Friday’s Religion News Roundup

News flash: Pope Benedict XVI is old. And like many other old people, his joints get sore and tired (which is why he uses a mobile platform, left, at St. Peter’s). Doctors call it “arthrosis,” and it’s pretty common for an 84-year-old, but that didn’t stop the British tabs from speculating that it could cause […]

News flash: Pope Benedict XVI is old. And like many other old people, his joints get sore and tired (which is why he uses a mobile platform, left, at St. Peter’s). Doctors call it “arthrosis,” and it’s pretty common for an 84-year-old, but that didn’t stop the British tabs from speculating that it could cause him to resign the papacy.

Apparently it’s not so bad, b/c B16 is hoping to visit Cuba and Mexico next spring.

Lots of chatter this morning about the parallels between the Penn State sex scandal and the Catholic Church sex scandal. U.S. Catholic thinks it’s the bishops who could learn a thing or two from Penn State’s swift action. Our own David Gibson says the analogy works — until it doesn’t. Catholic author Colleen Carroll Campbell says the analogy doesn’t work.


A jury in Miami awarded a (largely symbolic) $100 million verdict against a retired Catholic priest accused of abuse, hoping the verdict sends a “message that we hope will help protect other children.”

Fiery evangelist Lou Engle is in Detroit tonight for a prayerathon against the ills of America, including the “rising tide of the Islamic movement” in nearby Muslim-heavy Dearborn. Black seminaries, meanwhile, are embracing hip-hop.

Evangelical activist Rich Cizik, meanwhile, takes conservative Christians to task for siding with the Tea Party’s every-man-for-himself mantra, saying it may be good politics but it’s “bad theology.”

U.S. Catholic bishops will largely sidestep the abuse scandal at their meeting next week in Baltimore and instead focus on growing threats to “religious freedom.” The AP says pockets of Arab-American Christians are reviving an ancient faith in the U.S.

The Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee voted to kill the Defense of Marriage Act (which defines marriage between a man and woman for federal purposes) but the bill has practically zero chance in either the House or Senate.

New twist on the years-old debate on religious displays in courthouses: A Tennessee man reached an agreement that allows him to hang a poster (alongside the 10 Commandments) that promotes the separation of church and state.


Meanwhile, over in North Carolina, the state Supreme Court says campus police have the right to enforce the law on church-affiliated colleges. I’m not totally sure why there was ever much of a disagreement over this one, but there you go.

The Vatican’s supreme court upheld the closure of three parishes in western Massachusetts.

The prime minister of Tibet’s government-in-exile said it’s not his job to encourage a recent spree of self-immolations, but rather to stand in solidarity with the nuns and monks who have set themselves on fire.

In Malaysia, two states are set to change their Islamic laws to increase the punishment for being gay. In Afghanistan, a mother and daughter were stoned to death for alleged “immoral activities.”

— Kevin Eckstrom

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