Free Republic

Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming. The...

Crowded with saints? Msgr. Charles Pope Q.  The descriptions of heaven in the Bible seem to describe a vast amount of people, and the paintings I have seen from the Renaissance make it look rather crowded and busy. Frankly, I hate big cities and crowds. Are these descriptions accurate, or am I missing something?— D.L., Wichita, Kansas A. Here’s a reply from Msgr. Charles Pope: The danger to avoid when meditating on heaven is taking earthly realities and merely transferring them to heaven. Whatever similarities heavenly realities have to things on earth, they will be experienced there in a heavenly...

Rome, Italy, Nov 12, 2015 / 03:18 pm (CNA).- Spanish liberation theologian Fr. Jon Sobrino, whose works were censured by the Vatican nearly a decade ago, is slated to take part in an event this Saturday at Rome's Urbaniana University. The gathering is aimed at republishing the "Catacombs Pact," a document signed after the Second Vatican Council by various future members of the Marxist school of thought. It was condemned in 1984 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed at that time by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Fr. Sobrino, a Jesuit priest born in Spain in 1938, had...

In 1227 Sultan Jalal al-Din of Khwarazm and his army of Turkmen attacked Georgia. On the first day of the battle the Georgian army valorously warded off the invaders as they were approaching Tbilisi. That night, however, a group of Persians who were living in Tbilisi secretly opened the gates and summoned the enemy army into the city. According to one manuscript in which this most terrible day in Georgian history was described: “Words are powerless to convey the destruction that the enemy wrought: tearing infants from their mothers’ breasts, they beat their heads against the bridge, watching as their...

In theaters this weekend, The 33, starring Antonio Banderas and Juliette Binoche, recounts the extraordinary story of the 2010 Chilean mining disaster that buried 33 miners 2300 feet underground for 69 days before their unprecedented rescue. The world was riveted by the story; one of the miners, Mario Sepúlveda — dubbed “Super Mario” by the media, and played in the film by Banderas — acted as spokesman for the group in daily video logs, and his face became familiar all over the globe. Fewer would recognize the face or the name of the man whose plan — and drilling equipment...

By St. John Chrysostom How many now say, I would wish to see His form, the mark, His clothes, His shoes. Lo! You see Him, you touch Him, you eat Him. And you indeed desire to see His clothes, but He gives Himself to you not to see only, but also to touch and eat and receive within you. Let then no one approach It with indifference, no one faint-hearted, but all with burning hearts, all fervent, all desiring. For if Jews standing, and having on their shoes and their staves in their hands, ate with haste, much more...

Titled women of the French nobility (duchesses and countesses) could inherit land and titles from their fathers if they had no surviving male issue to succeed them, but from antiquity the throne and crown of France adhered to Salic Law, which permitted succession to the throne only through the male line and excluded all females. A central theological and ceremonial reason for why the French monarchy did not permit female succession was the highly sacramental nature of the coronation rites, in which the king exercised a quasi-sacerdotal role and held certain sacred instruments which, it was believed, women could not touch....

Three Aspects of Anxiety and How to Overcome Them Msgr. Charles Pope • November 12, 2015 • Worry is a universal human problem. Jesus speaks to it in Matthew 6 and His advice amounts to more than just "Don't worry." He actually sets forth how we can avoid it. Let's see how by looking at three problems He describes that bring about worry.No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Therefore I tell...

Synaxarion: This greatest and most beloved of all Christian orators was born in Antioch the Great in the year 344 or 347; his pious parents were called Secundus and Anthusa. After his mother was widowed at the age of twenty, she devoted herself to bringing up John and his elder sister in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. John received his literary training under Anthragathius the philosopher, and Libanius the sophist, who was the greatest Greek scholar and rhetorician of his day. Libanius was a pagan, and when asked before his death whom he wished to have for his...

We all recently began the month of November with the Solemnity of All Saints. Some of us, no doubt, were told that day from the pulpit or elsewhere that "we are all saints," the implication being of course that we need to stop associating the word "saint" with people who stand on pedestals, wear halos, and get canonized after spending their lives doing things that no modern man or woman could possibly be expected to imitate. I even knew a pastor who would begin addressing the people at Mass on this day with the greeting, "Hello, saints!" This sort of...

