Free Republic

[Catholic Caucus] Letter from Rome: the Roche rescript comes with all the zeal of Saul the PhariseeStill breathing threats against the Church’s ancient liturgy in a way not unlike Saul’s persecution in Acts 9:1, Cardinal Arthur Roche has now begun strong-arming bishops to “ensure the correct application” of Pope Francis’s 2021 apostolic letter restricting the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), Traditionis Custodes.The latest crackdown by the prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has come in a rescript that severely restricts the freedom of bishops in matters of the TLM and their autonomy as “directors,...

New York has a truly asinine law on the books: It’s illegal to ship pepper spray here. But it’s not illegal to own it or use it in certain cases of self-defense. I’m calling on lawmakers, as well as Mayor Adams and Gov. Hochul: It’s time to give constituents easy access to basic self-defense. I know it first hand as a young woman living in Manhattan. Last May, I wrote about an encounter with a menacing man who chased and threatened me. I managed to scare him off by brandishing my sparkly pepper-spray keychain — which I had to purchase...

“The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad Way” honors a dishonorable man who cozied up with neo-Nazis and called Jews greedy. The New York City Council approved a plan Thursday to name a block in Harlem after National of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. “Early on, Elijah Muhammad preached about greedy Jews and advanced the longstanding antisemitic trope that Jews turned Jesus Christ in to the authorities,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. “Muhammad invited American Nazi Party boss George Lincoln Rockwell to the NOI’s 1962 Saviours’ Day Convention,” where Rockwell dubbed Muhammad “the Adolf Hitler of the black man,” the center...

Interesting Video.

East Bay residents didn’t have to brave dangerous driving conditions to get to Tahoe to enjoy some snow this week. They didn't even have to go any further than Berkeley's Tilden Regional Park to go skiing Friday morning. After a mix of rain and snow overnight, snow was accumulating in earnest by 6:30 a.m. By midmorning, there was enough to (sort of) enjoy winter sports. Twitter user Jay Sayre posted multiple videos of him skiing in the Berkeley regional park, which reaches about 1,900 feet in elevation at its highest point. exp-player-logo Sayre even managed to catch some air near...

BIDEN ORDERS EARTAGGED COWS KILLED IN NEW MEXICO TO PLEASE ENVIRO WACKOS! Less than 24 hours before bullets are set to fly, a group of animal activists including the Humane Farming Association hopes an 11th-hour lawsuit stops the planned aerial slaughter of 150 cattle in New Mexico. During a federally-approved, three day-event set to start Thursday, the U.S. Forest Service plans to shoot feral cattle from a helicopter roaming a southwestern area of the state. The federal agency announced its decision on Feb. 16, explaining feral cattle on the 560,000-acre Gila Wilderness Area “pose a significant threat to public safety...

After the interview book by Archbishop Georg Gänswein with Saverio Gaeta, which the Mondadori publishing house began to aggressively market immediately after the death of Pope Benedict XVI, a new book on the late pontiff has now been published in Italy by Orazio La Rocca at San Paolo Edizioni. It is entitled "Ratzinger. La Scelta. Non sono scappato' - I dieci anni di Benedetto XVI da Papa emerito" ("Ratzinger. The Decision. 'I have not fled' - The ten years of Benedict XVI as Pope Emeritus"). Gänswein wrote the author a preface to it last September 2022, which we publish here...

The Chicago mayoral election could be one of the most tightly-contested races in recent memory, and officials say that a large number of mail-in ballots could help to determine the final outcome. According to the Chicago Board of Elections, more than 200,000 mail-in ballot applications have been received so far during the election season, with just under 140,000 ballots still yet to be turned in as Election Day nears on Feb. 28. So when exactly will the CBOE be able to start counting those mail-in ballots? According to an update from a spokesperson for the CBOE, any mail-in ballots that...

Millennials are classified as those born between 1981 and 1996; the oldest members of this generation are in their early forties, the youngest in their mid-twenties. Many members of this generation are reaching their higher-earning years, starting or already building families, businesses, and becoming homeowners. According to the Federal Reserve’s 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances, millennials have an average net worth between roughly $76,000 and $436,000. And according to a 2022 report, millennials have more than doubled their total net worth, reaching $9.38 trillion in the first quarter of 2022, up from $4.55 trillion two years prior.

