Monday, February 08, 2010
Monday’s roundup
As houses of worship throughout the Mid-Atlantic region were closed yesterday because of the nearly three feet of snow dumped on us over the weekend, about 100 people joined an unusual telephone worship service organized by an AME pastor in Washington.
The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops denounced a Maryland-based Catholic group that works for gay rights, saying it "has no approval or recognition from the Catholic Church and ... cannot speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful in the United States." The group's leader said he was "astonished" at the statement, since the USCCB never contacted them.
Three top Southern Baptist leaders, including a member of President Obama's faith advisory council, sent the White House a letter asking for help in getting the 10 American missionaries released from Haiti. Meanwhile, the NYT reports that the leader of the group, which has been charged with kidnapping, has a "complicated financial history." Speaking of complicated, the Times' Jerusalem bureau chief's son is serving in the Israeli Army. They won't resassign the journalist, though, says editor-in-chief Keller.
A Muslim group filed a civil rights complaint against a California mayor who said he was "growing a Christian community," in a state-of-the-city address last week. A Korean-American missionary has been freed and returned home after 43 days in the totalitarian state.
The Church of England's synod is meeting this week and is expected to take up the complicated issue of whether and how women can become bishops. Pope Benedict XVI deplored that the Catholic Church, has, at times, violated the rights of minors. China said it is resolutely opposed to Obama meeting with the Dalai Lama.
British officials have started an investigation after Cherie Blair, the former PM's wife and a part-time judge, said she gave a lenient sentence to a man because he is a religious person. Hindus in Singapore are piercing their body for a diety (image at top left). A Nigerian Christian group says 20 of its members were killed in last month's violent clashes with Muslims.
Posted by Daniel Burke at 10:21 am
Friday, February 05, 2010
Friday’s roundup
President Obama has kept Bush-era protections for religious charities that receive federal funds and want to hire only their own kind -- despite his own objections to the practice --in order to woo conservatives, according to the Wall Street Journal. The article, the second this week to criticize the White House's faith-based office after the WaPo took a shot on Tuesday, reports that the president's advisory council voted to allow religous charities that receive government money to display religious symbols in rooms where clients receive aid.
Church-state separationist Rev. Barry Lynn argues in an op-ed that allowing groups like Catholic Charities and World Vision, which both have members on the advisory council and receive millions of dollars in government grants, to vote on recommending policies that could benefit themselves is a conflict of interest.
The lawyer for the 10 Baptist missionaries charged with child kidnapping in Haiti told a judge that they should be allowed to return to the U.S. pending the outcome of their case. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson met yesterday and talked about the internal challenges both face in trying to hold together churches fractured by disagreements over homosexuality.
In shades of the Jack Abramoff scandal that sank Ralph Reed, the Alabama Christian Coalition has received thousands of dollars from the gambling industry while holding press conferences to denounce government efforts to shut down casinos. Former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor says he gave televangelist Pat Robertson a gold mining concession in 1999 and Robertson later offered to lobby the Bush administration on his behalf. A Robertson spokesman said there was no quid pro quo.
Arsonists have burned eight Texas churches since Jan. 1, putting pastors and congregations on edge. In the wake of a criminal negligence prosecution of two parents, officials in Oregon want to talk to members of the Follower of Christ church to prevent more faith-healing deaths. Mormons in California have held reconciliation services to help salve wounds caused by the Prop 8 fight. Churches of Christ are dropping their isolationism, even adding instruments to Sunday services!
British PM Gordon Brown decried the record-breaking increase in anti-Semitic incidents in England last year. A top Vatican official who is overseeing the investigation of U.S. nuns said Catholic religious orders are confronting a "crisis." Ugandan evangelicals are peeved that President Obama called their Anti-Homosexuality Law "odious." A Catholic bishop in Poland has apologized for saying Jews "invented the Holocaust."
Posted by Daniel Burke at 3:13 pm
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Thursday’s roundup
President Obama addressed the National Prayer Breakfast this morning, calling for antagonists in the culture wars to be civil to each other. Or, in more theological terms: "Progress comes when we look into the eyes of another and see the face of God. That we might do so -- that we will do so all the time, not just some of the time -- is my fervent prayer for our nation and the world." He also criticized people who question his nationality and called Uganda's anti-gay bill "odious." As we reported earlier this week, the breakfast has been mired in controversy because of its sponsors ties to an anti-gay bill in Uganda.
Meanwhile, Americans United for Separation of Church and State say Obama gave the mistaken impression in his remarks this morning that the constitutional problems endemic in the White House faith-based office have been fixed. The WaPo managed to unearth a detail or two about Obama's spiritual life, and also reported that the president will meet with the Dalai Lama in February.
