In Thursday’s RNS report we offer a news analysis on politicians and “judgment talk.” G. Jeffrey MacDonald says that these days public figures are criticized when they invoke an angry god: As Campaign 2006 heats up, politicians are leveraging the power of religious rhetoric while adhering to what’s become the cardinal rule for public religious speech in the 21st century: Never say God gets angry. Political figures on the left and right alike haven’t been shy this year about invoking a Judeo-Christian deity, yet they have apparently learned to leave prevalent biblical ideas about divine punishment inside the church or temple. The reason, according to journalism scholars, is simple: Journalists who used to ignore such remarks from public figures now deem them worthy of national coverage-and consequentially public shaming.

Stacy Meichtry reports from Rome on the pope’s upcoming seminar on evolution: Pope Benedict XVI will conduct a weekend seminar in early September examining Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and its impact on Roman Catholicism’s teaching of Creation. The seminar, titled “Creation and Evolution,” is sure to attract the attention of proponents of so-called intelligent design and Vatican scientists who do not consider it valid science. The seminar is the latest edition of the annual “Shulerkreis,” or “student circle,” a meeting Benedict has held with his former Ph.D. students ever since his days as a theology professor in Germany in the 1970s.