Free Republic

Good Morning. I have a brief question and it is in regards to the yearly second collection, called the "Campaign For Human Development" or CHD which takes place each weekend before Thanksgiving Day in Catholic parishes across the United States. This weekend my parish priest told parishoners there will be no second collection taken for CHD. I remember there were issues involving this collection over the last few years. Is there still issues with CHD going on? My diocese is the Hartford, CT archdiocese and I believe the other parishes have taken up this collection. Thank-you for your response and...

STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA, May 24, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – A California-based bishop is concerned that the lawsuits to overturn the HHS mandate filed by the leading dioceses and institutions of his Church may be used to underscore political criticism of the Obama administration. Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton told America magazine that, while the bishops he knows in California “are strong supporters” of these religious liberty lawsuits, “I think there are different groups that are trying to co-opt this and make it into political issue.” Forces “very far to the Right” may be tempted to make the legal challenge a part of...

Seattle University, a Jesuit Catholic university, is being targeted over its relationship with Planned Parenthood. The school, which was founded in 1891, is engaging in a relationship with Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion organizations in a way that is entirely inappropriate for a Catholic institution, says Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society (CNS). "Students are actually being referred to Planned Parenthood for so-called 'sexual health issues' which, as we know, Planned Parenthood performs nearly a third of the abortions in the United States," says Reilly. "And promoting internships with Planned Parenthood -- encouraging students to get involved with organizations...

Thirty years of parades, demonstrations, side-walk counseling, civil disobedience, educational campaigns and annual letters from the Catholic bishops have not only failed to bring forth a Human Life Amendment but have left entrenched abortion as a right deeper in the culture.Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that the Catholic bishops themselves, with a few exceptions, constitute the Secret Weapon of the Democrat Party which functions as the chief advocate and protector of the abortion industry. This conclusion resulted from an examination not of the Catholic bishops' pro-life rhetoric but of their spending.The fact remains that the great bulk of the work and...

Ads Urge a Rethinking of AbortionWASHINGTON, D.C., JAN. 27, 2005 (Zenit.org).- An advertising campaign aimed at dispelling myths about abortion is under way. The U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities has launched the campaign in the Washington metropolitan area and in national news media outlets. The campaign, called the Second Look Project, presents basic facts about legal abortion that much of the public does not understand. The program encourages people to take a "second look" at their views on abortion. "Three decades after Roe v. Wade, many people still do not understand basic facts about legal abortion -- like the...

Gibson's Passion forced to find sanctuary Gerald Warner "ECCE homo." The words of Pontius Pilate - "Behold the man" - with which he exhibited Jesus, scourged and crowned with thorns, to the hostile crowd have inspired many devout works of art down the centuries. Yet only now has the cinema, the popular art form of our time, the challenge of portraying what Christians acknowledge to be the defining moment of human history, with the release of Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ. Since it is not due for release in this country until March 26, it would not...