Free Republic

The Lies of the Devil and the Empty Promises of the World Msgr. Charles Pope • September 22, 2016 • One of the great illusions under which we labor is that if we only get just one more thing from this world, then we will be happy. Perhaps we think that if we just had a little more money, or a better job, or the latest iPhone, or if we were married to so-and-so, or if we lived in a better neighborhood, then we would be satisfied and content at last. But “at last” never seems to come even...

Video and Transcript: The Church has reached the tipping point in America where there are more Vatican II Catholics than those born before Vatican II. And it is having a dramatic effect in the Church. The latest research shows that 64 percent — almost two out of every three American Catholics — was born just before the Second Vatican Council or after. The dividing line is the year 1961 (and happens to be my birth year). Two out of every three Catholics therefore have no living memory or experience of the Church how it was before the Council. My generation...

Beware the Sins of the Pious - A Reflection on the Ways Satan Uses Even Good Things to Entrap Us Msgr. Charles Pope • August 8, 2017 • What is temptation? It is the work of Satan to drag you to Hell. He can read you like a book, play you like piano. Do not exaggerate his power—but do not underestimate it either.Some of Satan’s subtlest work is done in the area of religious observance. There, he can cloak himself in the lamb’s clothing of piety, but, wolf that he is, distort it through excess or defect, thereby destroying...

Three Characteristics of the Diabolic That Are Widely Evident Today Msgr. Charles Pope • July 26, 2017 • door panel, Pisa BaptisteryThe video at the bottom of this post is of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. It is a fascinating excerpt from a longer presentation he did. In it, he analyzes the diabolic (anything of or relating to the Devil) from several different perspectives. Archbishop Sheen identifies three characteristics of the diabolic by examining the story of the Gerasene demoniac, which is presented in the synoptic Gospels. Here is the beginning of the story as it appears in the Gospel...

The shock claim comes from a scientist who has spent more than 40 years researching the subject. According to Henry Ansgar Kelly, a research professor from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), there is actually “no evidence” to sugges the devil should be portrayed as evil. Instead, Professor Kelly suggests Christians have got it wrong and Satan was actually trying to do good and is on God’s side, but got “overzealous” in his judgements. He said: "There's little or no evidence in the Bible for most of the characteristics and deeds commonly attributed to Satan. "A strict reading of...

A Meditation on the Escalating Attack of Satan Msgr. Charles Pope * February 18, 2016 * Last Sunday, we read the passage from the Gospel of Luke about the testing of Christ in the desert by Satan. In his Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas makes some interesting observations. He treats the temptations as having occurred in an escalating manner; he also connects Christ's experience to that of Adam in the Garden of Eden.St. Thomas writes,Thus, too, did the devil set about the temptation of the first man. For at first he enticed his mind to consent to the eating...

“Never forget, when you hear the progress of the Enlightenment being praised, that the devil’s cleverest ploy is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist.” — Charles Baudelaire Leszek Kolakowski was an unusual man of letters. A fierce critic of the Church as a young man, he was a leading Marxist philosopher in Poland until he asked too many awkward questions about Soviet life under Stalin and got exiled to the West. He went on to become a fan of John Paul II and one of the great scholars of the last century. Exactly 30 years ago, Kolakowski gave a...

The devil has a special place in his black heart for children. He delights in stealing their innocence, using those under his demonic influence to commit the most unspeakable acts against the under-aged. So it was in the time of Moses that Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys be put to the sword to cull the growing Hebrew population. So it was in the time of Jesus that Herod the Great ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem two years old and younger so that he would not be supplanted as King of the Jews. And so it...

And he really was red! The memory still stings: there I was, age 7, the veteran of a splendidly moving and memorable First Holy Communion and graced with an oddball love of the sacrament of Confession in all of its velvet-curtained-sliding-screen ambiance, planning to steal a toy “lady’s fan” from a candy store, simply to see if I could. The fan was red, and I had always been — and still am — a sucker for all things red. It was airy, lacy and flamboyant, and I had the 10 cents the thing cost in my pocket.But the toy...

At this time of immense doctrinal confusion on the indissolubility of the sacred bond of Holy Matrimony, confusion started and furthered by the uppermost echelon of the hierarchy, let us recall the words of the great Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine, in the readings for Matins of this Second Sunday after the Epiphany (unfortunately partly removed after the 1960/61 rubrical reform), whose Gospel is dedicated to the Wedding Feast of Cana: Even setting aside any mystical interpretation, the fact that the Lord was pleased to be asked, and to go to a marriage, showeth plainly enough that He is...

