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Leading 20th century Roman Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar contended that Protestantism had no place for beauty in its theology. “Contemporary Protestant theology nowhere deals with the beautiful as a theological category,” he wrote. “For the time being, the only question posed by Protestants is that concerning the relationship between revelation and this-worldly beauty—certainly a justified question, but not a sufficient one.” Dutch Reformed theological heavyweight Herman Bavinck seems to provide evidence of von Balthasar’s charge. Bavinck wrote, “It is not advisable to speak—with the church fathers, scholastics, and Catholic theologians—of God’s beauty.” Bavinck beautifully summarizes Augustine’s view that...

Undeniable Proofs That Traditional Catholicism Is the Greatest Friend of Eternal RomeThe true friends of the people [and of the Church and the Pope] are neither revolutionaries nor innovators, they are traditionalists. This is evident through the way in which Traditional Catholics differentiate themselves from most other Catholics by: following and defending Church teaching, respecting the Church’s moral teaching, and defending the foundations of the Faith.In his 1910 encyclical on the Sillon movement, Notre Charge Apostolique, St. Pius X wrote that in the midst of great turmoil in the political and spiritual realms, the real solution is to restore the...

... The elevation of environmentalism to the level of doctrine, the pseudo-pagan deification of the earth and the implication that those who do not believe in the environmental movement are heretics who need to undergo a conversion “that transforms both personal and communal lifestyles” which he equated to a conversion to Christianity and the claim that failure to participate in made it impossible for anyone to call themselves “disciples of Jesus Christ” were radical positions, but the real radicalism lay in the infrastructure of leftist political organizing. Pope Leo’s attacks on ‘climate blasphemy’ were accompanied by a meeting with “environmental...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Pope Leo urged the world's Catholics to help immigrants in his first major document, which was released on Thursday and invoked one of the late Pope Francis' strongest criticisms of U.S. President Donald Trump's anti-immigration policies.Leo's document, known as an apostolic exhortation, is focused on the needs of the world's poor. It calls for widespread changes to the global market system to address rising inequality and to help people living paycheck-to-paycheck.The 104-page text started as a writing project by Francis, who was unable to complete it before his death in April after 12 years leading the global...

Pope Leo tells US bishops to address Trump's immigration crackdownPope Leo told U.S. bishops visiting him at the Vatican on Wednesday that they should firmly address how immigrants are being treated by President Donald Trump's hardline policies, attendees said, in the latest push by the pontiff on the issue. Leo, the first U.S. pope, was handed dozens of letters from immigrants describing their fears of deportation under the Trump administration's policies during the meeting, which included bishops and social workers from the U.S.-Mexico border. "Our Holy Father … is very personally concerned about these matters," El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz,...

I used to work in a parish religious education office, and once when I was at that job, a parishioner asked me when the rapture would happen...Now, when this person asked me about it, I was initially surprised, but then after a few moments, I realized that the question actually wasn't as odd as I thought it was. See, the rapture is a Protestant idea; we Catholics don't believe in it. In fact, even most Protestants don't believe in it. The belief is barely a few hundred years old, and it's found mainly in American strands of Protestantism. In other...

Pope Leo XIV continues to make thinly veiled jibes against the Trump administration’s stance against illegal immigration.Speaking in front of thousands of pilgrims at St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Leo warned that migrants must not be treated with “the coldness of indifference or the stigma of discrimination.”Without singling out any country in particular, Leo said that Catholics should “open our arms and hearts to them, welcoming them as brothers and sisters, and being for them a presence of consolation and hope.”Leo explained that the church was living through a “new missionary age” that tasked its members with providing “hospitality and...

U.S. Catholic Bishops Warn of the Greatest Threat We Face: IslamophobiaTalk about poor timing! On the same day that news broke of an Islamist attack on a Catholic Parish in the Congo that left 64 dead and many wounded, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops published a 15-page booklet, “Islamophobia: A Guide for U.S. Catholics on Anti-Muslim Bigotry.”The purpose of the booklet is to warn Catholics about “the rising tide of anti-Muslim sentiment.” I’m not aware of any “rising tide” of anti-Muslim bigotry in the U.S., but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a rising tide of anti-Muslim...

Miracles and the True Faith: Why Only Catholicism Is Confirmed by GodFrom the very beginning of salvation history, miracles have been among God’s most powerful tools to confirm divine revelation. Moses confronted Pharaoh with the ten plagues, Elijah called down fire upon Mount Carmel, and Christ Himself demonstrated His divinity through cures, resurrections, and His own Resurrection from the dead. The Catholic Church, established by Christ and perpetuated through His Apostles, has continued to be marked by miracles throughout her two-thousand-year history.In this ten-part series, we have examined the countless miraculous signs that God has given to His Church: the...

“In a dramatic display of symbolism, Pope Leo XIV blessed a block of ice to challenge climate change deniers and urge political leaders to act. The gesture was performed at a global gathering south of Rome marking the 10th anniversary of Laudato Si, the late Pope Francis' ecological encyclical. Standing before a melting glacier fragment, Pope Leo invoked his predecessor's environmental legacy while chastising those who mock climate science. He called on leaders to act with courage rather than delay, and invited attendees to join the effort.”

