Free Republic

Catholic Church in Germany lost more than 500k members, had only 25 priestly ordinations in 2025The German Church lost over 575,000 registered Catholics in 2024 as well, as the country’s bishops pursue their heretical, pro-LGBT ‘Synodal Way.’ The Catholic Church in Germany lost nearly 550,000 members in 2025 and only recorded 25 priestly ordinations nationwide.The German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) has published preliminary figures for 2025 across all German dioceses, showing another year of a massive exodus from the Church.Around 307,000 people left the Catholic Church, while 2,269 joined and 5,443 were readmitted. However, if one factors in the deaths, the...

[Catholic Caucus] Since 1988, Who Changed—Rome or the SSPX?Have Rome or the SSPX actually changed since the 1988 episcopal consecrations—or has only one side moved? This in-depth analysis compares Archbishop Lefebvre’s unwavering view of immutable Tradition with Rome’s evolving theology on synodality, moral teaching, and “living tradition,” raising a question every serious Catholic must confront.Between now and the eventual consecration of bishops for the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), there will be various newsworthy developments, and even more speculation about possible developments, much of which will turn out to be incorrect. As interesting as all of that will surely...

The Pope’s interfaith rhetoric collapses against Europe’s blood-soaked reality, revealing a globalist agenda that demands Christian nations surrender to the very forces destroying them. The Pope’s interfaith rhetoric collapses against Europe’s blood-soaked reality, revealing a globalist agenda that demands Christian nations surrender to the very forces destroying them. On his carefully orchestrated “interfaith” tour through Turkey and Lebanon, Pope Leo XIV was confronted with a question he could no longer avoid: whether Islam threatens the Christian identity of the West. The Pope was asked a serious and unavoidable question: “Is Islam a threat to the Christian identity of the West?”...

A Pennsylvania diocese has apologized for a shocking grade school Halloween parade float that displayed a replica of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp gate. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg formally apologized Friday for the offensive float’s appearance during Thursday evening’s Halloween parade. Bishop Timothy Senior said he was “shocked and appalled to learn” the float entered by the St. Joseph Catholic School in Hanover, which resembled the Auschwitz Concentration Camp gate, included the words “Arbeit Macht Frei.” The German phrase — translating to “Work Makes You Free” — was prominently displayed at World War II-era concentration camps across Europe, including...

[Catholic Caucus] Prevost: “No one possesses the whole truth”The most attractive thing about the Catholic Church is that it is the Pillar of Truth (1Tim 3:15). It is the very gatekeeper of Truth; the spotless Bride of Truth Himself, Jesus Christ (Eph 5:27). If someone were to say that the Church does not possess the Truth of Jesus Christ, or that His Vicar is not the vector of Truth on earth, or that our Lord did not establish the hierarchical nature of the Church to receive and transmit the Truth (John 16:13), that person would be a heretic, and obviously...

Washington, D.C., police on Sunday arrested a man with hundreds of explosive devices outside a church holding a Mass in honor of the Supreme Court. The man had a manifesto that suggested he was targeting the Supreme Court and Catholics, according to court papers obtained by The Daily Wire. Louis Geri, a 41-year-old from Arizona and New Jersey, was apprehended outside the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle on October 5, the same day the church held its annual “Red Mass” in which a cardinal prays for the high court as it embarks on a new term, and which is...

<p>Hundreds of LGBTQ+ Catholics and their families participated in a Holy Year pilgrimage to Rome on Saturday, celebrating a new level of acceptance in the Catholic Church after long feeling shunned and crediting Pope Francis with the change.</p><p>The vice president of the Italian bishops conference, Bishop Franceseco Savino, celebrated Mass for the pilgrims in a packed Chiesa del Gesu, the main Jesuit church in Rome. He received a sustained standing ovation in the middle of his homily when he recalled that Jubilee celebrations historically were meant to restore hope to those on the margins.</p>

Heartbreaking, Father Tony Boutros, representative of the Greek Catholic Church in Sweida, Syria, makes an appeal to the international community to save Christians and Druze from an Islamist genocide. “We Christians and Druze are one. Look at the massacre they are committing against us. We need protection to continue living in the land we have peacefully lived together for hundreds of years.” ... Who is doing the Killings? What’s UN doing? ... not seeing Christian pastors/priests speaking up ... This is the history of Islam. Conquer. Destroy. Kill non Islamic citizens. Then destroy a country and send it back into...

Trump’s reaction ‘not positive’ to Israeli army’s strike on Catholic church in GazaWhile the Israeli government claims the bombing to be a mistake, church officials are reportedly considering it may have been ‘a deliberate act of retaliation’ for a recent Church statement.The White House states President Donald Trump’s reaction to this morning’s Israeli military strike on the only Catholic church in Gaza was “not positive” and prompted a call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.At around 10:20 a.m. local time on Thursday, the Holy Family Catholic Church compound “was struck by the Israeli army” killing at least three and injuring...

A priest who was a close friend of the late Pope Francis has been injured in an Israeli strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church.The attack on Thursday killed two people, injured several others and and damaged the Holy Family Church. It is one of three surviving churches in the war-ravaged enclave, which have become refuges for displaced Christians.“The Holy Family Church in Gaza has been struck by a raid this morning. There are several injuries in the place, including the parish priest, Father Gabriel Romanelli,” the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said.

