While President Obama stumps for health care reform, he got a boost from the Catholic Health Association, which said that his bill, while imperfect, is a “major first step” toward covering all Americans. The Catholic bishops, on the other hand, sent a bulletin to 18,000 parishes urging opposition to the Senate bill.

Catholics and black Protestants tend to be more politically active than liberal or conservative white Protestants, says a Duke University professor. Pastor Joel Hunter says he is going through the Gospel of Mark with Obama. Catholic Charities of Washington has started requiring new employees to promise not to “violate the principles or tenets” of the church. World Relief, which receives 70 percent of its funds from the government, refused to hire a Muslim because he is not Christian, according to the Seattle Times.

Protestors in Boston called for a government investigation of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, saying the church cannot be trusted to investigate itself. Federal officials busted a second suburban American woman in a plot to kill a Swedish artist who drew Prophet Muhammad as a dog. Jamie Paulin-Ramirez appears to be another instance of radicalization by Internet.

A Michigan Catholic priest says he regrets calling Muslims “dogs.” A Florida woman died while praying and fasting. The human brain is not capable of knowing whether God exists, says a famous neuroscientist, and religious thoughts are no different from thoughts about a banana, says another brainy guy. Christian leaders in California are discussing “Theology after Google.”

A board in Texas voted to seed the social science curriculum with conservative ideas, including the notion that St. Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin had more influence in 18th and 19th democratic revolutions than Thomas Jefferson. Old gay people are shuffling out of the closet.

The Vatican defended Pope Benedict XVI against allegations that he allowed a sexual predator to abuse children, denied that mandatory celibacy is to blame and acknowledged that 3,000 cases of suspected abuse have been lodged in the last decade and 20 percent brought to trial in Vatican courts. Eighty percent of the cases where from the U.S. I suspect that figure will change before too long, as the scandal spreads through Europe. Irish bookmaker Paddy Power cut the odds on Benedict resigning to 3 to 1 (had been 12 to 1) following a “cascade of bets.”

A small group of Europeans seems bent on provoking Muslims. Egypt canceled the inauguration of a restored synagogue to protest Israel’s treatment of Muslims. The Russian Orthodox Church refuses to acknowledge where the Romanovs’ remains are buried.