Free Republic

The Gulag Archipelago in Romania: The Story No One Has Told Before Tomorrow, Friday May 31, Pope Francis will leave for Romania and on Sunday June 2, the last day of his journey, he will preside over the divine liturgy in Blaj, with the beatification of seven Greek Catholic bishops martyred “out of hatred for the faith” between 1950 and 1970, under the communist regime.These seven are only some of the Christians of Romania, bishops, priests, laity, who deserve the crown of martyrdom.Another among many is Ioan Ploscaru, a bishop who died in 1998 at the age of 87, fourteen...

Sister Inés Nieves Sancho a sewing teacher, the nun that was decapitated. Image: elespanol.com Tuesday’s slaughter took place after an armed group called 3R attacked two villages in the Central African Republic. At least 26 people have been killed, and many more wounded, in a massacre representing one of the biggest single losses of life in the Central African Republic (CAR) since a February peace deal. The UN’s peacekeeping mission in CAR (Minusca) reported on Wednesday that Tuesday’s slaughter took place after an armed group called 3R attacked two villages Koundjili and Djoumjoum, in the north-west of the country. The...

It is a common theme in our post-Christian age to tar the early Church with certain atrocities against philosophy and science. One of the accusations most commonly trotted out is that the Christians burned the world-famous library at Alexandria. This "perniciously persistent" myth is tidily demolished by David Bentley Hart in a 2010 article in First Things. But even if the myth were true, the Roman Christians had a model to follow in that Hellenistic pagans themselves consigned Christian books to the flames during the persecutions. For a period of about eight years in the early 4th century AD, it...

April 3 is the Catholic feast day of three sisters who were executed during the persecution of Diocletian in AD 303: Agape, Chionia and Irene. The three were citizens of the city of Thessalonica in Macedonia which was also the hometown of Diocletian's Caesar, or junior emperor, Galerius. It was Galerius who first instigated Diocletian to commence an empire-wide persecution of Christians, so it is perhaps not surprising to find the attack being pressed so vigorously there. We are fortunate that the authentic acts of these martyrs have come down to us from antiquity largely intact. The transcript of their...

On March 7, AD 203, during the reign of the emperor Septimius Severus, five Christians were martyred in the amphitheater of Carthage under the procurator Hilarian. The three men were named Revocatus, Saturus, and Saturninus. The two women, however, are more famous, having their names entered into the Roman Canon of the Mass: Felicitas, a slave eight months pregnant, and Perpetua, a young Roman matron of noble birth who had recently given birth to a child. Unlike many of the Acts of these early martyrs, the antiquity and authenticity of the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas is not seriously challenged...

In AD 303 on February 23, the Christian church of Nicomedia in Roman Bithynia was utterly destroyed. In this case, by “church” I am referring to the physical building as opposed to the human beings of Nicomedia who professed the Christian faith. Their destruction would come later. The pulling down of the church of Nicomedia marked the beginning of a violent, Roman Empire-wide repression of Christianity known to future generations as the Great Persecution. This state-sponsored attack would be the most violent, wide-ranging, and longest-lasting effort of the Roman government to wipe out the hated Christian sect. It would also...

Duty change in Mindong diocese should be read with goodwill: bishop A Vatican delegation has been in China this week for talks about the implementation of a bishop-appointment agreement signed between the two sides, said a Holy See spokesperson. The delegation is in China for talks with "both government and church officials" to work on "practical steps" to implement the recent provisional agreement, Greg Burke, director of the Holy See press office, told the Global Times in an emailed statement on Friday local time. The content of the provisional agreement on the appointment of bishop has not been made public...

A sad picture of the world we live in, especially onlineThe BBC has reported Wednesday on an American man killed on North Sentinel Island. “Tribespeople shot him with arrows and left his body on the beach.” He may have been a Christian missionary, according to the BBC: “Local media have reported that Chau may have wanted to meet the tribe to preach Christianity to them.” The people of North Sentinel Island are one of the last isolated ethnic groups on earth. The Indian government forbids any visitors to the island, and natives routinely greet strangers with violence. Cruel HatredBe that...

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò In thin-skinned times such as these, Archbishop Viganò’s most recent letter shines forth as a clarion call to Catholics everywhere. As I finished reading Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s third letter, I had an immediate sense that I had just read something destined to be one of the great pastoral and literary moments of the Church’s history. There was an air of greatness about it that I cannot fully describe. I was stunned at its soteriological quality — at its stirring and yet stark reminder of our own judgment day. In effect he reminded us that...

White Simple “A SIMPLE AND UPRIGHT MAN, and fearing God, and avoiding evil:” such is the description of the just man in the lessons of the night Office for the time, and it is the portrait of the holy monk whom the Church offers us today for our admiration, our imitation, and our devotion. Fleeing from men in order to find God, he quitted his native land, where his rank, and still more his virtues, prevented him from being unknown. He wandered from the coasts of Greece to the borders of the Rhone, and stopped at length in the...

