Fascinating information is emerging from the new Pew Research survey on the religious beliefs and practices of Latinos in the United States.
I just returned from a family vacation and was looking for some inspiration. I was therefore pleased -- or should I say, filled with the Holy Spirit -- to read the article by Cindy Wooden on the pope's visit with 50,000 charismatic Catholics. Seeing the picture of Pope Francis kneeling to be prayed over by this assembled group was really something extraordinary.
There continues to be limited movement on the issue of mandatory celibacy. The New York Times is reporting that Catholic and Orthodox officials have requested that the Vatican grant them the authority to ordain married men to the priesthood.
Another school shooting has taken place, this time in Oregon. This map shows that they have been taking place in every corner of our country. In fact, a total of 74 school shootings have happened since the tragic December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
There is a group of politicians in Washington that has adopted and adhered to a set of priorities and policies that I believe have been damaging to our country and our social conscience.
Without going back to the days of Galileo, I believe in modern times, Catholics have had far less difficulty with the biblical creation stories and science than fundamentalist Christians. Even before the beginnings of modern Catholic biblical criticism under Pope Pius XII and his 1943 encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu, most Catholics were comfortable with some form of harmonizing problematic passages.
NCR Today: If you explore these Supreme Court decisions you can only come to one possible conclusion. This court interprets the laws to protect the rights of big business and corporations.
Jonathan Merritt penned an interesting blog post for Religion News Service on Christians, patriotism and the Fourth of July.
A thoughtful New York Times article by Michael A. Cohen on to how to conduct an effective foreign policy is worthy of serious consideration.
Protests continue to grow around the country when it comes to housing undocumented children while they await processing.
In Rhode Island, protester Terry Gorman said, "If there was a bus coming out of there and I knew it was all illegal alien children ... I'd lay down in front of the bus. ... That's going to be the destruction of the state of Rhode Island."
Mark Silk's terrific Religion News Service article provides a welcome addition to the discussion of the children at the border, from a religious perspective.
I would like to take issue with a few points made by Ross Douthat in a recent New York Times opinion piece.
George Conger writes a somewhat critical piece about Pope Francis' interviews since his election.
I don't know about you, but I have been deeply troubled by what seems to be an unraveling of the world around us in so many different hot spots.
Just to name a few:
1. The escalation of violence in Ukraine, including the shooting down of a passenger airline with the loss of all passengers on board
2. The continuing loss of life and violence in Gaza and Israel
The final two-plus years of the Obama presidency look to be a torturous obstacle course with little or nothing to be accomplished and repeated attempts to roll back those legislative pieces that are already in place. The 2014 election appears bleak for Democrats, who may even lose control of the Senate. The resulting Congress is almost certain to be even more recalcitrant in working with President Barack Obama than the current one.
I would encourage the reading of this latest opus by Dan Rodericks of the Baltimore Sun. Roderick’s comments become even more significant in light of the latest news of a 9 year old girl shooting her instructor with an Uzi.
This country has gone from only 13 percent favoring airstrikes in Syria in September 2013 to 60 percent currently in favor.
Michael Sean Winters last week wrote in-depth and scholarly pieces on the October Synod of Bishops on the family. Anybody interested in learning everything that can be known in preparation for the synod needs to read these blog posts.
An article by Josephine McKenna points out some contradictions as we gear up for the opening of the Synod of Bishops on the family. A conservative group of cardinals is releasing a new book that challenges Cardinal Walter Kasper's efforts to move the conversation in the direction of change.
The facts are pretty clear, and Rana Foroohar of Time magazine does an excellent job of laying them out for us.
The recession ended some time ago, and real growth is now back. Even unemployment is down significantly. Job growth has been relatively strong. There has also been something of a real estate recovery.
