NEWS STORY
RNS-Boulder-Vigil: Boulder’s faith community comes together to grieve after grocery store shooting
BOULDER, Colo (RNS) — Crosses, flowers, stuffed animals and signs calling for gun control line the fence around the crime scene, along with messages of love to the departed and invocations for prayer. Since Monday’s attack, reeling Boulderites, many representing the city’s diverse faith communities, have congregated along the road to pay their respects in such numbers that the city blocked off a lane of traffic to accommodate them. By Carina Julig. 941 words. (category: a)
NEWS STORY
RNS-Graham-Vaccine: Franklin Graham’s evangelical base blasts his defense of vaccines
(RNS) — Franklin Graham, the often-polarizing evangelist and missionary, got into the crosshairs of his own, mostly white evangelical audience when he posted a defense of COVID-19 vaccines on Facebook this week. The March 24 post, which to date has drawn 20,000 comments and nearly 10,000 shares, was the top three highest performing Facebook posts the day it was posted. It also revealed a depth of white evangelical resistance to vaccinations. By Yonat Shimron. 700 words. (category: a)
NEWS STORY
RNS-Vatican-Judge: From London to Rome, Vatican faces an uphill battle for financial reform
(RNS) – From the United Kingdom to a small Italian hospital in Rome, Pope Francis faces challenges in addressing the Vatican’s past and present financial deals, just as the institution braces for a mounting deficit worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic. By Claire Giangravè. 1000 words. (categories c)
NEWS STORY
RNS-Twitty-Passover: Michael Twitty’s kosher soul offers an updated story of liberation
(RNS) — Passover is Michael W. Twitty’s favorite Jewish holiday. A cook and James Beard Book Award-winning culinary historian, Twitty owns that the food is a big reason. But that’s not all. According to Twitty family lore, the holiday, on which Jews retell their exodus from slavery to freedom, also coincides with his enslaved ancestors’ freedom from bondage. By Yonat Shimron. 1,000 words. (category: a)
COMMENTARY
RNS-Salkin-Oped: The day Reform Judaism made history
(RNS) — In my opinion, the most important day in the history of Reform Judaism was Tuesday, March 23, 2021. That was when we learned Rabbi Gilad Kariv, president and CEO of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, became the first Reform rabbi to be elected to Israel’s Knesset. By Jeffrey Salkin. 854 words. (category: k)
COMMENTARY
RNS-Giffords-Oped: Passover’s promise of a safer place is America’s story this year
(RNS) — “We grow stronger and tougher through what we endure, even as it changes us. The rituals we observe, the ancient stories we tell, help us move forward,” writes the former congresswoman and gun safety activist on Passover in a time of trauma. By Gabrielle Giffords. 1,108 words. (category: k)
COMMENTARY
RNS-Wallis-Oped: We have the chance to redeem voting rights
(RNS) — Restricting the right to vote is what happens when your political strategy aims to prevent our nation’s changing demography from changing its democracy. It’s what happens when you try to retain white political rule at all costs. Many white Christians have embraced this all-out assault on American democracy and the imago dei, the image of God, which gives inherent value, worth and dignity to each person. By Jim Wallis. 1,400 words. (category: k)
COMMENTARY
RNS-Rosen-Oped: The religious foundations of Arab-Israel peace
(RNS) — Past attempts to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians have studiously avoided representatives of the parties’ faith communities. If one does not want religion to be part of the problem, however, the answer cannot be to avoid it. By David Rosen. 800 words. (category: k)