BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

I was raised staunchly Catholic. My father converted (much to the horror of his family) to marry the Polish Catholic girl he was in love with. And he embraced Catholicism with all his heart. It helped give him purpose, direction and a compass - something that had been lacking in his Protestant upbringing. When we moved to Central New York when I was 9, we went to the big Catholic Church in town. And there it started, the hypocrisy... the unnecessary meanness... the do as I say not as I do... Even corporal punishment. When I was 17 I was teaching Bible Studies to a Christian Youth group at the local Baptist Church's community center. The Church issued me a warning... for READING THE BIBLE! Then one day, my brother - who was coming down with the flu - forgot one of his books for his CCD class. The nun made him walk all the way back to his school (4 miles) in the driving snow - instead of putting him on the bus. When he got to school he had a 102F fever and went to the hos...

Masked and hooded Belfast Catholics hurled gasoline bombs, fireworks and other makeshift weapons at police all night Monday as the most bitterly divisive day on the Northern Ireland calendar reached an ugly end. Several rioters and at least nine officers were injured, none seriously, when Irish nationalists in Ardoyne, a militant Catholic enclave of north Belfast, tried to block a parade by the Orange Order, Northern Ireland's major Protestant brotherhood. Tens of thousands of Orangemen spent Monday mounting hundreds of similar parades in an annual stress test for the province's fragile peace. Most passed peacefully, but a handful attracted violent protests that Catholic leaders blamed on Irish Republican Army dissidents opposed to Northern Ireland's joint Catholic-Protestant government. Gerry Kelly, a minister in that 2-year-old coalition from the major Catholic-backed party Sinn Fein, said the dissidents were pursuing an "anti-peace process and sectarian agenda"...

Wonder if all the 'missionizing' Catholics are really going to stop? After meeting the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, and praying at the Western Wall on Tuesday, Pope Benedict XVI arrived for a historic meeting with the chief rabbis at Heichal Shlomo, next to the capital's Great Synagogue, and agreed that the Catholic Church will cease all missionary activity among Jews. In his welcoming address, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger thanked the pope for his announcement, calling it an "historic agreement and, "for us, an immensely important message." Metzger also congratulated the pope on his arrival to "our holy land - the land to which we prayed to return during 2,000 years of exile... And, with God's help, our meeting today is taking place in the Land of Israel, in our city of Jerusalem - the eternal capital of the Jewish people." In a hint of criticism over Benedict's speech at Yad Vashem on Monday, which was received wi...

Some Catholics and Religious Right persons really make me sick. Love the fetus, hate the child. Force a 9-year old RAPE victim to have twins she doesn't want, should not have been forced to bear? What was the Church going to do to help SUPPORT these babies after they were born? What if they were physically or brain impaired? What about the depression, trauma and PTSD of the 9-year old? Would they be willing to pay for this child's now LIFETIME-NEEDED care and therapy? What about her life and her mother's life? No. They probably wouldn't. But, as this article says - they WILL rehab or relocate abusive priests, won't they? Can you say HYPOCRITE? I know I sure can. These priests, bishops and Church officials should be doing penance. A lot of it. On their knees on the cold stone floor of the nearest Church. And sending money and sincere apologies to this girl and her mother. JOB 17:8 Upright men are appalled at this; the innocent are aroused against the ungodly...

Unbelievable... "save lives?" - this is truly sickening. Where is N.O.W. or Planned Parenthood? Where are the feminists who all think FauxBama is so wonderful? Turning a BLIND EYE no doubt!: Brazilian Catholic Church contests abortion for raped 9-year-old Brazil's Catholic Church has spoken out against plans for an abortion for a nine-year-old girl who was raped by her stepfather, national media reported citing church representatives. After the girl from the northeastern state of Pernambuco complained of stomach pains, a medical examination showed she was in the 16th week of pregnancy, and was carrying twins. Police say the girl had been routinely raped by her stepfather since the age of six. Medics say the girl's life could be in danger if she gives birth, but Catholic priests have threatened to go to court to prevent an abortion, the reports said. "We recognize the 'unjust' nature of this pregnancy, but we have to save lives," local Archbishop J...

by Will Heaven For the first time since the death of Pope John Paul II, Catholic-Jewish relations have become strained. Pope Benedict XVI, in an effort to heal a 20-year-old schism in the Catholic Church, has allowed a high-profile Holocaust denier back into his fold. But must the views of one lunatic bishop put an end to interreligious dialogue? Surely not. Now, more than any other time in our troubled history, Catholics and Jews must stand together against the threat of Islamism. The Holocaust-denying Bishop Williamson is, by all accounts, a deeply unpleasant and ignorant man. Despite being educated at Cambridge University, he rejects the existence of the gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps. In doing so, he denies the Holocaust as a historical event, claiming that "only" 300,000 Jews perished. To Roman Catholics, these views are intolerable. The pope has expressed his disapproval in the strongest terms, saying to an American Jewish delegation, "The hatred that was...