Monthly Archives: December 1996
AMDBOCOMMENTARY: Grim prospects for the future in a land no one seems to want
By RNS Blog Editor — December 27, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.) OXFORD, England _ Northern Ireland is the land that no one seems to want. […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — December 27, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Christmas marked by prayer, protest and calls for peace (RNS) Christmas celebrations around the world drew tens of millions of worshipers marking the birth of Jesus with a mix of prayer, protest and calls for peace. From a Vatican balcony, Pope John Paul II spoke of”peace and serenity”in Guatemala and […]
COMMENTARY: Two films shed new light on a dark era
By James Rudin — December 27, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) UNDATED _ Sometimes movies can be a source of disappointment and dismay. But two new and highly acclaimed films with historical themes have given filmgoers much to think about. Both”The English Patient”and”Shine”reflect our continuing fascination with the […]
TOP STORY: THE STARLET WHO MADE HERSELF A SAINT: Who was the real Evita?
By Julia Lieblich — December 27, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service UNDATED _ As millions of moviegoers flock to see”Evita,”the new musical starring Madonna, they’ll follow the story of Evita the Whore, a second-rate actress who slept her way into the Argentine presidential palace in the 1940s. But there’s another view of Argentine first lady Eva Peron: Evita the Saint. To […]
COMMENTARY: The transforming power of forgiveness
By RNS Blog Editor — December 24, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Charles W. Colson, former special counsel to Richard Nixon, served a prison term for his role in the Watergate scandal. He now heads Prison Fellowship International, an evangelical Christian ministry to the imprisoned and their families. Contact Colson via e-mail at 71421.1551(at)compuserve.com.) UNDATED _ Cultural critics complain, with some justification, […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — December 23, 1996
c. 19) suspended indefinitely a ruling by a lower, Islamist-dominated court that an Egyptian professor, accused of insulting Islam, must divorce his wife. The legal battle between conservative Muslim lawyers and the more secular scholar and his wife has been watched around the world as a barometer of whether Muslim activists, intent on installing Islamic […]
NEWS STORY: TV rating plan gets bad reviews from many religious groups
By Carl Anderson — December 21, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ Television’s proposed new rating system for programming, which the major networks plan to begin using Jan. 1, generally flopped with the religious community, drawing responses that ranged from harsh condemnation to cautious concern. The plan, unveiled Thursday (Dec. 19), will use a system of rating programs based on […]
TOP STORY: ETHICAL CHRISTMAS SHOPPING: Could your kids toys be made in a sweatshop?
By Bruce Nolan — December 21, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Ben Gordon, a respiratory therapist and consumer from New Orleans, always asks three questions before buying: “Where does it come from? Who made it? What kind of values are behind it?” It’s old hat for a man long accustomed to applying ethical values to the purchase of food […]
NEWS FEATURE: THE CUSTOMS OF RELIGION: Scholar casts a skeptic’s eye on religious practices
By Karen Long — December 20, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Charles Panati can tell you why Muslims are teetotalers, Jews don’t eat pork and some Christians experience a run of meatless Fridays. “Food taboos _ of the kind that abound in Leviticus, chapter 11, and Deuteronomy, chapter 14 _ are the means by which ancient societies maintained their […]
COMMENTARY: Newsmakers, big and small, in 1996
By James Rudin — December 20, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) UNDATED _ The top news stories of 1996 involved the high and the mighty, as well as humble, ordinary people, whose fates express universal lessons and unanswered questions for us all. Here are my choices for the […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — December 20, 1996
c. 19). The pope has maintained silence on the recently renewed tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. But in a careful diplomatic response to the flare-up, the Vatican said in a statement that the two men dedicated part of their meeting to”an exchange of news and views on progress between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators and on […]
TOP STORY: SELLING THE NATIVITY: Nativity jewelry sales campaign draws ire in Bethlehem
By RNS Blog Editor — December 19, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service BETHLEHEM _ The pitch seems to be everywhere this Christmas season: For as little as $59.95 (plus postage and handling) you, too, can own a piece of the place where Jesus was born. In reverential tones, actor Ricardo Montalban describes a filigreed cross, centered with a stone that he says”witnessed”the […]
TOP STORY: THE CHURCH AND VIETNAM: In Vietnam, flourishing trade fails to reap religious harvest
By RNS Blog Editor — December 17, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY _ Archbishop Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan has no delusions about freedom of religion in his native Vietnam. Thirteen years in prison is instructive, said the former archbishop of Nha Trang, the coastal village north of Ho Chi Minh City. Above all, it teaches patience. Like a character in […]
COMMENTARY: The truth shall make you odd
By Dale Hanson Bourke — December 12, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service (Dale Hanson Bourke is the author of”Turn Toward the Wind”and publisher of Religion News Service.) UNDATED _ It is more than ironic, I fear, that one of the lowliest births of recorded history is commemorated this time of year with Nativity sets crafted from porcelain, fine glass or precious metal. […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — December 9, 1996
c. 1996 Religion News Service Clinton launches celebrations for Hanukkah, Christmas (RNS) President Bill Clinton officially launched the holiday season in Washington, D.C., on Thursday (Dec. 5), hosting a special ceremony in the Oval Office to mark the beginning of Hanukkah and then riding across the street to light the national Christmas tree at the […]
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