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Need to know: Thursday, December 8, 2016
Seminaries start Black Lives Matter courses
As more African-Americans are killed at the hands of police, seminaries have begun to engage with the Black Lives Matter movement.
It’s time we think of politics more like religion
Political operatives of both parties have known for decades that voting behavior is about emotion, intuition and tribal affiliation — just like religion, writes Arthur E. Farnsley II.
Vatican reaffirms ban on gay priests
The document on training priests reiterates a 2005 policy now seemingly at odds with Pope Francis’ famous “Who am I to judge?” response when asked about gay priests in 2013.
Pope warns media over ‘sin’ of spreading fake news, smearing politicians
He said scandal-mongering media risked falling prey to coprophilia, or arousal from excrement, and consumers of these media risked coprophagia, or eating excrement.
Album offers new clues about ‘gospel’s great disappearing act’
Nearly 90 years ago, a part-time preacher named Washington Phillips arrived at a studio in Dallas carrying a strange instrument and a fierce aversion to spiritual hypocrisy.
Were Neanderthals religious?
December is full of sacred holidays for many – and meaning-making through social gatherings and rituals for others. Anthropologist Barbara J. King considers how far back religious practices might go.
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Latest news from RNS
Angela Merkel calls for countrywide, full-face veil ban in Germany
The chancellor’s proposal comes amid debates across the continent over religious tolerance, perceived threats to European identity and the fear of further attacks by Islamists.
Ohio lawmakers pass ‘heartbeat’ abortion legislation
Lower courts have struck down similar 'heartbeat' laws in North Dakota and Arkansas, and the Supreme Court refused to hear appeals on those rulings in January.
Vatican launches website in response to clergy sex scandals
VATICAN CITY (RNS) The site aims to provide resources to dioceses around the world and to raise awareness in regions where the problem has not received much coverage.
More views from RNS
The disappointing victory at Standing Rock
We should be way past the point of blocking oil pipelines.
Infallibility and heresy
Not since certain American Protestants were publicly anti-Catholic, as older readers may remember them having been, have we read as many headlines with words like “infallibility,” “heresy,” papal “plots,” “schism,” etc., as we do these days.
What changes when Pope Francis grants priests the authority to forgive abortions?
Francis’ decision in relation to abortion is part of an overall approach to Catholic teaching and practice that seeks to make it more humane, more merciful and more easily adaptable to the vicissitudes of everyday human life.
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Bonus tracks
- Israel rabbis promise conversion standards — vow to count Ivanka Trump as Jewish
- Mattis is OK, but Ellison isn’t?
- Reporter’s Notebook: What it was like as a Muslim to cover the election
- Pakistan’s ‘disco mullah’ feared dead after plane crash
- Two white Catholic school students expelled for racist texts are suing for $1 million
- How Standing Rock became a site of pilgrimage
