In Good Faith

In Good Faith http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/ A blog for news and discussion on matters of faith en Copyright 2009 Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss The rainbows, and the pot of gold story about a pair of unusual recent events at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg. The first was a double rainbow. The second as the archdiocesan newspaper puts it, was the pot of gold. A worker at the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes discovered two bags containing gold and silver coins. Shrine director Bill Tronolone, who has been trying to raise money to build a pilgrim center, thought his prayers had been answered. Alas, it was not to be. The discovery of the coins, which The Catholic Review says were valued at more than $40,000, was reported to the Frederick County’s Sherriff’s department. The owner has since come forward to claim the coins. “The owner just wanted a safe place to keep her life savings while she left town and in her thinking, what better place than the Grotto, right next to the statue of Mary,” Tronolone told The Catholic Review. Read the story at catholicreview.org.]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/mount_st_marys_shrine.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/mount_st_marys_shrine.html Catholicism Education Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:00:00 -0500 Conservatives break from ELCA over gay clergy Associated Press is reporting. Leaders of Lutheran CORE, which opposed the decision of the nation's largest Lutheran denomination in August to welcome gay clergy, told reporters on Wednesday that they planned form an alternate Lutheran church body. Lutheran CORE members believe the Bible condemns homosexuality. Other Lutherans, and Christians in other denonimations, have called for what some describe as a more inclusive reading of scripture. Lutheran CORE leaders said they had heard from like-minded Lutherans and congregations from around the country, the AP reports. They said they didn't know how many ELCA congregations might join the new denomination, which they hope to start by August 2010.]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/lutheran_core_gay_clergy_1.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/lutheran_core_gay_clergy_1.html Christianity Culture Lutheranism Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:21:26 -0500 Modest rise in concern after Fort Hood survey taken shortly after the shootings at Fort Hood shows only a modest increase in these concerns since 2007, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Fifty-two percent of Americans say they are "very concerned" about the possible rise of Islamic extremism in the United States, according to a Pew survey of 1,003 adults conducted from Nov. 12 through 15. That's up from 46 percent in April 2007. Meanwhile, the percentage who say they are "somewhat concerned" fell by a similar amount, from 32 percent in 2007 to 27 percent this month. Forty-nine percent of Americans say they are "very concerned" about the possible rise of Islamic extremism around the world, up from 48 percent in 2007. The number who say they are "somewhat concerned" fell 33 pecent to 29 percent. The survey began one week after the Nov. 5 shootings that left 13 dead an 30 wounded. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim of Palestinian heritage who is said to have been critical of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been charged with premeditated murder in the attacks. Read the report at pewforum.org.]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/pew_fort_hood.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/pew_fort_hood.html Culture International Islam Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:00:00 -0500 Notre Dame a secular university? told the Associated Press that he had formed a task force charged with reviewing relations between the bishops and the nation's more than 200 Catholic colleges and universities. In most cases, the bishops excercise no formal authority over the institutions, which, with few exceptions, operate independently of their local dioceses. "Can bishops just pull the plug on us? It's not that simple," Richard Yanikoski, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, told the AP. "If those relationships — which don't mean control, they mean relationship — are now weakened, then we have to think of ways to enter discussion in order to strengthen them, and to redefine perhaps what are the criteria for a university or any other organization to consider itself Catholic," George told the AP. Read the Associated Press story.]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/obama_notre_dame_bishops.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/obama_notre_dame_bishops.html Catholicism Culture Education People Politics Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:01:44 -0500 The bishops' busy day Read more at baltimoresun.com.]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/bishops_meeting_baltimore.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/bishops_meeting_baltimore.html Catholicism Culture Education Politics Science Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:30:00 -0500 CRS head to bishops: Talk us up Even though CRS is recognized as a leader among humanitarian agencies for its professionalism, innovation and efficiency, the fact is that many of your parishioners have not heard of us. I recently heard a troubling fact. CRS conducted a survey, using an independent polling agency, and asked Catholics to name a humanitarian agency that works overseas. And do you know how many mentioned CRS? Only 22 percent. And that was a huge improvement from the previous year, when only 11 percent named CRS. We have a lot of work to do! We do not spend a lot of money on advertising, as do other similar relief agencies, as less than 5% of our budget goes for overhead. That’s why I’d like to ask a favor of all of you, my brother bishops. Because CRS is your agency, brag about us a little bit. Perhaps you could write an occasional column in your diocesan newspapers about the work of CRS. Perhaps you could encourage your parishes to get involved in Operation Rice Bowl, the CRS Lenten program. Or maybe you could encourage you priests to mention CRS from time to time in their homilies. Or better yet, they could get involved in our Global Fellows program – we send priests, deacons and seminarians overseas to see the work of CRS first hand, and they come back as some of our best ambassadors. Dolan concluded with an anecdote that he said illustrated how CRS works, and the impact it has.]