Free Republic

Dr. Anthony Fauci says that the government’s response against monkeypox must include combating anti-gay stigmas that could be associated with the disease. Speaking with NPR’s “All Things Considered” on Tuesday, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), highlighted the importance of treating the virus as one that can affect anybody, and not only a certain part of the population. There are 19,188 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the current outbreak, which the World Health Organization has recently classified as a public health emergency. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 3,591 of them...

NEW YORK—Following a slew of sexual misconduct allegations concerning staff, CNN has been forced to take extreme action to repair its image. The interim president has announced that henceforth, all CNN employees must wear chastity belts at all times. "I know everyone wants to sleep with me, Jim Acosta," said Jim Acosta. "But this seems like overkill." "I have never done anything wrong, ever," said Jake Tapper. "I'm not sure why this is necessary." “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” said Brian Stelter sporting his new metal chastity belt. “We take sexual misconduct seriously at CNN, that’s why we have...

Once more, the wisdom of the ancient world has been proven true. A new report by British researchers shows strong association between the number of one's lifetime sexual partners and one's risk of developing cancer and other serious diseases.  According to a new report published in BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health, women with 10 or more lifetime sexual partners were 91% more likely to develop cancer compared to those with zero to one partner, while men with that number of partners were 64% more likely to contract cancer. The researchers based their work on the English Longitudinal Study of Aging, a detailed study...

Jennifer, a member of the evangelical community in Kentucky, shared her testimonial as a survivor of Female Genital Mutilation(FGM) earlier this week. Jennifer is a white, Christian, American – not the usual face of an issue that is often framed as a faraway cultural practice restricted to rural villages in sub-Saharan Africa. When I read Jennifer’s story about how her Christian mother subjected her to FGM to protect her purity and chastity, I had flashbacks to when I had been in the same position. I was visiting an aunt in India over the summer when I was seven years old....

Full title: Kerala rape case: Sister Lucy, who protested against accused bishop, says sexual abuse is rampant in Church Religious women, priests and laymen who supported a nun after she filed a police complaint of rape against Jalandhar ex-bishop Franco Mulakkal, are being systematically targeted by the Catholic Church in Kerala. Nuns, who form the most vulnerable community in the Church, are facing most of this oppression. While five nuns who took to streets demanding the arrest of the bishop are being put under pressure and threatened, another nun who was an important witness in the case was harassed and tortured...

The cardinal said that omitting Jesus's 'hard sayings' is not charitableCardinal Robert Sarah has said that gay people are called to chastity, and that “we demean them if we think they cannot attain this virtue.” Describing chastity as “a virtue for all disciples”, the Vatican liturgy chief argued that clergy deprive gay people of the fullness of the Gospel if they do not call them to live chastely. In a foreword to the book Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay by Daniel Mattson, the cardinal writes: “To omit the “hard sayings” of Christ and His Church is not charity. Indeed,...

March 31, 2017 (TheBridgehead) -- Media figures, pundits, and commentators spend a decent portion of their time these days enthusiastically advocating for all sorts of new sexual lifestyles—their championing of gay marriage has quickly moved on to discussions surrounding the benefits of polyamory, the consensus they insist exists on transgenderism, and the rising trend of “open marriages.” So its hard to imagine what would shock these veteran bedroom journalists, who cut their teeth on reporting on Pride Parades, orgies, and unique marital arrangements. But it turns out that they have finally found something that has stunned them to their...

Well! I look back and I realize that last month, I passed an 'abstinent anniversary" making this my twelve year of being chaste since breaking up with my boyfriend at age 21. I decided then and there to abstain from sex until marriage and I have faithfully kept that vow. It's been twelve years of major changes and my remaining non-sexually active has been a mainstay throughout those changes.

The Moscow Region Duma held a conference — titled “Therefore choose life, for both thou and thy seed” — to promote chastity among adolescents and lower the abortion rate, the Duma's official web portal reported Friday. The conference was dedicated to combating the growing rate of abortion in Russia and preserving family, motherhood and childhood values. Attendees included deputies of the regional government, NGO representatives and members of the Russian Orthodox Church. The conference aims to use lectures, seminars and conferences to promote chastity amongst young students and to oppose abortion, the official website reported. Spokesman Igor Bryntsalov drew attention...

Rome, Italy, Oct 3, 2015 / 04:04 am (CNA).- Same-sex attracted Catholics who have turned away from a homosexual lifestyle are urging participants at the upcoming Synod on the Family to defend the Church's teaching on chastity for everyone – including for divorced and remarried. “I fear that chastity does not have enough of a voice at the Synod,” said Rilene Simpson, a member and spokesperson of Courage, an apostolate which offers pastoral support for men and women with same-sex attraction. She told CNA: “We need to have the Church’s support.” “We're talking about chastity for everybody. We're talking about...

