Free Republic

Former president says material ‘offends all women and the creator who made them’Former president Mary McAleese has called on Pope Francis to remove “awful material” from a Vatican website set up in 2016 which she said “offends all women and the creator who made them”. The document, which blames all human ills on women, including the death of Jesus Christ, appears on the website of the Dicastery (Department) for the Laity, the Family and Life. It appears in English, French and Italian, but not in Spanish or Portuguese translations. Written by Tertullian, one of the early church fathers who died...

Tertullian, the toughest and most uncompromising of early church fathers, once asked a question that is still with us today: What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? That is to say, is there— indeed, should there be—a meeting ground between the Judeo-Christian strain that proceeds out of Jerusalem and the Greco-Roman (humanist) strain that proceeds out of Athens? As far as Tertullian was concerned, the answer to his question was simple: nothing. Nevertheless, despite Tertullian’s rejection of the link between Athens and Jerusalem, Christian thinkers for the past two millennia have continued to ponder his question. Can the basic tenets...

Few seem to have good answers for the question: “Why didn’t God just create us so that we would never have to experience pain, suffering, or sadness?” After all, God has the power to make the world free of evil, yet He chose instead to make us creatures with free will. Thus, free will was the door left open for the possibility of evil entering our lives.What is the purpose of pain, suffering, and evil? Why does God allow humans, who were made in His image, to live on a planet where evil abounds? God could have made us...

Are you living a safe and comfortable life? Then maybe you are not doing enough, because carrying your cross should be a difficult thing to do. It was for Him, and he did anyway. Tertullian said that The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Yet today I see the church in America dieing a slow death due to the fact that the Saints in America like their blood too much to offer it as a sacrifice for Christ and His church today. That's because too many Christians in America are so connected to the world...

Christianity began in the East, not the West, yet today Christians in the East are enduring an all-out-assault by Islamic terrorists, while Christians in the West live their lives largely oblivious to it all. This has to change. This is no imaginary persecution; in Syria alone there have been reports of kidnappings, Christian communities intentionally displaced by militants and, worst of all, shootings and beheadings of Christians who refused to convert to Islam. In Egypt radicals have recently destroyed dozens of churches, and the once vibrant Christian population in Iraq has been decimated. Christians in the West should stand up...

For millennia the Catholic Church has consistently opposed unnatural vice. Here is a brief sampling of useful quotes from Saints, Doctors of the Church, Church Fathers and Ecclesiastical Writers who condemn homosexual vice in their writings. 1. Athenagoras of Athens (2nd Century) Athenagoras of Athens was a philosopher who converted to Christianity in the second century. He shows that the pagans, who were totally immoral, did not even refrain from sins against nature: "But though such is our character (Oh. why should I speak of things unfit to be uttered?), the things said of us are an example of the...

The rich heritage of Tunisia, maybe the only place where the Arab Spring stands a chance Modern-day Tunisians, more Westernized than most Arabs, see themselves as descendants of the great Carthaginian general who invaded Italy. The Arab Spring began in Sidi Bouzid, a small Tunisian town, at the end of 2010. In a desperate protest against the corrupt and oppressive government that had made it impossible for him to earn a living, food-cart vendor Mohamed Bouazizi stood before City Hall, doused himself with gasoline, and lit a match. His suicide seeded a revolutionary storm that swept the countryside and eventually...

June 15, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - This article presents the Christian attitude toward abortion before the first ecumenical council, that is, until A.D. 325. Because the New Testament does not comment on the morality of abortion, this article considers the writings of the first generations of Christians after the apostles, for they indicate that opposition to abortion (1) was shared at a time when the writers — or Christians not many generations earlier — personally knew the apostles or their first disciples and thus benefited from their unwritten teachings and interpretations of Scripture, (2) comes from a date so early that...

On Tertullian Accomplished a Great Step in the Development of the Trinitarian Dogma VATICAN CITY, MAY 30, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI delivered today at the general audience in St. Peter's Square. The Pope continued his catechesis on the Apostolic Fathers. Today's reflection focused on Tertullian. * * * Dear Brothers and Sisters, With today's catechesis we return to the series that we stopped in honor of the trip to Brazil, and we continue to talk about the great personalities of the ancient Church: They are masters of the faith for us even today...

QUESTION: Why is it that most Bible versions (non KJV) either omit Mark 16:9-20 or they have footnotes about alternate endings?

QUESTION: Is it true that 1 John 5:7 is not in any Greek manuscript before the 1600s? If it is true, why is it in the King James Bible?