Some mixed signals coming out of Charm City yesterday, where the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops are holding their semi-annual meeting.
The U.S. bishops vowed to defend their religious liberty, particularly against the perceived incursions of the Obama administration.
Bishop William Lori led the charge, saying that “law and culture are indeed establishing un-religion as the religion of the land.”
New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan backed him up, decrying a society-wide “drive to neuter religion” and “push religion back into the sacristy.”
(While the bishops were meeting, Catholic Charities announced that it was ending its legal battle over gay adoptions in Illinois and will no longer provide state-funded services.)
Later on Monday, Dolan said he had an “extraordinarily friendly” meeting with President Obama last Tuesday, and left with the impression that Obama is “very open to the sensitivities of the Catholic community that were worried about an intrusion into religious liberty.”
WaPo columnist Michael Gerson, though, says “Obama’s Catholic outreach is being revealed as a transparent ploy a year before he faces reelection.”
Continuing a theme, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins told his buddy James Dobson that Obama “has a disdain for Christianity” and is using his bully pulpit to push it from the public square.
This, of course, comes after Bob Jones III told the National Journal that he has “no reason to think” that Obama is a Christian.
If I was the cynical type, I might suspect a conservative campaign to paint Obama as anti-Christian ahead of the 2012 election.
Pope Benedict XVI will make his second papal trip to Africa on Friday, where he is likely to address economic justice, peace-building and interfaith dialogue. The trip’s unofficial hash tag is: #Don’tYouDareEvenMentionTheC-word.
New York activists are discouraging Muslims from reporting concerns about terrorism to the police because they’re fed up with being spied on, the AP reports. Someone call Peter King.
Oh, the AP did. He called the Muslims’ reaction “disgraceful.”
Wonder what King would say about a Tennessee lawmaker who said – on Veteran’s Day – that Muslims should not be allowed in the military.
Gays and Muslims are relieved after a religious exemption was stricken from Michigan’s proposed anti-bullying bill.
The FBI released its 2010 hate crime stats. Of the 6,224 incidents reported in last year, 20% were motivated by religious bias. Of those, 65 percent were anti-Jewish.
A new iPhone app measures user’s religious activity by the flame of a virtual candle that grows larger and brighter.
The flame metaphor doesn’t quite work for Buddhists, who aspire to nirvana, which literally means “to blow out,” as in the fires of greed, delusion and anger.
Not to fear, dharma buddhies: There’s an app for you, too.
Yr hmbl aggregator,
Daniel Burke
The pic at top left is the Buddhist app, if you hadn’t already guessed that.