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Church Uses Facebook for Sacramental Scrutiny at its Peril

By Elizabeth Drescher

…raging the development of “a kind of ‘eco-system’ that maintains a just equilibrium between silence, words, images, and sounds.” And, we might add, actions. Blog a bit, tweet a bit, share your favorite liturgical recipes on Facebook if you like, the Holy Father seemed to be saying to the Catholic faithful, but once in a while, for the love of God, zip it. All in all, not a bad idea, but I suspect the silence His Holiness had in mind had nothing to…

Pope’s ‘Joy of Love’ Brings Little Joy To LGBT Catholics; Gay Atheist Malaysian Granted Refugee Status In Canada; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…the LGBTI community is a convenient scapegoat to distract from political failure and build fearful public support for future elections. How much longer this tactic can be effective is a real question. In the meantime, groups like GAYA NUSANATARA try to create a space for LGBTI Indonesians. “There is no sex education in public schools, but in GAYA NUSANTARA sexuality discussion groups Muslim students will often talk of ‘queering God’ before and aft…

A Year After the Non-Apocalypse: Where Are They Now?

By Tom Bartlett

…ps it wouldn’t happen until May 21 was over everywhere on the planet. “It will still be May 21st in American Samoa (last time zone before the International Date Line),” someone posted on Latter Rain, an online forum for believers. By Sunday morning, new theories were floated. “It was God’s plan to warn people. It was His purpose to hide the true meaning behind May 21. It’s about us suffering what He went through,” a believer commented. One hypothe…

Anti-LGBT Culture Warriors On The March; More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…e world’s Catholics were in Europe, but by the middle of this century that number will fall “to perhaps a sixth.” Geography is not destiny, but it is only natural that prelates from one part of the world will tend to speak for the traditions with which they are most familiar, which might well differ considerably from other regions. We saw early signs of this when the family synod was held in Rome in 2015, when the Church’s (mainly European) libera…

Accused of Anti-Semitism, Trump Aide Makes Ancestry Appeal

By Michael Schulson

…on the details of concentration camps and how the ovens were too small to kill 6 million Jews.” Speaking with McClatchyDC, Schmitz maintained his innocence. What’s particularly striking, though, is the way that Schmitz made an appeal to biological ancestry as evidence that he doesn’t express anti-Semitic sentiments: “I do not recall ever even hearing of any ‘allegations of anti-Semitism against [me],’ which would be preposterously false and defama…

Tea Party 2.0, Ready For Post-Election Launch

By Julie Ingersoll

…tion, they distributed “6 million voter guides, 8 million mail pieces, 15 million phone calls, 500,000 doors knocked on by volunteers, and radio advertising covering 56 congressional districts and 22 U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races,” they are now (apparently as I write this) surveying voters to learn “who went to the polls and why.” Instructive for those of us who follow the influence of the religious right on the tea party movement (arguing t…

Mormons Prepare for WA Marriage Equality Fight

By Joanna Brooks

…voice is not silent on this issue any more. Once I came out as an ally, a number of gay friends and family members came out to me, and in terms of love and connectedness these were among the most spiritual experiences I’ve had since [serving a proselytizing mission for the Church]. Every time I have one of those conversations, I want to get on Facebook and add another 30 members to Washington Mormons for Marriage Equality. SL: Yes, when my childr…

Who’s Accusing Who of Mormon-Baiting?

By Joanna Brooks

…t Coke and a dozen pink-frosted sugar cookies that there is no anti-Mormon phonebanking script in use by Catholics for Obama. Anywhere. Is anti-Mormonism real? Yes. But even if one poorly-trained rogue phonebanker veered off script into an anti-Mormon ad lib, it does not make for a concerted anti-Mormon effort. (Leave that to orthographically challenged “Heaven is Easy” ministry in Florida.) May cool heads prevail as the race heats up in its fina…

Reporting from Paris: A Prayer for Polluters

By Donna Schaper

…asks the moral questions this way: What must we do? What can we do? What will we do? His triplet joins the triplet of the prayer. Of course we will have to accept some things that won’t budge. Of course we have to change what we can. And mostly we need the wisdom to know the difference. Listen to my friend, the business-environment journalist Marc Gunther express his dismay. He is my son’s godfather. That son is the one with the three grandchildr…

Making ‘The Link’: AIPAC’s New Crises

By Matthew Duss

…ls through both the House and Senate. In an attempt to move the sanctions bills through reconciliation and onto the president’s desk, earlier this month AIPAC sent a letter to every member of Congress demanding that the US government “impose crippling new sanctions on Iran,” including “provisions barring federal contracts to companies which are investing in Iran’s energy sector.” Increased pressure on Iran was queued up to be the number one issue…