Religion Dispatches
…ives alone in a charming three-story brick Victorian home valued at $3.84 million. • Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, head of the bishop’s Committee on Religious Liberty—the epicenter of the church’s opposition to same-sex marriage and the contraception mandate—and the man supposedly behind the investigation of the LCWR, lives in a 11,5000-square foot historic mansion that dates back to the first Catholic bishop of the United States. • And last…
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…oncern raised by doctors at Asaf Harofe hospital, one of Israel’s major facilities. On the doorpost of every hospital room (with the exception of toilets) there is a mezuzah, the Jewish ritual object. A widespread custom among religiously observant Jews is to “kiss the mezuzah” (by touching it with your hand and then kissing your hand) as one enters and leaves a room. A research team of Asaf Harofe found that all hospital mezuzahs tested had picke…
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…West.” It did not and does not matter that Christianity was a significant pillar around which “Western” identity was built. Eastern Christians simply came to be seen as somehow not fully Christian. Nor did it seem to faze anyone that ancient Greek culture was heralded as the mythic ancestor of the West, while modern Greeks, nearly all at least cultural Orthodox Christians, were (and frequently still are) excluded from its shifting borders. Which b…
Read More…criticism of multiculturalism is nothing more than so much Islamophobia. While it is still too early to determine definitively Breivik’s precise motives, it could very well be that the attack was more pernicious – and more widespread – than the isolated act of a lunatic. Perhaps Brievik’s inexcusable act of vicious terror should serve not only as a warning that there may be more elements on the extreme Right willing to use violence to further thei…
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…e speech. Apparently, many sisters were frustrated by the Archbishop’s inability or unwillingness to clarify those things which they have done wrong and his insistence that they work on their “fidelity” to the Church’s official teachings. The official press release following the conference noted that the sisters felt their views and Sartain’s had been thoroughly shared, although it remains unclear how their situation will proceed. It seems unsurpr…
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…servative movement for the American Left. Catholic natural law requires an illiberal state. Until liberals become comfortable with an alternative conception of power, equally robust, but more fully grounded in an ethics of fairness and equality, it will remain difficult to meet the challenges from the Christian Right. In the meantime, First Things will continue to thrive within its niche as a rooted redoubt of reaction against the flux of times fo…
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…state.” And the only honorable course is to resist a military occupation built on an illiberal cult of power legitimated by Orthodox religiosity. It’s a matter of self-respect, which too few Jewish Americans have, apparently. From the beginning of Zionism, lack of self-respect has been a central fear in the movement. The first great Zionist writer, Leo Pinsker, condemned his fellow Jews for lack of self-respect and insisted that the only way they…
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…iban’s recent campaign to take over Northwest Pakistan. In December 2008, militants shot and killed the harmonium player Anwar Gul as he was traveling with his colleague, popular Pashto singer Sardar Yousafzai. In January 2009, extremists murdered the female dancer and singer Shabana and threw her body into the square of Mingora town. Journalist Shaheen Buneri has estimated that more than 800 music shops have been bombed or attacked in the Northwe…
Read More…y to legally recognize gay couples and an original draft law had to be heavily diluted due to divisions in Renzi’s ruling majority. The bill had faced stiff opposition from Catholic groups who said it went too far, while gay activists said it was too timid…. The ‘stepchild adoption’ clause was arguably the most disputed aspect of the bill. It stoked outrage among social conservatives and Catholics who saw it as a step toward legalizing surrogate m…
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…prematurely asking for the keys to her father’s car, and explains that similarly until 1978, the Lord determined that blacks were not yet ready for the priesthood. “What is discrimination?” Bott asks. “I think that is keeping something from somebody that would be a benefit for them, right? But what if it wouldn’t have been a benefit to them?” Bott says that the denial of the priesthood to blacks on Earth—although not in the afterlife—protected th…
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