Free Republic

Fr. Heimerl: Pope Francis’ restrictions on the Latin Mass are ‘not legitimate’The celebration of the Holy Mass requires a humble entry into the stream of tradition and immersion in the traditional form of the liturgy. That is truly Catholic and legitimate.On the second Sunday in Advent, television stations around the world broadcast two Catholic services: the Holy Mass for the reopening of Notre Dame de Paris and the papal mass at the end of the consistory.What connected the two Masses, however, was by no means the unity of the celebration of the Mass according to Paul VI’s new missal; instead,...

A watchdog group crowned Candace Owens as the 2024 "Antisemite of the Year," highlighting the political pundit's remarks about the Holocaust, Israel and the Jewish community. StopAntisemitism, a grassroots organization that exposes groups or individuals who they say spread hatred of the Jewish people and Israel, holds an annual poll to determine who gets the "distinct dishonor" of "Antisemite of the Year." This week, the group announced on social media that Owens won the award via a poll with over 30,000 votes. Other contenders for the award included environmental activist Greta Thunberg and Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. "Once celebrated for...

[Catholic Caucus] Archbishop Aguer: Pope Francis fails to spread the Gospel because he’s ‘bent on the globalist agenda’The current pontificate is bent on the globalist agenda and interreligious dialogue; it cannot fulfill its mandate to spread the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ. But the mandate remains: 'Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all nations.'Is the pope infallible? This question of dogmatic value has an affirmative answer. The First Vatican Council defined on July 18, 1870, by means of the dogmatic constitution Pastor Aeternus, that the Successor of Peter in the Roman Chair enjoys the privilege...

In 2023, the Biden administration published over 90,000 pages in the Federal Register (“FR”). This was second only to Obama’s record-setting 95,894 pages in 2017, but Biden will be taking this title from Obama this year as we soar to new heights of federal overreach. In fact, since election day last month, the Biden administration has published nearly 16,000 pages in the FR. Once something is published in the FR, it takes enormous effort to even attempt to undo it. The question is — why let it get that far? If the government shuts down, so does the Federal Register,...

The media have a new talking point to trash Trump—they have decided that they will say that the “elected to nothing” Elon Musk is president, and Trump is just his puppet. What a joke.Not once have I ever seen these same people question who has been the president the last four years while Biden’s mind has clearly been shot. They intentionally spread the lie that Biden was “sharp as a tack” and doing a great job.The WSJ put out a lengthy article yesterday reporting that unelected bureaucrats have been running the show for Biden before and during his presidency, because...

With bird flu cases continuing to rise across the U.S., and a teenager now in critical condition in Canada after contracting the virus, alarm bells are sounding over how big the outbreak could become.So far in 2024, 46 people have become infected with the highly pathogenic H5 strain of bird flu, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data. Some 25 of those infections have been associated with dairy cattle, 20 with poultry and one case in Missouri arose from an unknown source.As for the teen in Canada, who was described as "healthy prior to this" during a...

There is no information made public that can tell what exploded inside the military boundaries south of the headquarters of Russia's Northern Fleet. A video recording was posted Wednesday evening on social media in Murmansk of what appears to be a massive explosion in the horizon. The Barents Observer has geolocated the filming position from Skalnaya street No. 9, which is on the top of the hill in Oktyabrskiy District. The explosion, which lasts only a few seconds, can be seen in a distance of several kilometers to the north. Here are dozens of military objects, including the Severomorsk-1 naval...

A meeting between President-elect Donald Trump and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., in a luxury box at the Army-Navy football game last weekend may have delayed Trump’s plans to fire Brown, according to two people with knowledge of the conversation. For months, Trump and his close associates have vowed to immediately fire U.S. military leaders whom they deem too focused on diversity initiatives, often referring to Brown specifically. But the meeting went well, according to the two people with knowledge of the conversation. Trump and Brown met during the second...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Though Americans were up in arms when news broke that lawmakers were pushing to give themselves an increase in salary, members of Congress insisted that they needed the pay increase to keep up with the inflation they caused. Representatives were quick to defend the proposed pay increase in the face of heavy criticism, citing the need to keep up with the rising cost of living due to the economic difficulties caused by Congress' failure to address rampant inflation. "The last pay increase we voted to give ourselves just isn't cutting it," explained House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries....