Americans have donated more than $644 for relief efforts in Haiti, but donations are slowing down, and massive problems persist. Sec. of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the actions of the ten U.S. baptists (not to be confused with American Baptists, the denomination) "unfortunate" and said they should have followed proper procedures. The missionaries are scheduled to appear before a prosecutor today. The AP says stories told by Haitian parents about giving their children to the missionaries contradict statements by the American group's leader. The Haitian pastor who gave the missionaries permission to take the children says he acted "with a good heart."
A number of groups have filed amicus curiae briefs in California's Prop 8 case, including the Southern Baptist Convention, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and, on the other side, the United Church of Christ.
A Muslim chaplain was arrested and charged with trying to smuggle razor blades and scissors into a city jail, the diocese of Vermont will sell its headquarters and a children's camp to pay for settlements with victims of clergy sexual abuse. Southern Baptists are trying to get multilingual Bible CD's into 9 million Texas homes by Easter. I wonder if you can put a mark on your door if you want to be passed over?
A judge has dismissed a lawsuit from members of Tony Alamo's sect alleging their religious freedom was trampled when Arkansas officials took their children.
Egyptian activists are calling on the government to give Christians equal rights. A Brazilian court has overturned a ban on displaying religious symbols during the Carnival parades. Pope Benedict XVI blamed indifference for the millions of deaths caused each year from malnutrition.
French authorities denied citizenship to a man who forced his French wife to wear a face-covering veil.
Posted by Daniel Burke at 11:32 am
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Wednesday’s roundup
We have a guilty verdict in the case of two Oregon parents (left) who chose faith-healing over medicine as their teenage son died from a routine urinary tract infection. Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 18.
As expected, the Pentagon's top brass came out in support of ending the Don't-Ask Don't-Tell policy against gays in the military, but said they'd study the issue for a year (and relax enforcement) before punting the issue over to Congress for final action. The pope's statement that he doesn't like Britain's anti-discrimination equality laws (but would still love to have tea with the queen) has set off a flurry of opposition ahead of his planned September (?) visit to the UK.
Remember that stone circle that the US Air Force Academy built for Wiccans and Druids? Someone place a large wooden cross on the site, and now everyone's crying foul. Also crying foul, WaPo talks to critics who say the White House's faith-based office is little more than window-dressing.
A group of three conservative pastors have filed a federal challenge to last year's hate-crimes law, which added sexual orientation to the list of federal classes. Just days after Scott Roeder was found guilty in the shooting death of abortionist George Tiller, a woman who shot and wounded Tiller in 1993 says the violence will continue.
California will be asked to allow the state's first Hebrew-language public charter school; Like a handful of others across the U.S., this school is raising concerns about access for non-Jews, and church-state separation.
A Pakistani woman awaiting trial in New York is either "Lady Al Qaeda or the incarnation of America's persecution of Muslims," according to the LAT. At least 20 Shiite pilgrims were killed Wednesday when a bomb went off near the holy city of Karbala. A group of U.S. missionaries in Haiti faced a judge on charges of trying to illegally ferry orphans out of the country. Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo's headaches over multiple paternity claims stemming from when he was a Roman Catholic bishop are apparently clearing up.
And this, from the Dept. of Not Turning the Other Cheek: Evangelicals are embracing mixed martial arts to attract young men.
Posted by Kevin Eckstrom at 9:26 am
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Tuesday’s roundup
Haiti's prime minister said the 10 Baptists from American who tried to take 30 children out of the country without documentation knew what they were doing was wrong and could be prosecuted in the U.S.
Christian conservatives had a big hand in defeating Hawaii's same-sex civil union bill, according to Baptist Press. The ELCA's Northeastern Iowa Synod rescinded two measures passed by the denomination last summer that allows gay and lesbian clergy and a social statement that acknowledges difference of opinion on homosexuality.
A Pennsylvania county judge said that the former Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, which seceded from the church in 2008, must turn over control of diocesan assets to the Episcopalians who remain with the Episcopal Church.
An Illinois man is suing the state for putting up sign calling religion "a myth and superstition" as part of its holiday display (picture at top left) last December. An Oregon man said police disturbed the mystical qualities of his medicine bag while searching it for drugs.
Pope Benedict XVI, in announcing his trip to England, criticized the country's pending Equality Bill. The Catholic Church in France rejected the country's proposed ban on full-face veils in public. Two militant Islamist groups in Somalia said they are joining Al-Qaida. China warned President Obama not to meet with the Dalai Lama.
Posted by Daniel Burke at 7:40 am
Monday, February 01, 2010
Monday’s roundup
Ten Baptists from the U.S. are being held in Haiti on charges of child trafficking. The group was trying to take 33 children out of Haiti to an orphange it is building in the Dominican Republic. Haitian officials, who have suspended adoptions in the post-quake chaos, say the group did not have proper documentation for taking the children from Haiti.
