Monday’s roundup

President Obama has recalibrated or clarified his support for Muslims’ right to build a mosque two blocks away from ground zero in NYC. At an iftar dinner at the White House on Friday, Obama said Muslims “have a right to to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower […]

President Obama has recalibrated or clarified his support for Muslims’ right to build a mosque two blocks away from ground zero in NYC.

At an iftar dinner at the White House on Friday, Obama said Muslimshave a right to to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan.” On Saturday, he said “I was not commenting, and I will not comment, on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there; I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding.”


The White House quickly said on Saturday that Obama was not backing off in any way from the remarks he made Friday. “What he said last night, and reaffirmed today, is that if a church, a synagogue or a Hindu temple can be built on a site, you simply cannot deny that right to those who want to build a mosque,” said White House spokesman Bill Burton.

Republicans have pounced on Obama’s remarks and have signaled that it will be a campaign issue this fall. It probably won’t help Democrats that a Hamas leader said Sunday that Muslims “have to build” the Cordoba House. Relatives of 9/11 victims are mixed in their opinions on the planned mosque.

The AP’s Rachel Zoll has an interesting story on Muslims’ fears that their end-of-Ramadan festivities will be mistaken for celebrations of the 9/11 attacks, since Eid al-Fitr falls around Sept. 11 this year. Continuing its football and Ramadan theme, the AP looks a high school football players, who must refrain from eating and drinking during arduous workouts. Violence in Iraq and threats of violence in Somalia have escalated during the holy month.

Orthodox Patriarch Batholomew I held the first Mass in 90 years at an ancient monastery in Turkey; the government had banned services there, but will open it up in order to prove to the European Union that they respect religious freedom. Thousands of pilgrams, many with severe ailments, were evacuated from the Catholic shrine at Lourdes on Sunday after a bomb threat.

A new North Carolina law allows students at public schools and colleges to take off two days per year for religious obervances. Rep. Rick Glazier, who co-sponsored the bill, says: “It has to be a bona fide holiday; you don’t get to just take the day off because you want to pray at home.” What makes a “bona fide” holiday? Can’t wait to see the courts dig into that one.

Christians and other religious minorities in Indonesia are pushing pack against violent Muslim hardliners.

Catholic and other religious-owned health systems provide better care and are more efficient than investor-owned systems, according to a Reuters review. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Manchester, N.H., who was accused of covering up the sexual abuse of children while he was a top aide to Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston, turned 75 and submitted his resignation to Pope Benedict XVI.

The Pentecostal Assemblies of the World chose a Detroit-area bishop to lead the 1.3 million-member denomination. A Wisconsin priest has been ordered to cease and desist from parodying Best Buy’s “geek squad” by sticking “God squad” stickers on his car (see offending car at top left). Churchgoers in Ohio have reached out to strippers in Ohio, giving them a few tips on how to end their ongoing feud.


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