Free Republic

Pope Francis needs to take tougher action against the United States’ most influential Catholic in Rome, Cardinal Raymond “Breitbart” Burke. The renegade cleric is not only undermining Francis’s reformist, compassionate papacy, and gospel teaching as it applies to refugees and Muslims, but the rebel prince of the church is also using his position within the walls of the Vatican to legitimize extremist forces that want to bring down Western liberal democracy, Stephen K. Bannon-style. Simply put, the Vatican is facing a political war between the modernizing Pope Francis and a conservative wing that wants to reassert white Christian dominance. Burke...

Strong performances and character development balance out the soapy sex and romance nicely, creating a thoroughly bingeable and enjoyable series.Prepare to swoon over Netflix’s new Regency romance, filled to the brim with dashing rogues, charming innocents, gorgeous costumes, and scandals galore. “Bridgerton” follows a well-tread story, where the naive virgin and the brooding bad boy pretend to be in love in order to achieve their individual goals, only for genuine interest and affection to grow from the ruse. However, with likable characters, gorgeous production design, and a mysterious writer documenting the characters’ every move in deliciously scandalous fashion, the clichéd...

Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have been together for 37 years -- and the Hollywood couple have zero plans to tie the knot. The duo first began dating while filming 1984’s “Swing Shift” and have since built a life together without the need to get married. “You’ve just got to want to be together,” the actress told People magazine in this week’s cover story. “I don’t think there’s any other way to do it,” added the 75-year-old. Despite their union, the pair have been selective when it comes to working together, the outlet shared. They appeared together in 1987’s “Overboard”...

Ask any random group of ten elderly couples about their marriage, and half of them will probably say something like this: “We were high school sweethearts, tied the knot soon after graduation, worked our way up from nothing, had kids, and here we are. Being married made us who we are today.” Beneath these stories is a view of marriage as a foundation of life, a starting point for other goals. Today, this view has been replaced by a different one, what some call the “capstone” view of marriage. In the “capstone” view, marriage is a finishing touch to add...

Relationships can be tricky. Some get the best out of it, while some are left broken-hearted. But what happens when one is in a relationship for quite some time, and it doesn’t work out even after 8 years? Yes, that’s right. Eight years! A Zambian woman has taken her boyfriend to the civil court for wasting her time and not marrying her after being together for eight years. The story has been doing the rounds on social media. Frustrated lady Gertrude Ngoma said she was tired of waiting. Her partner Herbert Salaliki, 28, had promised to marry her but did...

In Sunday's Dispatch, Cy Souders and his beloved wife Jean had an important announcement in the Celebrations Section. The couple, who graduated from Bucyrus High School, were wed in Kentucky in the fall of 1939. Last week they celebrated their 81st wedding anniversary. So, why make a post about this? Souders was a three-time All-American End at Ohio State and was a key player on the 1942 national championship team. Another interesting fact is in 1944, Souders left the Buckeyes to serve two years of active duty with the Navy during World War II. He played three seasons in the...

Francis Worked ‘Miracle’ for Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ in MexicoMexican bishops agree with pope on homosexual civil unions MEXICO CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) - According to pro-family advocates in Mexico, Pope Francis worked a "miracle" to advance the LGBTQ agenda in the state of Puebla, where the state legislature voted in favor of legal reforms to guarantee same-sex "marriage."Mexican Nuncio Abp. Franco Coppola(Photo: Conferencia del Episcopado Mexicano)Puebla lawmakers last week approved a measure to modify 10 articles of the state's civil code — among them, an article defining marriage as between one man and one woman. With the measure's passage, Puebla now complies with...

The Church of England announced that it is going to begin a formal “discernment and decision-making” process "about a way forward for the church" in regards to its teachings on sex, sexuality and marriage. Church leaders are aiming to come to a conclusion on the long-debated issues by 2022. The announcement came with the launch of the "Living in Love and Faith" resources, which more than 40 people, led by the Bishop of Coventry Christopher Cocksworth, worked on for three years to help people participate in honest discussions, listen to life stories and understand each other’s views. Part of the...

Now that Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court is official, leftists everywhere are casting aspersions at the wall to see what sticks. A few early favorites include condemning her for adopting children or expressing outrage that Republicans would push for a nomination when Democrats don’t control the outcome.The most interesting smear, however, regards feminine submission — an apparent teaching of Barrett’s faith group, People of Praise. It’s silly to suggest that submission holds back women when your example is being considered for one of the highest offices in the United States. But silly or not, it does...

"We may think that the culture of a society or civilization grows out of a variety of forces—social, political, historical, even biological. But what if culture is itself a potent force, one that, in part, shapes the others? “Culture,” Joseph Henrich writes, “can and does alter our brains, hormones, and anatomy, along with our perceptions, motivations, personalities, [and] emotions." .............. .............. "In the academic literature, societies that trace their origins to Western Europe are referred to as “Weird”: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic." .............. .............. "In his telling, the qualities that make up Weird-ness did not—as many historians and...

