stifle any principled opposition to the homosexual political agenda, including plans that they...

Unfortunately, the fall of Rome is a pattern repeated by empires throughout history ... including ours? A group of libertarians gathered in Las Vegas recently for an event called "FreedomFest." We debated whether America will soon fall, as Rome did. Historian Carl Richard said that today's America resembles Rome. The Roman Republic had a constitution, but Roman leaders often ignored it. "Marius was elected consul six years in a row, even though under the constitution (he) was term-limited to one year." Sounds like New York City's Mayor Bloomberg. "We have presidents of both parties legislating by executive order, saying I'm...