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Women’s Equality in the Church is No Longer Negotiable

By Mary E. Hunt

…. The smart money is on him being promoted and relocated, as happened with Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law and other clerics who have contributed so actively to the rapid exodus of members from Catholic parishes. At some point, these sorts of executive employees become too expensive to maintain. It becomes cost effective to put a golden parachute on their mitres and wish them well. The obviously forced resignation of Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas Cit…

Mitt Romney’s Honesty Problem

By Joanna Brooks

…f course, the questions Huffington and the DNC raise are not new. In 2007, Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi scrutinized “Romney’s Honesty Problem” on abortion, and John McCain’s presidential campaign developed an anti-Romney ad strikingly similar to the DNC’s. But this time around, as attention continues to consolidate on Romney as once-and-future frontrunner, it seems clear that the honesty meme is going to stick. It may in fact be the issue…

Moses on Facebook, Christian Pro Soccer, Televangelist Breakfast Cereal, Child Preachers

By Michael J. Altman

…it back to Reading Abbey just in time for St. James Day. A school board in Virginia has removed the Sherlock Holmes novel A Study in Scarlet from its sixth-grade reading lists because they found the book to be anti-Mormon. The Boston Globe reminds us all that the two Mormon GOP presidential candidates, Mitt Romney and John Huntsman, have different takes on their Mormon faith. Televangelist Jim Bakker now has his own breakfast cereal. It’s organic…

Eulogy, Corrected: Father Matthew Came Out as Gay 30 Years Earlier

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…year of his age. In fact, his notes for a kind of “flute music” (his Grecophone term for monastic solitude) were written quite a bit earlier. Here is what Michael Bever reminds me: My Song of Mercy was published in 1994 [I’m afraid that’s all I got right]. This publication included both Matthew’s longer exposition of his sexual orientation in “Flute Solo” and the renowned essay, “Celibacy and the Gift of Gay.” “Flute Solo” had been in informal ci…

Popesplaining: Women Remain “Strawberries” in Francis’s Book on Happiness

By Kaya Oakes

…ous institutions have their own miserable reckonings to contend with. When Boston’s Cardinal Law died this week, victims of clergy abuse expressed both relief that one of its greatest enablers was no longer a danger, and frustration that his funeral, like that of every other Cardinal, would still be held in St. Peter’s Basilica, and that during the funeral, Pope Francis would deliver a blessing. In this epoch of unhappiness, Pope Francis has deliv…

Immigration Reform: A Country Divided, Or a Richer Society?

By Cecilia Menjivar

…e communities in which they settle. Huntington was concerned that as their numbers increased, Mexicans would become more committed to their own ethnic group and would have no incentive to participate fully in US society. He noted that rather than downplaying differences, these communities glorified divisions; he feared that continued Mexican immigration could divide the United States into a country of two languages and two cultures. Welcoming the…

Peter Berger, Sociology’s Defender of God (1929-2017)

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…in a global context. His Center for Culture, Religion and World Affairs at Boston University became an important arena for scholars from different religious traditions to interact, and Berger became involved in trying to understand commonalities among the different faiths. He was also trying to understand the role of religion in an era of globalization. Berger wrote the introduction to a book co-edited with Samuel Huntington, Many Globalizations,…

God is a Terrifying Monster, and Other Takeaways from the Study of Vampires in Pop Culture

By Jess Peacock

…ery real part of our world. In addition, as Farah Stockman remarked in the Boston Globe a few years back: “TV and movie characters can shape how we look at real world events.” This is also true of religious studies, where fictional narratives can give us new and fresh perspectives on theology and faith. Religion is not immutable, and throughout history it has adapted to the larger culture. In some sense, I am making an argument that, in order to s…

Church=State in Putin’s Orthodox Empire?; Evangelical-Orthodox Anti-Gay Alliance; Malaysian Court Protects Transwomen; Catholicism (Still) Declining in Latin America; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…obert Arida. He serves as pastor of the Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral in Boston, which has been praised on the Facebook page of the “Pro-Gay Orthodox Christians” network. “While the past cannot be ignored, it also cannot be the only point of reference for the Orthodox Christian,” wrote Arida. If church leaders do not acknowledge “that the Holy Spirit continues to work here, now and in the future, the past will easily be transformed into an oppre…

US Bishops Meeting: Pope Who?

By Patricia Miller

…immigration crisis. The bishops failed to elect Francis’ favorite bishop, Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, to represent them at the next critical leg of the family summit. They are, however, sending the president and the VP of the bishops’ conference, as well as Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, who has been highly critical of efforts to modernize the church. Newly appointed Chicago Bishop Blase J. Cupich was selected as an alternate. An…