Search for "cheap airline tickets from baltimore to charleston sc phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Democrats Alarmed Over USCCB Pressure on Obama over Contraceptive Coverage

By Sarah Posner

…t to provide services to sex trafficking victims was a case of religious discrimination. USCCB will not refer sex trafficking victims for reproductive health services, a requirement of the contract. In another pressing example, the USCCB is putting pressure on the White House to broaden the exemption that religious organizations have from the requirement under the Affordable Care Act that employer-provided health insurance cover contraceptives. C…

Bishops Elect Moderate to Lead Pro-Life Committee

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…s will be the approach O’Malley takes, though, how will it track with the USCCB’s more partisan elements? Will his conciliatory demeanor run him afoul of the more zealously partisan? Or could it be, rather, that this was the very reason for his election? Michael Sean Winters’ observations of the Baltimore meeting are potentially instructive here. Winters suggests that while there are some pugnacious bishops spoiling for a public fight, many have o…

The Birth of Glenn Beck’s Nation

By Kelly J. Baker

…one from conservative optimism to apocalyptic vision. David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun chides Beck and Fox News for their “paranoid and angry words,” and Media Matters charts Beck’s what it sees as his descent into madness and isolation. Much of the coverage concludes that Beck is, at best, “bonkers.” Alex Pareene of Salon.com, however, realizes that perhaps this is not “some sort of victory”; that leaving Fox is not the end of Beck, but rather…

American Bishops Pushed Rome on Nun Crackdown

By Sarah Posner

…rman of the doctrinal committee of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). According to sources in Rome and Washington, his successor at the conference’s doctrinal office – the then Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Connecticut – was the man who formally petitioned the CDF to launch the current doctrinal investigation of the LCWR. Cardinal Bernard Law, who was forced to resign as Archbishop of Boston in 2002 because of his perceived mishan…

Gay Marriage Measure Dies in Maryland

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…using the term “marriage” for gay and lesbian unions. Del. Cheryl Glenn (D-Baltimore City) presented an amendment Friday to change the language of the bill to replace “marriage’’ with “civil unions.’’ Glenn said she had promised activists supporting same-sex marriage she would be lead sponsor of legislation providing protections, but only if those protections are legally termed “civil unions,’’ not marriages. “It’s all about the word of God,” she…

Gay Lawmakers Paving the Way for Equality

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…at has emboldened the lawmakers to speak out more: Del. Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore) said he has probably talked to at least 10 delegates, including several fellow freshmen with whom he bonded on a three-day bus trip across the state in December for new lawmakers. In some cases, Clippinger said, he has shared his story of coming out as a gay man in his late 20s as he was finishing law school. “We all come from different places and different persp…

Will Women Priests Change the Church?

By Mary E. Hunt

…ination to new forms of Church that approximated what theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza so aptly named “a discipleship of equals.” These women-church groups, as they are known, form loose networks of small base communities (in the U.S., the Women-Church Convergence). They function quite nicely without benefit of clergy and with broad participation by their members. There are many other house churches, unaffiliated parishes, even the occasion…

The “Majority Victimhood”

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…as a “minority” in a pending sexual orientation and gender identity non-discrimination bill being considered by the Baltimore County Council. “No councilmember should vote for this bill if it excludes former homosexuals. Ex-gays like me deserve the same equal rights that gays enjoy. We urge Quark to include all minorities in his bill, and not just favored groups,” said Grace Harley from PFOX. Actually, Grace, if someone is a “former homosexual” t…

Muslims Wearing Things, Tea Party Chastised on Nazi Talk, and Politicking in Church

By Michael J. Altman

…dspeaker at football games they can “put their fingers in their ears.” The schools have since put a halt to pre-game prayers. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell says prayer had a direct role in spiking her polling numbers. Can meditation change your brain? The best response to Juan Williams’ fear of Muslims in “garb” is the new blog Muslims Wearing Things. My favorite is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in a cowboy hat. Muslims caught in the midst of a disp…

Holey Holey Holey: The Problem with a New Study Valuing Religion at $1.2 Trillion Per Year

By Michael Schulson

…f the total revenue of American religious congregations. To get that final number, the Grims took one estimate of the total number of congregations in America (344,894) and multiplied it by another estimate of the average revenue of each ($242,910). Depending on how you look at it, $378 billion is a lot of money, or it’s not very much money at all. It’s more than the net worth of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffet, combined…