NEWS STORY
RNS-Vaccines-Exemptions: As US bishops reject exemptions, Pope Francis dubs COVID-19 vaccine ‘act of love’
(RNS) — The pope’s endorsement of the COVID-19 vaccines, prompted by a pro-vaccine campaign that involves six other cardinals and archbishops, comes as more U.S. Catholic dioceses issue instructions to their priests not to offer religious exemptions for those whose employers are requiring vaccines. By Jack Jenkins and Claire Giangravé. 800 words. (category: a, i)
NEWS STORY
RNS-RACE-TENURE: ‘You can’t think yourself out of racism’: Black scholars of religion call for conversion
(RNS) — White supremacy, some Black scholars argue, is cemented in the culture and practices of academia. Black scholars share how they encounter racism in the daily practice of their work and is needed to change the status quo. By Renée Roden. 1,750 words. (category: a)
NEWS STORY
RNS-High-Holidays: Synagogues hoped to be in person this year. Now they’re not so sure.
(RNS) — Until two weeks ago, Rabbi Steve Engel and his staff at Congregation of Reform Judaism in Orlando, Florida, thought they had a solid pandemic safety plan for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Now a flood of new cases fueled by the highly contagious delta variant is making them rethink the best laid plans. By Yonat Shimron. 700 words. (category: a)
COMMENTARY
RNS-Joshi-Oped: The battle over CRT is a manufactured crisis. Here’s why we still have to fight it.
(RNS) — Four years after the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, people are still gathering to present the same white Christian nationalist thought: the adults flocking to school board meetings to protect children from “critical race theory.” By Khyati Joshi. 1,300 words. (category: k)
COMMENTARY
RNS-Singh-Oped: 20 years after the first Taliban regime, will we again target people based on how they look?
(RNS) — Our public enemy No. 1 again looks very much like me: a bearded, brown-skinned, turban-wearing Sikh American, and I’ve already received texts from friends and family advising one another to be cautious and vigilant. Two decades after we went to Afghanistan, have we learned to tell an extremist from a person of faith going about their daily lives. By Simran Jeet Singh. 670 words. (category: k)
COMMENTARY
RNS-Salkin-Oped: A great leader dies — and with him, a whole generation
(RNS) — Rabbi Richard Hirsch, long time leader of Reform Judaism in the United States, Israel, and worldwide has died at the age of 95. But this death was not his alone. Rather, it marks the end of an era in Reform Judaism, an era in which great leaders shaped the intellectual, moral, and political fabric of our movement. By Jeffrey Salkin. 1,110 words. (category: c,k)