The Parker Solar Probe is on an ambitious mission to study the origins of the solar wind – the constant stream of charged particles flowing outward from the sun. Despite over half a century of scientific investigation since its discovery in the 1960s, the phenomenon's precise source within the corona remains unknown. We're just days away from the Parker Solar Probe making its closest approach yet to the sun. The little spacecraft will barrel through the sun's outer atmosphere on Christmas Eve, passing within just 3.8 million miles of the surface below. That may sound like a significant distance, but...

Last week, a cable news pundit struggled to understand the new media landscape. So he sought advice from his teenage son. He asked the youngster to name the most influential people in the world today. Can you guess the names he picked? Here’s what happened: I’m thinking to myself he’s going to say Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Jay-Z. He says Kai Cenat, Adin Ross, Jynxzi, and Sketch. I don’t know who he is talking about. I said ‘What platforms are you on?’ He said ‘I’m on Twitch, Kick, and Rumble.’ I said ‘That sounds like you need to go to...

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Friday she’s ready to stay in Washington “through Christmas” to fight off President-elect Trump’s demand to strip negotiated provisions out of a bill to fund the government into 2025. Murray, the most senior ranking Senate Democrat, slammed billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, one of Trump’s top advisers, for torching the 1,547-page bill that congressional leaders unveiled earlier in the week. A second, Trump-backed plan, failed on the House floor Thursday night 174-235. “I’m ready to stay here through Christmas because we’re not going to let Elon Musk run the government. Put simply, we...

Donald Trump’s team has told European officials that the incoming US president will demand Nato member states increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP, but plans to continue supplying military aid to Ukraine. During his White House campaign, Trump vowed to cut off aid to Ukraine, force Kyiv into immediate peace talks, and leave Nato allies undefended if they failed to spend enough on defence — spooking European capitals. But in a boost for allies deeply concerned over their ability to support and protect Ukraine without Washington’s backing, Trump now intends to maintain US military supplies to Kyiv...

VIDEOA Georgia appeals court has removed Fani Willis from her bogus case against President Trump. Here are a few of the reactions to that announcement which Jim Acosta was very very unhappy to relay.

The Republican candidate narrowly trailing in the North Carolina Supreme Court race has asked that same court to throw out 60,000 ballots from last month's election. The move from Jefferson Griffin, an appeals court judge, to the state Supreme Court comes a week after losing a challenge before the North Carolina State Board of Elections in which he had also sought to toss those ballots. Griffin currently trails Democratic Justice Allison Riggs by just 734 votes.

A Republican backlash to the speaker’s plan to temporarily fund the government has sparked new talk of ousting him, and highlighted the challenges he will face if he manages to keep his job.Speaker Mike Johnson spent months doing everything he could to hang on to his job come January, most notably a concerted charm offensive to keep President-elect Donald J. Trump placated and in his corner. It took just a few hours on Wednesday for it to all go bad.The Louisiana Republican this week got a taste of what life could be like in the second Trump era beginning next...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President-elect Donald Trump was still several weeks away from taking office, but the implementation of new policies by his Department of Government Efficiency had already begun, as "Elon on the Shelf" dolls were being installed in all congressional offices to remind lawmakers to be efficient.In accordance with DOGE's philosophy, the dolls bearing the image of Elon Musk were placed throughout the Capitol Hill complex to keep legislators in line and help them remember the potential consequences of wasteful spending."Every time I think about loading up a piece of legislation with pork and favors for lobbyists, I look...

On Sept. 4, 2013, a terrorist group launched an attack on a profoundly symbolic Syrian village.“The dawn assault on the predominantly Christian village of Maaloula,” reported the Associated Press, “was carried out by rebels from the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra group, according to a Syrian government official and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-regime group.“At the start of the attack, an al-Nusra fighter blew himself up at a regime checkpoint at the entrance to the village, said the Observatory, which collects information from a network of anti-regime activists,” the Associated Press reported.A story that ran on Sept. 6, 2013,...

Remembering the conservative movement's preeminent chronicler.. Lee Edwards, who died last week at the age of 92, was right from the beginning. Consider the moment of his political awakening. When Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary in 1956, crushing an anti-Communist rebellion, Lee was in Europe. He had just served his country as a U.S. Army officer in West Germany. He witnessed the stark divide that would define the coming decades of the Cold War. And he had no trouble distinguishing the good guys from the bad guys. Communism was the enemy. The Soviet Union smothered individual freedom, warred against the...

Daily Readings from the USCCBAnd the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” Luke 1:35Try to set aside all that you know about Jesus and simply ponder these words of the Archangel Gabriel as if you were to hear them as our Blessed Mother did for the very first time. She was told she would have a child, even though she had not had relations with a man. She was...