…h are available, and the response was very clear,” Oder said. “There is no sign of a personal involvement of the Holy Father in this matter.” Supporters of John Paul’s fast-track canonization, like The Vatican Diaries author John Thavis, argue that the sex abuse scandal shouldn’t define the pope’s legacy. “One of the questions here is whether a pope can be a saint and also make managerial mistakes, and I think Vatican officials would say yes,” he…
…arate check’ for abortion, which pro-life dissenters might try refusing to sign, is apparently false,” which the bishops have known since 2012. The irony is that while the Bracys’ suit is generally hostile to the ACA and the individual mandate, they will only have to pay $2.63 a month for health insurance for a family of six because of federal subsidies. And while the suit implies they will have to make a separate payment for abortion, it admits t…
…rishing other relationships, working to mend our broken world, and being a sign of faithfulness to their community.” I hate to admit to agreeing with Douthat, but he’s right. The church can’t retreat from its fight on gay marriage because to do so would take it back nearly 50 years to when it was on the brink of approving the use of contraception but backed down because it would codify the idea, which it had already tacitly accepted, that the purp…
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…ts with Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God (872, XXV). This is no mere theological quibbling. The cornerstone of Reformation theology developed by Martin Luther, then adapted by John Calvin on its way to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, was the idea that human beings could not ourselves determine what God had marked as sure indicators of God’s grace in us. Rather, Luther argued th…
…hat we may soon witness violent attacks and murders by individuals whose assignment of collective guilt is strengthened by visiting the museum and by consuming its incomplete and misleading content on Islam. These fears of the institution’s effect are magnified by the awareness that one of the key members of the board of directors, who serves on the crucial 11-person “program committee” that approves exhibition content, has argued publicly that Is…
…any neighborhoods across North Carolina, but in Durham, North Carolina his sign in your yard meant hopeful solidarity across the unbridgeable divides of race. It was a heady, heart-felt time for us, as we wrote letters and knocked door to door. But my daughter said something right after President Obama won that gave me pause. She woke up on November 5 with a deflated sense of purpose. She was going to miss being a part of a giant project for, well…
…was supposed to be a spokesperson for the campaign. That, of course, was a sign that the campaign, and Romney in particular, were made queasy by the pressure from anti-gay Republicans. Grenell, to be sure, was not a perfect spokesperson—but not because of his support for marriage equality and LGBT rights. As his tweets demonstrated, he did have what could charitably be called a tact or diplomacy problem. But that’s not why, by all accounts, he res…
A sure sign that change is afoot in Cuba is the opening of the first Roman Catholic seminary since the 1959 revolution. President Raul Castro was in attendance, as was Archbishop Thomas Wenski and several other priests from Miami. In the wake of the Church’s continued involvement in the release of over fifty political prisoners on the island, last week’s inauguration is a material symbol of the easing tensions between the Cuban government and the…
…n would go on to become a major figure in Evangelicalism like his mentors, promoting conservative values in Prison Fellowship, and also influencing the Evangelical mainstream. Colson would start the Justice Fellowship, a criminal justice based reform group in 1983, and would later win the Templeton Prize in 1993 for Progress in Religion. The other facet of his work, however, was in declarations and statements. Joining with Richard John Neuhaus of…
