Free Republic

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Strickland urges Catholics to oppose ‘blasphemies’ and corruption from Church hierarchyBishop Strickland warned Catholics that remaining ‘complacent’ towards false teaching, such as homosexual ‘blessings,’ ‘leaves us in grave peril and at risk of eternal damnation’ and criticized Joe Biden as a ‘disastrous puppet.’Bishop Joseph Strickland has denounced the Catholic hierarchy’s attempts to “alter basic teachings of the faith,” warning that complacency about this puts us “at risk of eternal damnation.”In a Saturday X post, Bishop Strickland urged U.S. Catholics to make “critical decisions with immediate urgency,” regarding both support of President Joe Biden and obedience to a...

[Catholic Caucus] I am accused of not following the “Hermenentics of continuity” when criticizing the “Fiducia supplicans”!?I must confess that I have often wasted my time following the program “Reason and Theology” of Michael Lofton, this big man with a little beard (who would do well to hide his tattoo when he speaks like a theologian), I have been driven by curiosity to hear the hilarious non sense he says. This time, however, I saw that he was criticizing me. With great seriousness, he is scandalized that I, who insist so much on the hermeneutics of continuity, now dare to...

[Catholic Caucus] Fr. James Martin appears alongside blasphemous images of Our Lady while attending ‘LGBT Catholic’ eventAt an LGBT conference, James Martin stood at a pulpit adorned with a banner that appeared to show Mary holding a transgender flag and also appeared with conference organizers, who displayed a t-shirt that mixed images of Christ and Mary with the rainbow flag.Fr. James Martin with the Imago Dei conference teamJames MartinProminent pro-LGBT Jesuit Father James Martin appeared as part of an “LGBTQ Catholics” event recently, which featured blasphemous images of Our Lady wrapped in pro-LGBT flags.In social media posts on June 30,...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Strickland: Banning the Latin Mass would be an ‘unjust law’ many faithful couldn’t obeyOn this week’s two-part episode of The Bishop Strickland Show, Bishop Joseph Strickland discusses the narrow path to salvation, awareness of false prophets, and the rumored ban on the Traditional Latin Mass.On this week’s two-part episode of The Bishop Strickland Show, Bishop Joseph Strickland discusses the narrow path to salvation, awareness of false prophets, and the rumored ban on the Traditional Latin Mass.Strickland begins the first part of the episode by offering commentary on Matthew 7:6-14, in which Our Lord tells his disciples to...

In 2023, a substantial number of individuals, totaling 402,694, decided to formally dissociate themselves from the Catholic Church in Germany, a significant figure though slightly less than the record set in 2022. The German Bishops’ Conference, which came out with these statistics, said while these numbers are high, they reflect a slight decrease from the 522,821 departures recorded the previous year, indicating that this was the second-highest departure rate to date, according to National Catholic Reporter. In Germany, church membership has financial implications due to the church tax system, which is a part of the broader tax structure. Members who...

[Catholic Caucus] New York Priest Celebrates ‘Pride Mass’ Outside of Gay Monument — on LGBT FlagFather Eric Andrews, Pastor of Saint Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in New York City, celebrates Mass at the Stonewall National Monument surrounded by pride flags. A New York City Catholic church, previously caught up in LGBT controversy, hosted a “Pride Mass” Thursday evening using an altar shrouded with a gay and transgender “pride” flag at a local federal monument with sculptures of two same-sex couples and decorated by dozens of LGBT rainbow flags.The federal monument enshrining a gay bar, The Stonewall Inn, and its...

[Catholic Caucus] Rupnik artwork must come down, says top US cardinal as he breaks ranks with RomeAmerican Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston issued a statement saying he has asked the heads of all offices in the Roman Curia to take down the artwork of a famed priest and artist accused of abusing dozens of adult women.The statement came from the Pontifical Commission for Protecting Minors (PCPM), for which O’Malley serves as President, and said in that capacity, the cardinal has written to the heads of all Vatican departments asking that “pastoral prudence would prevent displaying artwork in a way that...

Last week, police arrested Jonathan Edward Elwing, senior pastor of Palm View Baptist Church, for possessing child pornography, but new information paints a far more disturbing picture. Previously law enforcement received a tip that the pedophile pastor used cryptocurrency to buy child porn online. They acquired a warrant and executed it the very next day, seizing his devices and finding four images of child porn on his cell phone. Things have changed. After seizing multiple electronic devices, including phones, tablets, and computers, a preliminary search has revealed even more images, including ones that shows him sexually abusing a child. Elwing...

Check out Gary Curtis’ related article, “Avoiding Sexual Sins and Scandals,” at this link. Some contend that God sees all sins as the same and that one sin is not more difficult for God to forgive than another. While they may think that sounds reasonable and righteous, it ignores the admonitions of revealed Scripture and how sexual impurity damages us personally, weakens our witness and can be destructive to the family of God. Pastor Jack Hayford, respected author, songwriter and church leader, once wrote, “I believe that sex sins are worse in that they are more damaging personally and socially...

Howard-John Wesley is the senior pastor of the 8,000- member Alfred Street Baptist Church (ASBC) in Alexandria, VA. In a newly unearthed sermon, Wesley uses Proverbs 30:18-19 as a prooftext against an exclusive affirmation of Edenic marriage: “Human sexuality is complex. It is not simple. It is not simply man and woman. It’s so much more complicated than that. Now, I realize here’s where you may disagree, so I brought me a little scripture to go with it. Proverbs 30:18-19. Proverbs: written by Solomon, the wisest man on earth. Proverbs: written to pass wisdom on to his children. The wisest...

