Religion Dispatches
…entage of the cases worldwide, in part because Scicluna states that between 1975 and 1985, “I do not believe that any cases of pedophilia committed by priests were brought to the attention of our Congregation.” What he’s saying here is that they never saw the extent of these cases because they were handled on the diocesan level—much like the case of Father Hullermann, that Benedict (then still a Cardinal) is accused of mishandling. Ponder that. In…
Read More…ts about LGBT issues. Many are still thinking like we were taught to in the 1970s, that homosexuality is simply a base perversion, an abomination, and can be changed through repentance and prayer. Not so, say a legion of LDS LGBT people who have knees bruised and calloused from so much praying. Most straight LDS people have not grappled with the reality of LGBT experience. And another thing that has not happened yet in most LDS communities is a fr…
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…es have also stood up for such measures. The debate has largely focused on spirituality and ethics, but experts say new medical technology that has opened the door to the practice leaves religious organizations in a bind. Catholic leaders have long been supportive of pain-management measures, up to and including high doses of morphine that slow a patient’s respiration to the point of death, said Courtney Campbell, a professor of religion and cultu…
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…but I refrained from intruding into their Juneteenth experience. The small number of White individuals, couples, and families often looked uncomfortable navigating the happy, jubilant, celebratory mass of Black bodies regaled in red, black, green, and gold. Was this a South Carolina anomaly? I doubt it. According to one poll, 51% of Americans had no plan to celebrate (and more than half of those respondents declared that “they would not take part…
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…ken a much more adversarial stance to LGBT acceptance. However, increasing numbers of evangelical churches are accepting LGBT individuals as members. This development is not without its opponents, however. Many evangelical organizations—most significantly colleges, universities and seminaries—are mobilizing to retain their “religious right” to discriminate against LGBT individuals. More than 30 evangelical higher education institutions have petiti…
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…Muslims, and others) and absurd claims about global politics. More than the 1988 campaign (or the subsequent partnership of his lieutenant in this campaign, Ralph Reed, in the criminal schemes of Jack Abramoff) this case dramatizes the moral bankruptcy of alliances between the NCR and neoconservative power brokers. 1) The top of my list revealed: What could top such a list? Since we’re on the subject of disasters today, we might have noted how, am…
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…nd here story of the two catastrophes differs drastically. In fact, between 1793 and 1801 the people we now call Haitian pulled off a successful slave revolt against nothing less than the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte. On an August evening in 1791, either before or during the revolution (depending on when you date the revolution’s beginning), slaves performed a voodoo rite, Robertson’s “pact with the devil.” That the dominant tradition existing alo…
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…out? Anything to make a social impact?” I had been on the Daily Show for a number of years at this point, and spoken to a lot of Islamophobes, people who had a lot of misinformation about Islam and Muslims. It was a personal thing to me, and it was an issue I thought I could lend my voice to in a satirical space. Were there any particular misconceptions or fears you wanted to address? There was a lot of stuff about Shari’ah Law, the protests again…
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…more effective if it were honest. And perhaps that would have lessened the number of death threats and other vile correspondences she has received. Second, others have said that she deserved the criticism for its political harm, that this hurts the Democratic party. Perhaps, but that doesn’t make much sense either, because the manufactured outrage made it worse. If a Democratic leader had privately contacted her and said, “Ilhan, you have to clari…
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…clear violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment and any number of Supreme Court cases. He was removed again last year for refusing to uphold federal law on same sex marriage, on the grounds that it was in violation of God’s law as found in the Old Testament. Like Winthrop, Moore believes that the Old Testament should order American society, whether Exodus or Leviticus. The ancient Israelites in these societies either adhered, or…
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