Monthly Archives: October 2011
Catholic League backs off
By Mark Silk — October 17, 2011
I thought it was pretty darned, well, catholic of Bill Donohue to take out after Rev. Robert Jeffress for deriding Mitt Romney’s Mormonism as a cult and denouncing Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism as “false religions,” alongside denigrating Catholicism as corrupted by “cult-like pagan religion” under the tutelage of Satan. Declared the head of the Catholic […]
Criminous clerks
By Mark Silk — October 16, 2011
Back in the day–the day of the Emperor Constantine to be precise–it was decided that Christian clergy were way too exalted for laymen to be allowed to sit in judgment upon. And so when any of them was accused of a crime, the business of determining his guilt or innocence was given over to the […]
First Catholic bishop charged with sex abuse cover-up
By Tracy Gordon — October 15, 2011
(RNS) Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, Mo., has been charged with failing to report the suspected abuse of a child, making him the first active bishop in the United States to face criminal prosecution over the sexual abuse of children by a priest. Finn’s Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph has been charged with the […]
Orthodox get green light to rebuild at Ground Zero
By Tracy Gordon — October 14, 2011
(RNS) Ten years after tiny St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was destroyed by falling rubble from the World Trade Center towers, church leaders reached an agreement Friday (Oct. 14) to rebuild at Ground Zero. The church, founded by Greek immigrants in 1916, sat in the shadow of the twin towers and was the only religious […]
Anti-gay post on teacher’s Facebook page stirs firestorm
By Tracy Gordon — October 14, 2011
UNION TOWNSHIP, N.J. (RNS) It began last week with a single online comment, one critical of a high school display marking Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender History Month. It soon ballooned into a harangue against homosexuality, a “perverted spirit” and a “sin” that “breeds like cancer.” “Why parade your unnatural immoral behaviors before the rest of […]
Friday Godbytes
By Jack Jenkins — October 14, 2011
USA Today asks: can God take a joke? USA Today thinks God can (have you seen a platypus?), but we’re curious: what’s your favorite religion joke? It looks like all the religious groups are getting in on Occupy Wall Street these days. You can head over to the Huffington Post to hear a Buddhist take […]
Gallup Poll: 35 percent oppose death penalty
By Tracy Gordon — October 14, 2011
(RNS) More than one-third of Americans now oppose the death penalty — the highest level in nearly 40 years — according to a new Gallup Poll. Moreover, those who believe the death penalty is being applied fairly, and those who say it isn’t used often enough, are at the lowest levels in a decade, underscoring […]
Friday’s Religion News Roundup
By Kevin Eckstrom — October 14, 2011
The NYT takes a stroll down Memory Lane into Michele Bachmann‘s formative years in constitutional law at Oral Roberts University. CNN takes a look at the Presidential Prayer Team which, curiously, costs $30,000 a month to operate. Let’s say you’re Rick Perry and one of your big backers called your opponent’s Mormon faith a “cult.” […]
Accident silences an outspoken Catholic voice
By Tracy Gordon — October 14, 2011
(RNS) The Rev. Andrew Greeley has been one of the best-known priests in America: a respected and influential sociologist, a best-selling novelist and an outspoken commentator on public and church issues for some 50 years. “When the history of the American Catholic Church is written in America, I don’t know if you’re going to find […]
Evangelical anti-Mormonism
By Mark Silk — October 14, 2011
Andrew Sullivan looks at the new Time poll results and sees that Romney actually does better against Obama with evangelicals (by six percentage points) than Perry does–ergo, it’s Perry who has the evangelical problem. But that’s off the mark. The question is how well against Perry Romney does with evangelicals. Or, more importantly at the […]
Dreher returns
By Mark Silk — October 14, 2011
As Rick Bohan noted in a comment the other day, Rod Dreher has liberated himself from his Templeton imprisonment–where he was hired to blog and then told not to blog–and is back on the job, tickling the keyboard over at The American Conservative. Heretofore hight Crunchy Con, Dreher is far from everybody’s cup of tea. […]
Thursday Godbytes
By Jack Jenkins — October 14, 2011
CNN reports on presidential candidate Michele Bachmann‘s recent insinuation that fellow presidential hopeful Herman Cain‘s “9-9-9” tax plan was the work of the devil. “When you take the 9-9-9 plan and you turn it upside won, the devil is in the details,” Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota said during the New Hampshire debate, alluding to […]
Law would allow marriage to Catholics for U.K. royals
By Tracy Gordon — October 14, 2011
(RNS) Future British kings and queens would be permitted to marry Catholics for the first time in more than three centuries under reforms proposed by British Prime Minister David Cameron. Writing to his fellow heads of government in the British Commonwealth, in a letter published on Wednesday (Oct. 12), Cameron outlined several proposed amendments to […]
Under pressure, D.C. shelter ends church-service requirement
By Tracy Gordon — October 14, 2011
WASHINGTON (RNS) Prompted by civil liberties groups, a taxpayer-supported homeless shelter in the nation’s capital will no longer require its clients to attend religious services. “We’re pleased that the D.C. government will no longer be supporting such religious coercion,” said Arthur Spitzer, legal director of the Washington, D.C., branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. […]
The new face of American poverty is often a child’s
By Tracy Gordon — October 13, 2011
OAKTOWN, Ind. (RNS) Eleven-year-old Sarai Camacho of Donna, Texas, tears up when she tells why her mother let go the baby sitter for her and her younger sister this summer. It’s the same reason her father brought the family to Indiana so he could work the melon fields for a season. “Last December, my mom […]