An Arkansas trial judge has terminated the parental rights of six members of Tony Alamo's sect. The Catholic bishop of Albany has approved a plan for his diocese to distribute free needles to drug users to stanch the spread of HIV/AIDS.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations plans to file a complaint against the mayor of Lancaster, Calif. (not to be confused with Lancaster, Pa.) whose plans include "growing a Christian community" and endorsing prayers at city meetings.
Sister Mary Daniel Turner, a leading voice among American nuns after Vatican II, died Jan. 27 at age 84. The Episcopal Bishop of Washington, John Chane, a prominent proponent of gay rights, announced that he will retired in 2011.
Pope Benedict XVI confirmed that he will visit Britain, probably in September, and urged British Catholics to welcome disaffected Anglicans. Susan Boyle wants to sing for him.
A female suicide bomber attacked a group of Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad, killing 41 and wounding 100. China stuck to its hard line in weekend talks with Tibetan envoys of the Dalai Lama.
Catholics and Protestants are close to reaching a power-sharing deal in Northern Ireland. Thousands of Iranian Zoroastrians gathered in the snowy mountains to light huge bonfires to mark the Sadeh festival, which celebrates fire. (Picture at top left is from Pyvand Iran News.)
Posted by Daniel Burke at 9:47 am
Friday, January 29, 2010
Friday’s roundup
The man accused of killing Kansas abortionist George Tiller said he did it to save unborn babies. "I did what I thought was needed to be done to protect the children," Scott Roeder said. "I shot him." The judge also ruled out allowing Roeder to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter. [UPDATE: Jurors found Roeder guilty after just 37 minutes of deliberation.]
Brace yourself for a renewed front in the culture wars: Pentagon brass are expected to release a plan on Tuesday for how to integrate gays and lesbians into the military, essentially lifting the 1993 Don't Ask-Don't Tell policy. President Obama also called on Congress to pass a domestic benefits bill, although he largely danced around the gay marriage question (although Mexico City's mayor doesn't).
A federal judge has ruled against a North Carolina county board that opened its meetings with prayer, saying they were inappropriate and unconstitutional. Some secular groups are rallying opposition to the planned Mother Teresa postage stamp. The landmark chapel at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs plans to add space for earth-centered (Wicca, Druid) worship.
Malaysian officials have charged three Muslim men with fire-bombing a church in the latest flare-up of violence over whether non-Muslims can use the term "Allah" to describe God. Concern is growing that Haitian orphans are being sold for as little as $50.
John Travolta says his Scientology faith helped him recover from the death of his son just over a year ago, although he didn't mention Scientology by name, instead just saying "our church."
In a development that would give your Jewish bubbe shpilkes in her genecktegessoink, The Forward is reporting that Jewish nursing homes are allowing non-kosher meals, or ditching the kosher menu altogether.
From the Dept. of Well, That Didn't Last Very Long, former Bush White House faith-based director Jim Towey is stepping down as president of St. Vincent College outside Pittsburgh and will be replaced by a monk. St. Vincent is staying mum on why Towey's leaving after four years; the Post-Gazette has this blurb: ..."his administration was also marked by complaints from faculty that he lacked collegiality and didn't follow academic protocol. Mr. Towey announced in October that he would leave June 30."
And finally this: A Polish Catholic priest has installed an electronic fingerprint reader at a Catholic school; students who attend 200 Masses won't have to pass an exam prior to confirmation. No word yet on if there are nuns with rulers to make the kids stay awake.
Posted by Kevin Eckstrom at 9:18 am
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Thursday’s roundup
Friends of Scott Roeder (left), the anti-abortion militant accused of killing abortionist George Tiller last year, say he's eager and anxious to tell his side of the story in court today. In Colorado, a man facing drug charges is eager and anxious to get high again -- all in the name of God, he says. Also in court, the Oregon father accused in his son's faith-healing death says he never sought medical help, in part, because he never thought his son was close to death.
German officials are apparently embarrassed after U.S. officials granted political asylum to a Christian family who wanted to homeschool their kids, but were told it was against German law. Court officials in Arkansas, meanwhile, will hold hearings to figure the fate of children seized from convicted evangelist Tony Alamo's compound.
Holocaust-denying bishop Richard Williamson has been ordered to appear in German court on April 16 to face charges of doing what he does best: denying the Holocaust.
A proposed California law would explicitly protect clergy from being forced to solemnize civil marriages that violate the tenets of their faith -- a bone to opponents of same-sex marriage who feared clergy would be forced to marry Heather's two mommies. The Proposition 8 federal trial wrapped up yesterday in San Francisco (closing arguments aren't expected for several more weeks), with a star witness for the defense seeming to equate traditional marriage with polygamy.
In suburban Washington, a Catholic church organist claims she was fired after voicing support for women's ordination; the priest insists the organist resigned.