Scientists say that images from the James Webb Space Telescope may change how they understand the origins of the universe after they discovered "the impossible." The findings were published in the journal "Nature" on Wednesday. Astronomers expected to find "tiny, young, baby galaxies" from the cosmic history documented in the images, but they found something else entirely. The study's lead author, Ivo Labbé, explained how shocked he was when he realized what the images meant. "Little did I know that among the pictures is a small red dot that will shake up our understanding of how the first galaxies formed...

The Readings for this Sunday are exceptionally rich, so we will have to limit ourselves to following just a few themes. 1. The First Reading is the account of the Fall, in which Eve, followed by Adam, gives in to temptation by eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Reading 1: Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7 The LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being. Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east,...

Joyce Ann Kraner is eager for the pandemic to end and for life to get back to normal. Kraner, 49, wants to be able to hug her mother, who lives in a nursing home. But she says she has no plans to get the vaccine, even though it's widely available in her community of Murfreesboro, Tenn. "I feel like I'm healthy," she says. Despite the fact that millions of people have been vaccinated safely, Kraner worries about complications. She believes some people are having "life-threatening reactions" to the vaccine that the media isn't reporting. (Many such reports shared on social...

Last night my wife and I notice the only thing we really watch on cable is Tucker Carlson Tonight. Does anyone have any thoughts on how to ditch Comcast and still be able to watch TCT?

All five people on board an air ambulance died Friday after their plane crashed near the city of Stagecoach in western Nevada. The plane was carrying a pilot, flight nurse, flight paramedic, a patient and a family member of the patient, according to REMSA Health, which provides the air ambulance service. "We are in the process of notifying their family members," the organization wrote in a statement. "Our immediate focus is helping our team members and families, as well as the responding agencies." Around 9:15 p.m. local time on Friday, the Lyon County Dispatch Center began to receive multiple calls...

ST. LOUIS — A 13-year-old boy is the latest arrest in connection with a suspected attempted carjacking in January that left a woman dead. On Jan. 24, 38-year-old Kay Johnson was fatally shot while pulling her car into her garage in the 4700 block of Compton Avenue. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Johnson's 14-year-old daughter was in the car with her when she died. At the time of Johnson's death, St. Louis police said they believed she was one of several victims in a string of recent attempted or confirmed carjackings. On Friday, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police...

A Florida teacher who was accused of having White students in his classroom bow to Black students is on leave. Ethan Hooper, a middle school teacher in Orlando, posted the videos to his personal social media which went viral after being shared by the popular right-wing account Libs of TikTok. One of the videos Hooper posted showed White students acting like servants to Black students in the class in honor of Black History Month. White students were shown in the video fanning and feeding Black students. "It was in good fun. There was no political agenda behind it," the teacher...

During an interview with Vice-President Kamala Harris, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell inaccurately described Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ objection to Critical Race Theory (CRT) as “opposition to teaching about slavery and the aftermath of slavery to Florida school children.” After a flurry of complaints to MSNBC, Mitchell admitted that her blatant lie “was imprecise. However, the kind of emphasis on objective facts that the governor wants to cram down the throats of the state’s school children overlooks the value of the subjective feelings that many have about how blacks have been treated in this country.” Florida Education Commissioner Manny Díaz Jr....

— I went to the Asbury University Awakening movement and interviewed students for three days to do a journalistic deep dive on what we can learn from this youth phenomenon. When you witness tens of thousands of young people from all over America hold a non-stop event (sometimes all night) for two weeks, it calls for our attention. What I found greatly inspired me and filled me with pride for America’s younger generation. Quick history of awakening movements and their impact on America America has experienced religious awakening movements in the past. The first two so-called Great Awakenings created a...

Ex-Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard blasted her former party on Friday, saying its “core principals” and focus on diversity are comparable to Nazism and Adolf Hitler. “They’re are proud to be judging people, hiring people, selecting people based on race — and let’s be clear how serious of a problem this is. It’s based on genetics, race, based on your blood, your genes, and where do we see that connection?” Gabbard told Fox News host Jesse Watters.