24 Quotes About Purity That Every Young (& Old) Catholic Should Know   By John Ritchie     Impurity is plastered everywhere today: Movies, TV, billboards, music, entertainment, books, and magazines. We must fight back.  To that end the following collection of quotes -- many of which are authored by Doctors of the Church -- will provide you with the support and encouragement you need to stand your ground and fight for purity. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." -- Matthew 5:8   “Holy Purity, the queen of virtues, the angelic virtue, is a jewel so...

There’s no good time to tell a guy you’re a virgin. First date? Too much, too soon. Wait until the third date and you risk being considered a tease. Second date? Perhaps, but at this point you’re both still fretting over whether or not to eat another piece of bread; delving into sexual histories (or lack thereof) seems a bit extreme. So: There’s no good time to tell a guy you’re a virgin. Even worse? Telling him you’re waiting until marriage.

There’s a necessary humility in acknowledging our utter inability to live chastely outside the grace of God. The first step, it seems to me, is to acknowledge our complete need for God in winning the battle. Thomas Merton wrote that “real self-conquest is the conquest of the self by the Holy Spirit.” This is most true in the battle for chastity. St. John Cassian teaches that human effort alone will never make someone chaste: If we really desire to enter into this spiritual combat on the same terms as the spostle (2 Tim. 4:7), let us concentrate our every effort...

At the height of the counterculture of the late 1960s and the flower-power desire for peace, Pope Paul VI said "If you want peace, work for justice." It remains a popular bumper sticker even today. And the Church does a tremendous job working for justice: feeding the hungry, providing clothing, offering shelter and healing, ministering to prisoners, caring for AIDS patients, promoting peace, offering counsel, providing education, condemning consumerism, preserving the environment, and so forth. This work often draws praise from those who are otherwise critical, those who might ask: "Why can’t the Church stick to issues of social justice?...

FAYETTEVILLE (KFSM) – A Fayetteville junior high school made a teenager girl change out of a T-shirt at school this week because the school said it contained sexual content. The T-shirt in question was a shirt that reads “Virginity Rocks” on the front. “It is one of my favorite shirts,” said Chloe Rubiano, an 8th grader at Ramay Junior High in Fayetteville. Rubiano told 5NEWS she got the shirt at a Christian-based festival. “I just really like the shirt because I was always raised that way,” Rubiano said. “I didn’t really think anyone would make a big deal out of...

Back in the 1950s, C.S. Lewis saw chastity as under attack with "all the contemporary propaganda for lust that makes people "feel that the desires we are resisting are so 'natural,' so 'healthy,' and so reasonable, that it is almost perverse and abnormal to resist them." You can now safely delete the word "almost." Today virginity isn't a virtue but a burden. Chastity is a freak show and anyone who chooses to keep it is a carnival barker. In today's entertainment world, weirdos -- especially sexual weirdos -- drive a juicy plot, so virgins are in vogue, as a...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has praised church workers in Africa who promote chastity as a key way to prevent the spread of HIV. Francis was speaking Monday at the Vatican to bishops from Tanzania. Many non-Catholic health care workers advocate condoms as an important weapon to fight the spread of the HIV virus that causes AIDS. The Vatican opposes condom use because church teaching forbids contraception. Francis praised church health care workers in Africa who care for those with HIV/AIDS and "all who strive diligently to educate people in the area of sexual responsibility and chastity." In 2010, Pope...

The teenage girls in the Duggar family aren’t just waiting for marriage to have sex, they’ve vowed not to have their first kisses until their wedding days. In their new book, “Growing Up Duggar,” Jill, Jessa, Jana and Jinger Duggar, of TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting,” divulge their rules of “courtship,” and what it’s like being from such a large family. “The message that we are really trying to relay is just to give girls—which is our main audience—just the tips and the things that we’ve learned through life and what our parents have raised us just believing,” Jana told...

What do you expect from your relationship to Jesus Christ? I have come to discover that many do not expect all that much. In effect they hope that faith can kind of help them “muddle through” life and offer them a few consolations that, perhaps things will be better some day, and in heaven. Others see the moral life described in the scriptures more as a duty than a description of the person being transformed by Jesus Christ. And because they see it as a list of duties,  rather than the result of grace, they tend to resent it, consider...

After Steve Chalke and Rob Bell joined the ‘Accepting Evangelicals’ Group in affirming faithful same-sex erotic relationships earlier this year a new group of ‘post-gay’ evangelical Christian leaders has emerged. Their testimonies are clear, powerful, hugely encouraging and most welcome at a time when many young evangelicals are genuinely confused about the issue. These are men in pastoral ministry who admit to feelings of same sex attraction but who also see the Bible’s prohibitions on same-sex relationships as non-negotiable. The core of this new group, recently interviewed by Christianity magazine, are Sam Alberry, a church leader in Maidenhead, Sean Doherty,...