The LAT looks at life in a Nebraska meat-packing plant after the arrival of dozens of Somali Muslims. Two things of note in WaPo this morning: A Sunday story examines the claims against a rabbi known as "The Indiana Jones of Torah Scribes," who some say is a fake, and formerly Catholic schools (now independent values-based charter schools) try to retain their values with the Catholic name attached.
Americans have given an estimated half a billion dollars to help Haiti recover from the earthquake and are on pace to beat the $1.92 billion raised in 2005 after the Southeast Asia tsunami. Then there's this Steven King-like lede from Reuters: "The earthquake that
shattered Haiti has unleashed fears that child-eating spirits,
mythological figures entrenched in Haitian culture, are prowling
homeless camps in search of young prey."
Pope Benedict XVI recently advised priests to go forth and blog. NPR collected some blogging tips for His Holiness, starting with actually starting a blog himself.
Posted by Kevin Eckstrom at 9:14 am
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Wednesday’s roundup
Fifty-six national faith groups and dozens of regionall religious organizations have signed a letter to Congress asking them to "take heart and move meaningful health care reform forward." The U.S. Catholic Bishops, who did not sign the document, put out their own strongly worded statement, declaring that the "health care debate, with all its political and ideological conflict, seems to have lost its central moral focus and policy priority." The bishops said Congress should not "abandon this task," but rather put aside divisions and get'er done.
The online dating site eHarmony has met a match with a $1.5 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit brought by gays and lesbians who said the service discriminated against them. The company also said it will make its Web site more "welcoming" to same-sex seekers.
Women's groups are upset about Focus on the Family's plans to air an anti-abortion ad during the Super Bowl featuring 2007 Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow. The United Church of Christ is crying foul because networks had refused to air their ads welcoming gays several years ago. The head of a conservative group testified at California's gay marriage trial that the institution of marriage is so weak that same-sex nuptials could kill it.
A Catholic bishop in Ohio pleaded with his flock not to abandon church after an 80-year-old woman was killed during a robbery while she was leaving Mass. Six prominent Orthodox rabbis pleaded for special treatment for Sholom Rubashkin, the former manager of a kosher meatpacking plant who was convicted last year of bank fraud and other charges. Yoga classes in New York have turned into lusty feasts.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori met with UN head Ban Ki-Moon in New York and discussed the crises in Haiti, Sudan, and the UN's Millennium Development Goals. The Church of England will lose about $78 million in an NYC real estate investment that turned sour.
As the world marks Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israeli President Peres said Germans and other Europeans who participated in the Shoah should be tracked down and brought to justice. Pope Benedict XVI denounced the "horror" of the Holocaust. Pope John Paul II used to whip himself, according to a new book.
Muslim worshippers at two Malaysian mosques found severed heads of pigs, in another incident over the "Allah" controversy. Neither the Dalai Lama's envoys nor China gave any ground in talks Tuesday.
Posted by Daniel Burke at 10:40 am
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Tuesday’s roundup
With expected government cuts to abstinence education funds, evangelical Christians are picking up the slack. By the way, teenage pregnancy and abortion rates rose from 2005-2006, according to a report released Tuesday.
Pro-gay religious leaders, including Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson are planning a multi-city event called "The American Prayer Hour" to counter the National Prayer Breakfast, which is run by The Family, a secretive conservative Christian group that has been accused of inspiring Uganda's proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
In another sign that we're not out of the economic wilderness yet, the Diocese of Rockville Centre, one of Long Island's largest employers, plants to offer buyouts to 25 percent of its 6,000 employees, the AP reports.
John Travolta flew a private jet carrying supplies and Scientology ministers to Haiti. That's Vinnie Barbarino next to one of his jets in a 2002 AP photo at top left. Federal prosecutors say a Nebraska man will plead guilty to hacking Scientology's Web site. South Carolina's lieutenant governor likened government welfare to feeding stray animals. "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals," said Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer. "You know why? Because they breed." Bauer later said he wished he'd used a different metaphor.
In a break with the past, Goshen College in Indiana, a Mennonite school, will play the "Star-Spangled Banner" before athletic events. Historically, Mennonites have looked askance at the national anthem because it places love of country higher than love of God, The Mennonite reports.
Pope Benedict XVI decried a "growing aversion" to Christianity and said people should amp up the intensity on evangelism. The Russian Orthodox Church is using its muscle and government ties to squeeze out other faiths, human rights activists warned. An Auschwitz survivor has teamed with a hi-hop group to spread an anti-racism message in Germany.
A French parliamentary panel recommended that full-face veils be banned in public, including hospitals and mass transit. Ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jews are boycotting their own Web site. Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland are in talks to save their unity government. Two of the Dalai Lama's envoys are to arrive for talks in China today, but Chinese officials have not softened their hard line on Tibet.
Posted by Daniel Burke at 11:06 am