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What Do You Think?: “Padre Oprah” Scandal Has Many Asking Whether Priests Should Be Allowed to Marry

By Frances Kissling

…from sex. Celibacy remained mandatory. God went relatively silent and the number of men hearing the call to the priesthood declined. Only 480 new priests were ordained in 2008. The number of graduate level seminarians declined from 8,325 in 1965 to 3,286 in 2008. There is little cachet in the Catholic family these days in having a son become a priest. While no figures are available, anecdotal reports and expressed Vatican concern indicates that G…

Who Would the Buddha Bomb?

By Danny Fisher

…e armed forces. With this rise of dharma practitioners in the services has come a need for Buddhist chaplains, and several have been commissioned in the last fifteen years. (Two of them, the Army’s Somya Malasri and the Navy’s Aroon Seeda, were among the attendees at the White House gathering.) Bosco notes, however, that many Buddhists in the U.S. military have retreated to online communities due to the prevailing support for nonviolence among Ame…

Reactionary White Buddhists Have Joined The Fight Against Critical Race Theory

By Ann Gleig

…om White Awake, one of the anti-racist organizations working with Buddhist communities, and solicited a comment from anti-woke crusader and mathematician James Lindsay in which he linked whiteness to communism and the abolition of private property. As he put it, “Whiteness is the racial repacking of Marx’s concept of ‘bourgeois private property.” Reposted by Legal Insurrection, another conservative organization, one reader added “Critical race the…

“Can You Tell Me Who The Villains Are?”: Rock and Religion, Irish-Style

By Lisa Bitel

…boys. In all, the Saw Doctors have produced seven studio albums and thirty number one singles. Music critics have compared the band’s effect to that of the Grateful Dead and Bruce Springsteen because of their ability to make the small negotiations and crises of everyday life seem so politically urgent, and to do so in catchy melodies and upbeat rhythms. But the real secret to Docs’ success lies in their devoted cult following among Irish, British,…

Is Obama the Antichrist? Why Armageddon Stands Between the President and the Evangelical Vote

By Matthew Avery Sutton

…going to masquerade as an angel of light. This means that the more Obama accomplishes as president and the more he improves America’s image abroad, the more suspicious evangelicals will become; they don’t want to be duped by the devil. Obama’s talk of more cooperation with other nations, the possibility of a national health care plan, his move to nationalize some private businesses, and his goal of expanding protection of the rights of gays and le…

The “Mormon Moment” Yields… Not So Much

By Joanna Brooks

…lves: down from 65% of Americans surveyed to 61%. Some measurable gains have been made among mainline Protestants: 28% surveyed in 2011 said they have “a lot in common” with Mormons; now, that proportion is 42%. And when asked to give a one asked to give a one-word descriptor of Mormonism, the number of respondents offering a positive word like “good,” or “honest,” increased from 18% in 2011 to 24% in 2012. All of these gains were concentrated a…

For Conservatives, the Future Looks Dim… and Gay

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…of talk that’s turning off younger voters. The College Republican National Committee commissioned its own poll of college-aged Republicans, and what they found doesn’t bode well for the GOP’s future. If young voters primarily thought the Republican Party’s policy plan in 2012 was to prevent gay marriage and to ensure very low taxes for very rich people. . . it’s understandable that a large majority voted the other way. . . . Opposition to gay marr…

Stupak Forming Fault Lines in Left-Leaning Faith Groups?

By Sarah Posner

…ons—was already included in the House bill that came out of the Energy and Commerce Committee. It was a fix that pro-choice religious groups reluctantly agreed to, but that anti-choice groups were still dissatisfied with. (For a full discussion and comparison of the Capps and Stupak amendments, read this analysis by the Center for American Progress’ Jessica Arons.) Rabbi David Saperstein, director and counsel to the Religious Action Center of Refo…

By The Numbers: Jeb Opposes Francis on Climate Change at His Peril

By Daniel Schultz

…happening, or if it is, it’s natural causes, or they’re just not sure. The numbers attributing warming to human activity rise among moderates and liberals, of course, but they’re not going to vote for Jeb anyway. There is one number Bush might want to worry about, though: 85. That’s the percent of Hispanic Catholics who think climate change is a real problem: For a guy who’s been touting his potential to draw Spanish-speaking voters into the Repub…

How to Make Nones and Lose Money: Study Shows Cost of Catholic Sex Abuse Scandals

By Kaya Oakes

…al, leaving the American church with a massive money problem and shrinking numbers of parishioners on the eve of Pope Francis’ arrival. A recent study by Nicholas Bottan and Ricardo Perez-Trugila in the Journal of Public Economics revealed that, unsurprisingly, “a scandal causes a persistent decline in the local Catholic affiliation and church attendance.” “Some Catholics join other religious denominations during the first three years after a scan…