The claim that Marian devotion in Catholicism is derived from pagan goddess worship—specifically Ishtar, Diana, or Astarte—is a persistent but thoroughly discredited myth rooted in 19th-century anti-Catholic propaganda, most notably Alexander Hislop’s *The Two Babylons* (1853). This narrative, often recycled in modern social media and evangelical circles, alleges that Mary’s veneration as the Mother of God (Theotokos) or Queen of Heaven is a Christianized version of ancient pagan goddess cults. However, linguistic, historical, biblical, and cultural evidence reveals no connection. This compiled text is inspired by discussions with our fellow freepers and I hope offers a detailed, accessible refutation of...

On Tuesday evening, the Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV spoke out against anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bellicose rhetoric. At an unusual gathering of military leaders earlier that day, Hegseth had told the top brass to be “prepared for war, not for defense,” while espousing the use of “overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy” and promising to “untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country.” Speaking to reporters in Italian, Leo called Hegseth’s rhetoric “worrying,” per the Catholic News Agency, “because it shows...

Catholics are pushing back after Babylon Bee Managing Editor Joel Berry accused Gaza’s Christian community of aiding Hamas — just days after three Catholics were killed in a July 17 Israeli strike on Holy Family Church, the only Catholic parish in Gaza. “This won’t be easy for people to hear,” Berry wrote on X July 19, “but there are only about 200 professed Catholics still living in Gaza and they all support Hamas.” “True Christian faith still exists in Gaza, but it’s all underground,” Berry added. “Anyone allowed by Hamas to practice openly is allowed to do so only because...

Vatican steps up battle against climate change, especially since it can dramatically harm the “most vulnerable” people.Vatican City • As record‑breaking heat scorches much of Europe — with triple‑digit temperatures, wildfires and deaths reported — the Vatican released a new liturgy Thursday for Mass reflecting concern for the environment, offering prayers, readings and hymns that highlight the church’s responsibility to protect the Earth.This new Mass “can be used to ask God for the ability to care for creation,” Cardinal Michael Czerny, who heads the Vatican’s Dicastery for Integral Human Development, said at a news conference.The new Mass, Pro Custodia Creationis...

Social media posts from Robert Prevost, newly named Pope Leo XIV, show recent criticism of the Trump administration's immigration policies. Why It Matters President Donald Trump's push for mass deportations has been getting held up in courts nationwide. Within the first 100 days of his second term, the president invoked the Alien Enemies Act, granting him authority to deport and detain noncitizens. The implementation was originally blocked in court. What To Know Prevost, 69, on Thursday became the first American pope selected by the Catholic Church. He was a missionary, then a Vatican official after spending years in Peru as...

Prevost is a vocal critic of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and has consistently used his X account to promote material hostile to Trump’s immigration policies. In one instance from February 3, Prevost reposted an article by NCROnline titled “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” The article criticizes the U.S. vice president for correctly arguing that we owe more immediate responsibility to our own family members and country than to those overseas – a position taught by St. Thomas Aquinas and reiterated in the “social encyclicals” of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century popes....

The newly elected Pope Robert Francis Prevost, who has since been renamed Pope Leo XIV, spent the last several years reposting criticisms of President Trump’s policies. Robert Francis Prevost spent the last several years retweeting posts on his official X account, @drprevost, dozens of articles and posts critical of President Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

Before Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost became pope, a social media account under his name shared criticisms of the Trump administration’s positions on immigration.Months before Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost became the first American pope, a social media account under his name expressed criticism of Vice President JD Vance, sharing an article that called the vice president’s interpretation of Christian doctrine “wrong.” The piece, published in The National Catholic Reporter, was a rebuttal to Mr. Vance’s interpretation of a Catholic teaching that he had used to defend the Trump administration’s deportation policies. The post on X, which the account shared in February,...

Will the Roman Catholic Church continue its policy of ignoring jihad and appeasing Muslims? Will the next pope continue the last pope’s consistent record of appeasing Islam? The late Pope Francis had a long record of whitewashing Islamic jihad violence and making moral equivalence arguments in order to downplay jihad terror. Back in 2017, Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar, noticed the pope’s yeoman service for the Islamic cause and thanked him for his “defense of Islam against the accusation of violence and terrorism.” Francis was not just a defender of Islam but also a defender of the...

There was emotion across the United States following the death of Pope Francis, with many mourners contrasting the Argentine pontiff's gentle touch with the harshness of the current US administration. At New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral, hundreds of Catholics gathered in mourning, including worshipper Peter who said "we lost a very good man" whose values were entirely at odds with those of President Donald Trump. Francis "cared about (people) most of us forget about – the poor, the downtrodden, the forgotten, and the healing power of forgiveness", said the 70-year-old, who did not provide his last name, as Catholics and...