Free Republic

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Catholic activist Sister Simone Campbell has suggested that senior clergy at the Vatican are more preoccupied with power than confronting issues that affect the faithful, like clerical sexual abuse. The U.S. nun, leader of the “Nuns on the Bus” campaign that has toured America during recent election cycles, spoke frankly in an interview ahead of a conference being held at the Vatican on Wednesday (March 8) to celebrate women’s contributions to peace. “The institution and the structure is frightened of change,” Campbell told Religion News Service. “These men worry more about the form and the institution than...

This is a good news/bad news story. First the good news: The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) cut off all funding to ACORN at some point in 2008, after revelations of the embezzlement of nearly $1 million dollars by the brother of Wade Rathke, the founder of ACORN. What's not such great news is that the Catholic Church, through the CCHD, was funding ACORN in the first place. Catholic News Service (CNS) carried an article on October 16, 2008: CCHD ends funding to ACORN over financial irregularities. According to the article: ...CCHD funded more than 320 ACORN projects with...

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments today on remarks made yesterday by Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood: Planned Parenthood is getting restless knowing that its abortion-happy health care reforms are on the skids. Cecile Richards is now accusing the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops of seeking to make “American women second-class citizens.” And that’s just the danger they are doing at home. Abroad, “their hard-line opposition to women’s rights also endangers millions of women around the globe.” Why they haven’t been locked up, she does not say. Richards was recently summoned to the White House to discuss health...

It's no surprise that progressives hate Christianity. They don't want anyone answering to a higher moral authority than the federal bureaucracy. Anything that roots us in our cultural heritage is an impediment to Change. Worst of all, Christianity recognizes the preciousness of each individual soul, directly contradicting the liberal belief that we are significant only as interchangeable representatives of privileged grievance groups. With the Moonbat Messiah in charge, the gloves can come off: A homosexual-rights activist whom President Obama appointed last month to a White House advisory council had — just three weeks before his appointment — posted a statement...

(English-language translation) Representatives of the Catholic Church in Guatemala rejected the upcoming episcopal ordination of excommunicated priest Eduardo Aguirre by a religious denomination that is separated from the Vatican. The bishops criticized the dissident priest's illicit use of Catholic rites. The concern and anger over this schism could be felt among the Catholic hierarchs who convened a press conference to express their position. They condemned Eduardo Aguirre's ordination to bishop next Saturday in San Juan Comalapa, Chimaltenango, by members of the Brazilian Church not recognized by Rome. Apostolic Nuncio Bruno Musaró, Guatemalan Bishops Conference President Álvaro Ramazzini, Metropolitan Archbishop Rodolfo...

VATICAN – ISLAM BENEDICT XVI AND ISLAM APRIL 26, 2006 By: Samir Khali Samir, SJ For Pope Ratzinger, religions should be compared on the basis of the cultures and civilizations they generate. To avoid a clash of civilizations, Islam should distance itself from terrorist violence; the west from secularist and atheistic violence. This is the analysis of a renowned expert, who last September participated in a meeting on Islam behind closed doors with the pontiff. Beirut (AsiaNews) - Benedict XVI is probably one of the few figures to have profoundly understood the ambiguity in which contemporary Islam is being debated...

There has been a long discussion that I've had between myself and FReeper Zionist Conspirator concerning the faith and conduct of bishops/priests/et al, versus that of the laity within the Catholic Church. Please click on the link above to read this discussion. If I had to boil down the discussion, it would be about how the Catholic church seemingly issues contradictory statements on issues like evolution and the death penalty, and many Catholics shuns "simple folk" like ZC who don't follow modernist thinking.

wish I'd met him in person, but despite the lack of direct human connection, I feel I knew him. I also know there was something unique about this man, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church John Paul II. Was it his words? There's no doubt he was an educated man and a talented writer. He could reach the audiences to which he spoke, whether in person or in print. He had a way of choosing the direct path to our heart, our mind, our conscience and our soul. This was a man who was comfortable speaking to millions of people...

That's right. The Democrats have found an enemy, and this time they are aiming right at the heart of the "problem": Christians. Yes, fellow Christians, it is our fault that the Liberals cannot regain their place among the rest of the world, and they are spitting mad. Listen to this, from a columnist on Slate: Here is how ignorance works: First, they put the fear of God into you-if you don't believe in the literal word of the Bible, you will burn in hell. Of course, the literal word of the Bible is tremendously contradictory, and so you must abdicate...

Letter Supports Anti-Kerry Bid Over Abortion By PAM BELLUCK Published: October 19, 2004 OSTON, Oct. 18 - A canon lawyer seeking to have Senator John Kerry excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church because of his support for abortion rights said on Monday that he had ammunition in the form of a letter issued at the request of a senior Vatican official. The lawyer, Marc Balestrieri of Los Angeles, who heads a conservative Catholic nonprofit organization called De Fide, also said that, based on the letter, he would now seek to have four other Catholic politicians excommunicated: Senators Edward M. Kennedy...

Kerry said to be excommunicated Los Angeles, Oct. 18 (CWNews.com) - A consultant to the Vatican has said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has incurred the penalty of excommunication from the Catholic Church. The consultant made his statement in a highly unusual letter to Marc Balestrieri, a Los Angeles canon lawyer who formally sued John Kerry in ecclesiastical court for heresy. Balestrieri, who launched his case earlier this year by filing a heresy complaint in Kerry's home archdiocese of Boston, told EWTN's "World Over" program on Friday that he had received an unusual, indirect communication from the Vatican's Congregation for...

WASHINGTON (AP) Sen. Dick Durbin, a Catholic stunned by a hometown priest's statement that he would refuse to administer Holy Communion to the Illinois Democrat over his support for abortion rights, released a scorecard Wednesday that shows him to be a supporter of the church on many other issues. With an overall score of 60.5 percent, Durbin ranked second highest among the Senate's 24 Catholics in support of issues of importance to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, according to the study prepared by his staff. Durbin said he has provided the study results to Illinois' bishops and cardinals, and...

Madison Bishop Robert Morlino calls the current push by a group of Milwaukee priests to make celibacy optional an example of American pragmatism that has no place in the Catholic faith. "It is part of the American fix-it mentality that the removal of the obligation of celibacy will make the priesthood more marketable and perhaps from certain points of view it might," Morlino writes in a column to be published Thursday in the Diocese of Madison's weekly newspaper. "But it also is a step back from total reliance on Jesus Christ in this matter, Jesus Christ alone gives the grace...