The upcoming 9/11 anniversary continues to generate religion-themed stories. First off is a hat tip to The Associated Press investigation showing that in the wake of Sept. 11, the New York Police Department became “one of the nation’s most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies” in targeting mosques and Muslim neighborhoods.
The NYPD did so with the help of the CIA, which raises constitutional questions, among other things. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and civil liberties groups want an investigation – presumably not one led by Long Island Rep. Peter King.
The AP also reports that after 9/11, Americans poured $1.5 billion into hundreds of charities set up to serve the victims and their families but “many of those nonprofits have failed miserably.” And they still continue to solicit funds.
A Long Island wine merchant isn’t a charity, but Lieb Family Cellars is also receiving heat for marketing 9/11 commemorative wines — a merlot and a chardonnay. The company says it will donate up to 10 percent of each sale to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.
A self-styled “Jewish Indiana Jones” who boasted of dangerous missions to rescue Torah scrolls has been indicted on mail fraud and other charges.
Cable TV and talk radio personality Glenn Beck preached to a modest multitude of about 1,000 people in Jerusalem’s Old City at a “Restoring Courage” rally that wrapped up the Tea Party evangelist’s trip to the Holy Land. “In Israel there is more courage in one small square mile than in all of Europe,” Beck said.
Apparently the audience was largely comprised of American Christians. It received a mixed reception from Jews.
Ohhhmm my goodness. Neoconservative Catholic George Weigel argues that the beloved monk and writer Thomas Merton, author of works such as Seeds of Contemplation and Zen and the Birds of Appetite, might have become one of the first neoconservative Catholics had he not died in 1968.
The Great Recession has depressed fertility rates and that has led to a decline in infant baptisms, say the Catholic data whizzes at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University. That’s part of the reason, they argue, that the number of people entering the church in the United States has dropped below 1 million a year for the last three years – a level last reached during the stagflation era of the 1970s.
Meanwhile, this week’s earthquake didn’t help, as a number of historic Catholic sanctuaries suffered damage. And the Washington National Cathedral faces millions of dollars in quake-related repairs, none of which is covered by insurance.
–David Gibson
