Free Republic

REPORTS of a massacre of 750 people in the cathedral complex that reputedly houses the Ark of the Covenant have emerged from the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Accounts have come from those who fled the town of Aksum and walked more than 200km to the regional capital, Mekelle. The massacre was first reported in dispatches from the Belgium-based NGO European External Programme with Africa (EEPA). The area is sealed off to journalists, but many reports of massacres have nevertheless emerged, some of which have been documented by Amnesty International. The former BBC World Service Africa editor and Senior Research Fellow...

2020 continued a trend of rising persecution around the world, with governments often using COVID-19 restrictions as tools of repression, Christian persecution watchdog Open Doors USA announced in its annual report. Open Doors' 2021 report revealed two important persecution trends in 2020. The number of Christians killed has increased by 60% this year, mostly because of Islamic violence against Nigerian Christians. Secondly, anti-Christian governments around the world use COVID-19 restrictions to persecute Christians. “This past year 2020 has been a year of uncertainty and fear. We’ve been all fighting a virus that we cannot see with the naked eye. Less...

So, welcome to 2021! If last week was any indication, it is going to be quite an exciting year. It is going to be the year in which GloboCap reminds everyone who is actually in charge and restores “normality” throughout the world, or at least attempts to restore “normality,” or the “New Normality,” or the “Great Normal Reset,” or “The New Normal War on Domestic Terror” … or whatever they eventually decide to call it. In any event, whatever they call it, GloboCap is done playing grab-ass. They have had it with all this “populism” malarkey that has been going...

Michael Cohen @MichaelCohen212 I have been asked and have agreed to cooperate with multiple government agencies to provide testimony on the wrongdoing by #Trump and the #TrumpFamily. I am doing this in large part as #Trump and family have tried, and thankfully failed, to destroy America’s democracy.

Around 3500 years ago in ancient Egypt, there lived a pharaoh who didn’t believe there were multiple gods ruling the universe. Pharaoh Akhenaten believed there was only one god — Aten the sun god. As you might imagine, this didn’t sit well with a lot of people. Priests who made a living assisting in the worship of other gods lost their livelihoods and since religion was a big deal in Egypt, a lot of important people connected to other gods lost quite a bit. Akhenaten had sort of a co-regency with his son, Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, who also believed in...

Catholic priest in inspiring message of hope tells Christians how to survive ‘evil’ Biden administrationWe are the children of light,' he said, 'and we're going to keep fighting'LANCASTER, South Carolina, January 7, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – A Catholic priest is warning Americans who believe in God of the “dark” four years they have before them under a Biden administration that he says will commence an all-out assault on religious freedom that will especially target Christians, resulting in persecution.“We have a dark four years coming as a Church, and we need to get ready,” said Father Jeffrey Kirby, a moral theologian and...

In 2020 alone, more than 2,000 Christians were brutally hacked to death by radical Muslims in Nigeria. Add to that the wife in Uganda whose Muslim husband forced her to drink pesticide after he found two Bibles in her suitcase, and the minister shot to death by three gunmen in India while returning home after baptizing new believers. Religious persecution is alive and well. Why do folks want to impose their beliefs on everybody else? Is it a control thing? A way to validate one’s own faith? Or, perhaps thinking it’s God’s will to force a particular religion? We may...

A COVIDIAC NEW YEAR: Lost in a MaskeradeAre we really happy here / With this lonely game we play? / Looking for words to say / Searching but not finding understanding anywhere / We’re lost in a masquerade.-George Benson__________Remember me? I used to write regularly for this newspaper until the advent of COVID-19 and the overnight installation of police states by Democrat governors (and their counterparts throughout the Western world) on the pretext of “containing the spread of the virus”—an effort that has proven about as successful as containing the spread of malicious gossip. Having joined the Thomas More Society...

The Coming Assault on Religious FreedomModern-day Thomas Beckets are needed to stop it.Joe Biden’s view of religious freedom is exceedingly narrow. Where religious freedom conflicts with the goals of liberalism, he supports suppressing it. He has promised Planned Parenthood that he will resume the Obama-era harassment of the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious groups if they don’t conform to his mandates. During the campaign, he opposed “broad exemptions” for those who resist his view of LGBTQ rights.One of Biden’s transition officials is Chai Feldblum, who has spoken openly of her opposition to religious freedom. She has written,...

Over the years, Campus Reform has reported on hundreds of instances of anti-Christian sentiment at American universities. Here are five of the worst instances from this year. 1. Harvard University. Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Bartholet called for a ban on homeschooling, decrying “conservative Christians” in the process. In a Harvard Gazette interview entitled “A warning on homeschooling,” Bartholet attributed rising interest in homeschooling to the “growth in the conservative evangelical movement,” stating that “conservative Christians” use the practice to “escape from the secular education in public schools,” after a failed effort “to have their children exempted from exposure to alternative...

