Free Republic

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Kasper again pushes ‘women deacons’ as ‘helpful pastorally’The much misrepresented 'female deacons' of the early Church were not in fact deacons as understood today, and were certainly not ordained to any ministry.Cardinal Kasper has again promoted female deacons, claiming they are “theologically possible and could be helpful pastorally.”“Personally, I believe that opening the permanent diaconate to women is theologically possible and could be helpful pastorally.” So said Cardinal Walter Kasper in a new interview with Rheinische Post.Kasper, now aged 92, has been one of the most influential prelates in the Church of late, particularly so during the...

GENEVA (AP) – Iran´s foreign minister arrived Friday for talks with top European diplomats in Geneva about the crisis that centers on concerns about his country´s nuclear program, a week after the long-simmering dispute erupted into war between Israel and Iran. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived at a hotel in the Swiss city for a meeting with his counterparts from France, Germany and the U.K. and the European Union´s foreign policy chief. It is the first face-to-face meeting between Western and Iranian officials since the start of the conflict.

(AFP) — Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Monday that Germany along with Ukraine’s other key Western backers had lifted range restrictions on weapons they send to Kyiv to fight against Russia. Merz, who took office early this month, also vowed that “we will do everything in our power to continue supporting Ukraine, including militarily”, in close coordination with other supporters. “There are no longer any range restrictions on weapons delivered to Ukraine — neither by the British nor by the French nor by us nor by the Americans,” he said. “This means that Ukraine can now defend itself, for example, by...

In his first address to the Bundestag parliament on Wednesday, Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed to rearm Germany so that the country would have the “strongest” military force in Europe. Following years of chronic underinvestment in defence and relying on the United States for protection, Chancellor Merz told lawmakers that “strengthening the Bundeswehr is our top priority” and will make “every effort to continue to achieve the greatest possible agreement between the European and American partners.” In this context, Merz promised to expand Germany’s military forces “into the strongest conventional army in Europe,” Die Welt reports.

The atomic sledgehammer that President Trump just delivered to the German auto industry simply cannot be overemphasized. A 25% tariff on imported cars and car parts completely negates hundreds of billions in pre-positioned investment dollars by German auto companies in Mexico. [Executive Order Here][Cliff Notes Here]To give scale to the impact on Germany, consider that German automakers currently have 330 automotive suppliers in Mexico according to information from VDA. Audi (a subsidiary of Volkswagen) has no U.S. production sites; every Audi sold in America will be subject to a 25% tariff. The Audi brand access to the U.S. market was/is...

German luxury auto manufacturer Audi said it is considering moving car production to the United States to avoid tariffs from the Trump administration. Volkswagen’s subsidiary Audi brand said this week that it is examining various long-term strategies, including potentially shifting production to America, to deal with President Donald Trump’s restrictions on foreign imports. Audi CEO Gernot Döllner said that the company is “currently assessing various scenarios for additional localization in North America – among other things, to be closer to the needs of local customers and to make ourselves more resilient to global economic uncertainties.”

Berlin (dpa) - Russia intends to test Western unity, especially with regard to NATO's collective defence clause, according to Bruno Kahl, the head of Germany's BND intelligence service. In an interview with Deutsche Welle broadcaster, he said Russia was considering testing the reliability of NATO's Article 5, which states that an attack on one ally must be treated as an attack on all. .... "It is also possible that a concrete threat or blackmail attempt from Russia against Europeans could occur earlier than previously calculated," Kahl said.

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) – The two political parties expected to form the next German government have agreed to loosen the country’s constitution restrictions on borrowing, enabling 1 trillion euros ($1.08 trillion) or more in spending on defense and infrastructure. It´s a major change in Germany´s debt-averse political culture, rejecting conventional economic wisdom that long dominated Europe´s biggest economy and one of the world´s wealthiest countries. Here are key facts about the debt brake and what the changes will mean for Germany and Europe. The debt brake was passed in 2009, when a global financial crisis led to sharp increase in...

German cities celebrated Rosenmontag carnival with traditional floats showing caricatures, and once again President Donald Trump has proven irresistible to model makers satirising current events. Carnival floats depicting President Trump destroying Ukraine with the aid of Vladimir Putin, as Darth Vader, as Emperor Nero, and even naked with enormous testicles were paraded in German cities on Shrove Monday, ‘Rosenmontag’. The climax of the German carnival season — a Teutonic Mardi Gras — German cities compete to satirise German politics, social issues, and world events with the most grotesque, scatological, and often quite sexually explicit and violent giant papier-mache models paraded...

Riding high off a surprisingly strong result in Germany’s federal elections on Sunday, members of the far-left Die Linke party chanted Antifa slogans as they entered the Bundestag parliament in Berlin on Tuesday. After facing the prospect of near-complete political irrelevance just several weeks ago, Die Linke (The Left) saw a late surge in the federal election campaign that netted the party around 8.8 per cent of the vote, over double where the radical party was polling just a couple months ago. Apparently emboldened by their strong showing, MPs gathered with Left leaders Jan van Aken and Ines Schwerdtner and...

