A suit filed in Chicago yesterday accuses the Jesuits of “reckless disregard” for the well-being of children around an 80-year-old priest who’s now serving a 25-year sentence; this is, of course, on top of the massive $166 million case that Jesuits in the Northwest settled yesterday, and the Seattle Times says true justice for abuse victims will only be found in criminal courts.
Meanwhile, a former top church official in Boston has asked the state attorney general to wade into a bitter dispute over unfunded employee pension plans — the same program he defended six years ago.
A new judge in Texas has backed off a plan to allow offenders to read a Christian book and then come back and discuss it with him in lieu of jail time. A Catholic priest in Arkansas lost his visiting rights after he was caught trying to smuggle tobacco to a death row inmate.
The Cato Institute’s Doug Bandow finds the whole “What Would Jesus Cut?” budget campaign from the religious left more than a little odious. The NYT’s Sam Freedman traces the impact of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernadin on Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn‘s Ash Wednesday decision to abolish capital punishment.
Down in Alabama, former Ten Commandments Judge Roy Moore is making plans to run for president. Of course he is. Newt Gingrich doesn’t want his grandkids growing up in a “secular atheist” America dominated by “radical Islamists” (something tells me those radical Islamists aren’t fans of secularism, either, Mr. Speaker).
The Boston Globe says gay marriage isn’t nearly the wedge issue it used to be; try telling that to the Christian conservatives who control the Iowa GOP caucuses.
Pop tart Katy Perry‘s mom sees a career as an evangelist in her daughter’s future (and no, she didn’t like that whole “I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It” bit).
Jewish students are apparently flocking to (Lutheran) Muhlenberg College in Allentown. Who knew? Evangelicals-and-politics scholar Michael Lindsay is leaving Rice University to become president of Gordon College.
They’re wrapping up closing arguments out in Vancouver over whether the province’s anti-polygamy law is unconstitutional. In Vegas, where everyone takes the sanctity of marriage so seriously, the ACLU is suing over rules that require (non-governmental) marriage officiants to have some sort of religious connection. A rival is challenging jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs for control of the church.
A tiny British church stumbled across an original 400-year-old King James Version of the Bible.
Catholic bishops from North Africa are pleading for an end to hostilities in the region, although they curiously dont mention the U.S. and allied strikes that are giving Libyan strongman Moammar Gaddafi a run for his money.