Analysis Nov. 12, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) - A Dominican friar, Fr. Adriano Oliva, has celebrated the 800th anniversary of his religious order with a book about “the Church, the divorced and remarried, and homosexual couples.” Amours (“Loves”) is a study of St Thomas Aquinas’ definition of love and aims to show that the “Angelic Doctor” recognized the “natural” character of homosexuality. In the wake of the Synod on the family, Oliva pleads for new ways of welcoming divorced and remarried and homosexual couples into the Church and of recognizing their unions in civil law. His editor, the “editions du Cerf” publishing...

Nov. 12, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) - A Dominican friar, Fr. Adriano Oliva, has celebrated the 800th anniversary of his religious order with a book about "the Church, the divorced and remarried, and homosexual couples." Amours ("Loves") is a study of St Thomas Aquinas' definition of love and aims to show that the "Angelic Doctor" recognized the 'natural" character of homosexuality. In the wake of the Synod on the family, Oliva pleads for new ways of welcoming divorced and remarried and homosexual couples into the Church and of recognizing their unions in civil law. His editor, the "editions du Cerf" publishing house,...

Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel: And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.(Ezekiel 39:1-3)Gog, the final representative of united Heathendom, the Agag, Pharaoh, Goliath and Nimrod, is...

A Facebook friend of mine posted a controversial passage from Fr. John Meyendorff’s Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective. Here is the quote, along with some prefatory sentences he omitted. Many confusions and misunderstandings concerning marriage in our contemporary Orthodox practice would be easily eliminated if the original connection between marriage and the Eucharist were restored. Theoretically, Orthodox sacramental theology, even in its scholastic, textbook form, has preserved this connection in affirming, in opposition to Roman Catholicism, that the priest is the ‘minister’ of marriage. Western medieval theology, on the contrary, has created a series of confusions by adopting, as in so many other points...

Jesus wept! That’s a group of Hindu devotees chanting “Hare Krishna” this fall in Our Saviour Roman Catholic Church in New York City. They chanted for an hour as part of an “interfaith prayer service.”Our Saviour used to be pastored by Fr. George Rutler, who was transferred out by Cardinal Dolan. The new pastor, Fr. Robbins, removed much of the iconography that Fr. Rutler had installed. This is definitely a video taken inside Our Saviour, where I have been on several occasions. It was uploaded on November 6. The description says: Published on Nov 6, 2015 Devotees conduct kirtan in...

Hyperstimulation Is an Increasing Evil Whose Influence We Must Combat Msgr. Charles Pope • November 11, 2015 • We live in an age of such overstimulation that it would be unimaginable to people even a mere hundred years ago. In fact, it is probably more accurate to say we are not simply overstimulated, we are hyperstimulated. The number and kind of diversions available to us and imposed upon us are almost too numerous to mention. Silence and quietude are as unknown to us as is real darkness. We are enveloped in such sea of light that we are no longer...

And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.(Ezekiel 38:11-12)More than 2,500 years ago, Ezekiel saw the coalition that we currently see forming now; Russia...

Some Catholics get apoplectic about apologetics. They argue with atheists and pick fights with Protestants. They not only need to win, they want to bash the enemy. Valiant warriors for Catholic truth, they shout down the unbelievers and shoot Bible verses back and forth like gunslingers in a shootout. As veteran apologist Patrick Madrid has observed, “They end up winning an argument but losing a soul.”“Apologetics” is the attempt as St. Peter advised, “to be ready at all times to answer anyone who asks you to explain the hope you have within you” (1 Peter 3:15). To give that...

Yesterday, in the midst of social media silliness about Christians taking umbrage at red coffee cups, this image came across my desk and gave me real pause. It is not a new photograph, but it’s gripping and real in the way that coffee-cup drama never can be.It is true that there are some in the United States who would like to see religions—all religions, not just Christianity—removed from the public square (“I support the right of people to believe what they do and say what they wish—in their pews, homes and hearts,” writes Frank Bruni, redefining “tolerance” down to silence...

What are Beauty and Peace? The Ancient Philosophers Had Simple, Objective Definitions Msgr. Charles Pope • November 10, 2015 • Every now and then we all run across a description or definition of something that captures its truth, yet at the same time respects its mystery. For indeed mere words can ever really be, or take the place of, the thing or person they describe. The reality is always richer than the descriptions we attempt with the grunts and scrawls we call "words."Such were my thoughts when I was rummaging through some old philosophy notes and came across two classic...