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Pricey Tickets, Cranky Citizens, and Priests Behind Bars as Philadelphia Prepares For Papal Visit

By Anthea Butler

…to continue to shrink into the insularity and disorganization that caused the Philadelphia Archdiocese to decline so precipitously? It remains to be seen. Meanwhile, faithful Catholics and others who want to see the Pope may be losing heart. 10,000 tickets for the Pope’s Speech at Independence Mall sold out in two minutes on Tuesday, with 394k people trying their best to get a few. Tickets are already being scalped at $100 and up on craigslist. I…

Republican Scandals Drag Secretive ‘Family’ Into the Big Time

By Randall Balmer, Anthea Butler, Evan Derkacz, Jeff Sharlet, and Diane Winston

…“In this way we are converted, we convert ourselves—No one converts us!” A Family associate, trying to defend The Family’s long support for and aid to Suharto, asked me whether the killing took place before or after Suharto formed his alliance with The Family; the answer, sadly, was before, during, and after. Suharto never stopped killing. But Mark Hatfield, that distinguished liberal, saw Suharto as an opportunity. One might say I’m being naive,…

Mile-High Identity Politics: What We Can Learn From the Same-Sex Seating Controversy

By Eboo Patel

…, not the fourth century … You’re not free to practice your religion in my airline seat.’ ‘This is male entitlement .. the height of male arrogance.’ One comment referred to this as a ‘back of the bus’ issue; as in, women being asked to move in such circumstances was tantamount to assigning them a lesser status as citizens and lower dignity as human beings. Other readers proposed that airlines set aside special seating for men requiring such accom…

The Key to Understanding the Federalist Society Isn’t Originalism — It’s This 800-Year Old Tradition

By Peter Schwartz

…notions of “human dignity” and “human flourishing,” Catholic natural law—an 800-year-old tradition dating back to Thomas Aquinas—is a lens that offers utter clarity to conservative Catholic jurists, activists, policymakers, and scholars as they observe, describe, and engage the world. The power and sharpness of this lens allow them to confidently snap every human movement—every human desire and motive and act—into its divinely appointed and proper…

Atheist Nazis? The Pope’s Cheap Atonement

By Susannah Heschel

Adam Clayton Powell called it “cheap grace,” but we might call it “cheap atonement”: the effort by sinners to select which sins to acknowledge and repent. Pope Benedict XVI ended his heavily protested visit to England with a heartfelt apology for German bombings of England during the Battle of Britain; though he refused to accept Christian responsibility for the Holocaust, blaming it instead on pagans and atheists. Given that Cardinal Walter Kasp…

Abuser Priests Were “Off Duty,” Lawyer Argues

By Patricia Miller

…ware. When one of the justices asked how you could tell if a priest was on duty, the lawyer argued: “Well, you can determine a priest is not on duty when he is molesting a child, for example. … A priest abusing a child is absolutely contrary to the pursuit of his master’s business, to the work of a diocese.” And the court bought it, ruling that Naples didn’t have a case because he couldn’t prove the trips were “church sanctioned.” So I guess by th…

Glenn Beck’s Cheap Grace

By Karyn Carlo

…way from the hard work of repentance, who tickle our ears with promises of cheap grace, and offer a vision of the cross of Jesus that has nothing to say to the crosses, and lynching trees, of history. But, if we do, we will be settling for the gospel of Caesar, not the good news of Jesus Christ. Perhaps it is time to put down the chalk, stop drawing pyrotechnical conspiracy theories that play into our worst fears and listen, instead, for the diffi…

Are Evangelical Films Destined to Leave Secular Audiences Behind?

By Daniel Silliman

…s a great evangelizing opportunity. One woman reported buying more than 20 tickets for her extended family and another said she planned to return to her theater to pass out tracts. Others griped that they didn’t hear the name “Jesus” mentioned very much in the movie. More than a few expressed disappointment, but then seemed to feel the need to defend their Christian identity, affirming that while they loved the message and believed Jesus was comin…

A collage of a Bible, Valdimir Putin, and the Kremlin and an outline of Russia

Putin’s ‘Year of the Family’ Declaration Blends Russian Nationalism with the Far-Right Rhetoric of the Global Pro-Family Movement

By Irina Smolevskaya

…abortions in local private clinics,[34] Putin’s statement that “a true big family is of course a family with children” indicates that the state’s attack on reproductive rights, including access to abortion, birth control, and family planning services, is likely to intensify in the coming year.[35] Of course, the speech contains some obligatory nods towards the country’s ethnic diversity: “We, the multinational people of Russia, shape its future.”[…

A Meditation on Shopping and Desire

By Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado

…We have an unprecedented access to cheap goods, yet we must recognize that cheap goods are cheaply made. I am not speaking of quality, I am speaking of cheap labor. We must recognize that through the act of shopping, whether it is for an article of clothing, a toy, a pint of strawberries, or even our morning cup of coffee, we participate in a global economy that values profit over people. Disposable goods are made by disposable people, faceless in…