Free Republic

Sometimes you just don't appreciate all you have and all that has been given to you. Sometimes it takes another to challenge your thoughts, beliefs and preconceived notions, in order to make you see that which has been sitting right under your nose all along. God sometimes uses others, and even their own errors and misconceptions, to wake us up to His presence and the Truth He has preserved for us in His Roman Catholic Church. Throughout college, in all my pre-med courses, I was constantly taught the Darwinian dogma, that we are all the products of the blind...

Pope Benedict XVI Thursday recounted the Biblical betrayal of Jesus by Judas, calling the apostle a double-crosser for whom "money was more important than communion with Jesus, more important than God and his love."Benedict's traditional depiction of Judas came during his Holy Thursday homily, a week after the release of an ancient Egyptian Coptic text dubbed the "Gospel of Judas," in which Judas is portrayed not as Jesus' betrayer but as his confidant who was doing his will by handing him over to his enemies to be crucified.Holy Thursday marks the start of a series of solemn ceremonies in the...

A Naples podiatrist announced Tuesday he is closing his foot and ankle practice shortly to relocate to his native Iraq to run for the presidency in the 2005 elections. Rasool Sharif, 58, said he has returned to Iraq twice in the past two months and recently was asked by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's influential Shia cleric, to return for more meetings. "I was the only American who has met with him," said Sharif, who owns the Foot & Ankle Clinic at 198 Ninth St. N. "I met with a lot of people there, a lot of intellectual people." Sharif...

<p>TRENTON -- A dental company, founded by a gubernatorial fund-raiser who has received a federal document request in a pay-to-play probe in Philadelphia, is pushing for a state-funded dental plan for New Jersey seniors that would be worth hundreds of thousands in state contracts.</p>