Free Republic

In a courageous stand for faith, conscience, and dignity of the dying, four orders of Catholic nuns and several Catholic healthcare ministries sued New York on Friday over a new law that forces them to help terminally ill patients kill themselves in violation of their faith. In Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm v. James, Becket is asking a federal court to block the law before it takes effect on August 5, when healthcare providers who refuse to take part in assisted suicide will face crippling fines, professional sanctions, and criminal penalties. For generations, Catholic healthcare ministries have been...

Billy the Kid continues to make headlines, 145 years after being gunned down in Fort Sumner. Thursday historians announced new evidence that he was Catholic — a detail that adds more layers of intrigue to one of the Wild West’s mythologized figures. Billy the Kid died July 14, 1881, after being shot by Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett. On the first day of the Wild West History Association Roundup, Allen Sanchez said certificates of Billy the Kid’s baptism and his parents’ marriage were located inside St. Peter’s Church in New York City. St. Peter’s is connected to the Sisters of...

In a divided America, JD Vance sees Christianity as a unifying force. His new memoir, “Communion,” blames secularism for social strife and proposes faith as the solution. The book is not just a conversion narrative; it is an argument that a more Christian America would also be a more peaceful and tolerant one. “I do think in a very foundational sense the country is a Christian nation,” Vance tells me in an interview. Religious decline hasn’t removed social divisions, he says, but instead has deepened them: “I see antisemitism spreading ... You’re seeing an elevation of anti-Christian bias. You’re seeing...

The Hezbollah war with Israel has brought great suffering to the country. About one-quarter of the population (1.4 million people) has been displaced. More than 3,500 have been killed — many of them Hezbollah fighters but also many civilians... About a dozen Lebanese Christian civilians have been killed in the south...On June 1, Dr. James Karam and his two children, Tony and Theodosia, were killed by an Israeli drone strike as they returned from university exams in Beirut to their village. The Trump administration has sought to save Lebanon, pushing the Lebanese and Israeli governments to negotiate directly for the...

A majority of U.S. Catholic voters supported Donald Trump in his 2024 presidential victory. Yet across the broad Catholic political spectrum – even among conservative-leaning bishops – there is dismay over Trump’s unprecedented verbal assault on Pope Leo XIV, the first American to lead their church. Leo says he is sharing a Gospel message and not directly attacking Trump or anyone else with his appeals for peace and criticism of attitudes fueling the war. Criticism of Trump came from Archbishop Paul Coakley, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and from Minnesota-based Bishop Robert Barron, who only a few...

The Catholic right is pro-Israel. America’s online converts are the exception. From Budapest to Santiago, conservative Catholics stand with Israel. The cosplay converts pushing anti-Zionism don’t represent them — and didn’t get their cues from Rome.

Ted Cruz endorses article accusing Traditional Catholics of being ‘parasites’Traditional Catholics are in the firing line in an article Ted Cruz described as 'the best and most comprehensive explanation of what we're fighting.'On Sunday, March 15, Senator Ted Cruz retweeted a long anti-Catholic X essay by the Republican Zionist account “Insurrection Barbie,” stating:READ every word of this.It’s the best & most comprehensive explanation of what we’re fighting.In the essay, which runs over 8,000 words, the author claimed that the Republican Party was being taken over by a small bloc of Catholics and undermining its support for “Christian Zionism.”A chief influence...

At present, 33 countries and two territories allow birthright citizenship out of 194 nations on the planet, meaning, it's not exactly a common phenomenon by global standards.AdvertisementThis hasn't stopped the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and some NGO they're politically aligned with from wading into another policy argument, calling President Trump's executive order banning birthright citizenship to illegal aliens 'immoral,' speaking as a 'friend of the court' as the case on birthright citizenship goes to the Supreme Court. The document is here.According to Sahara Reporters:AdvertisementThe United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has launched a legal offensive against President Donald...

Nicaragua’s communist dictator Daniel Ortega ordered the house arrest of his younger brother, Humberto Ortega, on Tuesday after the younger Ortega questioned how the Sandinista regime would survive without Daniel. Humberto Ortega, 77, is a retired military official who accompanied his brother during the Sandinista revolution and served as a crucial military figure, aiding Daniel Ortega in ruling Nicaragua during the 1980s. He issued his remarks on Sunday in an interview with the Argentine news outlet Infobae. Infobae published an interview with the younger Ortega in which he described his relationship with his brother as “complicated.” Daniel Ortega has accused...

