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Why are Nuns and Monks in the Streets? (Parts I & II)

By José Cabezón

…iced in monasteries. Practices traditionally found within monasteries—like divination and oracles—are classified as “superstitions” and are proscribed. —Government agencies also control the hours during which monasteries can remain open to the public, and can order their sudden closure if they perceive there to be a security problem, as has happened recently. They also determine whether, when, and how festivals and public teachings and rituals may…

In the Papal Pocket: Benedict XVI and the Press

By Mary E. Hunt

…ch is apparent on the many Catholic groups that represent lesbian and gay, divorced and remarried church members; groups like Catholics for Choice and Women’s Ordination Conference, voices seeking to be heard as Catholics, not as dissenters. We have learned over the years that there is simply no competing for media attention with the bulletproof Popemobile and the crowds of faithful. Protests and press conferences, women-led liturgies and other ed…

A Lone Blogger vs. the McCain-Hagee Alliance

By Bruce Wilson

…e mainstream mass of secular culture; some, like Hagee’s church, have even diverged significantly from classical American fundamentalism. At John Hagee’s neo-Pentecostalist church, according to Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, one can attend retreats to be guided through the process of vomiting up one’s personal demons: demons of the intellect, of handwriting analysis, of “anal fissures.” Those are the florid expressions of his unorthodox theology; Ha…

RDBook: Power Belongs to God

By Nathan Schneider

…ialists. Thankfully Sharlet is equally at home speaking of both bosses and divines. Still, there is a special something about power-mongers and secret societies. Maybe the word is “mystical.” It felt possible for me to explain away the Bush Doctrine as oil and realpolitik, or even class resentment, until I spent a day at a “prophecy conference” in a packed church in affluent Santa Barbara, California. Don’t worry about human suffering in the Middl…

Gandhi, his Grandson, Israel, and the Jews

By Shalom Goldman

…ppened to the Jews. The world did feel sorry for the episode but when an individual or a nation refuses to forgive and move on the regret turns into anger. The Jewish identity in the future appears bleak. Any nation that remains anchored to the past is unable to move ahead and, especially a nation that believes its survival can only be ensured by weapons and bombs. In Tel Aviv in 2004 I had the opportunity to speak to some Members of Parliament an…

A Religious History of American Neuroscience

By Leigh Eric Schmidt

…e aisle, technology was regularly seen as a conduit of empirical proof for divine realities. Was not the telegraph, for example, a herald of spiritualist communication? The Society of Psychical Research, on both sides of the Atlantic, was enamored with the notion that the new auditory technologies could well yield spiritual dividends. When the telephone appeared on the scene, some in the SPR threw themselves behind a new contraption called the “ps…

The Immorality of Immortality

By Hava Tirosh-Samuelson

…r is concerned with longevity—postponement of death of a discrete, human individual—the latter is based on developments in artificial intelligence and robotics, and sees the individual as disembodied ‘information’ that can exist forever. I argue that despite their differences, both projects share a deep disdain for human embodiment and a passion to engineer humanity out of its embodied existence. Both of the projects are profoundly secular, althou…

Catholic Bishops Do Siskel & Ebert

By Kate Childs Graham

…ergy, and—you guessed it—human sexuality. After review, the films are then classified into the following categories: A-I—general patronage, A-II—adults and adolescents, A-III—adults, L—limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling, and O—morally offensive. Here is a sampling of movies in a few of the categories: A-I: The USCCB Office of Film and Broadcasting denotes that this category is rare as “nowadays…

Op-Ed: Ramadan and Religious Freedom

By Sumbul Ali-Karamali

…The Pew Research Center has found that American Muslims are mostly middle-class and mainstream; Islam is one of many American faiths. During the Ramadan that fell in December of 2001, Pope John Paul II urged Christians to fast for one day in solidarity with Muslims. I was so moved that I felt a rush of gratitude and awe. The “solidarity fast“ was evidence that, instead of using Ramadan—a holiday that reminds us to empathize with others—to instiga…

This is not a Religion Column: Sarah Palin, American

By Jeff Sharlet

…ommonly attendant to urban living. Even his name is a sly joke for working class sophisticates, common men who’d know enough about culture to be able to whistle “Fanfare for the Common Man,” another populist delusion penned in 1942. That doesn’t sound like Sarah Palin. Too many Obama supporters have been too quick to prove Palin right when she spoke of the snobs who look down on people like her. Palin is from a small town, and her interests are th…