Free Republic

When pictures of Dylann Roof holding the Confederate Flag were uncovered, the South’s history during the Civil War was brought back to the forefront. “The Confederacy itself was basically the slave owner’s vision of a good country. A country that rested as their Vice President said on the corner stone of slavery as an institution on a basic racial inequality,” said John Hayes, Assistant Professor of History at Georgia Regents University. Hayes says there are three parts of history with different meanings that surround the Confederacy. The Confederacy in the 1860s, the commemoration of the Confederacy, and the last occurred...

On the Worthy Reception of Holy Communion – Part Two (Particular Issues) By: Msgr. Charles PopeIn yesterday’s post we examined some fundamental principles related to Holy  Communion: that it is not akin to the “table fellowship” Jesus had with sinners but is rooted in the “family meal” of the Passover Celebration, and that it must be received worthily and authentically based on what Scripture and Tradition have set forth. Our “Amen” is more than an affirmation of the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, it is an “Amen” to all that the Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be...

Mercy! So Great a Gift – Why Many Parishes Need to Reconsider When They Offer the Sacrament of Confession By: Msgr. Charles PopeAt tonight’s Chrism Mass, the Cardinal chose to focus his remarks to the more than 300 priests in attendance on the beauty of the Sacrament of Confession and the power of mercy. What a magnificent gift the Lord gave His Church through the ministry of priests, that we can hear His blessed words, I absolve you from your sins … go in peace.My mind goes back to a beautiful story of St. John Paul II and a certain bishop (not of...

From a reader…QUAERITUR: I’m 49 and haven’t been to confession since I was about 9 I say prayers every day and pop into church now and then to light candles the thing is I’ve not been to well recently and would like to make a confession but not to sure what to say could you please help How about, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It’s been about 40 years since my last confession. I think I’m going to need some help from you for this confession.” It would probably be best to make an appointment for this...

Last week, the GOP-led Congress passed a budget resolution which, Republicans claim, will balance the budget in 10 years. The resolution is a policy document, intended to guide the appropriations process, and doesn’t itself have the force of law. More important than the details of the budget document, the action sets up the GOP to finally match its action to its rhetoric and undo the worst aspects of Obama’s fiscal policies. Over the next two weeks, while Congress is in recess, the House and Senate will begin to hammer out small differences between the budget resolutions that passed each chamber....

A parish priest on the troubling news he's learned from kids in the confessional The Need for Questions in Lent Lent is a penitential season, a time of purification and of clarification: of being purified of our sins and of clarifying the roots of what has been keeping us from God in the first place. Purification and clarification can come about through the typical Lenten observances: prayer, almsgiving, and fasting. Fasting, for example, not only acts as an immediate purification of something (ie, a thing is taken away), but it can also clarify in that, as we are feeling the...

Frustrated with the slow pace at which the Democrat-dominated Congress was working to pass the massive health care reform bill he championed by the early spring of 2010, President Barack Obama insisted that it was past time for the Senate to call an up or down vote on the law. Knowing, however, that the bill would not be able to overcome a filibuster by the Senate’s 41 Republican members, Obama and the Senate’s Democratic leadership proposed using the budgetary process known as reconciliation in order to pass the bill with a simple majority. “White House officials will make the...

Reflects on the Sacrament of Penance During General Audience Continuing his catechetical series on the Sacraments, Pope Francis reflected on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which along with the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick form what he described the “Sacraments of Healing”. “The Sacraments of Penance and Reconciliation [...] flow directly from the Paschal mystery,” he told pilgrims attending his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square. "In fact, the same evening of Easter the Lord appeared to the disciples, closed in the Cenacle, and, after addressing to them the greeting ‘Peace be with you’, he breathed on them...

The confessionals are empty. The sinners have gone away. Or should I say, “sin has gone away.” Not to be judgmental, but rather to be observant, I sense poignantly a lack of what I would call “sin awareness” among modern Catholics. We seem to have assimilated the secular notion that the concept of sin places outdated, even psychologically damaging restraints on people, or that the feeling of guilt for wrongdoing (or wrong-thinking) is emotionally debilitating. Thus, we see in society the virtual elimination of the word “sin.” We don’t want to hurt anybody’s self esteem. Catholics, perhaps innocently, have...

The Benefits of the Cross As believers in Christ, we know that Jesus Christ died on the cross for people’s sins. But many do not know that the forgiveness of our sins is not the end of the story. The benefits of the cross are much more: Not only has Jesus freed believers from all condemnation, but we have a whole new identity, according to John 1:12 and 2 Corinthians 5:17. He has given us purpose, power, and hope to live here on Earth now!Eternal life is not just about Heaven; it starts as soon as you accept Christ. Jesus’ purpose was to preach and...

