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Wednesday's Religion News Roundup: RIP Santorum? Obama's "racialism"? Jesus' tomb?

Wednesday’s Religion News Roundup: RIP Santorum? Obama’s “racialism”? Jesus’ tomb?

Mitt Romney won all three primaries yesterday.

In Wisconsin, where Romney bested Rick Santorum 42-38, Catholics who attend Mass weekly were evenly split between the two.

Santorum won voters who said a candidate's religious beliefs matter “a great deal” 49-34 in Wisconsin, and his campaign says it's looking forward to Pennsylvania's primary.


But Mark Silk says: “Even if Santorum ekes out a victory in the state he represented for a dozen years in the U.S. Senate, he's still dead. Even if he wins a few Southern states in May, he's still dead. The conventional wisdom is right. The Establishment Republicans get their way again. Requiescas, Rick, in pace.”

Politico's new campaign e-book, “Inside the Circus,” portrays the Romney camp as so worried about his Mormonism that they missed the threat of Santorum. “If (Romney) was even an Episcopalian, he’d be better off today,” one aide said.

Meanwhile, President Obama is holding his annual Easter prayer breakfast today. Look for our report soon.

Southern Baptist leader Richard Land blasted Obama and other black leaders, accusing them of “racial ambulance chasing” after the Trayvon Martin shooting and using the tragedy to gin up votes.

American Muslims can be a key factor in the swing states of Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to a new report.

Despite Democratic worries that President Obama could lose Jewish support over his Middle East policies, a new poll indicates American Jews prefer Obama 2-1 over a generic GOP candidate.

In a Presidential Proclamation issued yesterday, Obama declared April 3 as “Education and Sharing Day U.S.A., 2012,” and profusely praised Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson. 


The NYPD is beefing up security at the city's synagogues and other Jewish sites for Passover after the deadly attack on the Jewish school in France last month.

A victim of alleged sexual abuse by a Roman Catholic priest told a Philadelphia court that church officials took more than 10 years to resolve his complaint.

A North Carolina judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by 11 clergy challenging the state's requirement that marriages be solemnized by clergy or a magistrate.

Xavier University, one of the country's oldest Catholic colleges, will cut off birth-control coverage for employees – a move that has divided faculty members and students, Reuters reports.

A Dallas judge dismissed a lawsuit against a former Navy chaplain accused of using “curse” prayers to incite others to harm a military religious-freedom gadfly.

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly's Kim Lawton investigates the mystery of where Jesus was buried.

Our own Yonat Shimron finds Bart Ehrman's new book on the historicity of Jesus surprisingly sympathetic.


After more than 350 years of enforced exile, Baruch Spinoza has been invited back into the Jewish community.

Journalist Jason Berry's “Render Unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church” has won the IRE's prestigious best investigative book award.

Yr hmbl aggregator,
Daniel Burke

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