Monthly Archives: October 2010
FYI
By Mark Silk — October 19, 2010
Of the dozen states with the highest proportion of poor people, 11 voted for John McCain in 2008. Of the dozen states with the lowest proportion of poor people, 10 voted for Barack Obama. If you live in one of the latter states, you’re twice as likely to have no religion than if you live […]
Just asking
By Mark Silk — October 19, 2010
So now, in obedience to the court ruling, military recruiters have been told that they must accept gay applicants. Let’s suppose that a higher court temporarily or permanently restores DADT. How would the reinstated policy affect those recruits? Having “told” under the judge’s current order, could they legally be cashiered? Or, like the same-sex couples […]
The faith-based campaign of Aqua Buddha
By Kevin Eckstrom — October 19, 2010
Chris Cilliza over at WaPo’s The Fix is asking whether Kentucky’s Democratic Senate candidate Jack Conway “went too far” in his recent ad about the stranger parts of opponent Rand Paul‘s biography (Conway’s campaign ad, below). Paul, for one, thinks yes. From the AP’s coverage of Sunday’s Kentucky duel: “Those who stoop to the level […]
Blame Canada (or at least their soup)
By Kevin Eckstrom — October 19, 2010
And so it has come to this: The terrorists will get us with soup. And they shall come from Canada. So says Pamela Geller, the right-wing “Queen of Muslim Bashers” who stirred up opposition to the Park51 Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero. Her latest, ahem, crusade, according to WaPo, is against the Islamic Society […]
Pope cautions priests on lay movements
By Tracy Gordon — October 18, 2010
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Monday (Oct. 18) praised Catholic lay movements as a source of vocations to the priesthood, but cautioned against their potential to breed divisions among future clergy, who he said “often live on very different spiritual continents.” The pope made his comments in an open letter to seminarians, marking […]
Archbishop of Canterbury criticizes European burqa bans
By Tracy Gordon — October 18, 2010
NAGPUR, India (RNS/ENInews) Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams deplored attempts by European governments to prohibit Muslim women from wearing body-covering burqas in public. “Governments should have better things to do than ban the burqa,” Williams, the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, told an interfaith meeting at the National Council of Churches of India’s headquarters […]
Some religious charities receive more despite overall drop
By Tracy Gordon — October 18, 2010
(RNS) Several of the nation’s largest religious charities reported increases in private support as nonprofits overall saw decreases in donations last year, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported. Feed the Children, which ranked fifth in the annual Philanthropy 400, had a 1.2 percent increase in private support, which totaled $1.19 billion. World Vision saw a 4.5 […]
Gays tell teens `it gets better’ despite religion
By Tracy Gordon — October 18, 2010
(RNS) A Muslim college student from Connecticut, an ex-Mormon attorney in the Bay Area and a Catholic writer in upstate New York have joined a chorus of testimonials on YouTube aimed at preventing teen suicides. Even if your faith and family believe that gay people are an abomination, even if they think you’re going to […]
Monday’s Religion News Roundup
By Daniel Burke — October 18, 2010
After more than two months underground, about a dozen of the 33 miners rescued in Chile last week returned Sunday to the mouth of the mine to offer thanks during a private Mass. The Vatican released a letter from Pope Benedict XVI to seminarians worldwide in which the pontiff expresses “profound regret and shame” over […]
Photographers capture infants’ brief lives on film
By Tracy Gordon — October 18, 2010
MADISON, Ala. (RNS) For the entire lifetime of his daughter, Joey Karr smiled into her eyes. Then the infant, who couldn’t overcome a fatal form of dwarfism, died in his wife’s arms as their other three children patted their sister. Photographer Kelly Clark Baugher caught that lifetime of love in photos, images that are now […]
The parish priest and the archbishop
By Mark Silk — October 18, 2010
I’m happy to discover that Fr. Michael Tegeder, pastor of St. Edward’s church in Bloomington, Minn., appears to have suffered no ill effects in the archdiocesan reorganization and retrenchment laid out this weekend by St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop John C. Nienstedt. Tegeder had the chutzpah to take to the pages of the state’s leading daily to […]
Study: Faith may help black women keep fit
By Tracy Gordon — October 16, 2010
(RNS) Adding faith to the exercise regimen of African-American women may prompt them to be more fit, a UCLA study shows. Researchers studying black women from three Los Angeles churches who participated in faith-based physical activity found the women increased their walking by about three miles per week. The study results, published this month (October) […]
Chilean archbishop booted from top Anglican panel
By Tracy Gordon — October 16, 2010
(RNS) Chile’s top Anglican bishop has become collateral damage in the border wars between the Episcopal Church and conservatives overseas. Bishop Tito Zavala of Chile has been removed from an international commission that considers questions of faith and governance in the Anglican Communion, a network of 44 regional churches around the world. The Rev. Kenneth […]
