Monday’s Religion News Roundup: SNL satirizes VP debate. Remembering Specter. Apple’s logo = blasphemy?

SNL satirizes the Catholic VP debate. Remembering Arlen Specter. Is Apple's logo blasphemous? 

As expected, Saturday Night Live led its program with a skit on the vice-presidential debate. Among the sharper lines was this one from “Joe Biden.”

“I accept the teachings of the Catholic Church. But then, like most Catholics, I ignore them and do what I want.”

The Catholic bishops wasted little time in rebuking the real Joe Biden on Friday, saying that he misrepresented the HHS mandate


Our own David Gibson says the debate's abortion question played into conservatives' hands by presenting Catholicism as a “single-issue” faith.

NPR talks to Catholics in Ohio, where they represent 25 percent of the  electorate. 

Reuters examines the continuing Catholic debates over the Second Vatican Council, 50 years after its opening. 

Our friends at Catholic News Service are marking V2's anniversary with a new feature that offers readers a look at the council's daily activities.

Maryland's upcoming gay marriage referendum is dividing Catholics, black clergy and even Baltimore Ravens, the AP reports. 

Occupy London protesters chained themselves to the pulpit of St. Paul's Cathedral on Sunday

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10,000 Muslims protested outside Google's London office in attempt to force the company to remove the anti-Islamic film from YouTube.

The Taliban is threatening to kill a 14-year-old Pakistani girl whom it shot for helping other girls go to school. Malala Yousafzai has been airlifted to Birmingham, England, to get more advanced medical care.


A California court dismissed a claim by a Muslim man who said that the CIA and FBI violated his 1st Amendment rights by infiltrating Islamic centers.

A New York court denied an application by a family to change their name from Nwadiuko to “ChristIsKing.”

Hawaiian leprosy survivors are anticipating the canonization of a Catholic nun who cared for their community.  

Conservative Christians in Russia have started using crosses to replace Apple's iconic “bitten apple” logo, which they call blasphemous

The Forward's Jane Eisner remembers the late Sen. Arlen Specter, who died on Sunday

At one point, Eisner recalls, Specter was asked when he expected his Jewishness to be a non-issue in the corridors of power. 

“Never,” he replied. “Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not. Probably not.”

Yr hmbl aggrgtr,

Daniel Burke 
 

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