As heads of state meet at the UN in New York, 30 U.S. religious leaders said the “window is rapidly closing” on a Mideast peace plan. Catholic Bishop of Memphis Terry Steib, who is black, says racism played a part in the furor over President Obama’s speech at Notre Dame, and Archbishop Raymond Burke said politicians who support abortion rights should not be given Catholic funerals.
A former accountant for the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland was sentenced to a year in jail and a former stripper says a Miami Catholic priest fathered her baby. A property battle over an Episcopal church in Colorado has cost both sides almost $4 million. As Yom Kippur approaches, New York officials have charged Orthodox Jews who brought 11,000 chickens to a former drive-in movie theater with sanitary code violations.
A Swedish TV program to be aired today claims that Vatican officials knew that British SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson was a Holocaust-denier before his excommunication was lifted, and Holocaust survivors are being reuninted in New York with Army veterans who rescued them. Saudi Arabia has defied conservative clerics by creating a new co-ed university and Iranian police are warning shop owners not to display sexy mannequins. Hindu villagers are po’d that their ahsram is closed while Julia Roberts films “Eat Pray Love” there and a Memphis mayor greeted the Dalai Lama by calling out “Hello Dalai!” I bet he never gets tired of that.
Today is the 20th annual “See You at the Pole” day, so I’ll see you … or, maybe I won’t.
