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New Vatican Document Good News for Poor, Bad News for Tea Party

By Daniel C. Maguire

…document, the right wingers are now running for cover, claiming it is not official. “The pope didn’t say it,” just some little old Vatican group off on a left-wing bender—as if one word of this document (which is pregnant with papal quotations) could slip out of the Vatican by night without the pope’s full blessing. The popes are not without fault, of course, they have squandered their moral authority by binging on issues where they have no privi…

Bishops Reject Proposed Compromise with Obama on Contraception Coverage

By Sarah Posner

…rence of Catholic Bishops. The National Catholic Register reports: [A] key official in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says the Hawaii bill — repeatedly cited in media commentary — would not resolve the conference’s concerns and would, in any case, be overridden by the federal rule. “I’ve reviewed the Hawaii law, and it’s not much of a compromise,” said Richard Doerflinger of the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities and the bishops’ ch…

Keeping the “Southern” in Southern Baptist Convention

By Paul Harvey

…do that.” But it is precisely in “theology, morality, and ethics” that the official name—Southern Baptist Convention—matches the key role of the SBC in guiding the white South on its long transformation from the era of segregation, through the turmoil of the civil rights struggle, and into the era of Baptist Republicanism. Not a Good Brand? The SBC has considered name changes in years past, apparently dating back (at least) to 2004, when the name…

Religious Exemption for Contraception Under Health Care Law

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…ly small minority of U.S. Catholics who agree with and follow the church’s official prohibition of artificial contraception… well, presumably you would not use those services. Ah, but what about the employers and their consciences? The religious exemption, whether it was intended to or not, essentially places the choice upon them: Do they want to be able to act as though contraception isn’t part of basic health care, that it’s a moral evil, and th…

How NOT to Investigate Mitt Romney’s Mormon Ties

By Joanna Brooks

…ty firm. Just last week, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that an LDS Church official with the same last name mistakenly used a church email account to fundraise for Romney 2012. Pay attention to the names. Mormons do. I cite these two recent stories not to suggest any kind of wrongdoing. What I am saying is that to understand the Mormon world that Mitt Romney moves in, the world that has shaped his perspective and priorities, journalists need to st…

‘Religious Freedom’: Constitutional Principle or Electoral Politics?

By Frances Kissling

…the Fortnight for Freedom, the grassroots phase of their campaign to gain official religious status for hospitals, universities, and social service agencies they neither control nor support financially. That status, as has been widely noted, would exempt these organizations from the administration’s requirement that an employer’s health insurance plan cover contraceptives, with no copay or other costs to the employee. But the longer-term goal is…

Newt Gingrich’s Apocalypse

By Sarah Posner

…of EMP’s allegedly lasting impact is purely theoretical, EMP awareness advocates can make outlandish claims regarding the threat that even the smallest nuclear arsenal poses. They can also point to allegations made by the official EMP Commission, ignoring the fact that many outside experts dispute its findings. So just how far out there are Republican apocalyptic theologies? In the 2012 campaign, they will probably be par for the course….

Red White and Blue No Longer

By Peter Laarman

The U.S. Census Bureau, never one to rush to judgment, has now made it official: fewer than 50% of the babies born in the United States during the year ending in July of last year were white. That’s right: among the nursery set, certifiably white bundles of joy are now in the minority, and this trend is considered irreversible in view of the higher fertility rates among immigrant groups already living here and a virtual end to the in-migration of…

From Murderous to ‘MORG’: Mormonism Meets the Press

By Joanna Brooks

…mney.” That’s doubtful. Whether by dint of his pragmatic personality or by official campaign strategy, Romney continues to studiously avoid open discussion of his religion, preferring instead to stress only the elements of his faith that align with campaign priorities. (Clayton Christensen, another Harvard-affiliated, business world-molded Mormon leader has emerged lately as a Romney media surrogate.) Romney’s reticence can be understood as a feat…

Romney not Precisely Familiar with Questioning Obama’s Faith, but Stands By It

By Sarah Posner

…t the other guy, who actually shares the religion that Romney claims the nation was founded upon, is the one who is undermining the proclaimed official national religion by promoting religious pluralism….