As stories of Mitt Romney's Mormonism get daily play in the press, the LDS Church is seeking to strike a balance between educating the public about their faith and keeping away from partisan politics, the Salt Lake Trib reports.
The U.S. Catholic Bishops are gearing up for their “Fortnight of Freedom,” June 21- July 4, which will include everything from Masses to Twitter campaigns to Catholic trivia nights. It will be really interesting to see how rank-and-file Catholics respond.
This may be an early indication: Hundreds of conservatives gathered on Capitol Hill and at “religious freedom” rallies across the nation on Friday to protest the HHS contraception mandate, and President Obama's healthcare overhaul in general.
A DC lawyer and foreign policy expert is suing the International Commission on Religious Freedom, saying it rescinded a job offer because she is Muslim. Hiring Safiya Ghori-Ahmad to analyze religious freedom in Pakistan would be like “hiring an IRA activist to research the UK twenty years ago,” wrote longtime commissioner Nina Shea, according to the suit.
Pastor Creflo Dollar told his flock on Sunday that he did not choke or punch his 15-year-old daughter, as she alleges in a police report. Dollar later joked that his arrest places him in an august Christian tradition of martyrs. “Paul … Jesus … and Creflo,” he said.
Defiance was the dominant meme at the Catholic Theological Society of America's annual meeting in St. Louis, reports Tim Townsend. Sister Margaret Farley, whose book “Just Love” was denounced by the Vatican last week, said: “The judgment was that the book was not consistent with valid expressions of Catholic theology, which implies that anything I write ought to be about that.”
An international “Eucharistic Conference” opened Sunday in Ireland amid simmering anger over child abuse cover-ups and declining faith in core church beliefs, the AP reports.
The Secret Service is investigating Pastor Terry Jones (yep, the guy who burns Qurans) for hanging an Obama effigy on his front lawn in protest of the president's support for same-sex marriage.
Buddhist-Muslim violence has left seven dead in Myanmar, the AP reports.
A suicide car bomber and gunmen separately attacked churches in Nigeria, killing at least six people and wounding dozens of others in the latest attacks targeting Christian worshippers.
Mali may become the newest sanctuary for Muslim extremists, the WaPo reports.
An ultra-Orthodox Jewish girl who says that her spiritual advisor abused her has been ostracized and spat upon by members of her Brooklyn community for going to the police, the AP reports.
Rabbi Rick Jacobs was installed Saturday as president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest movement of Jews in North America.
Shorter University, a Baptist school in Georgia, fired its librarian for refusing to sign a statement disavowing homosexuality.
The Diocese of Orange, Calif. announced that it will rename the Crystal Cathedral … Christ Cathedral. At least they'll save money on the monogrammed bath towels.
Anyone watch “True Blood” last night? Apparently creator Alan Ball was not happy with the GOP primary and wants to take it out on Sookie Stackhouse.
“Some of the things being said by some people during the Republican primary were so horrifying to me that I thought, 'What if vampires wanted a theocracy? What would that look like?'” Ball said.
And here I thought vampires were atheists.
Yr hmbl aggrgtr,
Daniel Burke
Painting of “The Arrest of St Peter and St Paul,” by Hans Suess Kulmbach, courtesy of Artchive.
