Free Republic

Bishop says politicians and others who promote abortion are excommunicated from the Catholic Church. Article: Bishop: Pro-abortion Andrew Cuomo excommunicated himself, should not receive Communion According to this article, Bishop Strickland of Tyler, Texas claims that by rejecting Catholic teaching, one excommunicates themselves from the Catholic faith. That would mean Nancy Pelosi, Andrew Cuomo, and Joe Biden are excommunicated. In the past, Bishops have declared that supporting abortion excommunicates politicians. Probably the most famous example is the letter by the late Archbishop of Atlanta John Francis Donoghue. Here is a link to that famous letter/declaration. There were three bishops who...

Pope Francis urged world leaders Friday to use the coronavirus emergency as an opportunity to reform the injustices of the global economy and the “perverse logic” of the nuclear deterrence doctrine, warning that increased isolationist responses to problems “must not prevail.” Francis laid out his appeal for greater involvement and influence of the United Nations in protecting the poor, migrants and the environment in a videotaped speech Friday to the U.N. General Assembly, held mostly virtually this year because of the pandemic. Francis said the world has a choice to make as it emerges from the COVID-19 crisis and addresses...

Pompeo Warns Pope on China Concordat Sino-Vatican deal compared to treaty with Third Reich WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is warning Pope Francis that the Vatican risks endangering its moral authority if it renews its controversial secret deal with China. Persecuted Chinese Catholics feel betrayed by Pope Francis "No regime suppresses faith on a larger scale than the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)," Pompeo announced Sunday, after urging the Vatican to "stand with fellow Catholics and the people of Hong Kong" in a tweet Saturday. The Twitter outburst from Pompeo's government account follows his strongly-worded column published Friday...

Members of the Catholic community are speaking out about the divide and pain they’re feeling after a video of a La Crosse priest denouncing Democrats in the church went viral. The video, produced and published by a far-right media outlet, features Father James Altman of the St. James the Less church in La Crosse, condemning Democratic Party-supporting Catholics as imposters who are going to hell, and repeated common right-wing conspiracy theories about things like climate change and Planned Parenthood. Responses to the video have ranged from strongly supportive to condemnation, and have reached nationwide, and even globally, within the Catholic...

China Is Already Breaking Its Vatican Deal Ordinary Catholics deserve to know the details of the arrangement. At a time when much of the rest of the world is starting to wake up to the repression, mendacity, and dangers of the Chinese Communist Party regime, the Vatican is getting even deeper in bed with it. And at a time when that regime is intensifying repression of religion—including Catholics—in China, Pope Francis is renewing an accord with Beijing that has yielded no benefits yet save for President Xi Jinping and only disunity and suffering for the Catholic Church.Two years ago, the...

Pope Francis has been a figure of controversy since his election in 2013. For some, his papacy hasn’t gone far enough in reforming the Roman Catholic Church, especially in acknowledging the sexual abuse of so many. Others believe he’s crossed the line by advocating a radical liberal agenda, including climate change, radical wealth redistribution, and his condemnation of capitalism. But on the matter of human sexuality, Cheech and Chong’s old joke comes to mind: “You no playa da game, you no make-a da rules.� Most popes have heeded that advice and, outside of telling Catholics they can’t use artificial birth...

Pope Francis granted three brief interviews to writer and environmentalist, Carlo Petrini, who proclaims his agnosticism. These were published in Italy on Wednesday in a volume entitled Terrafutura. In it, the Pope and the author reminisce about their grandmothers' cooking, and venture beyond gastronomic topics. Pope Francis has touted life’s joys such as a delicious meal and loving sexual intercourse as “divine”, unjustly falling victim to “overzealousness” on the part of the Catholic Church in the past, according to a newly-published book, cited by AFP. According to “TerraFutura, conversations with Pope Francis on integral ecology” by Italian writer Carlo Petrini,...

In a letter marking the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, Pope Francis laments the destruction of nature.“Our constant demand for growth and an endless cycle of production and consumption are exhausting the natural world,” he says. “Forests are leached, topsoil erodes, fields fail, deserts advance, seas acidify and storms intensify. Creation is groaning!”But Francis thinks COVID-19 and the associated economic lockdowns are restoring nature: “Already we can see how the Earth can recover if we allow it to rest: the air becomes cleaner, the waters clearer, and animals have returned to many places from where they...

September 5, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – In 2002, the Catholic Church was rocked by the widespread public revelation of sexual abuse perpetrated by Catholic clergy. While sexual abuse in all professions was nothing new, among clergy it brought a particular repugnance. But more than that, the new revelations highlighted the role of the bishops themselves in the crisis, as it made clear that they had allowed known sexually abusive priests to go without punishment and be transferred to other parishes or dioceses where they would sometimes even abuse again. Sixth months after the revelations first surfaced in the Boston Globe, the...

CNA Staff, Sep 4, 2020 / 06:00 am MT (CNA).- A cardinal has suggested that the coronavirus pandemic may have accelerated the secularization of Europe by 10 years. In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano Sept. 2, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich said he believed that the number of Catholics going to church would decrease as a result of COVID-19. Asked whether he thought the Church in Europe would emerge stronger or weaker from the pandemic, he said: “I think about my country: we will be reduced in number. Because all those who no longer came to Mass, because they came only for...

