Christian Persecution

Cardinal Dolan on Fighting the Good Fight for Religious Freedom

Cardinal Timothy Dolan by Cardinal Timothy Dolan –
Over the course of the coming year, the effort to protect religious liberty and the freedom of conscience will continue. In the end, this is not about bishops, it is not about Catholics, it is not about contraceptives. It is about the ideals our nation was founded upon: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. You can’t do much better than the First Amendment to the Constitution. The founding fathers got it right. The HHS mandate gets it wrong. We are fighting to correct that wrong, in order to make sure that religious freedom continues for the generations to come after us. …

One part of the HHS mandate sadly goes into effect today, August 1, 2012. You probably know all about the mandate by now. It’s the decree from the Secretary of Health and Human Services that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires employer health care plans to include contraceptive services for women, including drugs called abortifacients. [Read more…]

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Persecuting Christianity in Europe

Christian persecution, loss of religious liberty by Pravmir –
The case of stewardess of The British Airways Nadia Eweida and nurse Shirley Chaplin is considered to be unprecedented by many people. Ms. Eweida and Ms. Chaplin have appealed to the Strasburg Court, calling their case a violation of freedom of religion.

Earlier, the women tried to defend their rights in a British court. But while their case was being investigated, the UK authorities worked out a draft law which, in fact, allows employers to sack employees who do not conceal that they are Christians. Moreover, the UK authorities are going to defend their position in the European Court of Human Rights.

“It sometimes looks like Europe’s secular authorities are trying to totally expel Christianity from Europe,” a representative of the Russian Patriarch’s Office in the Council of Europe Father Philip Ryabykh said in an interview with the Voice of Russia. “The Russian Orthodox Church cannot watch this without expressing its protest!” [Read more…]

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Russian Wonders Why West Is Enamored With Socialism

Communist Holocaust Murder Evil Tyranny by Edward Pentin –
Like a fair number of citizens from former Soviet-ruled countries, Russian pro-life campaigner Alexey Komov is surprised and disheartened to see the West flirting once again with socialism as a consequence of the global financial situation.

Whether it be in the form of support for the Obama administration, or the backing of other socialist-leaning policies and political parties, he sees the trend as disturbing and irrational.

In Rome to address a conference to launch the Rome office of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute (Institute for Human Dignity) June 29, Komov stressed that socialism has “never worked in world history” and that he found it “really amazing” to see such support when, in the 20th century, the ideology had caused such great pain and suffering “all in the name of social reform, progress and improvement.” [Read more…]

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The Republic is Finished, the America We Knew is Gone

Obamacare Destroys Liberty America by Fr. Johannes Jacobse –
With this morning’s decision that Obamacare will stand as the law of the land means that America — home of the brave, land of the free — is no more. This great country, the one to whom all great refugee movements of the world for over two centuries saw as the light to escape poverty, political bondage, and hopelessness now turns its back on that legacy of freedom for what will, in a very short time, amount a bowl of pottage.

The turn to tyranny won’t happen overnight and it won’t be recognized as tyranny — not at first anyway. But as freedom gets chipped away the straight jacked gets tighter and then hardens to envelop the mind like a steel casket. By the middle of the next generation those who gave away their freedom in the name of freedom will be cursed by their own children. The children will weep by the waters of Babylon, unearthing old movies and books of an America they never knew. “Why did you not shout out against the decline?” they will cry. [Read more…]

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The End of America? The HHS Mandate’s Threat to Freedom

HHS Mandate’s Threat to Freedom The Obama’s Administration’s mandate requiring the Catholic Church to conform to government dictates on contraception and abortifacent drugs is more than a war on the Catholic Church argue Jennifer Roback Morse and Eric Metaxas. It’s a war on freedom.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has mandated that social service providers, including those run by Christian institutions and the Catholic Church, pay for abortion inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilizations through their health insurance plans, even if this violates their religious beliefs.

