Michael Foust – November 13, 2020

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Thursday delivered an unusually blunt warning about the future of religious liberty and free speech in the United States, saying both were in danger if the justices don’t step in and protect them.

Alito’s comments came during a speech in a virtual gathering of the Federalist Society, a group of conservatives and libertarians dedicated to reforming the legal system.

Alito, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, has been known as a staunch supporter of religious liberty and free speech, although his comments left little doubt how he will lean in future cases involving those two issues.

“It pains me to say this, but in certain quarters, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right,” said Alito, who is Catholic. The pandemic, he bemoaned, “has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty,” even though Alito said he was not “diminishing the severity of the virus’ threat to public health.”

Alito used frank language discussing several high-profile cases, including one involving the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic order of nuns who run homes for the elderly poor. The Obama administration tried forcing the Little Sisters to carry health insurance covering contraceptives and abortifacients.

“The Little Sisters are women who have dedicated their lives to caring for the elderly, regardless of religion. They run homes that have won high praise,” Alito said. “… Despite this inspiring work, the Little Sisters have been under unrelenting attack for the better part of a decade. … If they did not knuckle under and violate a tenet of their faith, they faced crippling fines – fines that would likely have forced them to shut down their homes.

“The current administration tried to prevent that by adopting a new rule, but the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey – supported by 17 other states – challenged that new rule. Last spring, the Little Sisters won their most recent battle in the Supreme Court – I should add by a vote of 7 to 2. But the case was sent back to the court of appeals, and the Little Sisters legal fight goes on and on.”

Alito mentioned other cases, too, including the high-profile one involving Jack Phillips, a cake artist and Christian who was told by the state of Colorado he must design a cake for a same-sex wedding or risk violating the law.

https://www.christianheadlines.com

Charles Jacobs and Ben Poser – October 20, 2020

In an outrage to the Jewish community, it has apparently become acceptable for people to picket synagogue services, and accuse the Jews inside of murder, imperialism, and the very acts of genocide visited upon them by the Nazis.

The members of Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor, Michigan, endure the vile taunts of protesters holding signs reading “Resist Jewish Power,” “Jewish Power Corrupts,” “No More Holocaust Movies,” “Boycott Israel,” “Stop U.S. Aid to Israel,” and “End the Palestinian Holocaust” every Shabbat. What’s more, this unconscionable behavior has not just been the weekly norm recently, but every single Shabbat (Saturday) since 2003.

“They portray themselves as kindly types who bring their detractors tea and wish them a nice day, while they espouse Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic global conspiracy theories… And their hate fails to alarm some progressive leaders who would be rightfully shouting from the rooftops if this were a mosque,” Beth Israel’s rabbi, Nadav Caine, told Ryan Stanton of Michigan Live.

The local protest group in question, Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends, is led by Henry Hirskovitz: “We’re not there because they’re Jews. We’re there because they’re Jewish Zionists,” he told the same reporter. Hirskovitz, apparently a former congregant who fell out with the temple due to political differences, leads an organization whose website proudly features a picture of a woman holding a sign saying, “Zionists Picnic While Palestinians Starve. The World is Watching.” This is Jewish anti-Semitism at its purest.

After 16 years of suffering such venomous harassment, in 2019, long-time Beth Israel congregant Marvin Gerber had had enough and filed a lawsuit against Hirskovitz and his deluded, hate-filled protestors. The suit cited how their actions were insulting to the congregation, impeded their ability to walk to the temple and pray in peace, and exposed young children to vicious anti-Jewish propaganda. Miriam Brysk, a Holocaust survivor and member of a smaller synagogue located on Beth Israel’s grounds, joined as a second plaintiff.

On August 19, 2020, in her official opinion, District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan Victoria Roberts stated that Hirskovitz and his group’s actions constituted lawful speech and peaceable assembly protected under the First Amendment.

Gerber plans to appeal the decision. But in the meantime, the rabbi and his congregation can and should take the initiative against these brainwashed defamers of Israel.

https://www.frontpagemag.com

Newsmax – October 22, 2020

Question swirled Thursday about the origins of Pope Francis’ bombshell comments endorsing same-sex civil unions, with all evidence suggesting he made them in a 2019 interview that was never broadcast in its entirety.

The Vatican refused to comment on whether it cut the remarks from its own broadcast or pressured the Mexican broadcaster that conducted the interview to follow suit. And it didn’t respond to questions about why it allowed the comments to be aired now in the documentary “Francesco,” which premiered Wednesday.

