Monthly Archives: July 2009
Why the Catholic/same-sex marriage correlation?
By Mark Silk — July 29, 2009
USA Today‘s Cathy Grossman at Faith & Reason and the Boston Globe‘s Michael Paulson at Articles of Faith have been pondering my little correlation between the proportion of Catholics in a state and the state’s support for same-sex marriage, so let me offer a possible explanation. It’s fair to point out (as Michael does) that […]
Stepping out on faith
By Adelle M. Banks — July 29, 2009
Six friars on their way to a lifelong commitment to God decided to walk 300 miles to show their divine dependence in a unique way, The Washington Post reports. Traveling on foot along highways and byways in Virginia and ending at a D.C. monastery, the pilgrims met everyone from lonely commuters to the Chik-Fil-A cow. […]
Volunteering and religion
By Mark Silk — July 29, 2009
Yesterday’s annual report on volunteering in America was promoted by the White House (press release after jump) to highlight the unsurprising fact that a lot of volunteerism is connected to religious institutions–one-third, to be precise. But the relationship between religion and volunteerism is not simple, as the report’s rankings demonstrate. The high rankings in Utah […]
Catholics heart same-sex marriage
By Mark Silk — July 29, 2009
A new study by Columbia political scientists Jeffrey Lax and Justin Phillips (h/t Robbie Jones), forthcoming in the American Political Science Review , ranks states according to public support for same-sex marriage and civil unions. Putting the rankings together with the 2008 Trinity ARIS survey reveals that six of the eight states where 50 percent […]
Georgia to allow headscarves in courtrooms
By Tracy Gordon — July 29, 2009
(RNS) Georgia court officials unanimously voted on Monday (July 27) to allow individuals to wear religious head coverings in state courtrooms. The Georgia Judicial Council adopted the policy after a Muslim woman was arrested last year for refusing to remove her headscarf in a courthouse in Douglasville, Ga. “We felt that it was necessary for […]
Etiquette for the host
By RNS Blog Editor — July 29, 2009
A Canadian newspaper has retracted its story that the prime minister pocketed a communion wafer during the funeral mass of a state official. The Saint John Telegraph-Journal issued a front-page apology for causing Wafergate, which broke as Prime Minister Stephen Harper was at the G8 summit and getting ready to meet–who else–the Pope.
Even MORE shirtless missionaries
By RNS Blog Editor — July 29, 2009
Q: Who doesn’t want to see scantily-clad Mormon missionaries? A: YouTube, apparently, which flagged the video above for content violations. Chad Hardy, creator of the calendar series “Men on a Mission,” has not backed down from the LDS church (which excommunicated him for his calendar work), and he’s certainly not going to let a little […]
Boston raises priests’ retirement age to stem shortage
By Tracy Gordon — July 28, 2009
(RNS) Priests in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston will need to wait an extra five years for retirement under new rules aimed at addressing a persistent clergy shortage. Rules taking effect Aug. 1 raise the retirement age for Boston-area priests from 70 to 75. They do not affect priests who are already retired, and […]
Pope defrocks leader of Medjugorje shrine
By Tracy Gordon — July 28, 2009
(RNS) Pope Benedict XVI has defrocked one of the promoters of a world-famous Bosnian shrine to the Virgin Mary, following his investigation on charges of heresy and sexual misdeeds. The Rev. Tomislav Vlasic, an adviser to supposed visionaries at the shrine of Medjugorje, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, has been “granted … the favor of reduction to the […]
Fiji bans massive Methodist hymn-sing
By Tracy Gordon — July 28, 2009
(RNS/ENI) Fiji’s military government has banned a massive annual hymn-singing contest and church conference out of fears that the crowd of some 10,000 singing Methodists could destabilize the strife-torn nation. The government of interim Prime Minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama has said the island nation’s Methodist Church will not be allowed to hold its annual conference, […]
Episcopalians reject bishop who embraced Zen Buddhism
By Tracy Gordon — July 28, 2009
(UNDATED) An Episcopal priest who has practiced Zen meditation and espoused unconventional ideas about Christianity has lost his bid to become a bishop in Michigan, the church announced Monday (July 27). The Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester, who was elected in February to lead the sparsely populated Diocese of Northern Michigan, failed to gain “consent,” or […]
The gospel according to Gekko
By Francis X. Rocca — July 28, 2009
Who says the Holy See isn’t hip to pop culture? It just takes them a couple of decades to catch up. In a speech to the Italian Senate today, the Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone invoked Oliver Stone’s Wall Street — specifically, Gordon Gekko’s “greed is good” speech — as part of his […]
Questions about faith-healing persist despite not-guilty verdicts
By Tracy Gordon — July 28, 2009
OREGON CITY, Ore. — For more than half a century, children in the Followers of Christ church have died for lack of medical care, a pattern lawmakers and prosecutors have worked over the past decade to change. But as the case of two parents who were found not guilty last Thursday (July 23) illustrates, it […]
COMMENTARY: Hurts, habits and hang-ups
By Tom Ehrich — July 28, 2009
RICHMOND, Va. — In the multipurpose room where Bon Air Baptist Church holds its contemporary service on Sunday morning, a guitarist played Christian music as people gathered for NorthStar Community’s Saturday evening recovery service. A veteran of the 10-year-old ministry stood at a microphone, gave a brief witness about his own recovery from addiction, and […]
Forget it, Jake. It’s New Jersey
By Mark Silk — July 28, 2009
On first blush, last week’s round-up of New Jersey rabbis and pols looks like good old corruption-as-usual in the state where I grew up. That is, the Garden State cleaves to the ancient (back to the 17th century) Middle Atlantic tradition of community-by-ethno-religious group (see One Nation Divisible, chapter 2)–and, repeatedly, news reports have highlighted […]
