Free Republic

In an interview published in America Magazine today, Pope Francis unequivocally stated that women cannot be ordained as priests but emphasized the important role they have to play in the life of the Church. “Many women feel pain because they cannot be ordained priests. What would you say to a woman who is already serving in the life of the Church but who still feels called to be a priest?” asked Kerry Webber, executive editor of the monthly magazine published by the Jesuits of the United States. The Holy Father was unequivocal on the question of the ordination of women...

One of the oldest religious publications in the United States, America Magazine, published an article stating that the Catholic Church needs LGBT saints. Almost every Catholic has a saint who looks like him, but the Catholic Church has no saints of non-traditional orientation, nor do it have patron saints of LGBT parishioners, writes the article's author, associate editor and openly gay Jim McDermott. "Our actual existence in the history of the Church has never been acknowledged, and there are no blessings that we can recall. Nowhere do we find statues of people like us. We are not depicted on any...

A major Roman Catholic magazine is calling for withdrawal of Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. The editors at America, a Jesuit publication and the only Catholic weekly in North America, previously endorsed Kavanaugh, citing the possibility that he would make up a court majority to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. Its reversal this week came amid emotional and grueling testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by Kavanaugh, who is a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and Christine Blasey Ford, a Palo Alto., Calif., psychologist who has...

Christ came to me emblazoned on the upper arm of my beloved cousin Marc. The blue-black ink danced between the bullet scars and stretch marks that graced my cousin’s upper body. Atop this crown-of-thorns depiction was a tattooed banner with the phrase “Only God Can Judge Me.” Marc—like several men in my family—had been caught in the webbed threads of poverty, geography and lack of opportunity during the fever pitch of 1990s mass incarceration. Baggy-pant boys like him fit the descriptions of “super-predators” and “thugs” that dominated our national discourse at the time. Marc served his time, and has been...

Slandering the President John F. Kavanaugh S.J. | NOVEMBER 23, 2009 America Magazine On Oct. 29 Glenn Beck ended his program on Fox TV with the words of Thomas Jefferson: “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” Beck himself certainly has not been silent. In lectures, best-selling books, a radio program and his television show, he has warned America of the coming tyranny under a conspiratorial president. Armed with videos and quotations ranging from the mindless and amoral behavior of some members of Acorn to reckless statements made by associates and...

An American Jesuit who is a frequent television commentator on Roman Catholic issues resigned yesterday under orders from the Vatican as editor of the Catholic magazine America because he had published articles critical of church positions, several Catholic officials in the United States said.

Citing his deep Roman Catholic roots and constitutional responsibilities, U.S. Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) says he will not let Archbishop Raymond L. Burke "coerce" him into imposing the church's abortion teachings on America's pluralistic society. Advertisement Obey stakes out that position in his first detailed public response to Burke in the Aug. 16-23 issue of America, a weekly Jesuit magazine that is widely read among the hierarchy, lay Catholics and journalists. An article by Obey is to appear under the headline "My Conscience, My Vote." "In my view, Bishop Burke attempted to use his interpretations of theology to coerce me...