Free Republic

It is called the “Lorica” and also “The Deer's Cry.” According to tradition, St. Patrick uttered it while on his way to Tara, where he was for the first time to confront the power of the Pagan High-King of Ireland. Assassins were in wait for him and his companions, but as he chanted the hymn it seemed to the hidden band that a herd of deer went by. Even though Saint Patrick was a very great Saint, he must have been scared out of his wits when he was praying this prayer.

The name Stephen means “crown”, and this is appropriate when you think of the saints because the first martyr of the Catholic Faith – the protomartyr as he is called – was named Stephen. Saint Stephen was stoned to death by the Jews in the year 36. Saint Paul was present at this martyrdom, and it was a grace, which in no small way caused his conversion. Saint Stephen’s full story takes up two chapters in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 6 and 7. Saint Stephen was one of the first seven deacons. Saint Stephen’s name is mentioned in...

Father Michael Muller was one of the most widely read theologians of the 19th Century. He ranks as one of the greatest defenders of the dogma “Outside the Church there is no salvation” in modern times. Father Muller always submitted his works to two Redemptorist theologians and to his religious superiors before publication, thus we are sure of the doctrinal soundness of his teachings. This article, first published in 1875, is one of the finest treatments of the doctrinal truth that Our Lord founded one true Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation. Father Muller’s firm writings are...

Well-meaning, not highly educated Catholics who eagerly joined bible-study groups after the Council not uncommonly found their inherited faith shaken, as they were invited -- by group leaders and by written materials -- to scrutinize Catholic teachings and practices sceptically and to measure them against the New Testament in classical Protestant fashion, a scrutiny which usually seemed to work to the Church's disadvantage. Although this was not their original intention, many people became liberal Catholics through the medium of Bible study. (Thus liberal Catholics are quick to ask, for example, "Where does the New Testament condemn homosexuality?" or "Where does...

VATICAN CITY -- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's strict line on Catholic dogma has earned the chief Vatican guardian of orthodoxy a host of nicknames: the Enforcer, the Fundamentalist and Panzerkardinal, a German neologism that compares the Bavarian-born prelate to a battle tank.

This one oughta be a doozy

As it happens I find myself mustering a certain sympathy for Senator Kerry. To begin with, he must be wondering why he has attracted such attention from his clergy today for beliefs, votes, and practices that he has enthusiastically pursued with no church sanction for nearly his entire political life. More broadly, at times I wonder if the demand for fidelity to Catholic teaching in politics would be stronger if we saw more of that fidelity in the pulpit.

So High the Price opens before our eyes the gates of hell, relying always on Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church. Vivid examples abound and the moral is ever an encouraging one for us. We who are living have the glorious opportunity of not only avoiding that very real place of torment, but of realizing that God has given us the free will to choose Him ourselves. This compact volume does not leave one fearful and trembling. But it does lead each of its readers to a stronger resolution to choose God and His heaven.

Heres a case example of the "ignorant native". Seems that, according to popular opinion, there was no real need for these eight to bring the faith to the ignorant natives of North America yet, these eight heroic souls knew that the ignorant natives would never have the chance to see God were they not to go.

Hollywood, with its Jewish roots, did not experience "The Passion" as a transcendent religious and emotional event, as so many other viewers did. Some haven't forgiven Gibson for even making the film, let alone forgotten his father, Hutton, and his inflammatory statements about the history of the Jews. "I'll tell you why 'The Passion' won't be nominated," snaps one industry executive. "Happily, there are too many people in the Academy who believe the Holocaust actually happened."

Sixty million U.S. Catholic laity is scandalized and confused by the refusal of most Bishops to dutifully govern and correct pro-abortion candidates. The Democrat Presidential candidate, John Kerry, proclaimed recently to all Americans that he is a 'faithful Catholic' in good standing, yet promised that if elected: "I will not overturn Roe v Wade; I will not appoint judges hostile to 'choice;' I will allow poor women to have free abortions; I will never outlaw abortion; I will increase American taxpayer's dollars on population control efforts around the world."

Prominent in a list of 'suggestions' released yesterday by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments is more prayer and singing in Latin, particularly Gregorian chant. Catholic News Agency reports that the document, titled The Year of the Eucharist: Suggestions and Proposals, encourages "familiarity of Latin, indicating its necessity, especially in housed of formation and in seminaries, for prayer and singing in Latin, particularly Gregorian chant".

The Second Vatican Council's reforms and the new theological challenges it posed placed the question of unbaptized babies on the back burner for most theologians, but many bishops around the world have asked the doctrinal congregation for guidance on the question.

"If the Son is a King, then the Mother who bore Him should be looked upon as a queen and sovereign." "Since the flesh of Mary was no different from that of Jesus, how can we deny to the Mother the same royal dignity we find in the Son? . . . So I would consider the glory of the Son not as something shared with His Mother, but as her glory too." If Jesus is the King of the universe, then Mary is its Queen. And as Queen, she possesses by right the whole Kingdom of her Son.

If you live anywhere in the United States, you probably saw news stories this past week, reporting that Cardinal Ratzinger had issued a new statement, saying that Catholics can vote for a candidate who promotes legal abortion-- as long as they're casting that vote for other reasons. Cardinal Ratzinger said no such thing. In fact, Cardinal Ratzinger didn't issue any new statement on the subject recently! The story that has spread through the American press this week is a complete fraud.

Had it been written in our own day, with all the advantages of hindsight, the Short Critical Study could not have proven to be more inexorably true. Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, who under three popes, served as head of the Holy Office, the Vatican tribunal responsible for uprooting heresy and protecting the purity of the Catholic faith. Before him in September 1969 lay the document you are about to read — a study which contends that the New Order of Mass promulgated in April 1969 poses a serious threat to the integrity of the Catholic faith.

The New Mass just was the final stage of a long process. "The Liturgy, considered as a whole, is the collection of symbols, chants and acts by means of which the Church expresses and manifests its religion towards God." The liturgical "reform" desired by Vatican II and realized in the post-Conciliar period is nothing short of a revolution. No revolution has ever come about spontaneously. It always results from prolonged attacks, slow concessions, and a gradual giving way. The purpose of this article is to show the reader how the liturgical revolution came about, with special reference to the pre-Conciliar...

The following list of words and phrases are typically used by modernist theologians and lay people, in reference to Catholic theology/practice/attitude/concepts. Most of them are inherently vague and for that very reason are used by the modernists -- it is not clear just what they mean or when their meaning applies.

BRIELLE, N.J. -- An 8-year-old girl who suffers from a rare digestive disorder and cannot consume wheat has had her first Holy Communion declared invalid because the wafer contained none, violating Catholic doctrine. Now, Haley Waldman's mother is pushing the Diocese of Trenton and the Vatican to make an exception, saying the girl's condition _ celiac sprue disease _ should not exclude her from participating in the sacrament, in which Roman Catholics eat consecrated wheat-based wafers to commemorate the last supper of Jesus Christ before his crucifixion.