Free Republic

In an age of an evangelical church culture fraught with scandals, we must continually remind and ground ourselves in the biblical criteria for leadership, otherwise, we will lose our credibility within our churches and before the world. The following are some of the ethical and ministerial standards related to priests, kings, and New Testament elders. These are qualifications that we can still apply in principle to today’s Church.Old Testament Standards for the Priests (Leviticus 21):Initially, all the children of Israel were to serve as priests of the Lord (Exodus 19:6). Among the many laws related to the standards for the...

Two weeks before Don Stefano Gobbi died, he said to two priests with him, to read the message of October 18, 1975, which describes what we are living today. From the book, “Don Stefano Gobbi – Testimonianze” (https://cibo-spir.blogspot.com/2018/12/don-stefano-gobbi-testimonianze.html), we read: “But the book that he (Don Stefano Gobbi) always had with him was the ‘Blue Book” (http://our-lady-priests.blogspot.it/) which, more than just reading it, he meditated, so as to contemplate the wonderful designs of God by way of the Creature most loved by God (Mary). Also when we met and we talked about some event or problem, rather than offering his...

As I write, a Franciscan priest I know is in a courtroom in Ohio. Father Fidelis Moscinski was charged with criminal trespass for walking into an abortion facility in Cuyahoga Falls. It's called a Red Rose Rescue: He goes inside, offers women roses, and when asked to leave, says he's happy to -- once the doctor performing abortions does. In other words, once the abortions stop. So the police wind up getting involved. The pain of abortion can be a miserable cross to bear, not just for a woman but for all in her life. Death creates distance, especially when...

The evangelical indie rock scene of the 1990s can be difficult to explain. A rebellious, unhinged underground movement that emerged from megachurch basements and religious colleges? A generation of musicians who broke ties with conservative Christianity but maintained a fan base built through youth groups and Young Life? You kind of had to be there. Perhaps no band typifies the many paradoxes of this scene and its fallout than Luxury, formed in small-town Georgia in the early 1990s and still together today. The band itself is also hard to describe: maybe Morrissey fronting Fugazi, with sad Radiohead piano, English-major allusions,...

Fifteen prominent North American seminaries have committed to meeting a series of sexual misconduct policy benchmarks in hopes the move will inspire others to follow suit, and to reinforce policies already in place. The five benchmarks were announced by the University of Notre Dame McGrath Institute for Church Life in November. Tuesday, the institute launched a website that details the benchmarks, outlines the seminaries that endorse it, and identifies the team of laity, priests and bishops that collaborated on the effort. “[It’s important] to be proactive and not to wait for some sort of crisis or problem to react,” Monsignor...

President Joe Biden urged local pastors and priests on Monday to promote the coronavirus vaccines to skeptical supporters of President Donald Trump. During a White House event on coronavirus relief, Biden was asked by a reporter how to get more Republicans and supporters of President Trump to get vaccinated.

The following email was sent to the more than 150 priests of the diocese of Perugia, Italy, on December 24, 2020. Dear fellow priests, With the corona virus, we see each other much less, and we talk among ourselves much less, unfortunately. (Note: When pasting this document into Free Republic, it seems that most of the special formatting is lost, such as bold, italics, underlined words and embedded links. To read the document with the formatting and embedded links go to the link of the document.) At least I want to wish you a Holy Christmas with Baby Jesus in...

LAKE GEORGE - It was a choppy afternoon on the lake and Jimmy MacDonald from Albany was paddling in a kayak. As Jimmy tells it, he drifted away from his wife and stepkids because he was taking pictures with his new smartphone "and not really paying attention." As he tried to make his way back, the water got choppier and he paddled harder before he tipped over and lost his paddle. He was in about 30 feet of water, his ill-fitting life jacket coming up over his head and he was holding onto the kayak with one hand and his...

HARRISBURG — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg filed for bankruptcy Wednesday, becoming the first diocese in the state to seek protection from financial claims in the aftermath of a 2018 grand jury report that revealed decades of sexual abuse and cover-up by the church’s top leaders. And, said a lawyer for the diocese, it’s not likely to be the last. Citing the fallout from that probe and recent court decisions that opened new avenues for some victims with time-barred claims to sue, attorney Matt Haverstick said Harrisburg, like each of the state’s eight other Catholic dioceses, faces the prospect...

Will the Catholic Church dispense with celibacy in order to deal with a critical shortage of priests? In a synod addressing the crisis of access in the Amazon, bishops recommended ordaining married deacons as priests — in that region only, for now. Critics worry that this will lead to an end of a thousand-year practice of priestly celibacy in the Latin Rite: Roman Catholic bishops from across the Amazon recommended Saturday to allow married deacons to become priests — a proposal intended to address a severe shortage in the region, but also one that breaks from centuries of church...

