Free Republic

Pope Francis says tax billionaires, stop sports betting in fiery economics speechPope Francis encouraged the leaders of the popular movements to stand up to “the dehumanization” that is spreading in today’s world and to fight against injustice wherever it rears its ugly head in a passionate talk on social justice this morning, Sept. 20. “It is often precisely the wealthiest who oppose the realization of social justice or integral ecology out of sheer greed,” he said.The pope traveled from the Vatican to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development in the Palazzo San Calisto in Trastevere to give this talk....

The artistic director of the LBGT-themed Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony has claimed he did not intend to portray the Last Supper after an apparent parody of the Biblical event drew outrage from Christians across the world.Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the Olympic Opening Ceremony, denied on Sunday that he was not “inspired” by the Last Supper, despite the striking similarities between the Leonardo da Vinci depiction of the Jesus Christ’s Last Supper with his 12 Apostles and the drag queen tableau shown at the opening of the Paris games.“You will never find in me any desire to mock, or...

The Biden administration banned children from submitting Easter eggs with religious themes for its 2024 “Celebrating National Guard Families” art contest.The competition, which is part of the White House’s annual Easter Egg Roll, explicitly stipulated that egg designs not feature any “religious symbols” on the Christian holiday.“The Submission must not include any questionable content, religious symbols, overtly religious themes,” a flyer with instructions from the White House stated.The Easter contest asks children of National Guard families to decorate an egg template with “a snapshot of their life – a favorite activity, scenery in your state, your military family, a day-in-your...

The following essay is adapted from the author’s new book, Pagan America: The Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come. It’s hard to survey the state of our country and not conclude that something is very wrong in America. I don’t just mean with our economy or the border or rampant crime in our cities, but with our basic grasp on reality itself. Our cultural and political elite now insist that men can become women, and vice versa, and that even children can consent to what they euphemistically call “gender-affirming care.” In a perfect inversion of reason and...

.... As part of a plenary session on Wednesday titled “Climate and Nature: A Systemic Response Is Needed,” Chieftess Putanny Yawanawá of the Amazonian Yawanawá tribe, located in the Acre region of northwest Brazil, performed a shamanic rite. After making some invocations while rubbing her hands together, the woman representing the Indigenous blew on the heads of the participants, among whom were the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva; the president of the World Bank, Ajay Banga; the CEO of IKEA, Jesper Brodin; and the billionaire André Hoffmann. After learning of the event, Father Silva posed four...

We have seen where the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) will be in 30 years, and it’s in the form of herchurch, a heretical church in San Francisco within the Sierra Pacific Synod, the most progressive entity of the ELCA. Founded initially as Ebenezer Lutheran Church by Swedish immigrants in 1884, the church served the community for many years until Rev. Stacy Boorn took over. Ordained in 1987, Boorn describes herself as a “Pastor & Priestess of Ritual” and claims that her “malestream theological education opened the door for her to build a Goddess-inclusive congregation and ministry.” Inhabited by...

The Marxist Origin of Wokism: The Hideous Face of RevolutionI am picking up a subject about which I have already written in an article entitled “Wokism: The New Pagan Morality.”[1] We now live in an increasingly post-Christian society. Interestingly, 56% of American voters deemed the term “woke” to be positive, associated with being informed and educated, while just 39% deemed it negative, likening it to censorship and being overly politically correct.[2] In his book, America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Left Conquered Everything,[3] Christopher Rufo traces the origins of CRT/Wokism, showing how America has been quietly taken over by the ideological...

The number of trans-identifying students is rising exponentially, leading to majorities in the student bodies of the most progressive schools. This rise is without any historical precedent. It is proof of social contagion, not of a preexisting biological reality.It has been almost 90 days since Gay Pride month. According to the Los Angeles Unified School District, that is too long a hiatus from the imperative of immersing young children in the arcana of gay and trans identity. So throughout the week of October 9, many elementary school classrooms in Los Angeles will celebrate “National Coming Out Day,” which falls on...

The cultural conflict is no longer simply political. The economic value of socialism or capitalism is no longer the debate separating citizens. It is, rather, what our children are learning, whether in non-Christian state schools or even in some Christian schools, about their sexuality, their family life and the theological issues that determine ultimate meaning. The Sixties was a key moment for Western culture. It might be hard to imagine, but when I was growing up as a lad in working-class Liverpool, England, and even when I became a young man in the Fifties, I had never even heard the...

Beneath the floor of St. Peter's Basilica, an ancient Roman cemetery holds the secret to the origins of Vatican City.The Pagan Necropolis Under Vatican City | 9:52toldinstone | 415K subscribers | 119,158 views | September 1, 20230:00 Introduction0:47 Excavations begin1:36 The Vatican before Christianity2:35 The Vatican Necropolis4:07 The Trophy of Gaius5:04 Constantine's Basilica6:12 Shrines and high altars7:30 The bones of St. Peter?