The Malthusian Pope He uses Covid to call for anti-growth policies. Most popes urge austerity as a means of saving one’s soul. Pope Francis urges it for a different reason: to save the planet. The pope’s one-sided treatment of technology, free markets, and consumerism is astonishing. In keeping with that temporal focus, he called this last week for humans to adopt “simpler” lifestyles not for reasons of spirituality but out of “respect” for the earth: We also need once more to listen to the land itself, which Scripture calls adamah, the soil from which man, Adam, was made. Today we...

Jim Gaffigan is a comedian and was in the 2016 documentary "The Face of Mercy", produced by The Knights of Columbus and the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. I just read a number of Mr. Gaffigan Twitter rants from the last 24 hours and they are foul and hatefully, https://twitter.com/JimGaffigan/status/1299196054274011136. I responded to Mr. Gaffigan Tweets with the following: You were part of "The Face of Mercy" documentary (Knights of Columbus). Mercy is not present with your foul language. Diary of St Faustina "...I DEMAND from you deeds of mercy, ......show mercy to your neighbors always.....not...

Pope Francis’ new encyclical, Fratelli tutti: sulla fraternità e l’amicizia sociale (“All Brothers: On Fraternity and Social Friendship”) will be issued on October 3, the Vatican confirmed Saturday. According to Church Militant, the encyclical is “a sequel to his controversial Abu Dhabi pact with Grand Imam Ahmad al-Tayyeb last year, and will cite Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas], Palestinian backer of terrorism, as an example of ‘peace’ and ‘fraternity.’” No, this is not the Babylon Bee; this is real. It gets even worse. According to Vatican News, “The theme of fraternity is also present in [the Pope’s] constant embrace of migrants,...

The Trump administration announced late on Friday that it was cracking down on “critical race theory,” a far-left anti-American ideology that promotes racial division, from being taught in federal agencies and paid for by federal money. The memo released by Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, called critical race theory “divisive” and “anti-American propaganda,” adding that the far-left ideology falsely promotes the notion that “there is racism embedded in the belief that America is the land of opportunity or the belief that the most qualified person should receive a job.” The memo states: "These types of...

[Catholic Caucus] Francis Attacks Amazon Synod: "No Discernment," "Useless Bitterness" There was a "rich" and "well-founded" discussion at the 2019 Amazon Synod but "no discernment“ about married priests, Francis wrote in notes published by his apologist Father Antonio Spadaro (LaCiviltaCattolica.it, September 4).Francis explains that he didn't endorse in Querida Amazonia (February 12) the Synod’s wish to abolish celibacy because "discernment" is "something different, than just arriving at a good consensus or at a relative majority."Nobody, including Francis, has a clue what the buzzword "discernment" means in this context. For Francis, Bishops‘ Synods should be opportunities for "prayerful reflection" and "spiritual...

nd so is Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin, and a bevy of other liberal Democrats who are “personally opposed’ to abortion” while giving lip service to a basic tenet of their alleged faith. To be sure you cannot judge what’s in someone’s heart and soul and you should not judge lest ye be also judged by the same standards. But it has also been said by someone with authority that by their fruits ye shall know and the fruits of the efforts of Joe Biden and others to preserve the “right” to an abortion and the funding of Planned Parenthood has...

Pelosi Targets Hyde Amendment Prioritizes abortion funding for 2021 WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) - The Hyde Amendment will become history if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi makes good on her threats. The Los Angeles Times reported on Friday that Pelosi, the highest-ranking anti-Catholic in Congress, told House Democrats she's planning to defund the Hyde Amendment in 2021. This would force taxpayers to fund U.S. abortions. The Times notes this is a change of direction for today's Democrats: The plan to oppose the restriction on government money reflects the dramatic and widespread reversal of opinion on the subject that Democrats have undergone in the last five years....

Gloom and Doom Francis: "We Are Running Out of Time" “Climate restoration” and combatting a “climate emergency” are for Francis of utmost importance, he writes in a September 1 message for a World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. Francis is full of gloom and doom, “We are running out of time” and “Creation is groaning.” He wants to “listen to the land” to hear “the voice of creation,” “We need to do everything in our capacity to limit global average temperature rise under the threshold of 1.5°C enshrined in the Paris Climate Agreement, for going beyond that...

ROME — Pope Francis encouraged global initiatives for the protection of the environment, especially in Mauritius after a devastating oil spill threatened the livelihood of the island nation’s inhabitants and wildlife. The pope specifically mentioned a concert that was held at the cathedral in the Mauritian capital of Port-Louis. According to French news agency AFP, the cathedral square was the gathering point Aug. 29 for one of the biggest demonstrations in Mauritius’ history; an estimated 75,000 protesters demanded answers from the government regarding the environmental disaster. In late July, a Japanese bulk carrier, MV Wakashio, ran aground on a coral...

A Boston priest has apologized for a social media post in which he described himself as “pro-choice” and endorsed former vice president Joe Biden. The post, made Sunday, received widespread media attention and prompted a statement from Cardinal Sean O’Malley. “Please accept my apology for the confusion and upset caused by the Facebook post concerning the presidential election and expectant women carrying their children to birth,” wrote Monsignor Paul Garrity, pastor of the Lexington Catholic Community parish, on Facebook the evening of August 27. In his original Aug. 23 Facebook post titled “I AM PRO-LIFE AND SUPPORT JOE BIDEN,” Msgr....