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Sacred Texting: When Religious Writ Gets Wired

…ability of cell phones to be used for impure activities, some Jewish cell-phone users have requested so-called “kosher” phones. The idea is to offer conservative Jews a phone that is free of “corrupting influences” of the sort that are already avoided by ultra-orthodox Jews through a ban on television and some radio. Reuters reported in February 2008 that Bezeq Israel Telecom launched a new “kosher” landline phone service, which will block calls…

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Power Up: Turn Off the Cell Phone

…plugged-in lifestyle doesn’t really get at the heart of the issue. I think the Amish, of all people, have it right. It’s not so much about what you as an individual are doing or not doing, as the effect technology has on the community: Why not make life easier and just put [a phone] in the house? “What would that lead to?” another Amish man asked me. “We don’t want to be the kind of people who will interrupt a conversation at home to answer a tel…

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“Saints Are Only Human”: Leaving the Church, But Heeding this Pope’s Lessons

…slogans about immigration reform. On line I heard that parishes with large numbers of undocumented immigrants had received many tickets. No outside food or water, statues, gifts or selfie sticks were permitted. Despite 10,000 folding chairs, most of us would have no choice but to stand. Once in my appointed place behind the last row of seats, I found myself in a community of fellow pilgrims, lottery winners from local parishes, nearby colleges, an…

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We Went Through Amoris Laetitia Section by Section So You Wouldn’t Have To

…ualism is bad. Also, he notes but offers no explanation for the decreasing number of marriages in many countries. I am glad to see that in Section 34 he understands this basic fact of contemporary western culture: The ideal of marriage, marked by a commitment to exclusivity and stability, is swept aside whenever it proves inconvenient or tiresome. The fear of loneliness and the desire for stability and fidelity exist side by side with a growing fe…

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Put Your Money Where Your Mind Is: A For-Profit Meditation Studio Opens in New York

…age. His 2012 book, The Buddha Walks into a Bar, has sold widely. Over the phone, I asked Rinzler why he and Burrows had chosen to establish the studio as a for-profit company. “We really wanted to make sure we had all the resources we need for supporting people who are trying meditation for the first time,” Rinzler explained. Because they’re a business, there’s more professionalism. The teachers they’ve hired show up on time, and, as Rinzler put…

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The Trouble With Francis: Three Things That Worry Me

…dinals. But on closer inspection, it is clear that women ought not to book tickets to Rome just yet. Juxtaposing “valued” and “clericalized” is odd at best, pernicious at worst. In a church in which ordained male clergy have jurisdiction— that is, authority to make decisions about things that matter—to claim that women who cannot be ordained are valued is a hard case to make. Valued for what and how? We have heard from Francis all about women’s su…

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Catholic Church Ordained Women Before, Can Do it Again

…e trajectory of deacon-priest-bishop is relatively recent—only about 700 or 800 years in the long history of the Church. In fact, the earlier understanding is that the deacon would become a bishop! I sometimes wonder if the naysayers are more afraid of women bishops than of women priests. But, in modern times, we have reestablished the tradition of a diaconate lived permanently. All priests are also ordained deacons, and in the most formal of litu…

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American Nuns and the Vatican: More Pain than Promise

…and among communities as well as to other lay Catholics—not that this was Rome’s intent. Many of the women’s communities took deep offense at the notion that men in Rome would dispatch underlings to investigate their lives and lifestyles, especially their prayer and ministries. Nonetheless, because women’s religious communities belong to the kyriarchal structure of the church there was pressure to participate or suffer unnamed consequences. As it…

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Predicting the Future of Religion: A Thought Experiment

…emographer may have seen a tidied up or simplified Catholicism reigning in Rome, especially under the influence of reform-minded clergy like the Spanish cardinal Gasparo Contarini and other representatives of the spirituali movement. And based on the near successes of the Council of Florence in 1454 he may have hoped for the reconciliation of the various Orthodox churches to the See of Rome. But what would the Court Demographer been unable to imag…

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Christianity Without the Cross

…in the Northwest Territories of Canada, I went on a ten-day pilgrimage to Rome with feminists of faith led by Christine Schenk, CSJ of Future Church in Cleveland and taught by archeologist Dorothy Irvin. We too, as Brock and Parker, crept through the catacombs of Rome, discovering around every corner “ah-hah” moments. Our detective eye was focused on women in leadership in the early church. And we found them: bishops and celebrants at eucharists…

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