In the movie, which was shown at the Rome Film Festival, Francis said gay people have the right to be in a family since they are “children of God.”

“You can’t kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this,” the pope said. “What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.”

Those comments caused a firestorm, thrilling progressives and alarming conservatives, given official Vatican teaching prohibits any such endorsement of homosexual unions.

While serving as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis endorsed civil unions for gay couples as an alternative to same-sex marriages. However, he had never come out publicly in favor of legal protections for civil unions as pope, and no pontiff before him had, either.

One of Francis’ top communications advisers, the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, insisted the pope’s comments were old news, saying they were made during a May 2019 interview with Mexican broadcaster Televisa.

https://www.newsmax.com

DW – October 9, 2020

One year after an attack on a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle, the head of Germany’s domestic security service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), has warned that Germany is experiencing a “steep rise” in anti-Semitism.

“In the past two years, criminal offenses, including acts of violence, against Jews and Jewish institutions in Germany have increased significantly,” BfV chief Thomas Haldenwang said in an interview Friday with the Tagesspiegel newspaper.

On October 9, 2019, an armed 27-year-old man attempted to shoot his way into a packed synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in Judaism. A well-secured door prevented him from carrying out an attack inside. The man then killed two bystanders before fleeing and later being taken into custody.

Last week, a man dressed in military fatigues attacked a Jewish man outside a synagogue in Hamburg.

Haldenwang said Friday that attacks at synagogues were especially disturbing because of Germany’s dark past with National Socialism.

“Germany has a special responsibility for Jewish life,” he said, adding that Jews in Germany have reason to be worried about facing violence and hostility while in public.

The danger especially comes from radicalized “lone wolf” attacks, said Haldenwang.

“Security services must be especially vigilant with this,” said Haldenwang. “Above all, society must be made aware that we need to work together in fighting emerging anti-Semitism.”

https://www.dw.com

Michael Gryboski – July 9, 2020

An atheist group that calls itself The Satanic Temple has threatened to sue Mississippi if it decides to add the national motto “In God We Trust” to its flag.

Recently, Republican Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves signed a law to change the state flag in order to remove the Confederate battle flag, which has long been on the banner.

According to the approved legislation, known as House Bill 1796, the new design for the state flag cannot include the Confederate banner, but it will require “In God We Trust.”

The Randazza Legal Group, which is representing the Satanic Temple, sent a letter to Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, protesting the decision.

“… removing one divisive symbol of exclusion only to replace it with a divisive phrase of exclusion does not eliminate exclusion,” claimed the letter.

https://www.christianpost.com

Heather Clark – June 1, 2020

WASHINGTON — Numerous state attorneys general and 78 members of Congress have signed on to amicus briefs supporting a new rule issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that aims to protect the conscience rights of medical professionals who have objections to assisting with abortions or physician-assisted suicides.

HHS was sued last year by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led a coalition of nearly two dozen other states, as she asserted that the “Conscience Rights in Health Care” rule is discriminatory and “a gross misrepresentation of religious freedom.” The abortion giant Planned Parenthood and the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association sued to challenge the protections as well.

In November, a federal judge struck down the measure, opining that the rule is unnecessary and too rigidly places states at jeopardy of losing federal funding for non-compliance with the conscience protections.

“The Department’s regulations are a recent chapter in this country’s ‘long history of providing protections … on the basis of religious beliefs and moral convictions,’” wrote Ohio Attorney General David Yost in a recent amicus brief to defend the rules as the case now rests in the hands of a federal appeals court.

“That history actually begins with the states. By the time the federal Constitution was ratified, all but one of the original thirteen states already had constitutional protections for religious freedom,” he noted.

https://christiannews.net

Kaelan Deese – May 27, 2020

Germany’s interior secretary on Wednesday said anti-Semitic crimes in the country are increasing and reached their highest levels in 2019 since the country began recording them in 2001.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer called the rise in anti-Semitic crimes a “great concern,” according to a report by ABC.

Data collected by the government shows that politically-motivated crimes overall were up 14.2 percent last year compared to data from 2018, which is the second-highest level on record.

Crimes committed by the extreme left increased 23.7 percent to 9,849 cases, but the extreme right did the most politically motivated crimes, totaling 22,342 cases and an increase of 9.4 percent last year.

“The largest threat, as in the past, is the threat from the right,” Seehofer said. “Extreme-right politically motivated cases make up more than half of all of such recorded crimes — it is an order of magnitude that causes us concern, great concern.”

