Free Republic

Brother Peter Olarewaju recently recounted the horrific kidnapping and torture he and two other monks from a Benedictine monastery in Nigeria underwent, including the murder of one of the monks. Brother Godwin Eze spent his final hours encouraging his brother monks before he was singled out, shot, and his body thrown in a fast-flowing river. Eze was kidnapped Oct. 17 alongside Olarewaju and Brother Anthony Eze from the Benedictine monastery in Eruku in the Ilorin Diocese, tortured, and later killed. Unable to find the murdered monk’s body after days of searching along the river where it was thrown, the monastery...

Throughout the history of the Church, several Popes have been deposed for a variety of reasons. Pope Liberius was deposed and exiled by the Arian emperor, Constantius II in the mid-4th century. Six hundred years later, Pope Gregory VII was deposed by anti-Pope Clement III, the creature of the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV. During the reign of Justinian, Pope Saint Silverius, who I have written about previously on this blog, was not only deposed—he was martyred by the political forces who coveted his ecclesiastical power as head of the Church. In my previous post, I included an excerpt from...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Strickland: We must follow the example of the saints and martyrs in defense of the faithBishop Strickland recalled the example of St. John Fisher, who gave up his life against the heretical claim of Henry VIII to be the head of the Church in England.Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, told Catholics gathered in Rome at the LifeSiteNews Rome Life Forum that they “cannot play nicely” when heresy threatens the faith, and that this would “mock the blood of the martyrs” which consecrated the city of Rome to Christ. Strickland began his address October 31 by reading...

“Charles was one of twenty-two Ugandan martyrs who converted from paganism. He was baptized November 1885, a year before his death, and became a moral leader. He was the chief of the royal pages and was considered the strongest athlete of the court. He was also known as “the most handsome man of the Kingdom of the Uganda.” He instructed his friends in the Catholic Faith and he personally baptized boy pages. “He inspired and encouraged his companions to remain chaste and faithful. He protected his companions, ages 13-30, from the immoral acts and homosexual demands of the Babandan ruler,...

[Catholic Caucus] The Execution of Blessed Miguel Pro (Part 3): Segura's story & an assassination attempt This story is part 3 of a 3-part weekend series from The Remnant Newspaper.See the first installment HERE and the second HERE. After presidential term limits were repealed, in 1926, Obregon announced his intention to run again, in 1928, and formally began his campaign, in May 1927. In November, an assassination attempt was made upon his life.Immediately, the propaganda arm of the regime’s Socialist machine blamed Catholics, even presenting detailed confessions, veracity uncertain.They accused devout Catholic Luis Segura Vilchis (1903-27), created a police report...

Shi'ite Children In Houston, Texas Pledge To Be The Soldiers Of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei: Salute, Commander! We Make An Oath To Be Your Martyrs! On July 27, 2022, a video was posted to the IslamicTV YouTube channel of Shiite children in Houston, TX performing a song titled "Salute, Commander", which is an Iranian children's anthem pledging allegiance to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The video had been first posted by the Islamic Education Center of Houston, TX, on its Facebook and YouTube accounts, but these posts were later removed. The children performed the song in English and Farsi....

Francis Omits Islam From Nigerian MassacreVATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) - Pope Francis and the Nigerian bishops are refusing to name Muslim Fulani herdsmen as the gunmen who slaughtered over 70 Catholics in St. Francis Xavier Church, Ondo, on Pentecost Sunday. The pontiff's second-in-command, Cdl. Pietro Parolin, told Bp. Jude Arogundade of Ondo in a telegram sent Monday that Francis was praying for "the conversion of those blinded by hatred and violence so that they will choose instead the path of peace and righteousness." Episcopal FudgeArogundade's office issued a public statement hours after the slaughter, calling the attackers "unknown gunmen" and stating...

It was morning in East Africa. The day was May 26, 1886, and along the shore of Lake Victoria the mist still hung thickly in the jungle undergrowth, although the sun had risen well above the horizon. The night-time cacophony of wildlife had long since subsided, and the land was quiet except for the buzzing of insects and the murmur of hushed voices.In a wide clearing on a hill above the lake, a dramatic scene unfolded. Uganda's King Mwanga was holding court in the open-air gathering place in front of his temporary residence, his royal palace being under repair after...

Cairo (Agenzia Fides) - The families of Coptic Christians massacred in February 2015 by jihadists linked to the self-proclaimed Islamic State continue to receive monthly the pension allowance that the Egyptian State reserves for victims of terrorism and members of the military and security apparatus who fall in the exercise of their work. This allowance has increased considerably over the years, from 1500 to 3555 Egyptian pounds per month. This measure was confirmed by Ms Nevin al Kabbaj, Egyptian Minister of Social Solidarity, who is also the Executive Director of the Special Fund created to honor those killed or missing...

[Catholic Caucus] THE FORTY MARTYRS OF SEBASTE: Killed for Noncompliance in Great Reset of Their Time “Under Licinius, forty soldiers of the garrison of Sebaste (Armenia) were exposed on a frozen pond for refusing to sacrifice to idols. All persevered but one, whose courage failed him, and he perished in a bath of tepid water prepared for him. But their guard, inspired by grace, took his place and died with them, so there were forty martyrs still. They suffered A.D. 320.” (Roman Missal) March 10th marks the feast day of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, who died in the...

