Monthly Archives: August 2004
NEWS STORY: Acknowledging His Physical Suffering, Pope Opens Pilgrimage to Lourdes
By RNS Blog Editor — August 16, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Acknowledging that age has brought him physical suffering, an ailing Pope John Paul II began a pilgrimage to the French shrine of Lourdes on Saturday (Aug. 14) to reaffirm his deep personal faith in the Virgin Mary and to pray for peace in the world. Like many of the […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — August 14, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service Prescription Discount Plan Saves Methodists $348,728 (RNS) United Methodists who have signed up for an innovative church-sponsored drug discount program have saved $348,728 in prescription costs since the program was unveiled in March, church officials said. The first-ever partnership between the United Methodist Church and DestinationRx allows participants to save […]
NEWS FEATURE: Lynne Hinton’s New Novel Tells a Darker Story
By Cecile Holmes — August 14, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service (UNDATED) An odd alliance between a widow and her husband’s illegitimate adult daughter emerges from the tangled emotions at play in Lynne Hinton’s newest book. Love, loss, infidelity, betrayal, grief and suffering all come into play in the popular writer’s novel, “The Last Odd Day” (HarperSanFrancisco). In this slim volume, […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — August 13, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service Vatican Closes Austrian Seminary Investigated in Sex Scandal VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican on Thursday (Aug. 12) closed a 200-year-old Austrian seminary at the center of a sex scandal involving thousands of child pornography photographs and evidence of homosexual relations between priests and seminarians. Bishop Klaus Kung of Feldkirch, acting […]
NEWS STORY: Pope to Visit French Shrine of Lourdes on 104th Trip Outside Italy
By RNS Blog Editor — August 13, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY _ A frail and wheelchair-bound Pope John Paul II will travel to the shrine of Lourdes in the Pyrenees of southwest France on Saturday (Aug. 14) as “a pilgrim among pilgrims,” weak in body but strong in devotion to the Virgin Mary. The purpose of the pope’s two-day […]
NEWS FEATURE: Some Couples in Israel Turn to Alternative Weddings
By RNS Blog Editor — August 13, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service KFAR SABA, Israel _ The Three Weeks, the period prior to Tisha B’Av when Jews mourn the destruction of the biblical temples, is traditionally a time of quiet reflection. Due to this period’s prohibition against getting married, most wedding musicians and photographers go on vacation. Yet this ban did not […]
NEWS STORY: Judge Dismisses Suit Over Greek Orthodox Constitution
By Kein Eckstrom — August 13, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service (UNDATED) A New York judge has sided with the Greek Orthodox Church in a fight over its constitution, ruling that the court has no authority to interfere in an internal church dispute. State Supreme Court Justice Ira Gammerman on Aug. 6 dismissed a suit brought by lay activists that said […]
COMMENTARY: `DaVinci Code’ Need Not Threaten Faith
By Frances Kennedy — August 13, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service (Eugene Cullen Kennedy, a longtime observer of the Roman Catholic Church, is professor emeritus of psychology at Loyola University in Chicago and author of “Cardinal Bernardin’s Stations of the Cross,” published by St. Martin’s Press.) Lots of parsons and prelates have placed their highest spiritual threat level on Dan Brown’s […]
NEWS STORY: Jehovah’s Witnesses See Voting as Divisive
By RNS Blog Editor — August 13, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service CLEVELAND _ Call it a campaign strategist’s nightmare: More than 30,000 people coming to a central location in Cleveland over four weekends, and hardly a single vote to be had. In this most political of seasons, where small percentages of votes in key states could prove decisive, the Jehovah’s Witnesses […]
COMMENTARY: Campaigns, War and Jewish Scripture
By RNS Blog Editor — August 13, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is Distinguished Visiting Professor at Saint Leo University.) (UNDATED) The 2004 election is rapidly turning into a martial political campaign. George W. Bush says he is a “war president,” and John Kerry, a former U.S. Navy officer, told the Democratic Convention […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — August 12, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service Pope Decries Lost Sense of Sin, Will Travel to Marian Shrine (UNDATED) Calling a pilgrimage to the site where the Virgin Mary is believed to have appeared “a special gift of providence,” Pope John Paul II said Wednesday he will pray there for modern mankind, which has “lost the sense […]
NEWS FEATURE: Biotechnology Advances Lead Some Ethicists to See `Free Market’ Eugenics
By RNS Blog Editor — August 12, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Encouraging the “breeding” of the “fittest” babies became discredited by the crimes of Nazi Germany. Yet eugenics is resurfacing today in the advances of biotechnology, say some ethicists and theologians. The eugenics of the past originated with government, says Ted Peters, president of Pacific Lutheran Seminary and a researcher […]
NEWS FEATURE: Ice Cream `Taster’ Gives Kosher Test
By RNS Blog Editor — August 12, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service PALMER, Mass. _ There is something sweet about the Rondeau family’s connection with its Jewish neighbors. And it comes in 36 flavors. As the summer season for 50-year-old Camp Ramah, which has been at its Palmer location since the early 1960s, got under way, the camp mashgiach paid his annual […]
RNS Weekly Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — August 11, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service Diverse Religious Groups Unite Behind Aid for Sudan WASHINGTON (RNS) An unusually broad coalition of Jewish, Muslim, Catholic and evangelical groups has come together to urge intervention by the United States and the United Nations in war-torn Sudan. The Save Darfur Coalition is comprised of more than 70 religious and […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — August 11, 2004
c. 2004 Religion News Service Survey: Blacks Practice Religion More Than Other Groups (RNS) Black Americans are the most likely to participate in religious activities like prayer, Bible reading and worship attendance, compared to other racial and ethnic groups, a survey shows. The Barna Group, a Ventura, Calif.-based consulting firm, found that 91 percent of […]
