Hot on the heels of Bishop Thomas Olmstead stripping St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix of its affiliation with the Roman Catholic diocese after it terminated a pregnancy to save the life of the mother, the National Women's Law Center has released a report on entitled Below the Radar: Health Care Providers' Religious Refusals Can ( Read more... )

Looking back through my email, I found that my brother emailed me regarding this so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy way back in May. I did about a ten minute google search, got to what I believed was the root of the issue, emailed him, and forgot all about it. If only the pundits of the world knew how to google.

THIS IS A NON-ISSUELet me ( Read more... )

The deafening cacophony surrounding the (latest) Catholic sex abuse scandal is comprised largely of stalwart anti-religious blowtorches on one side and pathetic, supplicative pro-church sycophants on the other. So I tip my hat to Ms. Maureen Dowd in her latest NYT Op-ed Worlds Without Women, in which she cuts through the bluster and bile.To ( Read more... )

Patriarch Pavle, the 44th Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, has died at the age of 95 ( Read more... )

Ahmadinejad is a Jew. I personally adore Persians as well as Jews, and this made me happy smiley.

It's not that I take moral fiber less seriously than calling bullshit ( Read more... )

My most bitter memories from my religious youth arose from the conflict in our faith between on the one hand being honest and on the other hand being good examples to others. Our excuse was the biblical passage about "avoiding even the appearance of evil" (I Thess. 5:22) to avoid causing someone to "stumble." (Romans 14:13 ( Read more... )

I occasionally solicit donations on behalf of relief organizations working in war-torn and impoverished regions, but seldom does the opportunity arise to contribute to a cause dedicated to staunching the bile that causes these conditions in the first place ( Read more... )

The supreme pontiff and patriarch of the Universal Church is coming under fire from all directions for his comments on condoms before an African audience. The most recent fusillade is launched by none other than Roland Martin who dryly asked, "Pope Benedict surely loves God and sees him as his protector and provider, but he goes nowhere without ( Read more... )

Since letting the clergy educate us on matters of science and health has historically gone so well:It cannot be overcome by the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem.
-- Pope Benedict speaking about AIDS to Africans
They INCREASE the problem? Has that post-hole digger hat cut off the circulation to his head? And how ( Read more... )