Many hackles have been raised by Pope Benedict’s statement that AIDS “is a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, and that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems.” Not, of course, Bill Donohue’s: Anyone who thinks that condom distribution, education and/or research is going to solve a […]

Beginning tomorrow and through next Tuesday I’ll be impersonating Steve Waldman over at his essential Beliefnet blog. I expect still to be blogging here, cross-linking and -referencing as the spirit moveth.  But you’ll never know what you’re missing unless you check out both sites. Ahem.

David Brody, tipster of the religious right, sent out an alert yesterday that thunderclouds are gathering over President Obama’s first big judicial nomination–federal district judge David F. Hamilton of Indiana to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. The source of the problem is a 2005 ruling (Hinricks v. Bosma) in which Hamilton turned thumbs down […]

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Randy Forbes (R-Va.) strikes again.

Mike Kinsley takes after NYT conservative columnist-designate Ross Douthat for wooly thinking on stem cells–specifically, for focusing on the federal-research-funding issue while ignoring all those frozen embryos being destroyed or awaiting destruction in fertility clinics. This again proves, for Kinsley, that the anti-stem-cell forces “aren’t morally serious.” Nothing annoys social conservative intellectuals more than the […]

O to be a fly on the wall when the Concerned Women of America and allies meet with Joshua DuBois and the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships gang at the White House. Brody’s got the story, and via a CWA email to him it’s clear that these paladins of the Religious Right will come […]

The recent uproar in Connecticut over a bill that would have taken financial control over Catholic parishes away from the Church hierarchy and given it to the laity harks back to the bad old days of rampant ant-Catholicism in these parts. The subsequent deep-sixing of the constitutionally dubious effort has led to some cogitation on […]

On this eighth Sunday of the Obama Administration, props to NYT’s Laurie Goodstein for ferreting out the pastors that the still churchless president prays with on a regular basis: Caldwell, Hunter, Jakes, Moss, and Wallis. Conspicuous by its absence is the name of Rick Warren, the inaugural invocator who three months ago seemed to be […]

Pope Benedict cannot have been exactly heartened by Saint Pius X Society head Bernard Fellay’s embrace of his letter of regret on the SSPX affair. The Church lives, in fact, through a major crisis which cannot be solved other than by an integral return to the purity of the faith. With St. Athanasius, we profess […]

Are more people going to church in these hard times? First Gallup and now Pew says no way. Cathy Grossman, bless her ARIS-loving soul, buys their line, but I’m skeptical. Why? Because they didn’t ask the right question. Gallup asks, “How often do you attend church, synagogue, or mosque–at least once a week, almost every […]

Here’s what he had to say yesterday by way apology. I am actually grateful for this first opportunity to publicly speak about my crimes, for which I am so deeply sorry and ashamed. As I engaged in my fraud, I knew what I was doing was wrong, indeed criminal. When I began the Ponzi scheme […]

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Pastordan, good UCC clergy that he is, laments the ARIS news on shrinking Mainline Protestantism. This is hardly new news, but there has been an acceleration in the shrinkage during this decade–down from 17.2 percent of the adult population in 2001 to 12.9 percent today. The good pastor stresses the importance of the Mainline maintaining […]

Michael Steele goes all “individual choice” and states rights on abortion. Not to mention “nature” not “choice” on homosexuality. In GQ. Update: …and the walk back.