Eric Metaxas and Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse articulate the grave dangers of the Health & Human Services (HHS) Mandate with regard to religious freedom in America. [Read more…]

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On Atheistic Fanaticism

Sergey Khudiev
Sergey Khudiev

by Sergey Khudiev –
There are different ways to talk about religion and atheism. A deep, thorough discussion is possible, and I have had occasion to encounter serious, thoughtful atheists who are sincerely aspiring towards an honest and independent judgment. I am genuinely indebted to certain atheistic writers for helping me to acquire a most valuable habit: that of thought. However, a serious discussion about serious questions is often replaced by highfalutin propaganda designed for an audience that is ill-informed and, more regrettably, intellectually lazy. Both believers and atheists can become prone to such propaganda; it is harmful, first of all, in that it encourages and forms a habit of intellectual laziness and dishonesty.

In this article I would like to consider one of the clichés of atheist propaganda. A commonplace of this propaganda is the referral to crimes committed under the banner of religion: have a look, they say, at the madness to which faith in God leads. [Read more…]

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The Church’s Worst Enemies

Worst Enemies of the Church by James V. Schall, S.J. –
When asked why he entered the Church, Chesterton, in a famous passage, replied: “To get rid of my sins.” The New Testament also makes it clear that this riddance of sins is the central purpose of redemption. Christ did not come so much to define what sins were – we have to be pretty obtuse not to have an inkling of what they are – but to forgive them.

He claimed this power, which was indeed a divine power. That claim scandalized the Jewish leaders who heard Him. But He was firm in His purpose. He proceeded to give His apostles in the Church power to continue this central purpose, but only in His name.

Christ’s coming, then, is a relief that we finally have some authentic way to get rid of our sins. The presumption is that we want to do so because we know the burden they impose on each of us. The “thou shalt not’s” of the commandments are pretty basic. [Read more…]

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A New Generation of Apologists Needed to Defend the Faith

Christian Martyrs Defend Faithby Deacon Keith Fournier –
On the Memorial Feast of Justin, Martyr, we need to implore the Lord to raise up new apologists, defenders of the faith, who are unafraid to contend in the marketplace of ideas for the heart and soul of the people of our age. We live in a new missionary age. The Third Millennium of the Christian Church calls us, in the midst of a Western Culture which resembles a new Rome, to defend the faith like Justin did. May the Holy Spirit inspire men and women who, like Justin and his companions, possess the heroic courage this mission will require. …

On June 1 in the Roman Catholic Liturgical Calendar we commemorate the Memorial of a great defender of the Christian faith, Justin, Martyr. He was born of pagan parents in Samaria at the beginning of the second century. Like many young men, he spent his early years searching for the meaning of life. [Read more…]

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The Bishops are Being Played Like Cheap Fiddles

Bishops Not Defending Sheep by Ann Barnhardt –
I do not understand how it is that this isn’t glaringly, beat-you-over-the-head obvious, but whatever. I’ll explain it. Listen up. Especially if you have a hat shaped like the blade of a posthole digger in your wardrobe, and people actually call you “Excellency.”

Withdrawing health insurance (like Franciscan University at Steubenville, Ohio), shutting down schools, closing adoption agencies, soup kitchens or anything else in “protest” of ObamaCare and the HHS “mandates” is EXACTLY, PRECISELY, TOTALLY and COMPLETELY what the Obama regime wants.

Further, the reason why the “press” has been given the order to keep all of this quiet and to not report in any way on the lawsuits filed by the dozens of various Catholic organizations this week against the Obama regime – the largest religious legal action ever taken against the U.S. government by a long shot – is obvious.

The Obama regime is sitting back and watching all of you cowardly fools fold your own tents. [Read more…]

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Catholic Bishops Take on Obama

US Catholic Bishops USCCB by Vincent Phillip Munoz –
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has taken a bold stand for religious freedom. In a recent statement, titled “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty,” the bishops call for repeal of contraception coverage mandated by the Department of Health and Human Services. The clarified position sets up a dramatic confrontation with the Obama administration—and would, if the bishops prevail, help preserve the religious liberty of all Americans.

The HHS mandate requires employers to provide insurance coverage for contraception and sterilization services. It is, according to the bishops, an “unjust law.” They write: “It cannot be obeyed and therefore one does not seek relief from it, but rather its repeal.” [Read more…]

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