Red Commemoration FOR THE SECOND TIME in July a constellation of seven stars shines in the heavens. More fortunate than Felicitas, Symphorosa preceded into the arena the Seven Sons she was offering to God. From the throne where he was already reigning crowned with the martyr’s diadem, Getulius, the tribune, father of this illustrious family, applauded the combat whereby his race earned a far greater nobility than that of the patrician blood, and gave to Rome a grander glory than was ever dreamed of by her heroes and poets. The Emperor Adrian, corrupt yet brilliant, skeptical yet superstitious like...

Full service of Vespers and Vigil for the Holy Royal Passion Bearers Tsar Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, the Grand Duchesses Olga, Maria, Tatiana, Anastasia and the Tsarevitch Alexei who, along with their faithful retainers, were butchered this night 100 years ago by the Communists. (English & Slavonic appx 2.5 hrs)

"An Act of Parliament, directly oppugnant to the laws of God and his holy Church..." All which notwithstanding the jury found him guilty, and incontinent upon the verdict the Lord Chancellor [for that matter chief commissioner] beginning in judgment against him, Sir Thomas More said to him, "My Lord, when I was towards the law, the manner in such case was to ask the prisoner before judgment, why judgment should not be given against him." Whereupon the Lord Chancellor staying his judgment, wherein he had partly proceeded, demanded of him what he was able to say to the contrary. Who...

Red Commemoration BESIDE JOHN OF SAHAGÚN, the Apostle of peace, are grouped four warriors of our Lord’s army. Thus peace and war this day go hand in hand, yea, form but one in the kingdom of the Son of God. The three-fold peace, preached by Christ, namely, man’s peace with his God, with himself, and with his brethren, all fellow citizens in the Holy City—is to be won only at the cost of combat with Satan, the flesh, and world, which is the “accursed city.” Together with the Church, let us blend in one united homage, our praises of...

Red Simple THE GLORY OF MARTYRDOM illumines this day with a profusion rarely met with on the Cycle; and already we seem to descry the rosy dawn of that glad day, excelling all the rest, on which Peter and Paul will consummate, in their blood, their own splendid confession. Italy and Gaul, Rome and Lyons concur in forming a legion of heroes in the service of Heaven. For today, Lyons the illustrious daughter of Rome, is keeping the special festival of a whole phalanx of warriors, headed by the veteran chief, Saint Pothinus, disciple of Saint Polycarp, who in...

And fear ye not them that kill the body and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. - Matthew 10:28 From love, Timothy Peter Leonard was created, and from hate, he was destroyed.Born on the Feast of the Holy Apostles, June 29, 1893, the County Limerick native seemed destined to win a martyr’s crown, like Saint Peter, who was crucified upside down in Nero’s amphitheater, and Saint Paul, who was beheaded with a sword in Aquae Salviae.But rather than in Rome, the Eternal City, he would win...

You think these men are dead but when one head pops up and then you know the gig is up Well, look what the cat dragged in. Palistinian MartyrsIsrael and Palestine have been going added for years, and both sides have used propaganda to try to get their message across. Our country even uses propaganda to get his point across to the people when they want to make a specific point, but I’ve never seen anything this blatantly obvious captured on video. Talk about coming back from the dead. Did you see the guy at the end of video laughing?...

Red Commemoration LET US AFFECTIONATELY WELCOME the brave triumvirate of martyrs, presented today to our Risen Jesus by the Roman Church of the second century. The first is Valerian, the chaste and noble spouse of Cecily; he wears on his brow a wreath of roses and lilies. The second is Tiburtius, Valerian's brother, and like him, a convert of Cecily; he shows us the triumphant palm he won so speedily. Maximus is the third; he witnessed the combat and the victory of the two brothers, imitated their example, and followed them to heaven. The immortal Cecily is the queen...

By 1945, Pyongyang was known as the Jerusalem of East Asia, where 50,000 Catholics lived in peace and Catholic missionaries were overseeing a wave of conversions. The heartbreaking story of religious persecution in North Korea began during the Soviet occupation from 1945-1948 and continued with the new independent state in 1953. Today, there is only one state-controlled Catholic church in Pyongyang and there are no priests or members of a religious institute recognized by the Holy See. Francis Lee, a translator for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea, estimates that there are about 800-3,000 ‘official’ Catholics left in North Korea....

Red Simple WE KNOW THE MYSTERY of the number forty. This tenth of March brings it before us. Forty new advocates! Forty encouraging us to enter bravely on our career of penance! On the frozen pool, which was their field of battle, these these martyrs reminded one another that Jesus had fasted for forty days, and that they themselves were forty in number! Let us, in our turn, compare their sufferings with the lenten exercises which the Church imposes upon us; and humble ourselves on seeing our cowardice; or, if we begin with fervor, let us remember that the...