Religion Dispatches
…ester NY, who lost his daughter Jean, a flight attendant on board American Airlines Flight 11. Mr. Roger said he hoped the pope would say prayers for the place, for the people, and for his daughter Jean. Praying at a unlighted candle next to the prie-dieu Pope Benedict XVI used on his visit, the Pope offered those prayers silently while looking at the south pool of the memorial. The 9/11 site has become not just a memorial or a museum—it is a pilg…
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…e of hospitality for the poor and resistance against war. The Community of Sant’Egidio, founded in Italy in the late 1960s, has fought HIV/AIDS and negotiated peace treaties around the world on its own terms. Yet, in honor of this witness, Benedict XVI made a habit of visiting Sant’Egidio’s ministries in Rome. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York is seeking Dorothy Day’s cause for sainthood. And now, almost eight hundred years after Francis’ death,…
Read More…uckily, Joesph Bingham has already done this for you. In the University of Chicago’s “Counterpoint” magazine, he points out that a society in which many people gain pleasure by torturing a few people for their own amusement is “morally superior,” by Harris’s definition. b) Disprove the idea that morality is absolute and scientifically measurable. Harris believes that there is necessarily one society that is the most moral. Said society, in theory…
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…ith education for interfaith children. In interfaith family communities in Chicago, New York, and Washington, Jewish and Christian educators are working side by side in dual-faith classrooms, comparing and contrasting, and noting points of historical connection. They teach texts and rituals and history, not creed or dogma. In response to the Pew report, Jewish leaders continue to express concern that such interfaith children will break the chain…
Read More…is asking me to speak out and give these prayers.” From the report in the Chicago Sun-Times: “I exorcise you, every unclean spirit, every power of darkness, every incursion of the infernal enemy, every diabolical legion, cohort, and faction, in the name and power of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Paprocki said. “Be uprooted and put to flight from the Church of God from souls created in the image of God and redeemed by the precious blood of the divine l…
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…and in its construction of what scholars associated with the University of Chicago’s Fundamentalism Project have called “enclave communities.” I grew up in one of these, with my social world (beyond my family) consisting almost entirely of the churches and evangelical Christian schools I attended in Indianapolis and Colorado Springs, and of people associated with them. When it comes to LGBTQ issues, instead of quoting the marginal Burton I might w…
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News last week that holiday decorations in Chicago’s Daley Plaza will be joined this year by a light-up “A” for atheism served as a reminder that though the anti-religion camp may claim victory over believers on many fronts, iconography is not one of them. Sponsored by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and borrowed from the Richard Dawkins Foundation’s Out Campaign, the Daley Plaza “A” is the latest aesthetically challenged branding effort by…
Read MoreAs an MA student of religious studies at the University of Chicago I’ve often felt compelled to share many of the insights I’ve gained with friends in China. When I began to read Religion Dispatches it occurred to me that the best way to do this would be to introduce RD’s in-depth articles to Chinese readers by translating a few, with the hope that more people will be encouraged and enlightened by them. Perhaps it will spark a desire, among those…
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…s about what the pope had said and especially what he hadn’t said. In diocesan press releases and public comments that followed, three things stood out. First, nearly every bishop who made a public comment felt it necessary to steady the pope back foursquare to the church’s teachings on “homosexuality” (a word Francis didn’t use at the press Q&A). Any novelty in the pope’s words was downplayed while continuity with his predecessors was emphasized….
Read More…ing to raise funds and provide support for asylum seekers, such as the new Chicago Asylum Support Program (CLASP), which was launched with the help of the interfaith LGBT Faith and Asylum Network which we wrote about last month. Uganda: Museveni Signs Anti-Gay Law and Anti-Gay Vigilantes Jump Into Action The biggest news this week was the signing of Uganda’s brutal anti-gay law, which calls for life imprisonment for gay people and long prison ter…
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