Free Republic

The prime suspect in the alleged German terror plot to blow up hundreds of people may have had contact with Mohammed Atta, the suicide pilot who smashed a hijacked plane into the Twin Towers. German police reports are vague about the encounter, but it has helped investigators to trace Fritz Gelowicz’s path from average Bavarian schoolboy to Islamic radical. His case has also highlighted the curious and sinister role of Neu-Ulm — a small township in the Roman Catholic heart of southern Germany — as a cradle of Islamic extremism. The connection between Gelowicz, 28, who was arrested this week,...

From KTNV in Las Vegas:  Parishioners are terrified after protesters have disturbed Mass at several Catholic churches across the valley.The group, Koosha Las Vegas, includes members who clearly identify themselves as former Muslims turned Christians. They’ve been entering churches during services, shouting at Catholics that they need to repent now or else, and filming the acts and posting them on the internet.The videos make clear the group has been active on the Las Vegas Strip and several other places around the valley; they’re often seen with large signs and megaphones. The difference now is that they’re going into houses...

The friend who allegedly supplied the Southern California jihadist couple with the guns used in last week's terror attack and who sources said could soon be charged in connection with the case presented himself to friends as "laid back" but seemed to be in constant personal conflict. Enrique Marquez was married, but didn't live with his wife. He had converted to Islam but confided in a mosque worker that he wanted to become a Buddhist. He could be witty and laugh at himself, but often posted dejected missives on Facebook. And he was reportedly not a particularly pious Muslim and...

Investigators believe San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook may have been plotting an earlier attack in California with someone else, two U.S. officials said. One of the officials said the two conspired in 2012 and a specific target was considered. Neither of the officials could say how serious the plotting got. One official said the two decided not to go through with the earlier attack after a round of terror-related arrests in the area. "They got spooked," the official said. The purported plot bolsters assertions law enforcement officials have made since the San Bernardino attacks, saying Farook had been radicalized...

James Holmes, the gunman behind the Dark Knight massacre in Colorado last July, has reportedly turned Muslim and prays five times a day. The killer showed off a lengthy, thick beard during a court appearance earlier this month, and a prison source has claimed it is a symbol of his new-found faith. The source said Holmes has turned to Islam as a way of justifying his horrific murder spree in an Aurora, Colorado cinema on July 20 which left 12 people dead and 58 people wounded.

State and federal authorities have three men in custody here in what investigators describe as a possible terrorist plot by an obscure Islamic group in California state prisons. FBI officials, who are overseeing the investigation, say they are not convinced that the three men posed a serious threat of violence on their own. But the bureau is continuing to investigate the possibility that they were part of a larger group planning to attack National Guard installations, synagogues and other locations in Southern California. The latest suspect to be arrested is Hamad Riaz Samana, 21, a Pakistani citizen who was taken...

Traveling the Path to Catholicism Fr. William Saunders Q: Recently I saw a picture showing the Rite of Election at the cathedral. Would you please explain more about the Rite of Election and RCIA? When I was growing up, we did not have such a program.The Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) is a formal program of catechetical instruction, ascetical practice (prayer and spirituality), and liturgies whereby adults — called catechumens — are formally admitted into the Church and receive the sacraments of initiation — baptism, confirmation, and holy Eucharist. (The sacrament of penance is received later since baptism...

Daniel Greenfield's article: The Ghosts of Auschwitz in the Middle East Posted: 04 Feb 2015 08:35 AM PST In exile in Argentina, the world’s most wanted man was writing a defense of the indefensible. He rejected “so-called Western culture” whose bible “expressly established that everything sacred came from the Jews.” Instead he looked to the “large circle of friends, many millions of people” whose good opinion of his crimes he wanted. These millions of people were not in Germany. They weren’t even in Argentina. His fellow Nazis had abandoned him after deciding that the murder of millions of Jews was...

Homeland Insecurity: The FBI arrest of a North Carolina jihadist brings to five the number of ISIS-tied Muslim Americans captured. It's time the president took the terror group's anti-U.S. rants more seriously. The influence that this vicious successor to al-Qaida in Iraq is exerting inside our own borders is clearly growing. Obama must do more to take out its leaders abroad while increasing scrutiny inside our Muslim community to ferret out recruits. Last week, the FBI arrested Donald Ray Morgan on AK-47 and other weapons charges as the North Carolina native tried to re-enter the U.S. from Lebanon, where agents...

A Protestant Historian Discovers the Catholic Church – Conversion Story of A. David Anders, Ph.D. February 13, 2012 | 74 responses A Protestant Historian Discovers  the Catholic Church by A. David Anders, Ph.D.I grew up an Evangelical Protestant in Birmingham, Alabama. My parents were loving and devoted, sincere in their faith, and deeply involved in our church. They instilled in me a respect for the Bible as the Word of God, and a desire for a living faith in Christ. Missionaries frequented our home and brought their enthusiasm for their work. Bookshelves in our house were filled with theology...

