A Catholic cardinal in Puerto Rico is asking singer Ricky Martin to be less gay. Actor Martin Sheen says he opposes abortion because his wife was conceived through rape and could easily have been aborted.
A Florida man claims he was groped by a nun when he was a first grader. More than 800 abuse complaints have been filed in Austria in the last year, a commission reports. JP2’s critics are re-emerging ahead of his planned May 1 beatification.
In News We Always Suspected, 98 percent of Catholic women say they’ve used birth control that is verboten by the church. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University apparently didn’t want its students to know the school receives more federal aid than NPR.
Jim Wallis & Co. say the budget deal brokered by the White House and Capitol Hill isn’t good enough, and vow to keep fasting for the poor until Easter. The folks over at NCR want to know why POTUS isn’t standing up for his old campaign buddy Doug Kmiec, who’s been “muzzled” by the State Department.
Jurors in Springfield, Mass., appear deadlocked on two of the three counts against a white man charged with torching a black church the night of President Obama’s election.
What does the Bible really mean when it says Jesus rose on the third day? Our own Dan Burke probes the chronology conundrum. And what does it look like when an interfaith Easter service features an Easter egg hunt and a sermon by a rabbi?
A Kentucky judge said an anti-porn group can’t sponsor a special “In God We Trust” license plate to fund its activities, but the plates will be available anyway in 2012. Meanwhile, in Louisville, a former church bookkeeper alleges she was fired after blowing the whistle on a priest accused of abuse.
A group of Native Americans (Native Canadians?) in Quebec has dismantled a sweat lodge because they say it’s not in harmony with the group’s Christian beliefs. A Christian activist wants a national holiday for Good Friday.
Our own Cathleen Falsani gave two enthusiastic thumbs up to the new “Soul Surfer” film, but Salon, not so much. The Good Book has apparently bumped The Bieb out of first place on Facebook.
Ireland’s Catholic bishops said if kids should have to suffer through weekend CCD classes, so should their parents. Researchers in the U.K. say longer life expectancies seem to make people think there’s less need for church.
