Free Republic

[Catholic Caucus] A letter to Aldo Maria Valli on the syndrome called "inclusivitis.” How it is made manifest and how to combat it.October 23rd 2025 Dear Aldo Maria, It seems that after reading the text of the Summary Document of the Synodal Path of the Churches in Italy, the ineffable World Health Organization has discovered the existence of a new terrifying epidemic triggered by the terrifying disease called syndroma inclusivitatis viralis, also generally known as Charles V syndrome or todos (todos todos) caballeros syndrome. It's an insidious syndrome, but luckily, a swab isn't needed to identify it. It primarily affects...

I Thought I Didn’t Need God. I Was Wrong.Is the West experiencing a religious revival? Some say yes—or at least, that it needs one. Young generations have become spiritually bankrupt, they say, consumed by technology and social media, desperate for something bigger than themselves.But how can religion compel the secular? Political scientist Charles Murray knows the answer better than most—because it happened to him. For much of his life, he explains in his new book, Taking Religion Seriously, out October 14, he was one of the “well-educated and successful people for whom religion has been irrelevant.”But that’s changed. And in...

Undeniable Proofs That Traditional Catholicism Is the Greatest Friend of Eternal RomeThe true friends of the people [and of the Church and the Pope] are neither revolutionaries nor innovators, they are traditionalists. This is evident through the way in which Traditional Catholics differentiate themselves from most other Catholics by: following and defending Church teaching, respecting the Church’s moral teaching, and defending the foundations of the Faith.In his 1910 encyclical on the Sillon movement, Notre Charge Apostolique, St. Pius X wrote that in the midst of great turmoil in the political and spiritual realms, the real solution is to restore the...

Pope Leo XIV’s Homage to Dom Helder Câmara’s CELAMDom Helder Câmara, a priest "mentor" of Klaus Schwab (WEF), and co-author of the Vatican II document Gaudium et spes, also helped found the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) which Pope Leo XIV has referenced in recent statements. With suspicious links to Communism and Liberation Theology, Câmara is a priest at the heart of the infamous Catacombs Pact and the Synodal "Church of the Poor", two watershed events in the history of the infiltration/revolution within the Catholic Church.A few weeks after his election, Pope Leo XIV sent a telegram to Cardinal Jaime...

I watched the clip—again and again—Steven Furtick laughing, giving some guy a piggyback ride in what he calls a church. The people around him cheering, clapping, filming on their phones like the presence of God is some novelty sideshow act. Honestly, this stuff just makes me sick. It should grieve us when what is meant to be holy is dragged through the mud and turned into a circus. There was a time when men trembled to enter the sanctuary and especially when one took the pulpit. When the thought of the Most High, holy and righteous God stirred awe and...

[Catholic Caucus] New Georgetown University president: ‘I reject the Church’s teachings on homosexuality’‘Every Catholic educator should vigorously oppose what this man embraced,’ Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society told LifeSite. ‘Jesus told Peter to feed His sheep, but Georgetown is leading lambs to the slaughter.’The incoming president of Georgetown University has said he repudiates the Catholic Church’s teachings on homosexuality. He also appeared to criticize the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.The nominally Catholic, Jesuit university in Washington, D.C., recently announced its selection of Eduardo Peñalver as its new president, to start next year. Peñalver is currently the...

No, Catholics don’t have to be pro-mass migration: Cardinal Müller was right to refute Pope LeoWhen I studied at university in Durham, there was a visiting Dominican friar finishing his PhD. The more traditionally inclined among the Catholics who studied in that ancient cathedral city had a habit of turning to him for counsel on manifold matters. One such piece of mentorship this affable, stolid, clear-thinking and orthodox priest gave me has rung in my ears and remained relevant ever since.His words may be invaluable to Catholics in the wake of Pope Leo XIV’s enthusiastic emphasis on welcoming migrants –...

Appreciating the Hidden Consolations of Traditional Catholicism as the Crisis ContinuesIf we look at all of those who call themselves Catholic, it is clear that Traditional Catholics are the only ones persecuted by Rome for trying to seriously practice the Catholic religion. Thanks be to God that we are persecuted today for keeping the Faith! If the Modernists and Liberals trying to destroy the Church considered us their allies, we would surely be on the path to hell.One of the most astounding situations in the world today is the reality that the Vatican accepts and encourages essentially every widespread set...

[Catholic Caucus] BREAKING: Traditionalist Redemptorists issue open letter to ‘repudiate the Synodal Church’The Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer accused the modern hierarchy of betraying the Faith, invoking anathema and pledging to offer the Traditional Mass and spiritual help ‘so long as there is but one soul that asks.’The Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer, a traditionalist Catholic congregation based on Papa Stronsay in Scotland, have issued an open letter “to the Catholic Bishops, Priests, Religious and Faithful” following their General Chapter.The community – often called the “Transalpine Redemptorists” – was founded by Fr. Michael Mary Sim in 1987 under...