The Walker Art Center held a pagan ritual geared toward families at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden last weekend, with a performance called 'Lilit the Empathic Demon.' (Alpha News) — The Walker Art Center held a pagan ritual geared toward families last weekend, with a performance called “Lilit the Empathic Demon.” “Demons have a bad reputation, but maybe we’re just not very good at getting to know them,” an event description reads. The event, which took place at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, was part of the Walker’s Free First Saturdays program and featured artist Tamar Ettun who creates “demon traps.” READ:...

A state agency delayed a water management company’s request to make more water available to fight the devastating wildfires on Maui earlier this month, according to letters obtained by CNN. Glenn Tremble of the West Maui Land Company, which manages water supply companies, complained in a letter to the deputy director of the Hawaii Commission on Water Resource Management that the agency failed to quickly approve his company’s request to divert stream water to nearby reservoirs. ... Hours went by, Tremble wrote in his August 10 letter, before his request was approved. Tremble told CNN by that time, his company’s...

Vivek Ramaswamy, the 37-year-old biotech entrepreneur, is hovering among the top contenders as a Republican presidential candidate while being open about his Hindu faith. Vivek Ramaswamy is as comfortable talking about Bible stories as he is sharing the message of the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most sacred Hindu texts. The 37-year-old biotech entrepreneur turned Republican presidential candidate has been steadily garnering support in a party dominated by conservative Christians. In many polls, he's in third place behind former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and he is one of six candidates who have qualified for the first...

German archdiocese celebrates ‘ecumenical requiem’ for melting glacier with female Protestant ‘pastor’The event was held on July 25 at the Zugspitze, Germany's highest mountain.Ecumenical requiem service for a glacier, Bavaria(LifeSiteNews) — The Catholic Archdiocese of Munich and Freising has celebrated an “ecumenical requiem” for a glacier together with members of the Evangelical Church. The event was held on July 25 at the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain, to bid farewell to the “glacier status” of the Schneeferner and to “draw attention to the consequences of rapidly advancing climate change and the importance of preserving creation,” according to a press release by...

This article will look at three causes of the Roman Empire’s collapse, and see the extent to which its defects can be applied to the decline of the USA as the leading world power. While the influence of the USA cannot be considered imperial — we technically are not an empire — nonetheless, the terms hegemony, leadership, and dominance in the world system are adjectives that apply to ancient Rome and might well apply to us.

Smoking ceremonies are not ‘inculturation’Smoking ceremonies are not ‘inculturation’ … and it is irresponsible to suggest otherwise. A July 13 article from Pillar Catholic, which was presented as an ‘explainer’ of indigenous smoking ceremonies, completely missed the mark by failing to look behind the sympathetic facade to see the real harms being perpetrated by the use of pagan rituals. Particularly disappointing was the manner in which commentary from the emeritus Archbishop of Philadelphia, Archbishop Chaput, was used to sanction anti-Catholic ‘inculturation’. The Pillar article looked at the recent installation of Bishop Ken Howell at his new diocese of Toowoomba, in...

Public school students were instructed to create a kachina doll representing spirits worshiped by Native Americans, which one boy’s parents say violates their Messianic Jewish beliefs.LEXINGTON, Ohio (LifeSiteNews) — Parents of an Ohio fifth-grader say their son’s First Amendment rights were violated when he was coerced during class into making a pagan idol, that is, the likeness of a spirit worshiped by Native Americans. Students at one of Lexington Local Schools’ elementary institutions were instructed in class to make a Kachina doll, used by the Hopi Indians as a “sacred object” to teach children about spirits believed to have “special...

When a 28-year-old person identifying as transgender shot up a Tennessee school in March, killing three children and three adults, the usual grim afterlife of tragedy was underlined by an odd note: One by one, media outlets rushed to apologize for “misgendering” the shooter, who, they explained, had been born female but had recently begun identifying as male.How to make sense of such a statement? And what to do when a newspaper headline tells you about a “trans woman left sobbing in JFK Airport after TSA agent hit her testicles”? Appealing to reason hardly helps, as J.K. Rowling and others...

For centuries, a setting sun has signaled the end of fasting rituals on holidays such as Ramadan and Yom Kippur, a cue to tuck into a delicious meal after a full day of abstaining from food and drink. But what if the sun’s clockwork were to suddenly change, as it does for astronauts riding aboard the International Space Station? The orbiting laboratory whips around the Earth at about 17,000 miles per hour (27,600 kilometers per hour), giving passengers 16 sunrises and sunsets each day. It’s a question astronaut Sultan Alneyadi has been contending with since his arrival at the space...

The Diocese of San Cristobal, in southern Mexico, will send Pope Francis a proposal to include indigenous Mayan rites such as dance, music and the participation of women in Catholic masses. This is the second such proposal to come from the Catholic church community, the first being the Zairean rite.