Thursday’s roundup

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom named 13 countries – including Saudi Arabia and China – as serious violators of religious freedom. The congressionally mandated panel also included as “countries of particular concern”: Myanmar, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam. President Obama is among the hundreds of mourners […]

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom named 13 countries – including Saudi Arabia and China – as serious violators of religious freedom. The congressionally mandated panel also included as “countries of particular concern”: Myanmar, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.

President Obama is among the hundreds of mourners at Washington National Cathedral for the memorial service of Dorothy Height, a matriarch of the civil rights movement. Obama is scheduled to deliver the eulogy.

Forty retired military chaplains sent a letter to Obama asking him not to repeal Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell.


Reaction to the Supreme Court’s Mojave cross/war memorial continues to pour in, with some incredulity about Justice Kennedy’s assertion (stated earlier by Justice Scalia during oral arguments) that a “Latin cross is not merely a reaffirmation of Christian beliefs.” Though evangelicals are generally pleased with the result of the SCOTUS decision – more piety on public land – they are not necessarily happy about its reasoning. One scholar, speaking to Christianity Today, called it a “detriment.” because “they’ve taken a symbol of the church and turned it into a civil religion.”

The Vatican has (finally) approved a new translation of the Mass, which should be headed to pews on these shores any decade now. Actually, pencil in Advent 2011 for its roll out, says a key cardinal behind the translation.

The Catholic sex abuse crisis in Latin America continues to spread, as a Brazilian priest has been charged with abusing eight boys since 1995. In happier news, Catholic schools in Massachusetts are taking in Haitian refugees.

The AP says three clergymen are in the running to be the Southern Baptist Convention’s next president. The election will be in June. The president of Liberty University’s seminary is under fire for allegedly falsifying details about his Muslim past that made him seem more devout and militant than he was. Martin Marty, the redoubtable religion scholar, says “it’s not honest” to assert that the Founding Fathers set out to establish a Christian nation.

Mormon temples are going green. A Pennsylvania judge must decide between a family’s request to disinter a relative and Jewish law that prohibits exhumation.

Westboro Baptist Church, the Kansan funeral protesters, is appealing a ruling that upheld Nebraska’s law against flag mutilation. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has reversed a policy that banned state troopers from uttering sectarian prayers on the job. A motorist in the Old Dominion says the numbers on his license plate refer to his favorite Nascar drivers, not neo-Nazi propaganda (photo at top left courtesy of CAIR.)


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