Free Republic

Former devout Catholic, Walter Veith, presents the evidence that Islam was created by Roman Catholicism. VIDEO https://youtu.be/qZRj-CleopA

Wednesday of Holy Week is sometimes referred to as Spy Wednesday, a reference to the betrayal of Our Lord by the traitor Judas Iscariot. Every Christian knows that on Holy Thursday, we remember the Last Supper, and that Good Friday is the day on which the Lord was crucified and died. Holy Saturday, however, is different. For most Christians, it is a peaceful time – a day of reflection separating the drama and sorrow of the Passion from the joy of Easter Sunday. On Holy Saturday, there is seemingly not much going on. For the modern Church, it is a...

He had no doubts at first, but slowly they emerged. He was struck, he says, by the fact that the first coins bearing Muhammad’s name did not appear until the late 7th century — six decades after the religion did. He traded ideas with some scholars in Saarbrücken who in recent years have been pushing the idea of Muhammad’s nonexistence. They claim that “Muhammad” wasn’t the name of a person but a title, and that Islam began as a Christian heresy. Prof. Kalisch didn’t buy all of this. Contributing last year to a book on Islam, he weighed the odds...

[Catholic Caucus] MCELROY, SIPE, AND MCCARRICK’S CLONESWill McElroy dismiss these allegations like he did those from Richard Sipe?While living in Coronado, CA from 2009 to 2023, I had the pleasure of befriending and collaborating with the late psychotherapist and researcher, Richard Sipe, of nearby La Jolla. His letter of July 28, 2016, intended for Pope Francis, who alone has the authority to discipline bishops like those mentioned in his letter, was never acted upon by the Pope, the Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S., or then-Bishop Robert McElroy to whom the letter was legally served.Armed today with similar allegations of abuse...

885(Probable date) Death of Methodius, who with his brother Cyril had evangelized the Balkans. 1593Hanging in London of John Greenwood and Henry Barrow, non-conformists who denied that the Church of England had biblical authority. 1735The first Moravians from Europe arrived in America. Invited by colonial governor James Oglethorpe, ten males of the "Unitas Fratrum" landed in Savannah, Georgia after sailing from England in February. 1851Anglican priest Henry E. Manning is received into the Roman Catholic Church. He will become archbishop of Westminster in 1865 and a cardinal in 1875. 1868Mormon church leader Brigham Young, 67, married his 27th and last...

We dive deep into the controversial case of Blessed Carlo Acutis and the troubling evolution of the Church's canonization process. Since Pope John Paul II removed the adversarial "devil's advocate" role, canonizations have exploded in number, with one priest lamenting, "We're becoming a factory here." Friends of Carlo share surprising revelations that cast doubt on the narrative around his extraordinary sanctity, raising uncomfortable questions about manufactured devotion versus authentic veneration.

Elizabethan Catholics and the MassThis spine-stiffening piece featured in our December 1974 edition; the concluding article in a series penned for Christian Order by the renowned Jesuit historian and author. Though familiar to a greater or lesser extent with the faith, courage and characters involved, we do well to recall and ponder them anew since we should prudently expect the screws of the corporate-state and Occupied Rome to be turned with even greater ferocity against the Holy Faith and Mass of the English saints and martyrs. Father Crane prefaced the article thus: "Father Caraman brings out with the utmost clarity...

The states pushing legislation to display the Ten Commandments in public schools are all but guaranteed to end up at the Supreme Court.Lawmakers across the country are following Louisiana’s lead with legislation calling for the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools. Elected officials from Texas to Pennsylvania seem undeterred by the fact that Louisiana’s law, passed last year, never went into effect. I’m guessing they know it is only a matter of time before Louisiana is victorious in defense of the law’s constitutionality in court. In my work with legal historian Professor Mark David Hall, we’ve shown that...

...The series, “Muawiya,” tells the story of Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, a major figure in early Islam. He was one of Islam’s early rulers and the founder of the Umayyad dynasty — the first hereditary rulers in Islam where power passed down within the same clan. He was also a reputed companion of the Prophet Muhammad. this chronicles events in seventh century that led to Islam’s first civil war between Sunnis&Shiites. The show was produced by a media conglomerate in Saudi Arabia, which, like most other Middle Eastern countries, is dominated by Sunnis. Some in Shiite Iran and Iraq, one...

I recently had a passionate debate with a German friend about whether Islam lies at the root of the dysfunction in Islamic societies and whether it can be reformed. Like many of my privileged Western liberal friends, his understanding of the Islamic world seems to rest on a brief visit to the Egyptian pyramids and perhaps a guided city tour through Istanbul. He offered the usual well-meaning but tired arguments I've heard countless times. When I asked whether he had read the Quran or the Hadiths, he admitted he hadn't yet insisted that Islam wasn't the problem—it was merely a...

