Making Atheists * Halloween Wars * Good Mourning: Wednesday’s Roundup

Can you dress as a "Mermonk" for Halloween? Can you even celebrate it? Pope Francis: bad Christians create good atheists. What an 'American Jihad' looks like ...

Hi resolution version of RNS-INAUGURAL-MASS031913f.jpgSuperstorm Sandy made landfall in the U.S. on this date in 2012, and it was “Black Tuesday” on Wall Street on this date in 1929.

That heralded the start of the Great Depression.

So keep your sunny side up, folks, history is there to make us feel better about today.


Pope Francis on how to make atheists

At today’s general audience in St. Peter’s Square, the pontiff spoke about the church:

“How often have we heard, in our neighborhoods: ‘That person there is always in Church but gossips about everyone, denigrates others – what a bad example! This is not Christian! This is a bad example.’ So people say: ‘If this is a Christian, I prefer to be an atheist!’ Because people go by our witness.”

Francis also prayed for Ebola victims and sent special greeting “to the doctors, nurses, volunteers, religious institutes and associations, who are working heroically to help our brothers and sisters who are sick.”

Meanwhile, Chris Christie and nurse Kaci Hickox

Elton John says Pope Francis is a hero

At his annual AIDS benefit in New York, the singer praised the pontiff for his compassion and push to accept gays in the Catholic church:

“Make this man a saint now, OK?”

Of course, he can’t be a saint until he’s dead, so maybe we hold off a bit, okay Sir Elton?

Pope still getting props for saying science is real

As MSNBC noted, “Pope Francis made a significant rhetorical break with Catholic tradition Monday by declaring that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real … ”

Oh, wait. The Catholic Church has been saying that for decades…?

I’m with this guy:

https://twitter.com/timothypmurphy/status/527217296105029635

Then again, maybe it needs to be said once in a while …

Apparently this needs to be said, too

A “War on Halloween”?

Mark Silk looks at one Connecticut town’s move to a “harvest-themed” celebration. Was it the costumes? The candy? The religious roots that no one actually remembers anymore? I say, just celebrate All Soul’s Day instead and everybody would be happy. Right?

Maybe not: the Lutheran Satirists get to the heart of the matter

H/T to ChurchPop

This needs to be said, too

Try dressing up like this and cover all your bases:

https://twitter.com/kayaoakes/status/527143945789112320

Speaking of the dead …

Hillary Kelly at the New Republic speaks well of a new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on mourning clothes. The show is called “Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire.”


“Exacting codes defined which fabrics and colors were acceptable at particular stages of grief: For the first months after a death, only ‘lusterless’ black dresses were acceptable. As time passed—and for a widow one expected to wear mourning clothes for a full two years—the strictures slowly loosened, and the severity of the attire decreased.”

I like the idea of commemorating the dead more openly than we do these days. But I live in Brooklyn where the Hasids and Hipsters wear black anyway, so how would you stand out?

An “American Jihad”?

It’s not what you think. At Fox News, Dr. Keith Ablow sketches out the stars-and-stripes version:

“The Constitution, along with the miracle of our nation’s founding and the providential history of America fighting and winning war after war against oppressive regimes, proves our manifest destiny not only to preserve our borders and safety and national character at home, but to spread around the world our love of individual freedom and insist on its reflection in every government.”

Souls to the Polls

Could black churches and their Sunday Services early voting efforts be the difference come Election Day? The NYT’s Upshot has a look.

“A good portion of these voters would have probably cast ballots anyway. But given the margins that Democrats run up on Sundays, it is not hard to see why so many Republican election officials have sought to restrict early voting on Sundays.”


You mean it’s not just keeping the sabbath holy?

New boost for abstinence education

True Love Waits, and endures. And it is cold-blooded. Via Live Science:

“Reptiles That Wait for Sex Live Longer”

Reptiles that have sex early and frequently in life and feast on meat, tend to “live fast, die young,” as the rock-and-roll saying goes, according to a new study.

Anyone want to start a Vegan Virgins Club?

The Best of the Rest from RNS:

If you were Brittany Maynard, what would you do?

David Gibson

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