[Catholic Caucus] Vatican communications head slammed for downplaying Rupnik case: ‘We’re not talking about abuse of minors’‘Who am I to judge?’ said the Vatican’s Paolo Ruffini about Fr. Marko Rupnik, who has been accused of abusing dozens of people and committing blasphemous sexual abuse against religious sisters.The embattled pro–LGBT prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, Dr. Paolo Ruffini, shockingly downplayed last week the sexual abuse scandals of disgraced former Jesuit priest Father Marko Rupnik. Ruffini spoke at the annual Catholic Media Conference, held from June 18-21 in Atlanta, Georgia. In his keynote address, he urged attendees to change “the...

God bless you all for watching the video! If you liked it and want to see more, please subscribe to the channel, comment your ideas and impressions, and don't forget to give that wonderful like! From the transcripts: "...Mary was the mother of Jesus describing her pregnancy the scriptures say that she was with a child Matthew 1:18 soon after conceiving she went to her relative Elizabeth then there was a celebration that the Messiah had just been conceived not only that but Elizabeth also referred to Mary as the mother of my Lord Luke 1:43 while Jesus had not...

An estimated 350 people gathered together on Monday to commemorate and celebrate the overturning of Roe v Wade exactly two years ago, enjoying an afternoon of free food, singing, fellowship, and speeches while nearby counterprotesters raged from the side. The Life Day Block Party in Moscow, Idaho, was organized by RedBalloon and Bohnet Music Academy, two local businesses with connections to Doug Wilson’s Christ Church. With a tagline of “Goodbye Roe,” the event recalls an answer to prayer fifty years in the making, when on May 2, 2022, Politico published a leaked draft of the Supreme Court majority decision in...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Francis’ errors are causing ‘many invalid confessions’: Italian priest and theologianVATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis’ errors regarding sacramental absolution and contrition are causing “many invalid Confessions,” an Italian priest and theologian is warning.Don Tullio Rotondo, author of the book Betrayal of sound doctrine through “Amoris Laetitia,” is raising the alarm that any attempt by a priest to grant absolution in Confession without the penitent expressing sorrow for all mortal sins committed – which must all be confessed – or without the penitent’s firm intention to avoid sin in the future, are not valid confessions. Don Rotondo...

A group of secular legal organizations is suing Louisiana to stop a law passed this month that would make it the only state requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms.The Freedom From Religion Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a legal complaint on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana on behalf of a religiously diverse group of individuals with minor children enrolled in Louisiana public schools. The defendants include Christian, Jewish, Unitarian and nonreligious parents."There is no longstanding tradition of permanently...

[Catholic Caucus] "He who keeps silent is to be taken as consenting…”The miscarriage of justice in the case of Marko Rupnik—the appalling farce it has been from the start—is sadly not an aberration under Pope Francis. The Rupnik Affair has indelibly stained this pontificate.“Who am I to judge the Rupnik stories?”Pope Francis’s Communicator-in-Chief, Dr. Paolo Ruffini, asked that rhetorical question on Friday in an Atlanta, GA hotel ballroom, in front of journalists, one of whom—Colleen Dulle of America Magazine, it happens—had asked him to explain his dicastery’s rationale for continuing to use reproductions of artwork by a disgraced priest who...

Pro-lifers are often accused of opposing abortion solely for religious reasons. If you follow Secular Pro-Life on Twitter long enough, you will see tweets from pro-choicers claiming SPL is really a Christian group. Some pro-abortion people say that atheists like me who oppose abortion are closet Christians who have no reason for our views except for our (alleged) faith. Pro-abortion people have also used this argument to discredit religious pro-lifers. Even when a religious pro-lifer relies solely on secular arguments, they almost invariably hear that they only oppose abortion because their religion tells them to. Sometimes, though, it is pro-choicers...

There’s a significant gap in the involvement of Protestant churches with local pregnancy resource centers, despite heightened attention on such centers following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade two years ago. A survey by Lifeway Research reveals that only 31% of Protestant churchgoers have observed any congregational support for these centers since the ruling. On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization allowed states to enact laws regulating abortion, spotlighting the role of local pregnancy centers in providing support for women with unintended pregnancies. Despite this, the majority of...

The pope’s right-hand man is reshaping the church, becoming a targetMost Catholics have little sense of the liberal archbishop behind the Vatican’s pronouncements. But critics of the pope see Víctor Manuel Fernández as Enemy No. 2.“Fernández’s appointment was the most consequential of [Francis’s] pontificate,” said Massimo Faggioli, a Catholic theologian at Villanova University. “After one year of Fernández, we’ve witnessed a series … of frequent, specific, out-of-the-ordinary actions the likes of which have never been observed. And this from a prefect who knows full well that he’s Francis’s own alter ego and enjoys the pope’s complete trust.” ... Senior church...

Hillary Clinton attacked Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on his Christian faith in a recent interview, calling the conservative justice “scary” and “a fanatic” for his religious views. The former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee made the remarks in April during a podcast interview with Democracy Docket’s Marc Elias. A clip from that discussion resurfaced on social media over the weekend. “You know, I was in the Senate when both John Roberts and Alito were nominated to the court by George W. Bush. Therefore, I had a chance, as you rightly say, to interview both of them,”...