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A Third Reconstruction? Rev. William Barber Lifts the Trumpet

By Peter Laarman

…st attack in American history was the series of race riots that killed thousands of black people from Springfield to Tulsa to Wilmington in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Yes, San Bernadino was terrorism. So was Mother Emmanuel AME. So are the drone attacks on civilian homes in Afghanistan. So is the carpet-bombing of cities. We must not forget that the key leaders of Daesh met and developed their agenda in the U.S.-run prison at Camp Bucca in Ir…

Act, Pray, Tweet: What the H*ll To Do About Gun Violence?

By Marcia Pally

…needy, stranger, and enemy. It calls murder a sin and crime, and provides sanctions (along with requirements for fairness and witness testimony in trials), just as it gives detailed instructions on aiding the downtrodden. Indeed, the idea that humanity only pray and wait for divine action would exempt us for any moral accountability for our communities. As long as I’m not the perp, such logic would go, I can fiddle—and pray—while San Bernadino bu…

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Heretic: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Jihadis?

By Haroon Moghul

…side were two great gazebos, where folks ate and talked late into the pleasant night; there was a beach volleyball pit and a full basketball court. The occasion was more stressful: an Open House, an invitation to explain Islam in America to a general audience of San Antonians. Afterwards, a garrulous visitor asked me how I reconciled Muhammad’s teachings with American life; since Muhammad was primarily a political leader and a general, was it not…

Cuba Opens its Doors to the Catholic Church

By Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado

…The significance of Wenski, Castro, and Ortega together at the Seminary of San Carlos and San Ambrosio, a symbolic trinity of Cubans’ and Cuban-Americans’ negotiations between identity, land, and religion, is not lost on me. For the Catholic Church globally, this opening is a public testimony of the survival of Catholicism in spite of increasing clergy shortages throughout other parts of Latin America. While many are heralding this as the beginnin…

Amid Growing Legitimacy Challenges from its Right and Left, Vatican Seizes Control of the Supernatural — to Prevent ‘Abuses’

By Emma Cieslik

…hop noted that he made this decision to avoid confusion among Catholics in San Antonio and around the world. And this is not an isolated incident. Most recently, the Spanish Poor Clares community left the Church. In a letter, Sister Isabel of the Trinity, the superior of the Spanish Poor Clares, announced that the sisters are leaving the Catholic Church and will be placed under the jurisdiction of a self-proclaimed bishop who was excommunicated in…

Hagee Hangs On

By Bill Berkowitz

…eakers are CUFI Board Member Gary Bauer, Daniel Pipes, former senator Rick Santorum, Charles Jacobs of the David Project, Dennis Prager, William Kristol, Israel’s US ambassador Sallai Meridor, AIPAC’s Brad Gordon, and Senator Joseph Lieberman. Despite pleas not to attend the Washington meeting from a number of organizations, including the newly-formed Jewish group J Street (which has partnered with Democracy for America in an effort called “Say It…

McCain’s Prosperity Preacher

By Sarah Posner

…say anything and touch God’s anointed… I was scared to say anything.” Thousands of devoted followers still come to hear Hagee preach every Sunday, and untold more hang on his televised words or receive his weekly missives on Middle East policy from CUFI. Those numbers are big enough that McCain, like George W. Bush before him, will bow down at the altar of money and authoritarianism to praise God for all those votes. Tell us what you think! Send…

Marriage Vote ‘Transforms’ Not-So-Catholic Ireland; Activist to Malaysian PM – ‘Love Is Not Terrorism’; LGBTs Find Growing Acceptance in Colombia, Not At World Meeting of Families; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…e country,” recently hosted a gay pride parade with little controversy. To Sanchez and other gay rights advocates, these changes are welcome. Many say they stem from young people knowing more “out” family members, friends, classmates and colleagues, and perhaps from Pope Francis’ more moderate tone on LGBT acceptance. An estimated 80 percent of Colombians are Catholic. “Now people can’t say anything publicly against LGBT people without a reaction,…

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…

Does Record Number of Religious “Nones” Mean Decline of Religiosity?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…an religiosity—about religion as it is lived in the United States today? A number of what I would see as problems in the Pew report suggest to me that our growing fixation with religion-by-the-numbers may be distracting us from richer, more nuanced understandings of American religious practice. Wanted: A Community that Doesn’t Share My Beliefs and Values Take the demographic category of “Nones” itself. The Pew report notes the difficulty with sur…