Free Republic

Pope Francis: Catholics shouldn’t be afraid to change everything about the Church December 23, 2019 (Remnant Newspaper) — Pope Francis's Christmas address of December 21 — the traditional feast of the doubting Thomas the Apostle and of the Ember Saturday of Advent — is exactly the antithesis of the famous "hermeneutic of continuity" address delivered by Pope Benedict XVI on December 22, 2005. In that speech, Ratzinger (successfully or unsuccessfully) tried to reconnect the postconciliar experiment with the 3,000-year history of the Church as God's Israel. Francis is saying, in effect: "Nope, not gonna happen. In fact, we need to...

"A long, long time ago I can still remember ..." That's how Don McLean's No. 1 hit from 1971, "American Pie," begins. The news earlier this month was that William Sloane Coffin Jr., America's most famous liberal minister from the 1960s through the 1980s, had just died at age 81. Obituaries noted that Coffin, recipient of an elite education in New England and Paris, had thought of a career as a concert pianist, but became Yale University chaplain in 1958. "February made me shiver, With every paper I'd deliver, Bad news on the doorstep, I couldn't take one more step."...

The solemn voices echoed through the high-vaulted sanctuary of St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church in Baltimore. "There is in our land a great cry for vengeance as we fill up death rows and kill the killer in the name of justice, in the name of the peace," the two dozen worshipers intoned last week at the interfaith prayer service. "Holy Spirit of God ... help us work tirelessly for the abolition of state-sponsored death and to renew our society in its very heart, so that violence will be no more." As the execution of Wesley Eugene Baker nears,...