A Pope under the power of the devil and the message of Our Lady. DYHP Radio Station, Cebu City, Dec.27, 2015 with Atty. Bacalso

President Obama told Peruvians Sunday night that America has often "fallen short of our ideals" of democracy, rule of law, a free press, an independent judiciary, free markets, and a social welfare system to help the disadvantaged. and there have been times when we have not observed some of the norms as well as we should and have been accused of hypocrisy here in Latin America. There have been times when countries have felt disrespected and on occasion have had cause for that. And there were teams when we haven't observed the values in our own country and have fallen...

They’re trying to brainwash you, just like they’ve brainwashed the Hillary voters. They’re trying to discourage you, make you feel disappointed. DO not let them! Look at the Trump rallies with thousands, then look at the Hillary rallies with dozens. The media is lying to you and trying to destroy a good man and the MILLIONS of US Citizens who support him! Disappointment brings discouragement. Constant failure to realize our plans or expectations will cause us to lose confidence and hope, and inability to handle disappointment becomes a great tool. The following story, given to me by a friend and...

Tim Kaine is a Georgetown graduate, but he and other pro-choice Catholic politicians owe much to Notre Dame. As Matthew Franck has observed in First Things, Mario Cuomo’s 1984 “personally opposed but won’t impose” speech at the university was a “watershed moment” for pro-choice apologists. Notre Dame’s gift to Cuomo of a high-visibility platform and an enthusiastic audience seemed to stamp “nihil obstat” on his argument. (Despite, as Dr. Franck explained, the “crashing ineptitude” of Cuomo’s rationale.) Then a couple of months ago, just in time for Senator Kaine’s campaign on a ticket with the most radical pro-abortion platform in...

Kinda, sorta . . . not really. Yes, Washington Post, Trump did say “she’s the devil.” And yes, Washington Post, he was talking about Hillary. So you’re technically correct. But did Trump actually say she was Lucifer, the prince of all perdition? Er . . . let’s look at the video:

A lone and unique population of about 30 reddish to dark violet-maroon orchids grows on the small patch of land between the borders of two Colombian departments. However, its extremely small habitat is far from the only striking thing about the new species. A closer look at its flowers' heart reveals what appears to be a devil's head. Named after its demonic patterns, the new orchid species, Telipogon diabolicus, is described in the open access journal PhytoKeys. Discovered by Dr Marta Kolanowska and Prof Dariusz Szlachetko, both affiliated with University of Gdansk, Poland, together with Dr Ramiro Medina Trejo, Colombia,...

When the devil treats himself to 'work-cations', it's always in Oklahoma City, whose municipal authority is outwardly simpatico to the 'Black Mass' When the devil treats himself to ‘work-cations’, it’s always in Oklahoma City, whose municipal authority is outwardly simpatico to the ‘Black Mass’. Courtesy of sex offender satanist Adam Daniels, the devil will be back in town again 7 p.m., Monday August 15, 2016. “The government-run Civic Center—in other words the town hall in Oklahoma City—is now selling tickets for this summer’s second Black Mass.” (TFP Student Action April 17, 2016)

Here's how retired Marine Lt. Colonel Oliver North describes contemporary America, where according to our godless U.S. government North is an extremist because: "I am a Christian and meet regularly with other Christians to study Gods word. My faith convinces me the prophecies in the Holy Bible are true. I believe in the sanctity of life, oppose abortion and want to preserve marriage as the union of a man and woman. I am a veteran with skills and knowledge from military training and combat. I own several firearms, frequently shoot them, buy ammunition and consider efforts to infringe on my...

Billionaire prophet of doom George Soros said the European Union is on the “verge of collapse” as it faces five or six crises at once. “The Greek crisis taught the European authorities the art of muddling through one crisis after another. This practice is popularly known as kicking the can down the road, although it would be more accurate to describe it as kicking a ball uphill so that it keeps rolling back down,” Soros said in an interview with The New York Review of Books.

Who or What is the Antichrist? A reflection on the Biblical teaching. Msgr. Charles Pope-- January 10, 2016 -- There is much lore about the antichrist, especially among certain Evangelicals that is often out of proportion to the attention scripture pays to the concept, and more importantly is at possible variance from what is actually and certainly taught. It easily becomes the stuff of movies and novels wherein the antichrist figure steps on the scene, deceiving many and mesmerizing the whole world with apparent miracles and a message of false peace.But is this really what or who the Scriptures...