Christian Persecution

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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A Society That Persecutes Christ is Heading for Terrible Trouble

Christian Persecution in the West by Charles Moore –
Politicians in the West – and atheists – ignore at their peril the benefits and power of organised religion.

This week before Easter, I chanced upon the following two quotations. The first says: “Not for 2,000 years has it been possible for society to exclude or eliminate Christ from its social or political life without a terrible social or political consequence.” The second says: “Religion taught by a prophet or by a preacher of the truth is the only foundation on which to build a great and powerful empire.”

The first is by Margaret Thatcher, opening her foreword to a book called Christianity and Conservatism, which appeared in 1990. The second appears in Tom Holland’s outstanding new book In the Shadow of the Sword (Little, Brown), which traces the rise of Islam from the ruins of the Roman and Persian empires. It comes from Ibn Khaldun, the great Muslim historian and political counsellor of the 14th century. [Read more…]

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The Via Dolorosa by Jon McNaughton

The Via Dolorosa by Jon McNaughton by Seth Adam Smith –
The Via Dolorosa features over 100 figures–men and women that have left their footprint on Christianity. The man in the middle represents the modern Christian…a man who must make a choice. It takes courage to be a Christian in today’s society.

The man in this painting, puts his hand on the shoulder of Christ because Jesus is the source of his strength. The man holds up his right arm as if to say, “Be still, for I know that Jesus is the Christ!”

Says Jon McNaughton, “I got the idea for this painting as I walked through a street in Jerusalem called the Via Dolorosa. This is the road where traditionally Christ carried his cross about 2,000 years ago. I thought to myself: ‘If I had been alive then, would I have watched from a comfortable distance or would I have come to His defense?’

Today, true Christians are the most persecuted people in the entire world. Yet many of us stand idly by as we are mocked and persecuted for what we know to be true. [Read more…]

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Progressive Inhumanity, Part Two: The State against the Churches

The State against the Churches Christian Persecution by Anthony Esolen –
A small town in Vermont has recently been ordered to cease its immemorial tradition of opening meetings with a prayer. …
The order came from a judge who does not live near. A public school in the city where I am writing these words has banners hanging from its gymnasium ceiling, one of which featured a prayer written by a student of the school many decades ago. It has been removed, also by order of a distant judge. Since the citizens of the town and the school district no longer govern themselves but have become dependent upon regular infusions of green federal blood, they could not reply, “You and whose army?” The prayer and the banner are gone.

We Catholics hold that man, unique among creatures on earth, finds his fulfillment only in what transcends him. He will not compose symphonies in honor of a good housing market. He does not whistle an air for low inflation. He will pen poetry born of love, but if the object of his love is a Clodia rather than a Beatrice, even his love poetry will degenerate into satire and cynicism. Man is made for God. [Read more…]

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Christianity or Thoughtcrime?

Thoughtpolice Christian Persecution by Cindy Simpson –
“Thoughtcrimes” — opinions and ideas that oppose the status quo — were pursued and punished by the Thought Police in the future world described by George Orwell in his novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four.  Could politically incorrect thought be declared illegal — a type of “hate” crime against individuals or the State — someday in America?  Since much of Christian thought seems to be considered politically incorrect these days, might it also be declared hate speech?

Although such notions may seem the stuff of futuristic science fiction, just last week, Big Journalism ran a column with the subtitle “Shorter Ann Curry: Your religious beliefs represent hate speech!”  The column by John Nolte described Curry’s recent NBC Today interview with Christian actor Kirk Cameron.

What did Cameron say to deserve Curry’s “attack”?  When, a couple of weeks earlier, the actor was asked his views on gay marriage by CNN’s Piers Morgan, Cameron, within a much longer answer, made these particular statements: “I think that it’s unnatural.  I think that it’s detrimental and ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of our civilization.” [Read more…]

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