It is time for Christians individually and corporately to repent for the way we and our institutions responded to the COVID-19 outbreak.Blaming people for contracting a catchy virus has been one of many widely deployed COVID manipulation tactics. That has shifted into blaming people for dying of a catchy virus after they decided their risks from taking the vaccines outweighed their risks from catching the disease.Shaming people for dying by accident is a bit twisted, but it might make sense if you believe life is over once a person stops breathing, and so cling to the illusion of human control...

Join with fellow FREEPERS across the world to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Agri-Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, Technology, and the Media. "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness." (1 Timothy 2:1-2) Religion Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.

THE CRISTEROS: They Died for God, Country & Christ the KingDriving northeasterly for a few minutes, about a mile out of town, the cars suddenly veered to the side of the road and rolled to a stop at El Puerto de Santa Teresa, a nondescript stretch along the primitive roadway that would develop into the Sombrerete-Chalchihuites Highway.Forced from their seats, the prisoners – Catholics: one priest and three laymen – stumbled from the cars on that August 15, 1926, forced down a parched slope of dirt, a graveyard of flora in the arid plateau’s xeric shrubland dotted with skeletal clumps...

April 28 is the feast day of Saint Vitalis, an ancient Roman martyr about whom very little is known. The summary of his life from Butler's Lives of the Saints contains much of what is known and can reasonably be speculated about Saint Vitalis: Saint Vitalis is honored as the principal patron of the city of Ravenna, in which he glorified God by martyrdom in the persecution of Nero. He was a citizen of Milan, and is said in his acts to have been the father of SS. Gervasius and Protasius. The divine providence conducted him to Ravenna, where he...

January 25 is the feast day of the ancient martyrs, Juventius and Maximus (sometimes called Juventinus and Maximinus). These two were soldiers during the time of Julian the Apostate and suffered martyrdom at his hands, most likely in AD 363. You may remember from similar posts on this blog that although Julian had a deep animosity toward Christianity, he refrained from enacting a wholesale persecution in the style of Diocletian because he had seen that such methods failed to suppress the Faith and indeed, seemed to enhance its appeal. As a result, Julian had taken a more subtle approach to...

Post by Franciscan Media Saint Berard and Companions Saint of the Day for January 16 (d. January 16, 1220) Audio Player Saint Berard and Companions’ Story Preaching the gospel is often dangerous work. Leaving one’s homeland and adjusting to new cultures, governments and languages is difficult enough; but martyrdom caps all the other sacrifices. In 1219, with the blessing of Saint Francis, Berard left Italy with Peter, Adjute, Accurs, Odo and Vitalis to preach in Morocco. En route in Spain, Vitalis became sick and commanded the other friars to continue their mission without him. They tried preaching in Seville, then...

The Final Days of the Carmelites of Compiegne On February 13, 1790, France, the eldest daughter of the Church, forbade the taking of religious vows.A little over two years later, in September 1792, a Carmelite convent about 50 miles north of Paris was seized. The nuns were forced to live separately, and to abandon their habits. In his book To Quell the Terror, William Bush tells us that the revolutionaries deemed habits “offensive to republican eyes,” an echo of Protestant reformers some 300 years earlier: “The reformers focused especially on religious habits, ripping them to shreds or burning them, ordering...

As it happens, George Floyd died exactly 100 years and 40 days after Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter were shot to death in a payroll robbery in Braintree, Massachusetts. These men have little in common with Floyd save that none of them deserved to die and that their respective deaths set off worldwide demonstrations orchestrated out of the very same playbook. In the 1920s, communists had to erase some immediate history — namely, the fact that a pair of Italian anarchists murdered Berardelli and Parmenter in cold blood. The evidence that the anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, killed the...

On this date in 1886, thirteen Catholic men and boys, as well as nine Anglican Christians, were burned alive in Buganda, a kingdom in modern-day Uganda. Most of them pages at the royal court, they had been martyred for their faith. The kingdom of Buganda came in contact with Europeans in the 1860s; Arab traders had been doing business there a few decades before that. Christian missionaries arrived in Buganda in 1879. In the next few years many court officials converted. King Muteesa I tolerated Muslims, Catholics and Protestants and played them off against other for political gain, but his...

Paragons of Faith Paulo Uchibori and Sons A glowering, scar-faced volcano named Mount Unzen looms over the Shimabara Peninsula in southwestern Japan. Atop it, bubbling, sulfurous hot springs vomit out white crud and belch acrid steam. They call this place "Unzen Hell." From 1627 onward, the local ruler found the biggest of its caustic, skin-eating pools perfect for torturing Christians.  Arima Harunobu In the hands of the Catholic ruler Arima Harunobu, this peninsula, once known as Arima, had been the Christian bulwark of Japan. In 1612, though, the de facto shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu condemned Harunobu to death and entrusted Arima to Harunobu's...