Thursday’s Religion News Roundup: Vendetta against D’Souza? Romney’s right flank. Broun v. Darwin

Christian culture warrior Dinesh D'Souza (“2016” documentarian, president of The King’s College) tells Christianity Today that the reports about his marital troubles – getting engaged while not yet divorced, e.g. – are a “vendetta.”

Christian culture warrior Dinesh D’Souza (“2016” documentarian, president of The King’s College) tells Christianity Today that the reports about his marital troubles – getting engaged while not yet divorced, e.g. – are a “vendetta.”

D’Souza also explained to Fox News that it is legal to get engaged while still married. It gets messier from there.


Road to Damascus, 2012 edition: New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan will be part of a high-level Vatican delegation that Pope Benedict XVI is sending to war-torn Syria next week to seek peace.

Dolan has been in Rome for the synod this month, but returns today to host Barack Obama and Mitt Romney at the annual Al Smith Dinner. That should be good prep for the Damascus trip; not sitting between Romney and Obama, but dealing with his many critics on the right who say he should never have invited the president.

The cardinal’s latest defense: he is mirroring the Incarnation:

“It seems to me that God the Father set a pretty good example of probably the best way to invite people to eternal salvation is to be in the midst of them, to be incarnate where they’re at.”

The American nuns lose a friend at the Vatican, maybe gain one in the U.S. hierarchy.

Clergy burnout is a growing problem, and the latest ReligionLink has all you need to know.

Abortion foes say that if Mitt Romney isn’t Mr. Right-to-Life, he’s Mr. Right Now, and that’s good enough reason to support him.

Mormon author Joanna Brooks says she isn’t voting for the Mormon candidate.

Remember Georgia congressman Paul Broun, who said evolution and the Big Bang Theory are “lies straight from the pit of Hell”? He has a new challenger in his reelection race: Charles Darwin.

Data Points of the Day:

3.4 percent: That’s the slice of the American population that identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, according to Gallup.

25 percent: That’s the portion of society that Americans think is LGBT.

Another contrast: the former presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Herbert Chilstrom, criticizes Archbishop John Nienstedt of Minneapolis-St. Paul for leading the campaign for an anti-same sex marriage amendment.


Chilstrom wrote an open letter in the Minneapolis Star Tribune telling Nienstedt he is “overstepping your bounds.”

On the other hand, Catholic News Service and the USCCB continue marking the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council by highlighting the breakthrough in ecumenism that the Council Fathers heralded.

Some Catholic parents in Minnesota don’t want the anti-same-sex marriage signs at a church school where their kids can read them.

Reuters details the struggle for Poland’s Catholic soul. This time the enemy is not communism.

The new Native American saint, Kateri Tekakwitha, stirs mixed emotions.

This sounds like fun: the Vatican opens a new exhibit of papal cars.

Not as much fun: Jewish and Christian groups are at an impasse over U.S. aid to Israel.

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David Gibson

Photo: Charles Darwin, pre-candidacy, via Wikipedia

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