Free Republic

The Soutane which is required as clerical attire in the Church law books, shows itself to be ever a career killer. (kreuz.net)"I have decided for several years now to almost exclusively wear the Soutane." Father Hendrick Jolie said this for the most recent interview of the Catholic monthly magazine 'Kirchliche Umschau'. The Soutane is is in the eyes of the clergyman an acceptable and practical possibility, it makes the clergyman stand out in public: "The Priest is not >>better<<. but most probably he's, >>other<<' -- he explains.

The beloved founder of Human Life International, Fr. Paul Marx, was not known to mince words when it came to what he called the "conspiracy of silence" from the pulpits of our Church on the issue of contraception, but his insights of twenty and thirty years ago were right on target and remain true to this day: "Future generations," he said, "will wonder why so many Catholic bishops and priests in the West didn't see contraception as a seminal evil and the chief cause of the Church's swift decline." There is the core issue. Priestly silence about contraception is deadly...

The disciplinary arm of the N.C. State Bar dropped charges of felonious misconduct against two former Union County prosecutors Friday because of a 1999 clerical error at the state Supreme Court. The State Bar had charged Kenneth Honeycutt and Scott Brewer with lying, cheating and withholding evidence in a 1996 death penalty case. The ruling Friday marks the second time that Honeycutt and Brewer won on procedural grounds before the bar's Disciplinary Hearing Commission, which sits as judge and jury in disciplinary cases. . . . Prosecutors around the state are concerned that the case is damaging their reputation and...

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 20 (Reuters) - The United States can designate foreign organizations as terrorist groups and bar Americans from financially backing them, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday. "Leaving the determination of whether a group is a 'foreign terrorist organization' to the executive branch ... is both a reasonable and a constitutional way to make such determinations," Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote for a three-judge panel. "The Constitution does not forbid Congress from requiring individuals, whether they agree with the executive branch determination or not, to refrain from furnishing material assistance to designated terrorist organizations." The ruling by the...

Many on the left, most visibly Presidential contender John Kerry, often claim that the "coalition of the willing" is weak and that participation from the international community has been minimal if anything. Opponents of President Bush use such claims in order to discredit the legitimacy of this noble endeavor for freedom. It may not be such a bad idea to look at the state of our coalition, not in an effort to attack President Bush, but rather to conduct a healthy reassessment and critique of the coalition and our allies. Several weeks ago, Michael Rubin returned from the Coalition Provisional...