The quickest way to start an online argument is to mention a topic where the stakes are highest and/or the diagreement is the most passionate. The proper Christian perspective on Mary, mother of Jesus is just such a topic. For Roman Catholics, she is beloved, adored, even revered. It shows up in the way they pray, in the traditions they celebrate, and the stories about her that they share with one another. It stems, in part from the greek phrase Theatokos, which was formally adopted in the Council of Ephesus (431 AD) to affirm the Deity of Christ in opposition...

[Catholic Caucus] A Dissident Damsel Who Defied the Red DragonA martyr of Communist Russia, Mother Catherine of Siena, founded a convent of Third Order Dominicans before being sentenced to more than a decade of solitary confinement.It has been said, purportedly by G.K. Chesterton, that when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing but in anything. Even worse is that the things which people believe are not merely godless but deadly and demonic. Take, for instance, the modern anti-Christian creeds that led to the French and Russian Revolutions and to the rise of the Nazis. These monstrous ideologies...

[Catholic Caucus] Three heroic Catholic priests were massacred by North Korean communists 75 years agoServants of God Msgr. Patrick Brennan, Fr. Tommie Cusack, and Fr. Jack O'Brien were imprisoned and murdered by North Korean forces after refusing to divulge the names of Korean Catholics. This week marked the 75th anniversary of the massacre of the Taejon Martyrs in the Korean War. Three priests – whose cause for sainthood has been opened by the Vatican – were executed by the North Korean communists after a heroic imprisonment where they spent their final days praying and ministering to others. The massacre at...

🚨 WHOA: Former FBI Director CHRIS WRAY criminally referred to the DOJ for misleading Congress on several issues, making false statements, and obstructing, per Fox. pic.twitter.com/WWWi0A6udO— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 2, 2025

A new study argues that the large majority of American Jews have a deep-seated notion that being Jewish is inextricably bound to being liberal. That idea took hold after the large waves of Jewish immigration to the US in the late 19th century, according to the study’s author, American history professor Gil Troy. American Jewish liberalism and association with the Democratic party is showing no signs of abatement, despite many predictions to the contrary since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, according to Troy’s research, which is being published by the Ruderman Family Foundation's Program for American Jewish Studies at the University of...

Just one in four Catholic priests and Mainline Protestant pastors in the United States say they're certain that Adam and Eve were real people. In contrast, 80% of Evangelical pastors and 89% of black Protestant clergy affirm this belief with certainty. Data from the National Survey of Religious Leaders reveal significant differences among clergy in their core theological beliefs, including their views on the Bible, Hell, miracles, and the existence of God, as noted by Graphs About Religion on Substack.When asked whether they “definitely believe” Adam and Eve were historical figures, the numbers diverged sharply across denominations, dropping to 25%...

The Biden-era FBI’s efforts targeting traditionalist Catholics were far more extensive than previously known and involved personnel from multiple field offices, according to newly revealed documents that contradict former FBI director Christopher Wray’s congressional testimony. The FBI’s focus on traditionalist Catholics was revealed in February 2023, when a former agent published a leaked memo produced by the bureau’s Richmond, Va. field office warning against the emerging threat posed by “radical traditionalist Catholic ideology.” The Richmond memo was largely based on the findings of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has a record of maligning conservative groups as “extremist.” The memo...

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, who served as Speaker of the House and is now head of the House minority, is once again spending her Christmas at the exotic Four Seasons Resort Hualalai at Historic Ka'upulehu in Kona on the island of Hawaii. Pelosi reportedly plans to spend her Christmas Eve at midnight mass in St. Michael's Catholic Church in Kailua-Kona. Pelosi spent the last two Christmas holidays in Kona at the same hotel in an elaborate suite that rents for $10,000 a night.

After just two days and four secret ballots in the Sistine Chapel, the College of Cardinals elevated Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost to the See of Peter as Pope Leo XIV—an outcome that underscores the doctrinal rifts at the heart of Christendom and the enduring reasons for our divide. Although Catholics and Protestants often use similar words and phrases, the meanings they attach to those terms are profoundly different. Here are ten doctrinal fault lines that explain why true unity remains out of reach: while we can—and should—show mutual respect, we cannot pretend these convictions don’t exist. It’s the perfect moment...

SAO PAULO (CNS) — A Catholic prelature in Brazil's Amazon has decreed that its parishes will not accept donations from any person or company that displaces minorities or damages the earth. Bishop José Ionilton Lisboa de Oliveira of Itacoatiara has prohibited parishes, pastoral communities, groups and movements linked to the prelature -- similar to a diocese — from receiving financial resources from those he says "damage the Amazon." "We decree, for an indefinite period, that in parishes, communities, pastorals, groups and movements of the Prelature of Itacoatiara, we will not receive financial resources, in currency or other goods, from politicians,...

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...