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Debate Heats Up Over “Francis Effect”

By Patricia Miller

…one to measure the pontiff’s influence” than, say, actual metrics like the number of people going to mass or returning to the church. According to Burke, you just have to “ask around” Boston to find folks who know someone who’s thinking about returning to the church or who feels less horrible about the church than in the darkest days of the U.S. clerical sex abuse scandal, which had Boston at its epicenter. That’s a pretty low bar, but of course n…

The American Media’s Longterm Ambivalence About the Papacy

By Peter Manseau

…ver in Newsweek’s estimation.) The advent of the 1960s, and the magazine’s new status as subsidiary of the Post, led Newsweek to take a different approach. With the 1963 cover story “Catholicism in America” and 1967’s “How Do Catholics View Their Church?” it seemed coverage of the Church in national newsweeklies had moved away from the top-down approach. When Time began to tell similar stories of fracturing faiths and tested authority, it may have…

‘Pro-Life’ Theater, Open White Nationalism, and Virility Fear — Day 3 of NatCon

By Annika Brockschmidt and Ben Lorber

…Ancient world: Let me tell you what I see on the horizon at the dawn of a new chapter, as we embark on a rebounding, what I like to call the New West, a vision of a sprawling global empire, but of a collection of nation states working in concert, borne together by shared culture and common values. Philosophy, Roman law, and the values of the Holy Bible. This is what we mean when we say ‘Western civilization’. “Pro-life” theater Catholic Universit…

Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

By Diane Winston

…l inspiration, and social movements is a separate reality from the growing number of nones. Both need coverage. But the Gallup data raises questions that I’ve rarely seen addressed in recent years. What does faith look and feel like in flyover country? As a cub reporter, I wrote about the greying mainline, their internecine squabbles and financial woes. But thirty years later, they’re still standing. Did we get it wrong or did we just forget to lo…

Renovating Marriage, One Gay Couple at a Time

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ose marriage equality on religious grounds. For them, I point to a growing number of religious leaders who also understand that gays and lesbians can do a lot to “redefine” marriage in beneficial ways. Rev. Ed Bacon, who leads the 4,000 member All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif., told Oprah Winfrey this past weekend that marriage would be “enriched” by same-sex couples. I’ve never had a straight couple come to me and say, ‘My marriage is in trou…

What Pence and Kaine Reveal About Divides in Catholicism

By Patricia Miller

…ncient principle that where God says before you were formed in the womb I knew you. … So for me, my faith informs my life. I try and spend a little time on my knees every day. But it all for me begins with cherishing the dignity, the worth, the value of every human life. After attacking Kaine for being on a ticket that supports “partial-birth” and publicly funded abortions—and slyly suggesting that he compromised his faith principles to do so—Penc…

Can Expelled Teach Us a Thing or Two?

By Arri Eisen

…s ostracized by the system. This, according to the movie, is an affront to freedom, a basic right upon which America was built. The movie focuses on five or six folks (all of whom are challenging evolution with the same idea: intelligent design) who claim to have been ruined by the Academy. The movie is very well staged. Stein presents himself as a well-meaning, skeptical, and regular guy who wanders across a collection of disturbing events, which…

Mormon Rejection of Trump Embarrassing for Evangelicals?

By Neil J. Young

…ctly to a political candidate, issuing a statement that affirmed religious freedom and emphasized Mormon-Muslim partnerships in humanitarian causes. Aside from these political differences, Mormons have recoiled at the personality and style of Trump. Conservative, family-oriented, and devout, Mormons are a sharp contrast to the brash and profane Trump, and they have expressed disapproval for the thrice-married billionaire’s lifestyle and temperamen…

Will Iowa’s Abortion Ban Respect Religious Freedom?

By Christine Ryan

…ing opinion, Iowa’s Chief Justice Susan Christensen pointed to the state’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and highlighted a recent Indiana case where the Court of Appeals held that a similar abortion law violated the religious freedom of those whose beliefs compel them to end a pregnancy. This legal theory isn’t particularly novel; applying RFRA to abortions motivated by religious beliefs is straightforward. Under RFRA, religious bel…

Pop Culture Yogi B. K. S. Iyengar Dead at 95

By Andrea R. Jain

…in her quest to “conquer” the body. Iyengar established authority for his new system of Yoga by claiming ties to the yoga tradition presented in the South Asian text popularly recognized as the “classical” source, the Yoga Sutras, usually attributed to Patanjali, as well as to later hatha yoga developments. Iyengar even responded to recent debates about yoga’s identity and transmission by introducing an invocation to Patanjali at the beginning o…