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Why Pope Francis Was Right To Call The Armenian Massacres ‘Genocide’ by Lela Gilbert 16 Apr 2015 'Their Christian faith was bruised and battered. In some cases, all hope was lost' A century after the genocide began, Turkey still refuses to accept the truth. Yet for the sake of today’s persecuted Christians, the past must not be forgotten In March last year reports emerged of a nightmare unfolding in the Armenian town of Kassab in northern Syria. A horde of al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists descended on the city, forcing the Christian residents out of their ancestral homes. It was widely reported...

In the course of the Christological meditations collected in Behold the Pierced One (1984), Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) made what might be called a “modest proposal” with regard to twice-married Catholics and the Eucharist.His suggestion has rarely been mentioned during the heated debate over divorced and remarried Catholics receiving Communion. But it may offer a bridge of sorts those Catholics who can’t receive; it might also deepen Eucharistic devotion among all Catholics, which is not exactly robust these days.In his inimitable and scholarly way, Benedict discusses the fathomless gift that is the Eucharist, and then asks: “If...

What do you think of this? Despicable and outrageous, or just the school and police doing their duty?: "On March 24, cannabis oil activist Shona Banda‘s life was flipped upside-down after her son was taken from her by the State of Kansas. The ordeal started when counselors at her 11-year-old son’s school conducted a drug education class. Her son, who had previously lived in Colorado for a period of time, disagreed with some of the anti-pot points that were being made by school officials." The school called the police. Coppers showed up at Shona’s home, searched everything, and ended up...

A Friday story in the Springfield News-Sun reported that a group of veterans and family members expressed outrage that a military cemetery in Cherokee County, Georgia was closed off so that a production company could film scenes from an upcoming Ang Lee Film, “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.” The position of the group is that turning a cemetery into a movie shooting location would heap disrespect on the honored dead. But the subject matter of the film, based on a satirical anti-Iraq War novel by Ben Fountain, may well push the envelope where it comes to disrespecting those who put...

Just ads and pictures mostly from the 50's and 60's.

Joel Kotkin, the noted liberal critic of California’s far-left government, says that Gov. Jerry Brown is leading California to ruin–and that the state’s business leaders share the blame by failing to speak out. In a new essay at the Daily Beast that summarizes much of his recent criticism, Kotkin says that while Brown’s father Pat brought the state progress and prosperity as governor (1959-1967), Jerry Brown “has waged a kind of Oedipal struggle against his father’s legacy.”

Anthony Weiner — yes, that Anthony Weiner — talked to Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter Sunday morning about Hillary Clinton’s road trip to Iowa in the now infamous Scooby van, which he said bespoke of the unexpected in comparison GOP’s candidate’s staged events, and said the media was focusing on arcane or frivolous details that mattered only to the insider types, not to voters.If you’re thinking, “Wait, Anthony Weiner’s a media critic now?” you’re not alone. You may also be thinking: isn’t Huma Abedin, Weiner’s long-suffering wife, also Hillary Clinton’s long-suffering aide, and wasn’t she actually in said Scooby van...

Ten years ago today Benedict began his transformative papacy Ten years ago today Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope, taking the name Benedict XVI. One surprise of the papacy that followed was that his visit to Britain was a such resounding success – so successful, in fact, that the benefits are still felt to this day. In the months leading up to the papal visit in September 2010, we had militant atheists, campaigning secularists and many sections of the anti-Catholic lobby doing their worst to cast a shadow over the visit. The National Secular Society launched its (grammatically suspect)...

Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio says he does not believe sexual orientation is a choice for the "enormous majority of people."The Florida senator's comments came Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation, where he said that it should be up to states rather than the Supreme Court to define marriage and that he considers marriage to be between a man and a woman. "I also don't believe that your sexual preferences are a choice for the vast and enormous majority of people. In fact, the bottom line is, I believe that sexual preference is something people are born with," Rubio said. He and...

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Sen. Ted Cruz made a Sunday campaign stop at a gun range in New Hampshire.

EXCERPT “She’s been around a long time answering questions,” Weiner said, “but I think to some degree this is just the way it appears: She wanted to have a campaign that began a way that was most comfortable to her.” Weiner also made it clear he was speaking for himself — not for his wife. “We talk about just about everything except the campaign,” Weiner said, “I don’t think she even knows I’m here today, except that she’s alone with Jordan.”

To: Recent Donors SUBJECT: DO IT NOW Dear Freeper, Free Republic is, in my opinion, the best conservative news and discussion site on the web. It has been the best for so many years running, that I really cannot think of any other site that comes close. I've gone to other news outlets, conservative ones, and they allow you to comment on their articles, there's some possibility of those comments starting a discussion, and with great difficulty one can carry on that discussion. With Free Republic it is automatic. The very nature of the software makes discussion possible, comments findable,...

Sunday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace,” liberal contributor Juan Williams said if the mailman gyrocopter pilot who landed on the Capitol lawn this week had been a black Muslim, he would have been shot down.

For Freepers: I am thinking of going to Whitney Brothers in Keene, NH tomorrow (April 20, 2015) to see Hillary in person. I want to see just how close I can get, since I have a Benghazi question or two for her. Will any other Freepers be there? Does anyone know when she will be there? I find it interesting that one had to login to her campaign site in order to find out any information whatsoever, and I am hesitant to register in any way with her campaign. Here's my question for Hillary: Re your private use of emails...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in an interview broadcast Sunday that a step-by-step, long-term approach is the only option for immigration reform. ADVERTISEMENT "We can't do it in a massive piece of legislation," Rubio, who announced his presidential candidacy last week, said in a wide-ranging interview for CBS's "Face the Nation." "I know, 'cause I tried," Rubio added.Rubio outlined in the CBS interview the steps he would take for reform, stressing it would start with an E-Verify bill to track entrance and exit of migrants to improve border security, followed by modernizing the legal immigration system to make it "less...

“Rock of Ages” by Tennessee Ernie Ford (1956) In our large Catholic family, Christmas gifts always were opened in the morning, with one exception. For some reason, it was acceptable to open records (as they were called in those days) on Christmas Eve. A recording was a special gift in our household in the 1950s and ’60s; money was tight with eleven kids and purchases were thoughtfully made. Listening to the newly acquired records was a family activity, usually after Christmas Eve Mass, and heralded the onset of the Christmas festivities in our household. The square RCA Victor record player...

ANALYSIS/OPINIONWhen Hillary Rodham Clinton announced — by video, not live and in person — that she is running for president, she declared that “everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion.”Then she took off in a “van” dubbed by Clintonians the “Scooby Doo,” after the lovable, high jinks-prone cartoon dog.But as with everything Clinton, the strategy to humanize Hillary — a multimillionaire who hasn’t driven since 1996 and can’t remember the last time she got her own morning coffee — has been a a surreal exercise in absurdity.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is drawing a populist bead on lavish Wall Street pay packages as she revs up her march to the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, but in some respects the fat-per-speech fee she can charge puts her far ahead of the top 10 highest-paid American CEOs."I think it's fair to say that if you look across the country, the deck is stacked in favor of those already at the top. There's something wrong when CEOs make 300 times more than the American worker...," Clinton said during her first campaign swing last week at an Iowa community college....

“I’d covered an election four times, and it didn’t appear that there was going to be anything wildly different about this one,” late-night host says in new interview