Suspected child abusers in Orthodox Jewish circles shouldn’t have their names revealed because of the “tight-knit and insular” nature of the community, argues Brooklyn’s DA.
Charles Hynes said Orthodox communities are so familiar that identifying the suspects would likely identify the victims.
Oklahoma authorities are investigating whether the executive director of The Voice of the Martyrs, an international Christian ministry, killed himself amid allegations he’d molested a 10-year-old girl.
Jews in Hollywood are standing by Mel Gibson despite his past, ahem, issues with anti-Semitism and his current brouhaha with screenwriter Joe Eszterhas over their “Judah the Maccabee” project.
President Obama invoked the memory of the Holocaust to argue for confronting Syria and Iran.
A Danish fashion company has apologized for a T-shirt marketed at the popular retail store Urban Outfitters because it featured a six-pointed star that critics said evoked the Star of David that the Nazis forced Jews to wear.
A co-founder of the fashion company that produced the shirt, Brian SS Jensen – yes, CQ on that name – said “I am sorry if anyone was offended seeing the shirt, it was of course never our intention to hurt any feelings with this.”
Some Notre Dame faculty want Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky to “renounce loudly and publicly” his recent comparison of President Barack Obama with Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler or he should be expelled from the university’s Board of Fellows.
Jenky was spurred to the comparison by the Obama contraception mandate. Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami is also exercised by the issue, but shifts the analogy from genocide and gulags to the gallows of the French Revolution as the historical specter that looms over the Catholic Church today.
Several hundred people tried to push Gonzaga University to rescind its commencement speaker’s invitation to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, but 11,000 of Tutu’s supporters have pushed back and the anti-apartheid hero is still going to appear at the graduation at the Jesuit school in Spokane.
Liberty University is also standing by its decision to ask Mitt Romney to give its commencement address despite some protests about inviting a Mormon.
The largest Presbyterian church in Colorado voted overwhelmingly to leave the Presbyterian Church USA and join a new, more conservative denomination. The exodus was prompted by the PCUSA decision to allow gays and lesbians to be ordained.
The Israeli branch of Conservative Judaism announced that its rabbinical school will begin to accept gay and lesbian candidates for ordination.
Gay-rights advocates met with Mormon officials to ask for some policy changes in the LDS.
Is the “Stand Your Ground” law invoked in the Trayvon Martin killing a Christian law? Let the debate begin.
A piece of the Buddha’s skull – in photo above – goes on display in Hong Kong, the first time the relic has been shown outside mainland China. A sign?
— David Gibson
Photo credit: CNN’s Belief Blog
