Friday's Religion News Roundup: Judge Roy Moore; gay Catholic sports; Mormons wrestling (with faith)
Can Roy Moore, the "Ten Commandments Judge," remain objective in a town's fight to publicly post its theology? Philly hosts a sports camp for Catholic men trying to pray away the gay, and Catholic bishops find a modern-day hero in St. Andy Garcia. All that and more in today's Religion News Roundup.
File this under “We All Saw This Coming”: Roy Moore, who is poised to return as Alabama's Chief Justice after he was tossed out over his Ten Commandments monument, is now defending a town's right to post “One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism” on the sign coming into town. The case, of course, could well end up before his bench.
Mary Ann Glendon, a Catholic intellectual and friend of the Vatican, has been named to the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom.
Monsignor William Lynn, the Philly priest who's facing trial for not clamping down on predatory priests, was struggling for a defense yesterday: “Because they acted out with a minor did not necessarily mean they were pedophiles.”
Meanwhile, just outside the City of Brotherly Love this weekend, a Catholic support group for guys who wish they weren't gay is holding a sports camp to learn how to be, um, more macho, I guess.
As the American Muslim community grows, so does their need for Muslim funeral homes and cemeteries.
WaPo looks at online support groups for Mormons who are wrestling with their faith. The ecumencial Taize chant-and-sing movement is bringing its mega conference to Chicago this weekend.
Catholics will host their “Fortnight of Freedom” soon, rallying around saints and martyrs in the fight over birth control. Now some have a new modern-day hero: St. Andy Garcia, in the film “For Greater Glory,” about a church v. state fight in 1920s Mexico.
Muslims in New Jersey are angry after the state attorney general found that the NYPD did nothing wrong in its surveillance program that targeted Muslim businesses, mosques and community centers.
Looks like the Church of England may (or may not) be on the verge of allowing women to serve as bishops. And special points to Reuters for use of the term “scupper.”
An Israeli man has petitioned a rabbinical court for divorce, claiming his wife's 550 cats keep swiping his food and hogging the bed. Yes, 550 cats.
The head of the Vatican Bank was ousted after a no-confidence vote from his bosses.
And on this Memorial Day weekend, we pause to honor the venerable Times-Picayune's service to journalism as it tries to reinvent itself for an uncertain future. Special kudos to T-P religion scribe Bruce Nolan, who possesses an unrivaled ability to knit together a string of words into a strand of pearls.
Now that the official kick-off to summer is here, I and the Vicar of Doncaster can hear the “fuzz of tonic in my gin beckoning.”
– Kevin Eckstrom
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