Call it truth in advertising–though not in reporting. Religion News Service's story on Pope Francis's Christmas address to the Curia bears a headline that aptly sums up its spin: "Pope Francis to Curia: Merry Christmas, you power-hungry hypocrites." The lede signals that we have before us the mainstream media's familiar "Francis as radical" meme: VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis launched a blistering attack on the Vatican bureaucracy on Monday (Dec. 22), outlining a “catalog of illnesses” that plague the church’s central administration, including “spiritual Alzheimer’s” and gossipy cliques. The pope’s traditional Christmas greeting to the cardinals, bishops and priests who...

Republicans on and off Capitol Hill are rallying behind using a rarely-deployed budget tool next year to dismantle ObamaCare. But the issue of how to use “budget reconciliation” has divided Republicans, with some calling for it to be implemented to overhaul the tax code or to push through major energy reforms. The tool is useful because it could allow newly-empowered Senate Republicans to pass legislation with a 51-vote simple majority rather than the usual 60, greatly increasing the chances of moving legislation to President Obama’s desk. And while Obama is certain to veto anything that tries to roll back his...

Confessional. Credit: Paul Lowry (CC BY 2.0). Mexico City, Mexico, Dec 8, 2014 / 08:54 am (CNA).- Responding to an invitation from Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera to seek reconciliation with Christ during the season of Advent, nearly 5000 Catholics stood in line for hours to receive the Sacrament of Confession. According to the Archdiocese of Mexico City's News Service, some 30 priests spent 12 hours in shifts hearing confessions at the Cathedral of Mexico City Nov. 29. Cathedral officials said many people also attended an Advent talk given by Father Julian Lopez Amozurrutia entitled, “Coming Home.” Although the lines generally...

“Return of the Prodigal Son” (detail) by Murillo Have You Been Saved? In Acts 4, St. Peter delivers a powerful sermon. He concludes by saying, “There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.”I have written before in these pages of the time when I was growing up in the southern part of the United States and how I would from time to time encounter young, protestant teens and adults who would excitedly take to the streets to witness for Christ.Now...

The bill’s destined to be vetoed, of course, but unless the reconciliation process ends up eating lots of time, there’s really no harm to it. One conservative activist told Politico he’s worried that if the GOP uses the same arcane procedural move to undo O-Care that Democrats used to pass it, Obama will turn around and whine that Republicans are doing the same thing Democrats did when they were in power. But … why would he say that? If he means to imply that reconciliation is a dubious strong-arm tactic, then he’ll be forced to explain why it was okay...

Former Secretary of Labor Bob Reich, on behalf of MoveOn, warns Democrats what will happen if Republicans take control of the Senate: they may use a “tricky, little-known maneuver” to “ram through” their “right-wing policies” with only 51 votes, instead of the 60 votes “usually required” in the Senate. Here he is:Reconciliation

Pope Francis delivers his first Sunday Angelus on March 17, 2013. Credit: InterMirifica.net Vatican City, Mar 23, 2014 / 06:38 am (CNA).- During his Sunday Angelus, Pope Francis announced that March 29-30 would be “24 hours for the Lord,” during which people can find special opportunities for prayer and the sacrament of confession. “Next Friday and Saturday we will live a special moment of penance, called ‘24 hours for the Lord.’ It will begin with a (liturgical) Celebration in the Basilica of St. Peter’s (on) Friday afternoon, then in the evening and night some churches in the center of Rome...

The Holy Father spoke of the healing available in the sacrament of reconciliation at his Feb. 19 audience: 'Forgiveness is not a result of our efforts, but is a gift. It is a gift of the Holy Spirit, who showers us with mercy and grace that pours forth unceasingly from the open heart of Christ, crucified and risen.'VATICAN CITY -- During his Wednesday audience on Feb. 19, Pope Francis encouraged the pilgrims filling St. Peter's Square to receive the sacrament of reconciliation. "Everyone say to himself: ‘When was the last time I went to confession?’ And if it has been...

The Time is Near, Have You Gone to Confession? By: Msgr. Charles Pope   It’s Holy Week and Lent is drawing to a close. Have you made a good confession? It just doesn’t seem possible that any Lent can be complete or even proper without going to confession. In many diocese there is a “Light is On for You” outreach wherein confession is available in all the parishes of that diocese every Wednesday night from 6:30 pm – 8:00pm. That is surely the case here in the Washington Area. I’ll be in the box waiting for people this Wednesday! So...

(Stephen Chikhani and Nadia Lockyer made sex tape; cuckholded treasurer Bill Locker poses with his wife) California state Treasurer Bill Lockyer's differences with his estranged wife, former Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer, might not be so irreconcilable after all. The 71-year-old mainstay of state Democratic politics this week withdrew divorce papers he had filed last July against his 41-year-old wife, whose methamphetamine addiction and extramarital affair ended her political career and could have stained his. "He and Nadia have agreed to try and work things out, to try and reconcile," said Tom Dresslar, Bill Lockyer's spokesman. "He's proud of...