Religion Dispatches
…1860s. Or it could be the story of Charles Chauncy, an eighteenth-century Boston Congregationalist who was so concerned about the potential reaction to his increasingly universalist beliefs that he first published them anonymously under the title Salvation for All Men in 1782. Clearly Bell’s universalist-leaning view isn’t new. What’s surprising isn’t his posture, it’s the recurrence of controversies over hell, century after century, in such simi…
Read More…ng notes on parchment and deliver them by raven rather than a world of jet airliners, email and Skype. How many more abuse victims are likely to accumulate (Cruz has called Latin America a continued “playground for pedophiles”) as the commission works on “long-term” solutions? John Allen just reported that the commission, which has been in existence for two years, hasn’t been involved to date in the training on the prevention of sex abuse required…
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…e’s just a history buff… Tuesday night, I had a late night drive home from Boston during which I tuned in to the BBC. They turned to former Democratic senator Doug Jones for comment on Hegseth. (No mention of the tattoos. Politics is serious!) “Unqualified,” said Jones. But, argued the BBC host—paraphrasing here, I was driving, not taking notes—he’s an Army veteran! There are nearly 16 million veterans in the US. Does the BBC think they’re all qua…
Read More…n preaching when he was a teenager; Louis C.K. is an acerbic comedian from Boston who grew up speaking Spanish in Mexico and has made a career out of being an awkward and offensive comedian. Despite their differences, these two men have arrived at starkly similar situations in the #MeToo era, with jobs lost, reputations destroyed, and a trail of hurting women in their wake. Both, too, are depending on cultural narratives of forgiveness to revive t…
Read More…t political decisions. To shed some light on this topic, I interviewed Rob Boston, Senior Adviser for Americans United for Separation of Church and State and Editor of Church & State magazine. What prompted you to write this piece on Barr’s religious background? When President Trump named William Barr to be U.S. Attorney General, just about all of the discussion in the media consisted of speculation about how Barr might deal with Robert Mueller’s…
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…ogy. “The Vatican doesn’t do apologies,” Sacred Heart Sr. Jean Bartunek, a Boston College professor who studied the visitation told Global Sisters Report when the investigations’ report was released last year. But if Pope Francis can’t say “I’m sorry,” then perhaps “I love you” will suffice for now. Regardless of the past, it affirms the lives and work of the sisters. “Be courageous. Move forward. Take the lead—always,” Pope Francis said. Sister S…
Read More…“tea parties” on Tax Day is even more alarming. As I recall, the so-called Boston Tea Party involved the destruction of private property as a protest against taxation without representation. Is Newt Gingrich inciting Americans to riot, or revolt? Is he suggesting that we do not have proper representation in the legislature, or simply that it is too Democratic? Is he simply whining about paying taxes in time of war? It is a perplexing symbolic prot…
Read More…is fallacious—and sometimes religious—thinking, preventing the incremental progress of creating a better society. There is no all-purpose answer, and it is counterproductive to continue to gamble on it. “Religion” is not to blame for the events in Boston, but if we are successful in isolating this event as yet another example of crazed individuals, cutting off all analysis of the identity religion provides, we will advance no further in understan…
Read More…is singing a different tune these days. He greeted the news that a gay group has been given long-sought permission to march in New York’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade as if nothing would make him happier. He told the Boston Globe’s John Allen that the days of threatening to use communion to discipline pro-choice Catholic politicians were “in the past.” Like all good politicians, Dolan knows which way the wind blows….
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…get from the right. You see this all the time with Catholic colleges like Boston College. Wealthy alumna will make a fuss about something they don’t like and they will pull back. As you note, there are limits on what Francis can do, and animosity between nuns and the hierarchy over questions of authority has a long history in the church. What is the one thing you think Francis could do to show that he is serious about reform and a new attitude wh…
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