Free Republic

A group dedicated to providing a welcoming space for Jewish converts to Catholicism has launched in Israel. The Association of Hebrew Catholics celebrated its official launch with a Mass on Aug. 8, the eve of the feast of its patron, St. Edith Stein, who was a Jewish convert to Catholicism. Yarden Zelivansky, a Jewish convert to Catholicism and member of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) who worked to bring the Association of Hebrew Catholics to Israel, told CNA that about 30 people attended the event. Reactions to the Association of Hebrew Catholics will likely be “mixed,” according to Zelivansky... For...

Miracles and the True Faith: Why Only Catholicism Is Confirmed by GodFrom the very beginning of salvation history, miracles have been among God’s most powerful tools to confirm divine revelation. Moses confronted Pharaoh with the ten plagues, Elijah called down fire upon Mount Carmel, and Christ Himself demonstrated His divinity through cures, resurrections, and His own Resurrection from the dead. The Catholic Church, established by Christ and perpetuated through His Apostles, has continued to be marked by miracles throughout her two-thousand-year history.In this ten-part series, we have examined the countless miraculous signs that God has given to His Church: the...

Catholic grade school attacked. At least 20 injured.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) has announced that it will donate $25,000 toward the reconstruction of Holy Family Church in Gaza in the wake of the July 17 missile attack that left three dead and 15 wounded, including the parish priest, in addition to structural damage to the only Catholic church in the area.“We are deeply saddened by the deaths, injuries, and structural damage at the Holy Family Church in Gaza and stand in solidarity with our Catholic brothers and sisters,” group CEO Ted Deutch said in a press release.“We pray for the full recovery of the injured and the...

I have just finished reading “The Old Covenant: Revoked or Not Revoked?” by Dr. Robert Sungenis. It is a study debunking the notion, now regnant in liberal theological circles, that the Old Covenant still stands side-by-side with the New Covenant. According to this novelty, in essence, God’s “A Plan” and God’s “B Plan” are both currently pleasing to Him and both fully in effect. Opposed to this, the Catholic Faith teaches that the Old Law — itself good, holy, and of divine origin — was a preparation for the New, and that the New Law superceded and fulfilled the Old....

Rep. Tom Tancredo – who vied for the Republican presidential nomination to make illegal immigration a priority issue – suggested in a House speech yesterday that Pope Benedict XVI is encouraging Latin Americans to come to the U.S. to bolster flagging membership in the Catholic Church.

Dorothy Day founded an ongoing series of weekly talks at the Worker, dedicated to “the clarification of thought”. These talks continue to the present. Now, however, some Catholic Workers complain, most of the talks are immersed in the hard left and the thinking expressed is actually “The Calcification of Thought”, one wag has quipped mournfully. Today, attendees of these weekly lectures have encountered the following ideas: - Anti Israel, Anti-“Zionist”, Anti “Usury”, Anti “NEOCON” and pro-Iranian, pro-Assad, pro-PLO propaganda. - Support for violent riots in American cities - The return of antiquated Marxist terminology, like castigating peoples' opinions as "bourgeois"....

On July 7, 1846, a contingent of Marines raised the American flag over Monterey, California, to mark a proclamation by U.S. consul Thomas Larkin that the territory was being annexed as a consequence of the war with Mexico. Much of the future state had already been taken from Mexico's nominal control by an uprising of American settlers under the Bear Flag. Victory in the Mexican War meant that the country gained Texas, California, and everything in between, comprising most of what is now New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. Next to the War of Independence and the Civil...

...The trend that we are seeing is a very positive one. People are seeking tradition...It's a learning lesson for a lot of pastors I talk to. If you are not creating an environment where the people that come to your church can find holiness and meaning and be elevated, you're not doing your job. There was a time in the nineties where people were hungry for a personal encounter with God, and Evangelicalism I think offers that better than some Catholicism circles. Maybe that's to be debated, but times change and needs an appetites change. And I could tell you...

Apparently the recently deceased Pope Francis is the patron saint of "Mother Earth." At least that’s what the climate Armageddon-obsessed TIME magazine is trying to argue. TIME senior correspondent and eco-doom prophet Justin Worland’s papal obit read like a cheap comic strip: “The Climate Pope: Francis and His Environmental Legacy,” Worland’s headline read, celebrating the leftist pope for his radical eco crusaderism. According to Worland’s twisted worldview, the first big “environmental move” the pope did upon ascending to the papacy was simply “choosing the papal name Francis after Saint Francis of Assi, known among other things for his appreciation of...

