Free Republic

Same-sex marriage no longer called 'gravely evil' in revised Bay Area Catholic handbook — ++Cordileone Caves Again [SF Examiner] In the latest revision of a proposed handbook for Bay Area Catholic school teachers, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone no longer calls same-sex marriage “gravely evil.” The change also removed the description for masturbation and in vitro fertilization, and it comes after months of negotiations to provide a new contract and handbook for teachers of the four high schools in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. But some in the school communities feel that those who do not align with certain Catholic teachings might still...

San Francisco state Senator Scott Wiener has introduced a new bill to decriminalize adult men having sex with boys and he and his allies in the media are smearing all opposition as "homophobic" and "anti-Semitic." From The Federalist, "No California Shouldn't Decriminalize Adult Sex With 14-Year-Olds": LGBT activists have pushed reasonable notions of equality to its limits with obscene perversions. State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco -- the same lawmaker who co-sponsored a bill in 2017 to remove the felony penalty for knowingly exposing another person to HIV -- has introduced a bill, Senate Bill 145 to give judges more...

OKLAHOMA CITY, January 28, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The City of San Francisco and the State of California have gained notoriety over the past few years for banning city employees from paid work trips to states with conservative values, and now the Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt has decided to return the favor. Stitt issued an executive order last week banning state-funded travel to California, citing the Golden State’s intolerance of pro-life neighbors, KFOR reported. “California and its elected officials over the past few years have banned travel to the State of Oklahoma in an effort to politically threaten and intimidate...

A website and related app that allows local residents to request maintenance or non-emergency services from the city has received 16,015 complaints with the keyword ‘feces’ in the last week at the time of this writing, and many pertain to human waste in public places. Additionally, words and phrases synonymous with ‘feces’ are found in thousands more grievances. Many of the complaints also connect the fecal matter to vagrants and homeless encampments - a sight all too common now across California. Users can geotag the location in question, and also provide photos to support their claim. “Homeless encampment is blocking...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Though known for its compassion to the needy, San Francisco may have hit peak saturation with tent camps, stinky urine and trash littering the streets, and the new interim mayor has vowed to do something about it. In the last few weeks, Mayor Mark Farrell has promised $750,000 to hire more people just to pick up discarded needles and $13 million over the next two years for more heavy duty steam cleaners and pit stop toilets. He also had workers dismantle sprawling homeless tent camps in the city's Mission District. The city famed for its picture-perfect...

The senior pastor and elders of City Church, the largest evangelical church in San Francisco will no longer require members to abstain from homosexual practice, so long as the homosexual activity occurs in the context of marriage. According to a letter written by senior pastor Fred Harrell on behalf of the Board of Elders, “We will no longer discriminate based on sexual orientation and demand lifelong celibacy as a precondition for joining. For all members, regardless of sexual orientation, we will continue to expect chastity in singleness until marriage.” “Our pastoral practice of demanding life-long ‘celibacy,' by which we meant...

[Editor’s note: The Elder Board of City Church in San Francisco, formerly in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and now in the Reformed Church in America (RCA), released a statement on changes of how it will minister to those who are considered a part of the LGBT community. This is a response to this statement; the full statement follows the response.] Dear friend, I’m so sorry. Thanks for forwarding this letter from City Church this morning. You’ve been a good friend and I want to speak to you plainly. This stuff breaks my heart. The letter makes it sound...

The Elder Board of San Francisco's largest evangelical church, City Church, has announced that the megachurch will end its practice of preventing LGBT people from becoming members if they are unwilling or unable to practice lifelong celibacy. "Our pastoral practice of demanding life-long 'celibacy,' by which we meant that for the rest of your life you would not engage your sexual orientation in any way, was causing obvious harm and has not led to human flourishing," Sr. Pastor Fred Harrell writes in a letter "on behalf of the Board and for the Gospel." The pastor cites social science research, saying...

Even though San Francisco has been known to be home of the radical gay agenda, and where selective abortion based upon sex has been pushed by government officials, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi seems to think the city is on par with Biblical scripture. During a Thanksgiving day speech at the San Francisco Interfaith Council, Nancy Pelosi stated that San Francisco is the “model” for living the gospel (20:30-20:42): “And I think that we have to challenge all of us in public policy, certainly not in San Francisco which is the model of living the gospel, but in public policy to say,...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, March 31, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Speaking with LifeSiteNews about the matter of worthiness to receive Holy Communion last week, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said that Church teaching on the matter “has been very clear and consistent from literally the very beginning." The Church's teaching goes "all the way back to St. Paul who writes in 1 Corinthians that anyone who does not receive the Eucharist worthily, that is if they are in a state of sin, blasphemes the body and blood of the Lord," the archbishop explained.

