ThursdayâÂ?Â?s Religion News Roundup

Coaching legend Joe Paterno is out at Penn State over the child sex abuse scandal (oh, the university president is gone, too). Comparisons to the Catholic Church continue to work as the dominant explanation for how this could happen. But Catholic parishioners tended not to riot in protest when, say, Cardinal Law is run out […]

Coaching legend Joe Paterno is out at Penn State over the child sex abuse scandal (oh, the university president is gone, too).

Comparisons to the Catholic Church continue to work as the dominant explanation for how this could happen.

But Catholic parishioners tended not to riot in protest when, say, Cardinal Law is run out of Boston. PSU students, on the other hand, are not happy about Paterno’s ouster.


Southern Baptist macher Albert Mohler says all Christians must learn from Paterno’s fall: “A clear lesson of the Penn State scandal is this: Internal reporting is simply not enough.

Baptists need to remember that the Civil War really was about slavery, says author Bruce Gourley, executive director of the Baptist History and Heritage Society, and that Baptist preaching had a role in promoting the peculiar institution.

Beleaguered Republican candidate Herman Cain and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus shared Isaiah 54:17 before last night’s GOP debate:

“No weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall confute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me, declares the Lord,” reads the verse.

It may have worked, as Cain’s competitors were easier on him over sexual harassment allegations than the media has been.

Not sure what bible passage might have helped absent-minded Rick Perry, who sounded more like Britney Spears than a would-be president.

I always thought God and golf went together like faith and football, but members of a Virginia church are tired of getting pelted by golf balls from a neighboring golf course. “Our staff lives with the fear of being hit by a golf ball any time and that just doesn’t seem right to me,” said elder Robert Mackey. Sounds biblical.


The so-called “Christmas tree tax” that really wasn’t a Christmas tree tax is even more nonexistent after the USDA yanked approval for the industry-promoted fee in the wake of conservative blowback.

Pelagius: still a heretic. The Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta defeats a resolution that would have authorized a possible rehabilitation of the fifth-century Christian writer. Maybe the Episcopal Church can save itself.

Pope Benedict XVI may visit Cuba next spring, though a condition known as “arthrosis” in his joints is reportedly what has him using a mobile platform to get around Vatican events.

A Melkite Catholic bishop in the U.S. has had it with the priest shortage and plans to ordain married men.

The Vatican’s newspaper says comic character Tintin (that’s him above), star of the eponymous Spielberg movie out next month, is a Catholic hero, “a knight without a stain.”

And in The Tablet, Robert Zaretsky explores how Albert Camus was a Jew, kind of.


Palestinians are conceding defeat on their bid for statehood recognition from the United Nations.

Finally, Bil Keane, creator of the beloved “Family Circus” cartoon, which was held up as an example of how strong values and good humor could reinforce each other, dies at 89. Keane, a Catholic, drew on his Christian upbringing when he used religious quips in his panels.

“When I first ran [religious references] back in the ’60s, I got letters from the Bible Belt, saying I was being sacrilegious. Now they thank me,” he said a decade ago.

— David Gibson

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