The survey revealed noticeable economic differences between male couples and female couples, as well as same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples. Same-sex married couples had a higher median income than opposite-sex married couples, $107,210 compared to $96,932. In same-sex marriages, though, male couples earned more than female couples, $123,646 versus $87,690. According to the survey, same-sex married households were more likely to be in the workforce than opposite-sex married households, 84.6% compared to 80.4%.

U.S.—Pioneering smart thermostat company Matrimostat announced a brand-new thermostat that will automatically set the temperature to whatever your wife wants. “The Matrimostat 2000 uses advanced quantum technology to identify your wife’s temperature preference before she even mentions it --often before she even knows it!” says CTO Ted Shmarmanarf. “It’s a lot more challenging than it sounds. Research showed that many women don’t know what they want until at least an hour after they wish it had already happened, so the thermostat had to be able to accommodate for that.” "Now this is one smart thermostat." Shmarmanarf says that the solution...

The Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that expands the state marriage statute to allow citizens to perform marriages. Current state laws show that a religious leader, judge or mayor has the ability to marry people. Representative Larry Farnese sponsored Senate Bill 833 that would allow citizens to perform marriage ceremonies after taking 120 hours of education on planning and performing civil ceremonies. This move is aimed at creating more flexibility for couples amid the COVID-19 pandemic who are having less traditional weddings. “Pennsylvania’s marriage statute is extremely limited in who may perform these ceremonies, and there are even fewer...

The rugby club has issued a statement after an incident took place outside its clubhouseA rugby club has condemned the behaviour of wedding guests involved in an alleged fight outside its clubhouse, which apparently saw a bride and other guests brawling on the pitch. Footage of the incident outside Penlan RFC in Swansea has been widely shared on social media. In the clip 90 second clip, a group of people appear to be coming to blows on the rugby pitch at night while those in the melee swear loudly. Onlookers shout "phone the police" a number of times and...

Michelle Obama explained that at times she wanted to “push Barack out of the window” during the most recent episode of The Michelle Obama Podcast. The former first lady, who will celebrate her 28th wedding anniversary with husband Barack Obama next month, spoke candidly about the up and downs of her marriage with guest Conan O’Brien. “There were times that I wanted to push Barack out of the window. And I say that because it’s like, you’ve got to know the feelings will be intense. But that doesn’t mean you quit,” she said. “And these periods can last a long...

A just-released report from the Pew Research Center sends a dagger straight through the heart of a popular mythology—the one that insists that what single people want, more than anything else, is to become coupled. So untrue. The findings, based on a national, random sampling of nearly 5,000 adults in the U.S., showed that 50 percent of single people are not interested in a committed romantic relationship and they are not even interested in a date. Another 10 percent want nothing more than casual dates. About a quarter of single people, 26 percent, would be interested in casual dates or...

In constructing his evangelical family ethic, [Martin] Luther placed emphasis on Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply.” This living-together of husband and wife—that they occupy the same home, that they take care of the household, that together they produce and bring up children—is a kind of faint image and a remnant, as it were, of that blessed living together [in Eden]. Luther knew that the contraceptive mentality was alive and well in his own time. He noted that this “inhuman attitude, which is worse than barbarous,” was found chiefly among the well born, “the nobility and princes.” Elsewhere, he linked...

The future of our nation is at risk if we don't take action to reverse the damage that has been done to marriage, family, and parenting in 21st-century America. Perhaps the most important document to come out of the U.S. Senate this year was released last month, and while a report on President Donald Trump’s tax returns, another COVID-19 relief package, or infrastructure legislation likely would have gotten major media attention, this important document flew under the radar. The report, titled “The Demise of the Happy Two-Parent Home” and produced by the Social Capital Project of the Joint Economic Committee...

The Norwegian novelist, Sigrid Undset (1882-1949), baptized a Lutheran but raised by agnostic parents, and who emerged from a difficult seven-year marriage at age thirty-seven, converted to Catholicism in 1924. In 1928, she received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Shortly after, a priest in Oslo asked her why, even before her conversion, she had referred to marriage as a “sacrament” in her novels of medieval Norway, although for a Protestant marriage is only a contract. She replied that this would require a rather lengthy explanation, and she offered the explanation in an essay published in an Oslo Catholic magazine, Credo,...

Early Christians in the first through third century understood marriage to be a union between one man and one woman created by God as a consummated partnership described in Genesis 2. Early Christian leaders, such as the Apostle Paul, explained that marriage was more than just a union between two people. It was an act of worship that pointed to Christ’s sacrificial relationship with the church (Ephesians 5). Therefore, marriage was not about a contract or a financial engagement as had been the custom for centuries prior, but a sacred union that should reflect God’s love. Christ turned the accepted...