Monthly Archives: June 2011
Rome, rendered
By Mark Silk — June 9, 2011
Yesterday I went up to St. Eulalia’s in Winchester, Mass. to hear Jason Berry talk about his important new book, Render Unto Rome, to 50 or 60 members of Voice of the Faithful. No one has done more to investigate the underside of the contemporary Roman Catholicism than Berry, from his bringing to light the […]
Feds rule against a second Catholic college
By Tracy Gordon — June 9, 2011
(RNS) For the second time this year, a federal regulator has rejected the First Amendment arguments of a Catholic college and cleared the way for the school’s adjunct faculty to unionize. In a May 26 decision, the Chicago office of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that Saint Xavier University has no right to […]
Ore. couple convicted in faith-healing trial
By Tracy Gordon — June 8, 2011
OREGON CITY, Ore. (RNS) After just an hour of deliberation, jurors on Tuesday (June 7) unanimously found two members of a faith-healing church guilty of felony criminal mistreatment for not seeking medical care for their daughter. Timothy and Rebecca Wyland face up to five years in prison but are likely to receive probation and possibly […]
Muslim cabbie fights ticket over religious cap
By Tracy Gordon — June 8, 2011
ST. LOUIS (RNS) Taxi driver Nabeel Langrial was chatting with another cabbie last summer when an enforcement agent for the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission stopped to tell him his hat did not conform to the driver dress code. Langrial, a 23-year-old Muslim, told the officer the reddish-brown cap — called a kufi — had religious meaning. […]
Woman charged with taking aid for tornado victims
By Tracy Gordon — June 8, 2011
PALMER, Mass. (RNS) A Massachusetts woman charged with larceny and fraud denied Tuesday (June 7) that she stole donated items from a church that were intended for victims of a devastating tornado. Christine Lajewski, 47, of Ware, Mass., was charged with larceny over $250 under false pretenses and fraud at her arraignment on Tuesday. Police […]
Gallup says 9 in 10 Americans believe in God
By Tracy Gordon — June 8, 2011
(RNS) A new Gallup poll finds 92 percent of Americans say they believe in God, a figure that has dropped by only a few points since Gallup first asked the question in the 1940s. Gallup pollster Frank Newport offered some background on those numbers: Americans’ self-reported belief in God has been relatively constant over the […]
Woodstock and the USCCB
By Mark Silk — June 8, 2011
I’ve been puzzling over Sister Mary Ann Walsh’s whimsical Huffpost post on the Jay Report. Sister Mary Ann is director of media relations for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops so one presumes that what she publishes has some institutional throw-weight beyond nihil obstat and imprimatur. Her leitmotif has to do with the fact […]
Wednesday’s Religion News Roundup
By Kevin Eckstrom — June 8, 2011
Jurors in Oregon took less than an hour to convict two faith-healing parents of criminal mistreatment after they failed to seek medical attention for their infant daughter when she developed a mass over her eye that nearly left her blind. Tea Party fave Michelle Bachmann already scored big with Christian conservatives last weekend, and has […]
Judge hears monks’ suit over right to build caskets
By Tracy Gordon — June 7, 2011
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) Wearing a monk’s robe, Abbot Justin Brown climbed into the witness box on Monday (June 6) and said the only people who ever opposed his abbey’s bid to sell handmade caskets were funeral insiders who stood to lose their statewide monopoly. “To my knowledge, no one objected besides (them),” he told U.S. […]
Egyptians want advice, not rule, of clerics
By Tracy Gordon — June 7, 2011
WASHINGTON (RNS) Four months after the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a new Gallup survey says a majority of Egyptians want religious leaders to advise the nation’s officials but they do not want a theocracy. About seven in 10 Egyptians said clerics should advise national leaders on legislation. In comparison, 14 percent said religious […]
Ore. faith-healing trial draws to a close
By Tracy Gordon — June 7, 2011
OREGON CITY, Ore. (RNS) Two parents accused of denying medical care to their infant daughter are the victims of religious persecution, inflexible bureaucrats and unreasonable expectations, a defense attorney said Monday (June 6) in closing arguments. The trial of Timothy and Rebecca Wyland, the latest chapter in Oregon’s troubled history with faith healing and Oregon […]
Miss. woman named world’s longest-serving church organist
By Tracy Gordon — June 7, 2011
MOSS POINT, Miss. (RNS) For the past 69 years, Ida Mae Cumbest has been the pianist and organist at Caswell Springs United Methodist Church — a tenure that qualifies her as the world’s longest-serving church organist. Cumbest has played at Caswell since 1942, which prompted her son, Mark, to contact the London-based Guinness World Records […]
Tuesday’s Religion News Roundup
By Daniel Burke — June 7, 2011
So it’s come to this, America. Religious leaders are now debating the morality of a married congressman sending pics of his, um, you know, to women via Twitter. I’m pretty sure nothing of the sort is in the Book of Revelation, but I’m equally sure that the end is nigh. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y. offered […]
The Judeo-Catholic Tradition
By Mark Silk — June 7, 2011
Religious art: fig leaf or full frontal?
By Tracy Gordon — June 7, 2011
SALT LAKE CITY (RNS) The Rev. France Davis doesn’t want any nude Adam-and-Eve figures at his Calvary Baptist Church — even if they were painted by the famed Michelangelo himself. Davis is unequivocal in his view that there is nothing inspiring or redeeming about naked figures in religious art. “Since we sinned, as it said […]