Markus Roscher, a German lawyer, was fined €3,000 under a controversial speech law for criticizing government officials on X, highlighting growing concerns over free expression and political dissent in Germany.. The debate over free speech in Germany has taken a new turn following the case of Markus Roscher, a 61-year-old lawyer from Braunschweig, who was fined €3,000 for criticizing the government’s heating law. Roscher described Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock as “malicious failures” in a post on X back in 2021. He was subsequently issued a penalty notice under the controversial Paragraph 188...

Imagine waking up at dawn to six armed officers storming your home—not for drugs, not for weapons, but for posting a meme. That’s exactly what happened in northwest Germany, and CBS was there, cameras rolling, treating it like some noble act of justice. This isn’t journalism. This is collaboration with tyranny. The suspect’s crime? Sharing a so-called "racist" cartoon online. German authorities, operating under their draconian hate speech laws, seized his laptop and cellphone, claiming these devices were used to spread "hate." Fifty homes were raided that day. Fifty people had their doors kicked in. For words. Germany’s speech laws,...

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has sharply criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to tie future military aid for Ukraine to access to its rare earth resources, calling the move "very egotistic, very self-centered." Scholz said that Ukraine needs its natural resources to finance post-war rebuilding, not to bargain for security assistance. "That's why I think it would be better if Ukraine's resources were used for a good future," he said. However, Ukraine appears more open to the idea — at least the opening up of its critical raw materials to allies, if not explicitly the quid pro quo suggested by...

The US officer and German citizen were shot dead during a vehicle check near the Canadian border. Both he and a companion had been under FBI surveillance. A German citizen has been shot dead in an exchange of gunfire near the border with Canada. Both he and his companion Teresa Youngblut, a US citizen, had been under surveillance by the FBI for several days. Youngblut, who was shot, will be brought before a US federal judge on Monday. When US Border Patrol officers conducted a vehicle check on Interstate 91 around 32 kilometres south of the border, the driver of...

The FBI announced the arrest of a suspect Friday in the killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent David "Chris" Maland near the Vermont-Canada border. Washington state resident Teresa Youngblut, 21, was taken into custody following the fatal shooting on Monday, according to the FBI’s office in Albany, N.Y. "The United States Attorney’s Office District of Vermont has charged Youngblut with assault on a federal law enforcement officer," it said. "Our hearts remain with our partners at U.S. Border Patrol Swanton Sector as they mourn this tremendous loss."

A United States Border Agent was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Vermont near the Northern border, Fox News has confirmed. The Department of Homeland Security said that a Border Patrol agent was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Coventry, Vermont on Monday at 3:15 p.m. Coventry is near the U.S.-Canada border. Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Benjamine Huffman issued a statement saying the "incident is being swiftly investigated." "Today, January 20, a Border Patrol agent assigned to the US Border Patrol’s Swanton Sector was fatally shot in the line of duty. Every single day, our...

The suspect fired on two U.S. Border Patrol agents during a vehicle stop in Vermont leaving one agent dead. A second shooter, a female, is in custody. One suspect in the fatal shooting of a border patrol agent on Monday near the U.S. northern border was a German citizen with an expired H1-B visa, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the incident and an internal report reviewed by Just the News. The suspect, who fired on two U.S. Border Patrol agents during a vehicle stop in Newport, Vermont, is identified in the incident report as Felix Bauckholt, a...

Germany’s ambassador to the United States reportedly warned that Donald Trump’s incoming administration will undermine “basic democratic principles” and seek a “redefinition of the constitutional order.” While European leaders have been relatively muted in their response to the re-election of Donald Trump, particularly compared to the hysterical reaction to his victory in 2016, the panic has apparently merely been confined to backrooms rather than in public. According to Reuters, a confidential document briefing Berlin on the incoming administration signed by Ambassador to the U.S. Andreas Michaelis warned that the incoming administration would seek “maximum disruption” and usher in “a redefinition...

Welcome to Germany’s green economic miracle. The year is 2025! Germany’s so-called Energiewende (transition to renewable energies) has had one unmistakable result: Germany now finds itself rapidly nearing the brink of a third world country where the power supply is no longer reliable and brownouts becoming more and more a daily routine. What’s happening is the opposite of what was once promised by the know-it-all climate wisemen: “Green energies would lead to a clean and prosperous country that would be the envy of the world. So much for their fantasies. The reality, as reported yesterday by Germany’s leading daily, Bild...

South African-American billionaire Elon Musk promoted the Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) in unambiguous terms in a newspaper column, prompting the publication’s opinions editor to resign in protest. Germany has been failed by its legacy parties and is teetering on the brink of collapse, Elon Musk wrote in an op-ed for the Sunday edition of the national newspaper of record Die Welt. His diagnoses of Germany’s problems came with a suggested solution, voting for the right-sovereigntist AfD. The legacy media and prevailing political opinion in mainstream Germany considers the AfD extreme if not outright dangerous. Moves to ban the party are...