[Catholic Caucus] "Lovest Thou Me More Than These?" | The Restoration of Peter and His Primacy in the Catholic Church“Simon, son of John, lovest thou me more than these?” The dialogue between Christ and Peter on the shores of Tiberias is thus far more than a moment of personal reconciliation. It is a solemn ecclesiastical commissioning that establishes Peter as the supreme shepherd of the Church.When the risen Christ appears to His disciples on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias, He offers a poignant moment of reconciliation and commissioning that holds profound theological significance for the Church. The exchange...

[Catholic Caucus] Vatican II and the Hermeneutic of God Allowing Us to Learn Painful LessonsIf we simply look at these three realities from the first days of the Council — abandoning the practice of condemning errors; appointing heterodox theologians as experts; and allowing the progressives to hijack the Council — it should be obvious that Vatican II began by betraying God and His truth.“The Holy Spirit does not always prevent the necessary consequences of our negligence.” (Fr. Alvaro Calderon, Prometheus: The Religion of Man)Among faithful Catholics who truly seek to understand the ongoing crisis in the Church, serious disagreements frequently...

American culture these days is awash with stories of succession (the Murdoch empire), family drama (the Kennedys) and power (President Donald Trump on social media donning a kingly crown). Now comes a biblical tale to rival today’s news cycle — the coming-of-age story of King David — an “underdog” who comes to rule over the “House of David.” The show’s creators, Christian filmmakers Jon Gunn and Jon Erwin, attribute the success of the series — which has become the No. 2 most-watched on Prime Video since the eight-episode season premiered on Feb. 27 — to the lessons King David’s story...

Remember the Springtime in the Church: Reality is Demographic Winter!It's bad news for Catholics from a PEW Survey on Religion in America, the first since 2014. For every 100 new Catholics entering the Church, 800 leave. This from Eric Sammons at Crisis Magazine:No other religion has nearly as bad of a join/leave ratio. For every 100 people that become Protestant, 180 leave. That’s bad, but it’s not Catholic bad. Conversely, for every 100 people who leave the religious “nones” (i.e., they join a religion), a full 590 become part of that irreligious cohort. Where are the former Catholics going? Of...

Discover the true story of St. Patrick told by the two archbishops of the Roman Catholic and Anglican St. Patrick's cathedrals in Armagh, Northern Ireland.

During Lent, I usually attempt to limit my consumption of secular entertainment and shift over to works with more overt Catholic themes. With this in mind, I noticed a video pop up on my YouTube feed of a work that had long been familiar to me, but that I had never troubled myself to watch in its entirety. This was a production of Mozart’s great opera, Don Giovanni. Full disclosure: I’m not a huge fan of opera generally, select Gilbert and Sullivan works notwithstanding. Some of the extended Prima Donna arias can really get under my skin. In the case...

A Church of England diocese has introduced a new prayer guide stating that Christianity was historically propagated through “racist European ideologies.” The "anti-racist toolkit," developed by the Diocese of Norwich's Racial Justice Action Group, and which advises clergy to move away from Eurocentric prayers, includes suggestions for addressing racial justice in church services, and is designed to align local parishes with the Church of England’s efforts to combat racism. The guidance says parishes need to prepare for demographic shifts, particularly in rural East Anglia, where Norfolk remains about 94% white, according to The Telegraph. Despite the region’s prevailing homogeneity, the...

A British cardinal seen as the Pope’s “enforcer” in cracking down on the use of the traditional Latin Mass in Catholic churches has said it is an “overly elaborate” form of worship, in a rare comment on the controversy. Cardinal Arthur Roche, 75, who was born in West Yorkshire, has been prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments since 2021, placing him in charge of policing the restrictions reintroduced by the Pope on the use of the Tridentine or traditional Latin Mass. He said that his critics may be surprised to learn that he...

Performers and visitors to the famous gothic cathedral in the midst of the River Seine may find some subtle differences to the way sound bounces around its walls. The Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris has borne witness to many turning points in history. The building's striking gothic stonework has stood sentry on an island in the midst of the River Seine since the late 12th Century as coronations, wars and revolutions have unfolded in its shadow. What you might not realise, however, is that the cathedral has played a key part in shaping the music you hear when you turn...

Most visitors to Rome over the years have marveled at the famous fragments of the Colossus of Constantine. Largely destroyed and dismantled in antiquity, this massive work of marble, wood and bronze once stood in the Basilica of Maxentius. Significant chunks of the Colossus are now located in a courtyard at the Capitoline Museum in Rome where my wife and I visited them on our honeymoon a few decades back. In 2024, a magnificent replica of the Colossus was erected nearby in the garden behind the Capitoline Museum. While the sheer size of the work has drawn considerable attention, the...