It’s been 35 years since 918 people, including 257 children, died on Nov. 18, 1978, at the Peoples Temple massacre in Jonestown. The mass murder inside the South American jungle commune in Guyana was engineered by Jim Jones, a murderous cult leader, and was the only time in American history a member of Congress, Leo Ryan, D-Calif., was killed in the line of official duty. Most of the victims were forced to commit suicide by drinking a fatal cocktail of poisoned punch spiked with a Valium tranquilizer. In the days that followed the slaughter of the innocents, Jonestown became a...

Alpha center wants to follow NehemiahOn Friday, March 21, 350 admirers filled the Patrons Hall of San Francisco’s St. Mary’s Cathedral in support of one of only two crisis pregnancy centers in the City. The event was a fundraiser for Alpha Pregnancy Center, located in Mission Terrace. For those unfamiliar with San Francisco, that is not one of the neighborhoods President Obama visits during his frequent fundraising trips. Attendees included Father John Jimenez, who recently celebrated Mass in front of San Francisco’s Planned Parenthood to kick off this year’s 40 Days for Life; a number of 40 Days volunteers; and...

SAN FRANCISCO - One reason the Republicans are so adamantly against Obamacare, is that it's driving individual insurance premiums up. And with the law now kicking in, the bills are coming due. In looking into this, we talked to health insurance companies, and representatives of Covered California, agency implementing the Affordable Care Act in California. What they told us may be a bitter pill to swallow, for those who will pay more. Cynthia Jaynes thought her family would benefit from the Affordable Care Act. The author of several young adult books says her family will see a minimum 11 percent...

<p>For the past several weeks, the 60-year-old San Francisco resident has frequently bolted awake in the middle of the night, in “a panic attack,” she said. She darts for her computer and checks the latest polls. Some days she’s so distraught that she can’t exercise.</p>

A San Francisco supervisor says he consulted a Ouija board before city leaders voted on whether to recommend naming a Navy ship after slain gay rights activist Harvey Milk. Supervisor John Avalos tells the San Francisco Chronicle (http://bit.ly/KnVnbu ) that he believes he made contact with Milk's spirit and that Milk spelled out letters indicating: "Good riddance to don't ask, don't tell." Te Board of Supervisors approved the non-binding resolution Tuesday on a 9-2 vote. Milk was a city supervisor and former naval officer. He was fatally shot in 1978 by Dan White. Supporters say the naming would honor the...

Rick Perry is waaaaaaaaay behind in polls everywhere, so he’s literally throwing a Hail Mary pass to Iowa’s conservative evangelical Christian community with a new TV ad that is getting pounded across the political spectrum — and even from within Perry’s campaign — for its anti-gay message. “I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian,” Perry says in the ad currently in heavy rotation in Iowa. “But you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know that there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can’t openly...

Here’s a story that’ll tickle your McRibs. On December 1 a law seemingly banning McDonald’s Happy Meals went into effect in San Francisco. The “Healthy Meal Incentives Ordinance” prohibits restaurants from giving away toys with meals that do not meet with the city’s approval — namely, meals with too many calories, too much salt or fat, or insufficient fruits and vegetables. Just a few days before the ordinance took effect, SF Weekly reports, McDonald’s announced it had found a simple way around the statute: Charge customers extra for the toys. Now in order to obtain a Happy Meal toy, parents...

Radical homosexual group ‘encouraged’ by archbishop’s inaction at Most Holy RedeemerThe Rainbow Sash Movement, a homosexual-rights group known for disrupting Masses across the world on Pentecost Sundays, says San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer’s failure to police activities at the notoriously ‘gay-friendly’ Most Holy Redeemer parish “should be applauded.” In a Nov. 22 news release -- the same day California Catholic Daily published a story about the scheduled appearance of retired Episcopal Bishop Otis Charles at Most Holy Redeemer -- Rainbow Sash said it “wishes to congratulate the people and pastor” of the parish for inviting Bishop Charles, noting he had...

Three members of an amateur San Francisco team who said they were branded "not gay enough" and stripped of their second-place finish at the Gay Softball World Series have settled their lawsuit against a national gay sports organization. Steven Apilado, LaRon Charles and Jon Russ, who were members of D2, a team that was part of the San Francisco Gay Softball League, will receive an undisclosed sum from the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance and will get their second-place 2008 championship trophy back,

A notoriously 'gay-friendly' parish in San Francisco has invited an openly homosexual Episcopalian cleric to lead an Advent Vespers service. Most Holy Redeemer parish asked Bishop Otis Charles, a retired Episcopalian prelate, to lead the November 30 service. After serving as the Bishop of Utah from 1971 to 1993, he publicly announced that he is homosexual. Divorced from the mother of his 5 children, he solemnized a same-sex union in 2004.