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Why the Church is Struggling to Hold Onto Millennial Catholics

By Kaya Oakes

…ntire religious orders from Newman Centers and replaced them with diocesan priests or younger priests. The reason is often listed as a fall off of student attendance at those parishes. What is not as often publically addressed in these staff turnovers is that fact that campus ministries are expected to be a source of vocations. With less than 40,000 men in training for the priesthood in 2014, this means that there’s an increased urgency in develop…

Pope’s US Visit Provokes Intense Attention; New Vatican Book on Man-Woman Complementarity & New Int’l Report on Christian Role Models for LGBT Equality; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…Nikšić pride. Montenegrin authorities have demonstrated their capacity to protect Pride marches, and are perfectly capable of doing the same in Nikšić.” India: Court investigating parents’ attempt to force trans man to marry The Delhi High Court heard allegations that the parents of Shivy, an 18-year-old transgender man living in the United States tricked him into visiting India on a holiday, took his passport and green card, and tried to forcibl…

Church and State in Japan: The Case of the Yasukuni Shrine

By Mark R. Mullins

…y argued, to interfere with a religious organization and dictate what is appropriate belief and practice. While the judges conceded that it is clearly advisable to have the permission of the bereaved families, they concluded that the enshrinement did not violate their rights in any way since they were not forced to participate. Each party must allow the other to freely memorialize the dead in their own way and according to their respective faith t…

Mormonism’s Black Issues

By Joanna Brooks

…on 8 Mormon backlash and the harassment of black voters was especially inappropriate, Olbermann argued, because Mormons had been “on the wrong side of integration.” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints prohibited individuals of African descent from joining the Church’s lay priesthood (open to all devout Mormon men over the age of twelve), serving as missionaries, or participating in Mormon temple ordinances from 1849 until 1978, a fact…

Cruz and the Evangelical Illusion

By Sarah Posner

…enlisting his pastor father, Rafael Cruz, to help secure endorsements from prominent figures. The tallying of high-profile evangelical endorsements results in the media reporting a “coalescing” of evangelical backing for Cruz and the impression of an inevitable consolidation of support from this crucial GOP bloc, a phenomenon most visible after Iowa activist Bob Vander Plaats endorsed Cruz last month. Still vital, but less important, is the sense…

Who Bombed the Boston Marathon?

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…a report issued by the reliable Southern Poverty Law Center last year, the number of extremist Patriot groups has skyrocketed. Only 149 groups existed before Obama was elected in 2008. In 2012 the number had expanded to 1,360. Not all are plotting terrorist attacks, of course. But some are. In September 2012, Daryl Johnson, a terrorist analyst for the US Department of Homeland Security testified before a Senate committee that there was an “upsurge…

It’s Not About Cake: Anti-Gay Vendors Want a Constitutional Right to Discriminate

By Sunnivie Brydum

…uire businesses serving the public to provide services without regard to a number of protected characteristics—including, in Washington and Colorado, an LGBT identity. (Washington updated its statewide non-discrimination law to include sexual orientation and gender identity in 2006, and Colorado followed suit in 2008.) Those laws, duly enacted by state legislatures, are what Masterpiece Cakeshop and Arlene’s Flowers are really looking to undercut…

It’s Not Me, It’s You: Catholic Values Dumping Trump

By Patricia Miller

…dicted last February here on RD, Catholic voters have turned into an acute problem for Donald Trump. A recent PRRI poll showed Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump among Catholics by 55 to 32 percent, a stunning 23 point gap. Similarly, a Washington Post/ABC news poll found Catholics have swung toward Clinton by the most dramatic margin of any demographic group—25 percent—with the exception of white, college-educated women, who have swung by a sim…

Dispelling the Zombie Myth of White Evangelical Support for Trump

By Robert P. Jones

…te evangelicals are highly influential in the Iowa Republican Caucuses, comprising approximately one-third (32%) of Iowa Republicans according to PRRI surveys, and a majority (55%) of Republican Iowa caucus participants according to the CNN Entrance Poll. In the Iowa Poll (which was quite accurate with respect to both Trump and DeSantis) a majority (51%) of White evangelicals in Iowa say they are supporting Trump, compared to only 22% for DeSantis…

Why Religious Exemptions Matter

By Sarah Posner

…rule “leaves religious Americans at risk.” Becket claims the rule fails to protect for-profit businesses and their owners; that the expansion of the exemption beyond houses of worship was inadequate; and that the accommodation to provide coverage to employees of religious organizations that were not entitled to an exemption was “convoluted’ and “may not resolve religious organizations’ objections to being coerced into providing contraceptives and…