Jesus’s Ancestors By beginning his Gospel with a genealogy, Matthew declared that the Jesus who was born in Bethlehem, raised by Joseph, and who worked as a craftsman in Nazareth was the descendant of Abraham through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Matthew sought to convince his readers that Jesus, who had no home, no fortune, and only an unimpressive group of followers, was the royal King in the line of David whose kingdom would never end. But honestly, if that was all that Matthew was trying to accomplish, he could have gone about recording Jesus’s...

An atheist debating God’s non-existence must “borrow” from theismRational discourse, argumentation, and even the act of debating the existence of God rely on certain foundational assumptions that atheism (particularly in its naturalistic or materialistic forms) cannot consistently justify or ground. These assumptions only make sense within a theistic worldview, where God provides the ultimate basis for logic, reason, morality, free will, and consciousness. Moreover, foundational assumptions—law of non-contradiction, sound reason, free will, objective morality, and the primacy of mind—are necessary for any meaningful argument to exist (transcendental conditions, like how geometry presupposes axioms). For example:1. “If you do not assume...

Chinese characters and how they relate to the Book of Genesis

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Leo and the Death Penalty CharadePopes since John Paul II have created the impression in the minds of many Catholics—and many outside the Catholic Church—that the Church believes the death penalty to be intrinsically immoral.The pontificate of Leo XIV has just passed its first real milestone: its first media controversy. The recent friction over Pope Leo’s comments concerning the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago and his plans to award Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois an honor for his efforts on behalf of immigrants, despite supporting abortion throughout his career, probably mark the end of a “honeymoon” period for...

Will God punish the wicked in fire for all eternity? Doesn’t eternal torture contradict His love and justice? What does the Bible really teach about the punishment for sin? Explore the powerful evidence in the New Testament that reveals a startlingly different picture of hell and hellfire than you’ve been led to believe!

“Dilexi Te:” Treating the Poor As Slaves.One of the most blasphemous lines in Dilexi Te comes under the chapter heading titled, “Accompanying migrants.” It reads: “Mary and Joseph flee with the child Jesus to Egypt. Christ himself, who ‘came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him’ (Jn 1:11), lived among us as a stranger. For this reason, the Church has always recognized in migrants a living presence of the Lord…”The author then misappropriates the Holy Family to argue for open-borders. Clearly, the Bible and the Catholic Church have always opposed chaos on national borders,...

[Catholic Caucus] Exposing the Lie that Upholding Apostolic Tradition and Sound Doctrine Causes Division and DisunityThe obvious falsehood, often used against proponents of orthodoxy during Francis' pontificate, must go if Leo XIV's stated wish to end polarisation within the Church is to be achieved.Now that some time has passed to calmly reflect on the Francis pontificate, one aspect urgently needing examination is the nature of the internal disunity, discord and disorder of those years.In previous pontificates, polarisation and division were widely seen to have come from dissenters – modernist cardinals, bishops and theologians who promoted teaching that ran contrary to...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Leo meets Cardinal Fernández in sign of doctrinal continuityPope Leo granted a private audience to Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández on Friday, October 10, in what is understood to be his ninth official meeting in his role as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.The meeting with the Cardinal, who was a key ally of Pope Francis, shows continuity at the heart of the Vatican between the two papacies. According to InfoVaticana.com, Cardinal Fernández “is close to Pope Leo XIV, who has chosen to keep him in his position at the head of the doctrinal...

[Catholic Caucus] A Reaction to Kwasniewski's Appearance on Pints with AquinasAs many of our readers will know, I appeared recently on the Pints with Aquinas podcast, hosted by Matt Fradd. The interview has over 100K views. The impact seems to be international, as well: a German website called Certamen wrote up a succinct commentary that is translated below. -PAK A Commentary on the Conversation between Matt Fradd and Dr. Peter KwasniewskiThere are conversations that begin like a quiet stream and develop into a raging torrent. The nearly four-hour interview that Catholic podcaster Matt Fradd recently conducted with Dr. Peter Kwasniewski,...

Georgetown Has Declared War on Catholicism"The mask is off" aptly describes Georgetown Law professors' obscene distortion of the Catholic Faith to secure legal protections for DEI as a religion.Georgetown Law professors William Treanor and Amy Uelmen have crafted a remarkably dishonest defense of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, disguising radical left-wing ideology as Catholic tradition. Their recent essay in America magazine represents not scholarly analysis but pure propaganda, a cynical attempt to baptize secular progressivism with holy water while hoping no one notices the fundamental contradiction. The audacity of their argument is staggering. These professors claim that opposition to DEI...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Müller: Synod on Synodality an ‘attempt to transform’ Church into ‘secular, worldly institution’The German prelate warned in a preface to 'The Trojan Horse in the Catholic Church' about the dangers of the synodal process, which he said is similar to the one in Germany. In a foreword to The Trojan Horse in the Catholic Church, a new book by Father Enoch on the Synod on Synodality in Rome, Cardinal Gerhard Müller issues a strong critique of this process that has been taking place now for several years. Having participated in both the 2023 and 2024 synods, he...