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Cardinal John J. O'Connor, who as archbishop of New York cultivated and cherished his strong ties with the Jewish community, was born of a mother who was born Jewish. It is not known whether he knew that his mother, Dorothy Gumple O'Connor, was born Jewish. She converted to Catholicism before she met and married Thomas O'Connor, the late cardinal's father. Mary O'Connor Ward, the cardinal's sister, told Catholic New York, newspaper of the New York Archdiocese, that her mother never spoke about having belonged to another faith. The fact that Dorothy O'Connor was Jewish by birth...

How to Become a Catholic Becoming Catholic is one of life’s most profound and joyous experiences. Some are blessed enough to receive this great gift while they are infants, and, over time, they recognize the enormous grace that has been bestowed on them. Others enter the Catholic fold when they are older children or adults. This tract examines the joyful process by which one becomes a Catholic. A person is brought into full communion with the Catholic Church through reception of the three sacraments of Christian initiation—baptism, confirmation, and the holy Eucharist—but the process by which one becomes a Catholic...

THOUSANDS ARE JOINING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN UNITED STATES THIS EASTER VIGIL April 15, 2014 by splendor1618  The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DCThousands Joining the Church in the U.S. This Saturday Archdiocese of Washington Has Largest Number in Its History WASHINGTON, D.C., April 14, 2014 (Zenit.org) – A widower honoring his late wife and a Chinese graduate student are among the thousands of new Catholics joining the Catholic Church in the United States at Easter.All have participated in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), a process of conversion and study...

Easter Conversion ‘Boom’? Some U.S. dioceses are reporting that 2014 will be an unusually fruitful year, in terms of the number of people welcomed into the Church. by CHARLOTTE HAYS 03/31/2014 ---The Archdiocese of Washington, where Bidzinski’s parish is located, will welcome the largest number of candidates and catechumens ever recorded for the archdiocese this Easter. The archdiocese will baptize or confirm 1,311 adults, children and teenagers this Easter ---Bishop Robert Lynch of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Fla. — where around 1,100 new Catholics will be welcomed at the Easter vigil — blogged on the diocesan website that this is the largest number...

Back just before Holy Week I read an interesting and provocative essay by Jennifer Fulwiler at the National Catholic Register. It is about the need to more clearly instruct Catechumens and those being received into the Church about spiritual attack. Plain and simple, the devil wants to destroy the faith of those who have newly entered the Church. And we need to be sober about this. Being sober does not mean we are in a panic. It merely means we are alert and have a mind that is clear as to the possibility, even the likelihood that the Devil will...

Guest Jason Stellman, a former Presbyterian minister, tells Marcus what convinced him that the Catholic Church is the true Church.

Why Catholicism? A Former Episcopalian Priest’s Story by Jürgen Liias on September 19, 2013 ·   Since announcing my decision to become a Catholic and to seek ordination through the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, I have had many an inquiry from folk wondering, “Why?” Some of these were authentic expressions of inquisitiveness; others came with perplexity; not a few came with consternation and dismay.My first reason is this decision is an act of obedience to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. As my Spiritual Autobiography details, this has been a long personal journey, of twenty-five years or...

Capital city of nearby country becomes haven for converts—even though denied refugee status. The New York Times sheds fresh light on the challenges faced by Afghan Christians seeking religious freedom, spotlighting the growth of a refugee church in India's capital city, New Delhi. As the Times observes in a report worth reading, more than 200 Christian converts from Muslim backgrounds have fled to New Delhi, seeking refuge from the Taliban and from political backlash after television coverage resulted in one Afghan politician's urging the government to execute converts in 2010. As CT noted in July 2010, the Afghan government also...

Apparently Islam is on the rise in the UK not only because of the increasing number of Muslim immigrants and their progenies, but also due to the natives who convert to Islam either spontaneously or in order to marry Muslims. A source says that the number of Britons converting to Islam has doubled between 2001 and 2011, and these are more women than men. A January 2011 study by Kevin Brice of Swansea University, on behalf of the organization Faith Matters, calculated that the number of converts to Islam in the UK in 2001 was just over 60,000 and...

The New “Blesseds” of 2012 December 27, 2012   A look at the lives of the holy men and women beatified in the last year   J. J. Ziegler Left to right: Blessed Giuseppe Toniolo, Blessed Cecilia Eusepi, Blessed Gabriele Maria Allegra, Blessed Hildegard Burjan In September 2005, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints announced that Pope Benedict was instituting new procedures for the rite of beatification. “Canonization is the supreme glorification by the Church of a Servant of God raised to the honors of the altar with a decree declared definitive and preceptive for the whole Church, involving...