Religion Dispatches
…r definitively in the Roman Empire in 380 CE, saw fit to close the Olympic sanctuary and thus to end the Games (accomplished by the Edict of Theodosius in 393 CE). And then, amazingly, after a 1500-year hiatus, the Olympic Games were revived by a French nobleman named Pierre de Coubertin who did it (écrasez l’infâme !) quite explicitly in the name of religion. More specifically, Coubertin saw his Olympic revival as an essential part of the widespr…
Read MorePride celebrations continued this weekend, with major events in San Francisco, New York, and London, where two police officers were engaged, generating both support and religious denunciations. In New York, one of the grand marshals for the pride march was Subhi Nahas, a “gay Syrian refugee who’s faced threats from both ISIS and President Bashar al-Assad’s regime,” reports the New York Post. In America, a magazine published by Jesuits in the US,…
Read More…alled,” in Mormon parlance) to serve as a leader in an LDS congregation in San Francisco.” All of these changes have been made because LGBT people were faithful to an institution that has historically despised and rejected them. Progress comes from making changes within, not protesting outside the doors. I completely understand the mindset of those who would question my membership in a club where many of its members wish to eliminate me altogether…
Read More…. Say I stomp my foot in Atlanta and you stomp yours a short time later in San Francisco. Some observers will detect my stomp first, and some will detect your stomp first. Neither is wrong, because for such pairs of events there is no “real” order. This is not a matter of mere appearances or light travel times or time zones, but is part of the way the universe is put together. In general, the ordering of events is relative. As Dave Barry says, I a…
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…n’t even there. “Your grace abounds to me, your grace abounds to me,” they sang. “Jesus, in you I find all that I need.” The capacity-crowd of worshippers joined in, arms in the air, and then they prayed. They prayed for marriages, for husbands and for wives, for reconciliation. They prayed for romance and commitment, and for miracles. They prayed for singles, for forgiveness, and for cleansing. Sex was the topic of the night at Hillsong NYC’s mid…
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…ill be shown at a church in Detroit shortly after the canonization, and in San Francisco thereafter.) Today, there are institutions organized to address AIDS/HIV that are named after the Belgian missionary, including Damien Ministries. Indeed, Damien Ministries is celebrating its 20th year of caring for persons with AIDS/HIV. And, what some claim to be the world’s only Roman Catholic chapel memorializing persons who have died from HIV/AIDS, at Mon…
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…ents raise their hands and come out during that class session.” Of course, Santa Clara may be an exception to what is typically a stricter rule. The Bishop of San Jose, Patrick McGrath, puts effort into maintaining a collegial relationship to the religious studies faculty. The faculty is equally respectful of McGrath’s position as leader of the diocese. “It’s not that we’re not going to raise challenging issues,” said Crowley, who previously serve…
Read More…headlines last year after having been called to a leadership position in a San Francisco LDS congregation. They’ll gather as local Mormon conservative activists in Maryland also organize this weekend—acting individually and without involvement from LDS Church headquarters—gathering signatures in support of a ballot initiative to overturn a recently-passed marriage equality law. But for this group of pioneering LGBT Mormons a key focus rather than…
Read More…s elected Pope. He quickly appointed the then Archbishop William Levada of San Francisco to his old post as CDF prefect. Significantly, the soon-to-be Cardinal Levada was also chairman of the doctrinal committee of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). According to sources in Rome and Washington, his successor at the conference’s doctrinal office – the then Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Connecticut – was the man who formally petition…
Read More…taining long-term brain injuries if he continued playing. On May 2, former San Diego Charger’s linebacker Junior Seau died in a suicide strongly resembling the 2011 suicide of former Chicago Bear’s safety Dave Duerson. Duerson intentionally shot himself in the chest, not the head, so his brain could be examined for a degenerative disease he feared he had contracted from multiple concussions. Subsequently he and twenty other former NFL players were…
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