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/the_head_of_catholic_relief.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/the_head_of_catholic_relief.html Catholicism Charity International Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:32:44 -0500 Pew: Faith-based initiative still popular survey of 4,013 adults conducted from Aug. 11 to 27. Twenty-five percent say they oppose the approach. With President Barack Obama now in charge, Democrats now are more supportive of the faith-based initiative than Republicans, according to the report. Support among Democrats has increased to 77 percent from 70 percent in March 2001. Support among Republicans has fallen from 81 percent to 66 percent in the same timeframe. Americans retain some reservations about the initiative, according to the report. Sixty-nine percent view the possibility that the government might get too involved in religious organizations as an important concern. Sixty percent views the possibility that people who receive help from faith-based groups might be forced to take part in religious practices as an important concern.]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/pew_faithbased_initiative_stil.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/pew_faithbased_initiative_stil.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:00:00 -0500 U.S. Cardinal: Church must join health debate suggested last week that the IRS might investigate the bishops’ tax-exempt status. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, the president of the bishops’ conference, said "issues that are moral questions before they become political remain moral questions when they become political." George said it was the job of the bishops to be public without being "co-opted" by any political agenda and serve as "leaven for the world's transformation" in policy debates, the Associated Press reports.]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/cardinal_george_lynn_woolsey.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/cardinal_george_lynn_woolsey.html Catholicism Church and State People Politics Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:48:49 -0500 Gadhafi throws party, looks for converts Gadhafi invited some 200 young Italian women to a party in Rome over the weekend, but when they showed up, they were given a lecture on Islam and copies of the Quran. The AP says a reporter for Italy's ANSA news agency went undercover with the women, who were hired for 50 Euros (about $75) by a modeling agency for the event Sunday evening. Journalist Paola Lo Mele said the women assembled at a hotel, where some were left behind because they were not tall enough or dressed modestly enough. Those accepted were taken to a villa, where Gadhafi lectured them on women's rights and religion, and urged them to convert to Islam, according to the AP. "All the girls expected a party with a gala dinner," Lo Mele told her agency. Instead, "he made a 45-minute speech on Islam and women's role in Islam. It was a bit of an indoctrination session." Gadhafi was in Rome to attend a U.N. summit on world hunger.]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/gadhafi_in_rome.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/gadhafi_in_rome.html International Islam People Politics Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:09:59 -0500 Monsignor Tinder retires The Catholic Review reports. The 67-year-old priest, who has spent the last nine years as pastor of Immaculate Conception in Towson, his childhood parish, cites a neuromuscular disorder that affects his strength and motion. “We get so tied to this world with its shifting that we forget that we were made to go home,” Tinder tells The Catholic Review. “The God who made us is holding us and carrying us home.” The parish will hold a reception for him in December. “We’ll all cry,” parishioner Jo Miller tells the Catholic Review. “It’s going to be very hard. It’s very hard to thank someone adequately for all they’ve done for you.” The decision to close Towson Catholic in the face of declining enrollments and rising costs drew protests from students and parents and a lawsuit that was unsuccessful. Tinder told us in July that if he had to do it over, he would have closed the school earlier, to give students and their families more time to make alternate plans for the fall. "If there's a regret, it is that we tried too hard to keep the school open and went too long," he said. "I think we would have faced the same difficulty had we done it earlier. But it is my regret that we waited as long as we did in a failed attempt to keep it open." Read the rest of the story at catholicreview.org.]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/tinder_towson_catholic.