Tuesday’s Religion News Roundup: Boston mourns * Death cafes * Coptic fears

Prayers flood Boston. "Death cafes" provide a safe place to talk about a difficult subject. And what it's like to be a Copt in Egypt today.

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Statue of Paul Revere in front of Boston’s Old North Church. Photo by Jorge Sacedo via Shutterstock. http://shutr.bz/107uKT9

Pope Francis sent a telegram to Boston yesterday, care of the city’s archbishop, Cardinal Sean O’Malley.

“At this time of mourning the Holy Father prays that all Bostonians will be united in a resolve not to be overcome by evil, but to combat evil with good (cf. Rom 12:21) . . . ”


Social media becomes a virtual house of prayer for Boston.

Vigils abound today for the dead and injured, in Boston and elsewhere.

Is liberal Catholics’ honeymoon with Pope Francis over? The pope has directed investigation into American nuns (for failing to speak out strongly enough against abortion, contraception, etc.) to continue, reports Alessandro Speciale from the Vatican.

This does not spell “doom” for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, writes Rev. James Martin.

Who’s “post-Christian?” Who’s “very post Christian?” The Barna group tries to define and quantify Americans in various stages of non-belief. Finding: 37 percent of us are post and one in four is highly post.

More Barna number crunching: evangelical Christians are considerably more likely to give to charity than non-evangelical “born agains.”

Some St. Louis pastors are calling out city leaders for imposing a $100 “registration fee” to cover fire and safety inspections of churches and non-profits. That’s not fine for churches, they say, because it’s really a tax and violates that separation and church doctrine we all like so much.

A cuppa joe, a warm donut, and a chat about death. A bunch of English people and a growing number of Americans are seeking out death cafes, cozy places to talk about a topic that many living in Western Civilization prefer to ignore.


RNS blogger Mark Silk writes about the sock puppetry of Rabbi Michael Broyde, who, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency is reporting, has been booted from the Beth Din of America, a high religious court.

The Right to Return . . . to Poland? A new exhibition in New York asks: “What if the streets of Poland were filled with Jews again?”

A famed Turkish pianist gets a suspended sentence in his home country for blasphemy against Islam via Twitter.

The Los Angeles Times sends a reporter to Egypt to find out how scary it can be to be a Copt there these days.

My daughter’s friend Avi, 7, asked her dad a question the other day:

Avi: “Did God make all the planets in the universe?”

Avi’s dad: “That’s a really good question. I don’t know the answer to that.”

Avi: “Can’t you just Google it?”

We don’t claim to know the answer to anything either, but we can keep you up on the latest religion news. Just type your email in the box below.

– Lauren Markoe

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