Religion Dispatches
…soul) damned.” To be lost is not merely a geographic problem for marooned airline passengers, or for men unwilling to stop and ask for directions—it’s a spiritual and moral condition. These days a google search turns up over 500,000,000 hits (that’s half a billion); not too surprising for a basic and often-used term. Similar numerical results come from google searches on terms like “run” and “hide.” Meanwhile, “found” yields over 1.3 trillion hit…
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…ance-enhancing drugs. The sense of freedom and fun (and free food, even if airline food) was exhilarating. The airport has now become a place of horror. Do they have full-body scanners? I wonder as I’m herded into a long, bovine line. Abattoir or boudoir? Why is this bothering me so much? Don’t Touch Me There Even cursory reflection reveals my embodiment issues are buried deep in my religious upbringing. I was a teenage fundamentalist. That remark…
Read More…an ad in a local shop or community center. Last minute emergency? Call the airline right away to see about possibilities for accommodating your needs. Likewise, if one is ardently anti-abortion for moral reasons, rather than only focus on making it illegal, prevent it by limiting unwanted pregnancies: help ensure adequate, healthy sex education and contraception are available to those who need or want them. Work to make affordable, quality prenata…
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…s are necessary to prove we live in a democracy? How many must die before we recognize collective life requires constraint, a humility and discipline that our pleas to a special relationship with God often damage. We have lost too many, whether in places like Connecticut, or Oakland, or Newark. The pain cuts to the core. In this, God is not present instead these tragedies speak of God’s absence; they write God’s obituary. We—fragile, uncertain, a…
Read More…re were other notable theologians who held the same view and allowed for a number of other exceptions. Nor did the hierarchy object. Rather, the humble and very gifted Antoninus was appointed Archbishop of Florence in 1446 before being canonized a saint of the Roman Catholic Church in 1523. There are Catholic parishes named for this pro-choice saint in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Newark, New Jersey. St. Antoninus was not a pro-choice loner in the Roman…
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…the imprimatur of the entire conference, the Religious Liberty Committee enjoys high-profile leadership, speaks with the full backing of the bishops’ conference, and has a staff and a dedicated budget. The Knights of Columbus and other right-leaning Catholic groups have contributed some $500,000 to the committee since it was founded in 2011 and Lori assured the bishops that the outside funding would continue. Two of Pope Francis’ appointees, howe…
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…o immigration status.” Cardinal Joseph Tobin, who leads the archdiocese of Newark, stated that mass deportations are an “inhuman policy” that “destroys families and communities.” Tobin also accompanied an immigrant threatened with deportation by I.C.E. to a court date, and stated that “we are here today to bear witness and to appeal to the conscience of our nation to spare this man, and countless others like him, whose only offense was to seek a b…
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…broad rubric of religious liberty. And for every Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark who called Trump’s order the “opposite of what it means to be an American,” there was an Archbishop Charles Chaput, who on the day Trump’s order was made public chastised his opponents for having “marched, rioted, verbally abused and in some cases viciously assaulted their opponents on a scale previously unseen.” Chaput suggested that the University of Notre Dame sho…
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…sation for this visit, aside from an omelette at an I-Hop on the road from Newark airport). Three other scholars were also invited to the meeting; we were a group of Christians, Jews, and Muslims. When we were introduced Gulen attempted to rise from his chair. He swayed and tottered a bit, and I was afraid that he would fall. His aides quickly were at his side, steadying him, and he shook my hand firmly. Though he was frail, I found him to be aler…
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…u are wise. Most of all, you are undaunted by hate. You will not tolerate injustice. Rev. Peter Morales, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, was equally direct: The election is finally over. Most of us are shocked, even horrified, by the results. We live in a nation whose deep divisions have been exposed. The wounds of this election will not heal soon. Many of us are emotionally exhausted and deeply offended by what we have experi…
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