Harold Camping has been warning that the Rapture will occur next Saturday, May 21, and now we have an exact time: 6 p.m. Since Jimmy Buffet said it’s 5:00 somewhere, that means you’ve got an hour for cocktails before all the excitement begins. They’re taking drink orders over at Religion Dispatches, and the Mayan 2012 Doomsday believers have some recommendations. I’ll take a Shuffling Zombie, please.
Out in Indiana, chatter is focusing on the, um, unusual marital history of Gov. Mitch Daniels and his wife, Cheri, as he mulls a presidential bid. As CBS put it: “The couple has a personal relationship that can only be described as complicated. They divorced in 1994, and Cheri Daniels married an old boyfriend, only to divorce him and remarry Mitch Daniels in 1997.”
The head of the lay review board in the scandal-scarred Archdiocese of Philadelphia said abuse cases could have, and should have, been handled better but church leaders “succumbed to a culture of clericalism.” Our pal Jim Martin calls it a “must read” for U.S. Catholics.
Up in Rhode Island, Bishop Thomas Tobin is claiming success in a bid to lure lapsed Catholics back into the pews — attendance was up in 2010 after sliding in 2009, he said.
A Sikh paramedic in New Mexico is suing after he claims he was fired for not shaving his beard, which is an article of faith for Sikh men. The Forward looks at both sides of the debate in San Francisco over whether to ban infant circumcision.
Female employees at Mormon HQ in Salt Lake City no longer have to wear pantyhose. The hedonists over at CNN Money are exploring apps to satisfy all seven deadly sins.
The Vatican reaffirmed B16’s 2007 decision to revive the old Latin Mass, but said it should not be used as an excuse to question the pope’s judgment or divide the faithful.
John Demjanjuk, the 91-year-old former Ohio autoworker who was booted from the U.S. for his secret past as a Nazi prison guard, was convicted in Germany yesterday on more than 28,000 counts of accessory to murder. Since his appeal is expected to take two years, it’s not expected that he’ll spend any time in jail.
Independent-minded Anglican bishops from the so-called Global South say the pope’s decision to shelter dissident Anglicans in the U.K. is the natural result of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams‘ “mismanagement.”
Ugandan lawmakers were set to do something — it’s still not entirely clear what — on the infamous “Kill the Gays” bill today, but it seems they adjourned without taking any action one way or the other. Gay Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson says the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Two suicide bombers killed 80 people at a paramilitary training center in Pakistan in the first known retaliation for the killing of OBL. Egypt has detained the Christian-turned-Muslim woman whose soap opera affair with a Muslim man led to deadly riots.
— Kevin Eckstrom