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Advice from a Disaster Pastor: Open Your Wallet, Not Your Closet

By Carlos Wilton

…arrived at our community food pantry from a non-denominational church down South. It was completely filled with cases of bottled water. The exasperated Episcopal rector was at his wits’ end. There’s no more space in our church building, he said. Could you Presbyterians take the water? He and I both knew we had little immediate use for it: nor did anyone else on the Jersey Shore. Our local municipal water systems had never been compromised. But wha…

Pope Mum on LGBTs in Uganda; Church Defends Anti-Marriage-Equality Efforts in Australia; Cyprus Passes Civil Partnerships; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…echoes the trend in the West towards much greater acceptance of equality…. South Korea is something of an outlier in the region: Conservative evangelicals groups succeeded this summer in halting a gay pride parade in Seoul, even though the rest of the Korean Queer Culture Festival went ahead. Still, among youth in Korea, 71 percent of those between 18 and 29 said “homosexuality should be accepted,” according to a Pew Research Center poll this year…

For Better or Worse: The Rise of the Professional Wedding Celebrant

By Carlos Wilton

…her mop and bucket and performs ceremonies—mostly weddings—full-time. Her beach weddings are much in demand in this oceanfront community. She does many more weddings than I do, for locals and tourists alike. Some celebrants—like Mr. Kushner, presumably—become credentialed to perform a one-off ceremony for a friend or relative. Those who seek to make a living at it are more likely to get some training, such as the $2,400 “gold standard” webinar se…

How Trump Got Absolved By a Widow’s Suffering: Carryn Owens as “Victim Soul”

By Karen E. Park

…uries, the Catholic Church’s notion of “redemptive suffering” produced any number of “victim souls.” These were women specially chosen by God in some way to voluntarily and willingly suffer on behalf of others, to atone for the sins of their communities. Based on the example of Christ’s passion, victim souls from from St. Gemma Galgani to Blessed Alexandrina embodied suffering for their communities for a specific theological purpose: absolution. T…

In This Week’s LGBT Recap: Are Gay Priests Overdue for a Stonewall Moment?

By Peter Montgomery

…Also listed as signers are a number of religious leaders, including Foley Beach, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America; Catholic Bishop Emmanuel Badejo of Ojo, Nigeria; Lawrence Khongy, pastor of Faith Community Baptist Church in Singapore; and Josiah Trenham, an Orthodox priest who has spoken repeatedly at World Congress of Families gatherings. Vatican: Commentary on gay priest ban; time for ‘Stonewall Moment’ for gay priests? We…

Medieval Multitasking: Did We Ever Focus?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…nd us while breathing the air above. We’re masters of the attentive float. We get in and out of the water easily and are very happy to find our friends waiting on the beach, offering a towel and a shard of poetry washed ashore from the deep pool of our distracted wanderings….

Indie Catholicism is Real: Married Clergy, LGBT Ordination, and Sacramental Justice for All

By Julie Byrne

…firmation preparation classes. Or a couple who wants to get married on the beach, whereas the Roman church requires sacramental marriage to be performed in a Roman sanctuary. Or a funeral for a favorite uncle who married a man. Roman parishioners who run into these roadblocks might hear about independent Catholic priests by word of mouth or just find them on Google. Even if they are back in their Roman parish the next weekend—and they usually are—…

Doing Political Theology In an Election Season: Howard Thurman on Deception

By Andrew Wilkes

…reflection on racial justice to broad audiences. Here, I have in mind the Southern-born, black bard of Christian mysticism, Howard Thurman. In our Instagram age, Thurman’s legacy of letters and contemplative black mysticism is often reduced to decontextualized quotes on self-realization, shareable wisdom about finding a sense of inner stillness in a busy, often violent world. Certainly, the sage of Daytona Beach conveys volumes on these topics. B…

What Did ISIS Have to Do With Nice?

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…ented truck that plowed into a celebratory crowd watching fireworks on the beach of the French Riviera city of Nice, killing more than 80 people. “He didn’t pray, and liked girls and salsa,” the neighbor continued, according to a press report in the British newspaper, The Independent. Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a French citizen who lived in a town near Nice, had been convicted of petty theft on several occasions, and was never seen in a mosque, according…

U.S. Bishops’ Silence on Guns and Gays

By Patricia Miller

The U.S. Catholic bishops met in Huntington Beach, California this week, just days after the Orlando massacre. And despite the fact that the church’s most powerful prelates were all gathered together at a time when the nation is desperate for pastoral leadership to counter the vitriol spewing from Donald Trump and his ilk, this was the official, and only, USCCB statement on the massacre released by conference president Archbishop Joseph Kurtz: Wa…