Tuesday’s Religion News Roundup: Downton Abbey, Evangelical birth control and a new American Catholic Church?

Downton Abbey tackles anti-Catholicism. A coalition of evangelicals pushes for access to birth control. And here's what happens in the American National Catholic Church.

Questions have arisen about the security of Malala Yousufzai, the teenaged Pakistani girl shot last week by the Taliban, who say they are still trying to kill her for her advocacy of education for girls. She's now being treated in a British hospital, and several people have turned up claiming to be her relatives. 

Another teenaged girl, in Timbuktu, Mali, received 60 lashes in front of police headquarters after Islamic extremists  – who run the city – convicted her of speaking to men on the street.

A 12th-century mosque in Aleppo, Syria, is the latest causalty of that nation's civil war.


A coalition of evangelical Christians is calling on fellow Christians to boost access to birth control around the globe, saying it does not conflict with evangelical opposition to abortion.

You don't have to be Jewish to appreciate the Forward's “Presidential Debate Drinking Game” to help you get through tonight's verbal sparring. The worse the pandering to the American Jewish community, the more you get to drink.

Catholicism should have its own roundup today . . . news abounds . . . 

Beatification seems imminent for Paul VI.

Remember “Frank Pavone the anti-abortion priest”? Things weren't looking good for him a year ago, but he's back from his Texas exile and aiming to defeat President Obama.

The Catholic bishop of Colorado Springs, Michael Sheridan, says no Holy Communion for Vice President Joe Biden in his diocese. 

The Archdiocese of New Orleans plans to distribute 5,000 yard signs this week that read: “Thou shalt not kill — God.” They're part of an anti-violence campaign called the “New Battle of New Orleans.” 


It looks like a Catholic Church, but wait  . . . married priests, female priests and gay priests – all OK. Must be the American National Catholic Church.

An Italian Catholic bishop has been expelled from Chad for speaking up about the mismanagement of that nation's oil revenues.

And a Roman Catholic cardinal screened a spurious video at the Vatican that makes alarmist predictions about the Muslim population of Europe.

Don't you just love Downton Abbey? I do. Because they really are doing a splendid job of tackling the issue of anti-Catholicism in England during the Interbellum. Well, maybe that's not the only reason I watch it.

Washington D.C.'s metro didn't want to run the anti-Islam ads taken out by Pam Geller and friends, but transit system officials say they can't take the suggestion from progressive faith groups that revenue from the ads be donated to charity. Portland, Ore., like Washington and New York, is also being forced by a court to run the ads. Judges say the First Amendment requires it.

In the mostly Buddhist nation of Bhutan, the government bans all public religious activity for six months leading up to the nation's 2013 elections.


And an untimely death. On Sunday, a car struck and killed Wycliffe Bible Translators senior vice president Forrest Flaniken, 53, while he was riding his bicycle in Florida.

– Lauren Markoe 

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