Sydney Johnston grew up in a nondenominational Christian household — but now the Upper West Side millennial is a devout Catholic. “There’s just something so beautiful and transcendent about the rituals and the ancient history in the Catholic Mass that’s been preserved,” Johnston, 30, told The Post. “The church really communicates a degree of reverence that I didn’t find in the more liberal, laissez-faire approach of nondenominational churches.” Confirmed in December 2024 at the Church of Notre Dame in Morningside Heights, Johnston is one of a growing number of young people turning to the Catholic Church from other denominations, religions...

Pope Francis was listed as being in critical condition over the weekend, suffering kidney failure and underwent a blood transfusion as his health deteriorated, the Vatican announced. Officials confirmed that the 88-year-old pontiff required high-flow oxygen to combat complications from double pneumonia and remains hospitalized at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital. Medical staff admitted him on Feb. 14 after days of breathing difficulties, and tests soon confirmed pneumonia in both lungs, Reuters reported. The Vatican described his infection as complex, citing two or more micro-organisms as the cause, and reported that he suffered a “prolonged asthma-like respiratory crisis,” requiring additional oxygen support....

By wading into politics, the Church abandons its true mission, weakens its authority, and risks becoming just another partisan voice in an already divided world.One of the great tragedies of the Enlightenment and its aftermath was that Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular lost faith in their legitimacy and in the legitimacy of their mission. As a result, they surrendered that mission’s otherworldliness and agreed to fight only on temporal grounds. In other words, when the Church responded to its attackers, it did so not on its own terms but on the terms—and in the terms—of...

Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate: An Open Letter to President Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr. — ‘The Curse on America Comes from Within Brought Down by Deep State and Deep Church’Guest post by Byzantine Catholic PatriarchateThe American people elected you both, Mr. President and Mr. Secretary, to stop the process of self-destruction of America and humanity.Apparently, your first step will be to stop the senseless war in Ukraine.But the absurdity is that the curse on America comes from within. It is brought down not only by the Deep State but also by the Deep Church, which are in unity.ADVERTISEMENTThis truth was...

Outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) wrote a scathing tweet about President Joe Biden after he granted clemency to 37 prisoners on federal death row who received life sentences without the potential for parole. He called it “horribly misguided and insulting,” especially regarding the two men convicted of murdering a student at Marshall University. The Democrat-turned-Independent said he felt a moral obligation to speak out against the outgoing president on behalf of the parents of Samantha Burns, a 19-year-old girl who was killed in November 2002. However, her remains were never found. Manchin said her family wrote letters to Biden pleading...

Starring Andy Garcia and Peter O'Toole, "For Greater Glory" is a compelling war film based on the true story of the Cristero War -- a conflict caused by the brutal government crackdown on the Mexican Catholic Church in the 1920s. Released at a time when religious freedom, especially for Catholics, is being attacked in the United States and elsewhere, the picture is also particularly timely. Beautifully shot across the plains of northern and central Mexico and accompanied by a stirring soundtrack by Hollywood composer James Horner, the movie takes the audience through the harrowing violence and suppression of the Church...

BREAKING: Pope Francis: ‘Every religion is a way to arrive at God’Pope Francis told young people in Singapore that being ‘Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Christian’ are just ‘different paths,’ as ‘every religion is a way’ to God.Pope Francis today told young people of different faiths that “every religion is a way to arrive at God.”Addressing an inter-religious meeting of young people in Singapore just before departing for his return flight to Rome, Pope Francis turned to one of the central themes of his pontificate – inter-religious dialogue.“One of the things that struck me about all of you here is your ability...

Pope Francis née Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who practices an ecclesiology tailored to the spirit of the times, could easily be mistaken as Joe Biden in a white cossack and skull cap. They share an imperious disposition that takes delight in overturning or diminishing the decrees of their predecessors, overregulate their administrations with orders and encyclicals, are vindictive in their treatment of ideological opponents, look unfavorably upon conservative American Catholics, believe their foundational documents are out of step with modern times, and are hell-bent on transforming their sovereignties. They are both vaccinistas pushing COVID jabs, and climate hypocrites unfazed by their...

In 2015, retired Catholic priest Paul-André Harvey from Quebec's Chicoutimi diocese pleaded guilty to 39 charges of indecent assault and gross indecency. Most of his victims were girls between the ages of eight and 10. Harvey was sentenced to six years in prison. But before Harvey died in prison, the defrocked priest did something extraordinary — he provided a confession for his victims to use in a class-action suit against the Catholic Church. He claimed that church officials were aware of his crimes for years. When complaints surfaced, Harvey says he was simply moved. Records show between 1963 and 2002,...

A.W. Richard Sipe was a former Benedictine monk and Catholic priest, trained as a psychotherapist to deal with the mental health problems of the clergy. However, over the years, his work with the records of over six thousand patients uncovered a pattern of behavior within the Church that eventually led him to exit the clergy and reveal the truth behind the sexual abuse of minors.