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — The Diocese of Buffalo announced three priests have been restored to ministry assignments by Bishop Richard Malone following a two month leave of absence. Rev. Arthur Mattulke, Rev. Patrick O'Keefe and Rev. Robert Orlowski were placed on temporary leave of absence following an incident at Saints Peter & Paul Parish Rectory in Hamburg in April. According to the diocese, "unsuitable, inappropriate and insensitive conversations" took place during a social gathering of seminarians and priests on April 11 that some seminarians found to be offensive. 7 Eyewitness News exclusively obtained a written account the seminarians gave to...

An Oakland priest placed on administrative leave after accusations of inappropriate sexual misconduct with a minor has now reportedly fled the country, officials confirmed. Father Alex Castillo was living at a rectory in Oakland and reportedly was looking to live with friends for a few days immediately after he was placed on leave Jan. 30, the San Jose Mercury reported. The diocese said they last spoke with him Feb. 20, then were unable to reach him the following day. A missing persons report was later filed on Feb. 23, after calls to jails and hospitals in the area failed to...

A new bill in California seeks to intrude on one of the most sacred relationships—that between clergy and penitent in formal confession. Currently, clergy members are already mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect, but sins confessed specifically in confession are exempt under current law from mandatory reporting. Bill 360, introduced by Democrat state Sen. Jerry Hill, would “delete that exception for a penitential communication, thereby requiring clergy to make a mandated report even if they acquired the knowledge or reasonable suspicion of child abuse or neglect during a penitential communication.” This is an egregious overreach of secular authority, stepping...

A top Catholic cardinal admitted on Saturday that Church files on priests who sexually abused children were destroyed or never even drawn up, a move which allowed paedophiles to prey on others. "Files that could have documented the terrible deeds and named those responsible were destroyed, or not even created," German Cardinal Reinhard Marx said in a speech to a landmark Vatican summit on tackling paedophilia in the clergy. "Instead of the perpetrators, the victims were regulated and silence imposed on them. The stipulated procedures and processes for the prosecution of offences were deliberately not complied with, but instead cancelled...

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — State Senator Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) has introduced a bill, SB 360, to end the “penitential communication” exemption to child abuse reporting. Currently, 43 categories of adults are required to report to the police if they know or “reasonably suspect” a child is “has been the victim of child abuse or neglect.” (Cal. Penal Code 11166(a).) There is an exception for clergy who gain knowledge of abuse during “penitential communication,” sometimes referred to as “confession.”  (Cal. Penal Code 11166(d).) Hill says “those in the clergy have been able to abuse and get away with it,”...

An 81-year-old former priest who the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office says raped a 6-year-old student at Holy Cross Catholic School in Santa Cruz during the mid-1980s was arrested Friday. Marvin Archuleta has been the subject of civil lawsuits accusing him of sexually abusing minors, and the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in 2017 included him on a list it released naming priests, deacons and brothers who had been credibly accused of sexual misconduct. State law enforcement agents arrested Archuleta at an Albuquerque apartment complex based on a criminal complaint filed in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court charging him with criminal...

The beliefs of the Catholic Church are defined by two thousand years of careful writings and a slow process of understanding the revealed truths. This has brought us our Catechism, our Creed, encyclicals such as Humanae Vitae, and other solid references which provide a foundation for living well, especially in stressful times. One role of the clergy is to guide us Catholics in these teachings. The Church is not defined by whatever a priest in Paducah happens to say on Tuesday, and its faithful are under no obligation to take direction from misguided clergy. But how do we determine when...

The Catholic Diocese of Austin and others across Texas has released a list of clergy that it believes could have sexually abused children. The church hopes this action will help to rebuild trust. 22 priests are named, and all one but are dead, retired or removed from the ministry. Click here to see the assignment information for the accused. The inclusion of a name on this list does not establish that the allegation was substantiated or proven to the Diocese of Austin, a court, or other authority; and does not establish that sexual abuse under the Texas Penal Code actually...

A scathing report from Attorney General Lisa Madigan finds the number of Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse against children in Illinois is much higher than previously acknowledged. The report said accusations have been leveled against 690 priests, while Catholic officials have publicly identified only 185 clergy with credible allegations against them.

Politics and sex. There was a time when some of us “seasoned” individuals believed you could not get enough of either. Sadly, that is not the case lately. Politics and sex; sex and politics. I do not know about you, but it has not been good for some folks in a long time. Sex in some form is all part of a day’s work for a political figure. It can range from criminal behavior (alleged or actual), to extramarital (real or imagined), to issues of gender (same or trans or whatever is in vogue at the moment). Former Louisiana governor...