Americans may not agree on whether Osama bin Laden should have been buried at the bottom of the deep blue sea, but two-thirds concur about his final destination: hell.
A new poll conducted by PRRI and RNS reports that 82 percent of Americans believe OBL distorted the teachings of Islam, and 65 percent say he will be “eternally punished for his sins in hell.”
The AP reports that famed evangelist Billy Graham is in stable condition after being admitted to a hospital for the treatment of pneumonia.
In what has become a near-annual ritual, the commencement address at a Catholic university has become embroiled in politics. This time, it’s the Catholic University, where profs have written to House Speaker John Boehner, a Catholic, calling his record “among the worst in Congress” on addressing the needs of the poor. Catholics on the other end of the political spectrum responded with their own letter.
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) introduced legislation to amend the International Religious Freedom Act, making international religious freedom a greater priority at the State Department. (Look for link later.)
A German scholar has lost his license to practice theology (yes, Virginia, there is such a thing) for calling the Catholic Church “hypocritical and bigoted” towards gays. Delaware’s governor signed a civil unions bill into law. Even after their win in the PCUSA, the gay clergy movement is about to run into a brick wall.
Egypt says it is moving to reopen churches closed under ousted President Hosni Mubarak in a bid to ease interfaith tensions.
Two Tibetan monks from a restive monastery have been sentenced to three years in prison, and about 300 monks taken away in April from the same monastery are still in detention, according to the NYT. The Dalai Lama donated an early draft of what became the 1963 Tibetan Constitution to the George W. Bush Institute at SMU.
The mother of a Chicago boy abused by a Roman Catholic priest sued the Vatican for its alleged role in covering up clergy sex abuse.
WaPo blogger Eboo Patel says Newt Gingrich is “playing the politics of religion” (ie, Catholicism = good. Islam = bad). The New Republic says Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman are two very different kind of Mormons. Mitt’s a little bit country and Jon’s a little bit, um, prog rock. Cue Donnie and Marie.
Tennessee school officials have agreed to ban the Gideons from distributing Bibles in school classrooms. That lovable scamp Bart Simpson could not convince Illinois lawmakers to endorse a Scientology-based curriculum for public schools. The resolution was introduced by one Rep. Dan Burke (D-Chicago), who frequently appears uninvited in my Google alerts.
I hope I’m still joking around like Bel Kaufman when I’m 100. The secret of Jewish humor, one old grey lady told another, is self-deprecation. “The jokes were a defense mechanism: ‘We’re going to talk about ourselves in a more damaging way than you could,'” Kaufman said.
Amen to that.
Yr hmbl aggregator,
(The real) Daniel Burke
