Friday’s Religion News Roundup

Concerned about (real or imagined) sagging fortunes among Jewish voters, the White House has scheduled POTUS to address the Reform Jewish movement when it meets near D.C. in December. A law professor at GWU who’s never met a lawsuit he didn’t like has filed a complaint against Catholic University over the alleged inability of Muslim […]

Concerned about (real or imagined) sagging fortunes among Jewish voters, the White House has scheduled POTUS to address the Reform Jewish movement when it meets near D.C. in December.

A law professor at GWU who’s never met a lawsuit he didn’t like has filed a complaint against Catholic University over the alleged inability of Muslim students to form their own (official) prayer groups.

WaPo also warns of “ritual whiplash” as Catholics prepare to adjust to the first changes to the Mass in 40 years, starting the weekend after Thanksgiving. The Kansas City priest whose alleged possession of kiddie porn got his bishop slapped with a criminal indictment got his trial postponed until next summer.


Religious and political leaders went shopping at a Capitol Hill Safeway yesterday, trying to see how far $4.50 a day in food stamps will get you.

More Muslims-praying-at-work in the news: An Illinois Muslim who wasn’t allowed to take time off for Friday prayers has filed suit against his employer, and alleges he was told that if he had disclosed that he was a Muslim early on, he wouldn’t have gotten the job anyway.

Meanwhile, out in California, state officials have settled with a Sikh man who refused to shave his beard in order to become a prison guard; Trilochan Oberoi got a six-figure settlement and a $61,000-a-year job, but not the one he originally wanted.

The Forward says the Orthodox Jewish women forced to the back of gender-segregated (public!) buses in New York don’t seem to matter at all.

From the Dept. of Things That Make You Go Hmmm: U.S. troops preparing for deployment to Afghanistan are trained not to pee, spit or sleep with their feet in the direction of Mecca so they don’t offend the locals.

Over in London, the dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral has quit amid ongoing disagreement about whether to evict Occupy protesters from the cathedral’s grounds. Meanwhile, city officials are hoping legal action can finally clear the protesters out of the cathedral square.


And in a little Catholic-Protestant history from across the pond, the NYT asks why so many Occupiers are wearing Guy Fawkes masks (here’s a clue: watch V is for Vendetta). The 16 member nations of the British Commonwealth agreed to change the rules on male/female ascension to the throne, and reject a rule that requires monarchs to marry anyone but a Catholic.

Those persnickety Anglicans also confronted the Murdochs over the phone-hacking scandal at the family’s British tabloid empire; they didn’t get too far, though. And In New Zealand, Anglicans in Christchurch say they have no choice but to raze their landmark cathedral that was heavily damaged by last February’s earthquake.

— Kevin “I’m not British altho it probably seems like I am today” Eckstrom

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