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Catholic Church Ordained Women Before, Can Do it Again

By Phyllis Zagano

…nistry and not to the priesthood. The mistake made by those who argue against the restoration of women to the order of deacon is that they think if a woman can be ordained as deacon, then she can be ordained as priest. But that demonstrates a misunderstanding of the diaconate as a permanent vocation and does not make the clear distinction that is well-known in church teaching: the priest serves in persona Christi capitas ecclesiae; the deacon serv…

As Florida Attempts to Make it Illegal, an Argument for the Sacred Work of White Discomfort

By Robert P. Jones

…. The beloved hymn, “Amazing Grace,” captures this dynamic. In the very first stanza, a Christian singing that hymn identifies as “a wretch” in need of salvation. The familiar refrains—“I once was lost, but now I’m found/Was blind but now I see”—begin with lament and confession. Grace is amazing precisely because God accepts us despite our own shortcomings. But we don’t come to salvation, nor do we grow in discipleship, without honesty and this ex…

Policing Academic Freedom: A Book, a Controversy, and the Ominous Aftermath

By Michael Jerryson

…ger. The 800-page book includes over 50 pages of references and covers a vast history that spans 50 million years—a magnum opus from a highly acclaimed scholar of Hindu traditions. A few months after The Hindus was published in the United States, it was favorably reviewed in the New York Times. The award-winning Indian essayist Pankaj Mishra praised the work as “staggeringly comprehensive,” and noted that “it is impossible not to admire a book tha…

Did the Pope Embrace the Prosperity Gospel?

By Sarah Posner

…use “according to the Committee’s staff memo, there was a ‘high level of distrust‘ of the government by the churches under investigation and the religious advocacy groups that supported them.” The Committee’s staff memo revealed further that “the Copelands employ guerilla tactics to keep their employees silent:” We are flat out told and threatened that if we talk, God will blight our finances, strike our families down, and pretty much afflict us w…

Lifestyles of the Rich and Pious

By Patricia Miller

…istoric mansion that dates back to the first Catholic bishop of the United States. • And last but certainly not least, Newark Archbishop John Myers, who has come under fire for the diocese’s failure to supervise a known predator priest and has been an outspoken opponent of John Kerry and other pro-choice Catholics, is adding a $500,000, 3,000-square foot wing to his $800,000, 4,500-square foot weekend/retirement home nestled on 8.2 wooded aces in…

Are Atheists Taking 1st Amendment Suits Too Far?

By Gordon Haber

…he system. The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) is a group of “atheists, agnostics and skeptics” with a Scientology-esque fondness for litigation. Recently the FFRF has gone after the so-called “parsonage exemption,” which allows clergy to forego paying taxes on income used for housing. Last year the FFRF sued the IRS, claiming that the exemption privileges clergy over laypersons and is thus unconstitutional. The exemption was created to he…

Violent, Genocidal Anti-Palestinian Rhetoric Moving to US?

By David Sheen

…ly endorses the logic of every terrorist group in history.” For decades, most mainstream Jewish leaders outside of Israel have publicly supported the military adventures of the Israeli government, regardless of the Palestinian death toll. But they have at least paid lip-service to the sanctity of human life and expressed regret for the souls lost on both sides. As Israel’s latest assault on Gaza enters its fourth week, however, we are witnessing a…

Where Polls and Surveys Fall Short: A Conversation with Robert Wuthnow on “Inventing American Religion”

By Andrew Aghapour

…does seem to be pretty good data supporting it, as part of the story at least. Then, number three, is that the studies that actually ask a person the same question a year or two later are finding that individuals change their minds a lot. That seems to occur especially with people who are identified as Nones. One paper identifies at least half of the Nones as “Liminals,” people who are trying to decide, on the cusp of making up their mind. You ask…

Why Bill Maher Gets a “C” in My Introduction to Religion Class…

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…ican Dictionary in which religion is essentially defined, in solid US-Protestant style, along the lines of a set of beliefs in God. (To give credit where credit is due, the problem also lies with the director Larry Charles and whatever half-baked research team they assembled; and while Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens are all susceptible to the same critique, in these pages I’ll confine myself to Religulous.) This is the kind of thing a fair number o…

The End (of Religion) is Near, Scientists Say

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…especially applied to arenas of social life that don’t lend themselves to statistical or quantitative analysis. Like health care. Like education. Isn’t this what we who are educators or health care professionals grapple with on a daily basis? The number-crunchers are forcing us to speak their language and play their game, though they make no parallel effort to learn ours. And that is precisely what this not-so-benign linguistic analogy suggests….