Anti-Semitic crimes were reportedly up 13 percent last year to 2,032 cases, with more than 93 percent of perpetrators associated with the far right. Crimes against Muslims rose 4.4 percent to 950 cases, and over 90 percent of those perpetrators also had extreme right ties.

Seehofer said far-right extremists left a “trail of blood” throughout Germany in more recent years, referencing the synagogue attack in Halle last year that resulted in two people killed in the street, along with a more recent attack in February which ended in nine people of foreign backgrounds killed in the Frankfurt suburb of Hanau.

https://thehill.com

Robert Spencer – May 02, 2020

The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue on Friday informed its “dear Muslim brothers and sisters” that the month of Ramadan is “a time for spiritual healing and growth, of sharing with the poor, of strengthening bonds with relatives and friends,” as well as an opportunity for “your Christian friends” to “further strengthen our relationships with you.

The message, which was published in Arabic, Italian, French, and English, added: “It is in this spirit that the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue offers its prayerful best wishes and hearty congratulations to you all.” And that’s wonderful, but just what was the Vatican congratulating?

Vatican officials are without any doubt unaware of the fact that because Ramadan is the month in which Muslims redouble their efforts to obey Allah, Ramadan is also quintessentially the month of jihad. Fighting and killing infidels is, after all, commanded in the Qur’an (cf. 2:191. 4:89, 9:5, 9:289, 47:4, etc.). A hadith has a Muslim asking Muhammad: “Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward).” Muhammad replied, “I do not find such a deed.” (Bukhari 4.52.44)

Thus killing infidels during Ramadan is, for the killers, a holy and sacred act. A jihadi group explained it back in 2012:

The month of Ramadan is a month of holy war and death for Allah. It is a month for fighting the enemies of Allah and God’s messenger, the Jews and their American facilitators.

https://pjmedia.com

Joseph Hippolito – May 1, 2020

As Christians worldwide celebrated their most significant holiday, their most recognizable figure delivered a distinctly secular message.

On Easter Sunday, the Vatican released a letter Pope Francis wrote to Catholic organizations in South America. Francis wrote that the coronavirus pandemic “might be a good time to consider a universal basic wage” that would enable the poor to enjoy “the benefits of globalism.”

Such a measure, Francis wrote, “would ensure and concretely achieve the ideal, at once so human and so Christian, of no worker without rights.”

Toward the end of his letter, Francis hoped the pandemic would generate “a humanist and ecological conversion that puts an end to the idolatry of money, and places human life and dignity at the center.”

Nowhere in his letter did Francis mention Jesus Christ.

The letter conclusively proves that Francis is transforming the Catholic Church into another non-governmental organization. In the process, he is destroying the church’s identity and credibility.

Francis’ activism reflects and culminates the Vatican’s embrace of humanist utopianism, which Front Page Magazine briefly addressed last year in “They Died For ‘Dialogue’?” That article traced the Holy See’s policy of appeasing Islam and China to the radical globalism adopted at the Second Vatican Council, which met from 1962 to 1965.

A pastoral document written on politics and economics during the council stated that “there must be made available to all men everything necessary for leading a life truly human, such as food, clothing, and shelter. … Hence, the social order and its development must invariably work to the benefit of the human person.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com

Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz – March 31, 2020

On Saturday night, Yonatan Dadon of Radio 2000, an Orthodox Hebrew language broadcaster, interviewed Rabbi Yaakov Zissholtz on his weekly Melaveh Malkah program.

In the Hebrew language video, Rabbi Zitsholtz gave the following disclaimer:

“I don’t promise anything and anything can change at any moment but I heard the following statements.”

Rabbi Zissholtz then explained several recent statements made by Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, one of the most prominent rabbis of this generation, concerning the Messiah.

“Rabbi kanievsky requested that his people prepare for him a glima (a ceremonial white robe). Since when does the Minister of Torah (Rabbi Kanievsky) wear such a thing? Some Jews wear a similar thing called a kittel for the Passover seder but you don’t order a kittel especially made. It can be bought anywhere for one hundred shekels. But an entire suit made of rich white material? In whose honor will Rabbi Kanievsky wear it?”

It is known that many Jewish sages throughout the ages have set aside special clothes to be worn only to greet the Messiah.

“I am not promising anything,” Rabbi Zissholtz said. “There are other tzaddikim (righteous men) who see it differently and are working to delay the Messiah in order to save more Jews.”

https://www.breakingisraelnews.com