[Catholic Caucus] Priest, convicted of child pornography, re-integrated into the Vatican CuriaCarlo Capella, convicted of child pornography, reintegrated into the Vatican CuriaCarlo Alberto Capella: the exemplary reintegration of a Vatican pedophileIn June 2018, InfoVaticana reported the five-year prison sentence of priest Carlo Alberto Capella for possession and exchange of child pornography. Capella, a former diplomat of the Holy See in Washington, was not only not extradited—as requested by US authorities—but, after his return to Rome, he enjoyed freedom of movement within the Vatican for months before his belated arrest. Today, seven years later, we discover that this criminal's reintegration did...

[Someone]brought my attention to the [recent] tug of war ... over the legacy of Dorothy Day ... between pro and anti-capitalists. The Catholic Worker has criticized both the NY Times and Fr. Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute on Day-related matters. Liberals can’t claim her ... because she was anti-abortion and loyal to Church teaching, obviously never having gone the way of radical disobedient feminism. But conservatives and libertarians can’t claim her either because she rejected capitalism.... Or did she? As best I can tell, she neither practiced it or preached it as a way of life.... If you don’t...

Robert Ellsberg speaks on whistleblowing, truth-telling and the Pentagon Papers Oct 2, 2019 by Heidi Schlumpf JusticePolitics The autumn of 1969 has been on Robert Ellsberg's mind lately, as the 50th anniversary of a life-changing request from his father approaches. A half century ago, as a 13-year-old, Ellsberg agreed to help his dad photocopy documents from a government report he had worked on. Those documents, which came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, revealed the United States' role in the build-up to the Vietnam War and the lies told to the American public and to Congress about U.S. actions...

Pope Leo XIV’s MAGA-supporting brother Louis Prevost has defended his clerical record and said he is likely to govern the church as a centrist.During an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncesnored, Prevost was asked about his brother’s liberal advocacy and asked whether he intends to govern the church in the style of Pope Francis.Here is a transcript of the exchange:MORGAN: Do you think he’s going to be a very liberal pope?”PREVOST: No I do not. I don’t think he’s going to roll back the changes that Francis made. I think he’s going to. Here we are. Let’s continue down this path...

We previously discussed the legislation passed by Washington State democrats that requires priests to violate the sanctity of the confessional to report child abuse. I described the law as “blatantly unconstitutional” in eviscerating the right to the free exercise of religion. The state is moving to create an effective system of sacramental snitches and the Catholic Church is declaring “enough.” It has announced that any priest who complies with the law will be promptly excommunicated. We previously discussed the proposed legislation that would target priests who learn of any “reasonable” basis to believe that a child “has suffered abuse or...

During the 1970s and 1980s, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), then based in the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill, vigorously lobbied for Nicaragua's Sandinista regime, the Cuban-style Marxist regime that shot its way to power in 1979. Today, WOLA pretends it is concerned about the rule of law in Honduras after the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court supported removing the leftist president for defying its constitution. WOLA and Jim Wallis' publication Sojourners have teamed up to spin Honduras' defense of its democracy as another example of a U.S.-supported, imperialist military coup. The constitutional coup in Honduras was...

Will the Roman Catholic Church continue its policy of ignoring jihad and appeasing Muslims? Will the next pope continue the last pope’s consistent record of appeasing Islam? The late Pope Francis had a long record of whitewashing Islamic jihad violence and making moral equivalence arguments in order to downplay jihad terror. Back in 2017, Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar, noticed the pope’s yeoman service for the Islamic cause and thanked him for his “defense of Islam against the accusation of violence and terrorism.” Francis was not just a defender of Islam but also a defender of the...

Nalin Haley, the son of former U.S. presidential candidate Nikki Haley, was received into the Catholic Church on Palm Sunday. “As parents, Michael and I always prayed that our children would have a faith and relationship with God,” Nikki Haley posted on social media Sunday. “Today we were so proud to support Nalin in his faith journey as he was confirmed into the Catholic Church, completed RCIA, and received his first holy Communion,” she said of her son. Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina governor, was born and raised in the Sikh faith...

[Catholic Caucus] Catholic walks out of Mass as priest compares Trump to Satan at DC churchCV NEWS FEED // A Catholic man left Sunday Mass for the first time in his life after a priest in Georgetown, a wealthy neighborhood in Washington, DC, used his homily to make a political comparison between President Donald Trump and Satan.Ganley’s post quickly gained traction, drawing over a million views and reigniting debates about politics in the pulpit. Ganley emphasized that while he respects Jesuits and their intellectual contributions, partisan rhetoric from the altar crosses a line.“Honestly, I’m fine with leftie Jesuits,” he wrote....

Behind Broken Borders: Sachs’ Weaponized CompassionJeffrey Sachs, a noted economist and influential figure in global policy circles, has long been celebrated as an architect of sustainable development. Yet behind this polished veneer lies a more unsettling story, one that implicates him in masterminding the invasion of the southern border of the United States and beyond. By co-opting established religious organizations—chief among them Catholic Charities—and harnessing taxpayer dollars, Sachs has effectively weaponized compassion to orchestrate a mass migration crisis. His book, Ethics in Action for Sustainable Development, which carries a foreword by Pope Francis, serves as the blueprint for this operation....