Father Normandin, Holy Priest Out in the Cold, RIPI met him only once, in the Chartres Cathedral back in the late 1990s. Most amusingly at the time, he asked me how the Minnesota North Stars were doing as, aside from being a holy priest, he was also a big hockey fan. A long time before that, Father's book "Pastor Out in the Cold" had become part of my coming of age as a Traditional Catholic. The autobiographical work details Father’s struggle to defend the Traditional Latin Mass in the turbulent days after the close of the Council—a holy cause for...

One, the Bible says rain will return to Israel at the end of the age (Isa. 35:1, 7), and on Dec. 15, 2020, a winter storm moved through Israel, dropping as much as 4 ½ inches of rain in the lower Galilee and Jezreel Valley. Flood warnings were issued for the southern deserts, and flooding occurred across the country and in several coastal cities. Two, the Bible says there will be persecution of believers at the end of the age, and on Dec. 15, 2020, NY Gov. Cuomo signed a bill that outlaws selling or displaying “symbols of hate” (this...

The Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice may be the most oxymoronically named unit within the federal government. And a recent change in leadership there spells more unjust political persecution persecutions for conservative office-holders, including former Representative Steve Stockman, recently released from federal prison (where he contracted COVID) thanks to a commutation of his sentence by President Trump.The Public Integrity Section (PIS) has been missing in action when it comes to investigations of vote fraud in the presidential election. Its former head resigned in a huff 6 days after the election, rejecting then-AG Barr’s authorization for investigating voter...

Christian churches and organizations should join in an alliance to more effectively work to protect African Christians who face severe persecution in many countries, His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk said at a conference yesterday. Opening the conference, “On the Situation of Christians in Africa,” the Chairman of the Russian Church’s Department for External Church Relations (DECR), noted that Christians in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Algeria, and other countries currently face especially severe persecution. The Russian Orthodox Church sees the support of these suffering Christians as part of its historical mission, Met. Hilarion said, reports the press service of...

[Catholic Caucus] Beloved TX Priest Stripped of Faculties'No room for conservative priests in San Antonio'SAN ANTONIO (ChurchMilitant.com) - A beloved Texas priest has been officially stripped of his faculties after his defense of Catholic Church teaching on homosexuality landed him in hot water with his bishop.Father Clay Hunt was notified the day before Thanksgiving that his faculties were being removed immediately. The move came five months after the San Antonio Family Association (SAFA) had warned, "Fr. Clay has been and is being targeted and attacked. There is an attempt by certain people in the hierarchy of the archdiocese of San...

The media has normalized an anti-religious bigotry that threatens to remove faithful Christians, be they Catholic or anything else, from public service.In a series of articles by its editorial board, media columnist Margaret Sullivan, and former Voice of America Director Amanda Bennett, the Washington Post has mounted a coordinated attack on Robert R. Reilly, the new nominee for VOA director, claiming he is an existential threat to the organization’s mission to provide independent reporting to foreign audiences.The reason they deem Reilly disqualified to serve as VOA director isn’t about a lack of credentials. He was director from 2001 to 2002...

We urge you to lead our nation on a path that revives the Founders’ vision of religious freedom in our government and promotes a unifying patriotic pluralism—not dogmatic religious chauvinism—in American society. We believe that this is a moment not only to enact policies to advance constitutional secularism but to position the Democratic Party to take back the mantle of religious freedom and pluralism from the Republican Party. ... We urge you not to underestimate the institutional strength of what we refer to (interchangeably)in this document as the “Christian nationalist movement” or the “religious right.” This movement is extraordinarily well-funded...

Tens of thousands of house church pastors and evangelists across China have gone into hiding as the Communist Party prepares for what seems like a "final assault" on Christianity in an attempt to eradicate it from the country, according to missions group Asia Harvest. In its final newsletter for 2020, Asia Harvest said pastors have disconnected from their phones and computers so that government authorities can no longer use those devices to track their movements. These pastors have also reportedly destroyed the microchips inside their ID cards so authorities cannot track their locations using those devices either. “Each person in...

Officials rejected the registration certificates saying the government can revoke them anytime Government officials in eastern China have raided and shut down close to 100 protestant churches as part of the escalating crackdown on Christians in the communist nation. Officials in four cities of Anhui province have closed down 99 churches and prayer venues this year, exploiting a range of pretexts including poverty eradication and prevention of Covid-19 epidemic, reported Bitter Winter, a magazine that covers human rights and liberty in China. At least 43 churches were closed in Suzhou, while 24 in Huaibei, 20 in Fuyang, and 16 in...

Pastor Andrew Brunson, who served as a missionary in Turkey for over 20 years, recently predicted that U.S Christians will face increased persecution in the near future. According to CBN News, Brunson's remarks were made during the "Global Prayer for US Election Integrity" event on Facebook last Sunday. “On my return to the US just over two years ago, for the first time in my life—most of my life I've been focused overseas—for the first time in my life, I really, I have an urgency for this country, for the United States," Brunson explained. "And not just with this election....