Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly – December 9, 2016, 2016

Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly is a production of THIRTEEN Productions LLC for WNET. Visit www.pbs.org/religionandethics for additional information. Show #2015, will be fed over PBS at 5:00 p.m. EST on December 9, 2016 (check local listings).

Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly is a production of THIRTEEN Productions LLC for WNET. Visit www.pbs.org/religionandethics for additional information. Show #2015, will be fed over PBS at 5:00 p.m. EST on December 9, 2016 (check local listings).

Restoring the Buffaloes – A hundred years ago, the U.S. government oversaw the slaughter of millions of buffaloes in its effort to settle the mountain West. That meant separating Indian tribes from their historic dependence on buffaloes (bison) for food, shelter, and also spirituality.  Indians see buffaloes and all living things as sacred. Now, in cooperation with Canada, the U.S. government has returned their buffaloes to the Blackfoot tribes, which are celebrating their long-denied sense of feeling whole again.  Lucky Severson reports from Northern Montana.

Profile Larry Brilliant – Dr. Larry Brilliant first achieved notice as a young hippie doctor in San Francisco in 1969.  As Fred de Sam Lazaro reports, Brilliant became a disciple of an Indian guru, and worked on helping to eliminate smallpox which at the time was still killing millions of people every year. It became the first disease ever eradicated from the planet. Today Brilliant, who embraces the ethical wisdom of many faiths, works to combat other scourges like Ebola.


Ministering to Bethlehem’s Poor and Sick – In the midst of all the tensions of Bethlehem, the Catholic Order of Malta oversees the Holy Family Hospital, just up the hill from the Church of the Nativity.  The staff is primarily Christian and Muslim, but the hospital serves everyone, especially mothers, their newborn babies, and all children who need special care. “Our philosophy,” said one of the leading doctors, “is that poor people deserve the best.”  The Order of Malta has been caring for many of the Middle East’s poor and sick for more than 900 years.

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