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Will the Pope’s Woman Problem Alienate Young Catholics?

By Patricia Miller

…in a religion where women have traditionally been keepers of the faith. “In 1987, 52 percent of women and 35 of men attended mass weekly,” she noted. “Now it is less than 30 percent.” Despite the attendance of some young church reform activists, the conference was haunted by the specter of a declining membership consisting of fewer and fewer millennials. “Mass and the sacraments are of less and less importance to my students,” said Myers, who note…

Chicken or Egg? Now We Know…

By Lauri Lebo

…he egg came before the chicken. But why such defensiveness from folks like Myers? I mean, yes, it’s kind of a lame story. But it’s summer. It’s hot. And all that science stuff makes writers’ brains hurt. Once in a while, isn’t it just so much easier to go with the easy headline word play even if it is kind of dumb? (See above headline.) Can’t we all just give folks a break? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could. But the problem is that those kinds of he…

Atheist Schism?

By Katie Toth

…so.” As an example she points to popular blogger and biology professor PZ Myers‘ continued criticism of Sam Harris, adding: “To be horribly angry at the leaders of the Islamic theocracies in the Middle East is very different from being angry at the guy who’s sitting next to you on the bus. We treat moderate and progressive Christians differently from how we treat hardcore, homophobic, misogynist fundamentalist Christians. I think we need to do th…

Top Ten Religion & Science Stories of 2009

By Lauri Lebo

…around nine months after Darwin’s birthday, Young Earth creationist Ray Comfort was grabbing the religion headlines. Comfort’s best-known argument against evolution is the cultivated banana because it comes in a biodegradable package and is designed for easy gripping by the human hand. Accompanied by former child actor Kirk Cameron, Comfort led a crusade at college campuses across the country to distribute altered copies of Origin. Comfort penned…

Corporations Have Consciences and Contraceptives Are Cheap: Hobby Lobby at the Supreme Court

By Sarah Posner

…s conscience, and whether Congress intended to protect it when enacting the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). What was most striking, though, was how all three female justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, fired the most challenging questions at the companies’ lawyer, Paul Clement, confronting the essential underpinnings of his clients’ claims. In particular, they questioned whether RFRA was intended to cover…

An Open Letter to CEO Jeff Smisek On United Airlines’ Blasphemous Safety Video

By Austin Dacey

…ing traces of “Rhapsody in Blue” from the safety videos now being shown on United and Continental flights. I fully appreciate that United Continental Holdings holds the rights to Gershwin’s composition and presumably to such “derivative works.” Yet I also know that as a graduate of Harvard Law, you must appreciate the difference between legal permission and moral propriety. I would welcome the opportunity to sit with you so as to attempt to move y…

Again, Vatican Punishes Gender Equality More Swiftly Than Sexual Abuse

By Patricia Miller

…cs are going to figure out that the change they have been waiting for isn’t coming at all. Correction: Thanks to Bridget Mary Meehan of the ARCWP for letting us know that rather than 160, as a previous version of this post specified, there are in fact over 180 in the International Roman Catholic Women Priests movement….

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…

Modernity’s Fraternity: What Dan Brown Gets Right

By Samuel Biagetti

…ate and prepare him for entry into a new social and spiritual realm; in the 1600s and 1700s, these rituals created a buzz of fear and suspicion around the Masons, which only added to their popularity. Masonic lodges proliferated in America from the 1720s onward. They were a religious movement as well as a social networking sensation, a pre-electronic Facebook. At first they recruited only affluent gentlemen and professionals, then later a broader…

Hajj Journal: The Journey Begins and Ends

By Amina Wadud

…embark last. Let the other passengers, many whom will transfer to domestic flights, get off first. Well, if the rest of us are hajjis, we don’t all look like hajjis. Only one other woman has on white: an African sister, whose partner does not wear the two cloths. In fact, several Africans were in their native dress. Okay, so maybe they will change on the plane. Well, about four and a half hours into the flight, they announce over the speaker that…