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/tinder_towson_catholic.html Catholicism Education People Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:35:59 -0500 ACLU demands prison records The American Civil Liberties Union, known as a watchdog for the separation of church and state, wants to make sure that prisoners have access to religious material. In a letter sent last week to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Information and Privacy, the ACLU demanded that the federal Bureau of Prisons release records related to alleged attempts by prison officials to purge religious material from prison chapel libraries. The demand follows what the ACLU says was an inadequate response by prison officials to a Freedom of Information Act request by a California graduate student writing a thesis on the censorship of religious materials in federal prisons. According to the ACLU Joshua C. Harris, a master’s degree candidate in religion at Claremont Graduate University, is writing a thesis on the 2007 implementation of the Standardized Chapel Library Project, which authorized BOP officials to purge from prison chapel libraries any material that was not on a list of “acceptable” publications that the libraries could maintain. Among those titles banned at the time, the ACLU says, was Maimonides’ “Code of Jewish Law.” “The refusal of prison officials to provide a full accounting of their rationale for banning religious material is just the latest example of an ongoing effort to secretly and unconstitutionally censor material they consider to be unacceptable,” David Shapiro, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project, said in a statement. “To deny prisoners their constitutional right to access religious materials is bad enough. But to attempt to do so in a way that skirts transparency and prevents the public from knowing what they are doing is entirely unacceptable.” Harris filed a FOIA request in April asking for “any/all documents that detail the reasoning behind, and implementation of” the Standardized Chapel Library Project, according to the ACLU. The prison bureau gave him four documents. http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/aclu_demands_prison_records.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/aclu_demands_prison_records.html Church and State Education Judaism Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0500 Catholic bishops here, talking sex, marriage The proceedings are to be streamed live on the Web at telecare.org.]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/catholic_bishops_conference.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/catholic_bishops_conference.html Catholicism Politics Science Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:00:00 -0500 Keeler on Catholic-Jewish relations tells The Baltimore Jewish Times. The statement by the bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs initially characterized interfaith exchange with Jews as an opportunity to proselytize the Jews. “We agreed that we would change the two sentences from that which were a concern” Keeler tells the Jewish Times. “Put that into historical context and I just have to say that the relationships are superb and that we are making progress all the time.” Keeler says he told Pope Benedict XVI that Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York was “the ideal person” to succeed him. He also discusses his appreciation of his faith’s Jewish roots:

I say the Psalms every day and I’m very conscious of their Hebrew authorship. I also think of the Church’s document on the Hebrew Scriptures that was prepared by the present pope and the introduction that he wrote for it is important and something that we live by. I read every day from this book, “The Liturgy of the Hours,” as all priests are supposed to do. We read Psalms. Not all of them. There are a few that are so angry that they are omitted from the office, which is what we call the book — “The Divine Office of The Office Of Prayer.” It’s a marvelous source. Right now we’re reading from the Second Book of Maccabees.

Read the story at jewishtimes.com.]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/keeler_catholic_jewish.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/keeler_catholic_jewish.html Catholicism Interfaith Judaism People Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:58:55 -0500 Cathedral anniversary Mass Sunday Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien will celebrate a Mass at 12:30 p.m. Sunday to mark the 50th anniversary of the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. Built with a bequest from Baltimore merchant Thomas O’Neill and dedicated by Archbishop Francis P. Keough on Nov. 15, 1959, the structure at 5400 N. Charles St. serves as the cathedral church of the archdiocese, as well as a parish for Catholics in North Baltimore. Some facts, courtesy of the Archdiocese of Baltimore: The cathedral is 375 feet long, with towers reaching 134 feet and spires rising another 29 feet. It seats a total of 1,900, with 1,400 in pews. It was built from 3.5 million bricks and 70,000 pieces of limestone. It contains 385 sculptures and more than 7,000 organ pipes. Ground was broken on the 25-acre lot Oct. 10, 1954. Construction was completed by Turner Construction Company of New York and Philadelphia. http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/cathedral_anniversary_mass_sun.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/cathedral_anniversary_mass_sun.html Catholicism Events Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:17:56 -0500 The end of the world as we know it? story on the phenomenon for Friday's newspaper came from Ben Radford, managing editor of the Skeptical Inquirer: "I've got a calendar on my wall that ends on Dec. 31. I'm not particularly worried that there isn't going to be another one after it." The comparison is apt, according to an anthropologist who studies the ancient peoples of Mesoamerica.]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/2012_maya_emmerich.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/11/2012_maya_emmerich.html Culture Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:21:22 -0500