Religion Dispatches
…n who will defeat Al Gore. Unfortunately, Governor Bush is a Pat Robertson Republican who will lose to Al Gore.” This Reagan Republican has come around on Pat Robertson politics, volunteering to sacrifice once again for his country a piece of himself. At the “Civil Forum on the Presidency” moderated by Rick Warren at Saddleback Church this past August, and on countless other occasions during the campaign, McCain has canonized one anecdote to answe…
Read More…er offences for which the death penalty could be applied under the revised code, which is due to come into force on 22 April,” the International Law Professor Blog reports. The new penal code has been condemned by the United Nations. England: Priest Defies Church Ban to Marry His Partner; University Bans Anti-Gay Muslim Speakers Last week Rev. Jeremy Pemberton, a priest with the Church of England, married his partner Laurence Cunnington in defianc…
Read More…buggery laws in 2003.) In Belize, antigay laws extend beyond the criminal code: Homosexuals are still technically an explicit class of prohibited immigrants, along with prostitutes, “any idiot,” the insane and “any person who is deaf and dumb.” ….In Belize, church leaders are granted deference in the press and by lawmakers on social issues. But in large part, the ecclesiastical focus has always been on the spiritual rather than the political real…
Read More…n who will defeat Al Gore. Unfortunately, Governor Bush is a Pat Robertson Republican who will lose to Al Gore.” This Reagan Republican has come around on Pat Robertson politics, volunteering to sacrifice once again for his country a piece of himself. At the “Civil Forum on the Presidency” moderated by Rick Warren at Saddleback Church this past August, and on countless other occasions during the campaign, McCain has canonized one anecdote to answe…
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…lavery as a child around 1686, Venerable Teresa Chikaba enteredthe Convent Dominican Sisters of Saint Mary Magdalene in Salamanca, Spain in 1703 and professed her vows as Therese Juliana of Saint Dominic in 1704. Generally regarded as the first black nun in a Spanish cloister, Chikabaremained in the convent until her death in 1748. She is currently under consideration for sainthood. In the nineteenth century, several American-born women of African…
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…urch of San Marco, they might pay homage at the tomb of St. Antoninus, the Dominican former Archbishop of Florence. Antoninus was the premier moral theologian on the subject of sex and marriage. He approved of early abortions when necessary to save the life of the woman—a large category in the medical and hygienic conditions of his day. Far from having been condemned he was canonized a saint in 1523. His feast day is on May 10. I would like to rai…
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…oll priest Roy Bourgeois and RCWP bishop Patricia Fresen. Fresen, a former Dominican nun who was expelled from her order for being ordained, is a memorable figure. In particular, as she speaks about her process of moving toward ordination she comes across as a truly humble human being—something that can be said all too rarely about Catholic bishops. She is also a genuinely heroic woman, having being been arrested for allowing black children to enr…
Read MoreEvolutionary geneticist and ordained Dominican priest Francis Ayala has been honored with the Templeton prize. The $1.6 million award goes to those grappling with the answers to “life’s biggest questions” and to a living person who has made an “exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.” “Science and religion are two pillars on which American society rests,” said Ayala, a professor of biology and philosophy at the Universit…
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…uld consider as a vocation.” Emily communicated with a cloistered order of Dominican women, but ultimately decided against that form of life. She was working in an intercultural ministerial context, and found that a diversity of “human cultures and means of interaction with one another, even in a purely non-religious way, were incredibly important for developing relationships.” She adds that “for any true injustices that I did see around me that r…
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…line courses, for ordination. Bishop Fresen’s is another dramatic story. A Dominican nun from South Africa with a doctorate in theology, she taught homiletics to Catholic seminarians in Johannesburg but wasn’t allowed to preach herself in Catholic churches. “We in South Africa have learned that the response to an unjust law is to break it,” she says. Leaving her community, she moved to Germany, learned German, and was ordained bishop in a secret c…
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