For anyone still unsure of whether OBL is really really dead, al-Qaida has now confirmed it: “We stress that the blood of the holy warrior sheik, Osama bin Laden, God bless him, is precious to us and to all Muslims and will no go in vain. We will remain, God willing, a curse chasing the Americans and their agents, following them outside and inside their countries.”
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams says he’s got an “uncomfortable feeling” about the way Navy SEALs took down OBL, while four out of 10 New Yorkers feel the opposite. A former Catholic priest in the U.K. explains his conversion to Islam.
The Roman Catholic bishop of Allentown, Pa., says he won’t challenge a Vatican order to keep shuttered parishes open, but also says he’s under no obligation to reopen them. The California Supreme Court has sent the never-ending case of a breakaway Episcopal parish in Newport Beach back for another hearing.
A Muslim man in Georgia says he was thrice denied entry into a courtroom because of his head-covering; state judges decided two years ago to allow religious garb in courthouses.
An Indiana prosecutor has dropped trespassing charges against 94 protesters accused of interrupting President Obama‘s controversial 2009 commencement address at the University of Notre Dame. After a friendly competition of sorts, Detroit now has a patron saint: St. Anne, Jesus’ grandmother; she’s gonna be busy.
Ex-gay champion Alan Chambers says Toy Story‘s Woody should not have been used in a Google ad that featured the pro-gay “It Gets Better” campaign. In case you missed it, NYT legal correspondent Adam Liptak predicts same-sex couples will have full marriage rights by 2016. Brazil’s highest court OK’d civil unions, but stopped short of gay marriage.
BU’s Stephen Prothero finds it ironic that in a nation where only 2 percent of the population is Jewish, “for babies born in the U.S. in 2010, it still looks very much like a Jewish nation, at least in our pediatric wards.” Sarah Pulliam Bailey further teases the findings over at USA Today.
Bishop T.D. Jakes says his new movie, Jumping the Broom, reflects a desire for churches to talk honestly about sex, love and marriage. The LAT says the film is a reminder to Hollywood that black-themed films can be positive, uplifting and, well, lucrative.
In an apparent backtrack, Israel’s chief rabbis say they will now recognize all conversions to Judaism, not just Orthodox ones. A project in Amsterdam is asking residents to put up posters in houses or apartments that once held Jews who were later sent to Nazi death camps. A lawyer for former concentration camp guard John Demjanjuk says his client suffered just as much as Jews did.
Moscow’s mayor said the city is on track to build an additional 200 Orthodox churches.
Increasing numbers of Japanese are opting for public divorce ceremonies, the U.K.’s Guardian says, with this prize-worthy headline: “‘With this mallet, I thee divorce’: Japanese make a spectacle of splitting” (Reuters photo above).
