Friday’s Religion News Roundup: Church/State breakup * Sunni/Shia 101 * Exorcist shortage

(RNS) Church and State breakup after all these years. Will there be a Vatican III? Not if a top adviser to Pope Francis has his way. And everything you need to know about Syria, Sunnis and Shiites and why it's all a giant fustercluck.

Screen shot 2013-05-31 at 9.04.15 AMAh, those crazy kids over at Americans United for Separation of Church and State …

Glee’s Jane Lynch and Comedy Central’s Jordan Peele teamed up for a Peaches & Herb-style breakup song between Church (Glee) and State (Peele):

“We’re Church and State / and we need to sep-ar-ate / ‘Cuz we’re all up on each other and we’re hurtin’ one another and it’s causing hate…”


How many of you can correctly spell “knaidel”? 13-year-old Arvind Mahankali did, and won the National Spelling Bee (and $30,000) for knowing the Yiddish word for a Jewish dumpling.

Outspoken Catholic priest, sociologist and sometimes steamy novelist Andrew Greeley has died at age 85. His beloved Chicago Tribune has the most comprehensive account of his long career.

(Fun fact: both Greeley and Protestant historian Martin Marty were both born on Feb. 5, 1928. The story goes that the two Chicagoans promised each other that whoever survived the other would preach at his funeral.)

Why are evangelicals all of a sudden in love with immigration reform? Look no further than the tornado damage in Moore, Okla., where churches reached out to storm victims, which included more than a few undocumented families from their own pews.

But don’t tell that to conservative evangelical icon Phyllis Schlafly, who thinks the GOP outreach to Hispanics would be better spent on reaching “white voters” because there’s not “any evidence at all that these Hispanics coming in from Mexico will vote Republican.”

Our pal Jim Martin (who needs no introduction, nor more press) is featured in a Slate series on how to make a midlife career change; he went from frustrated corporate exec to Jesuit priest and chaplain to the Colbert Nation.

Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber says gay and lesbian couples who want to adopt kids should really just adopt a pet because, in his mind, it’s all the same thing.


Speaking of conservative culture warriors, a bunch of them gathered in D.C. yesterday and conceded that while they are united against gay marriage, there are cracks in the coalition that make it impossible to work together on everything.

Think the Boy Scouts are all happy-clappy and open to anyone? Not so fast, say atheist Scouts, who still face a de facto ban on membership.

So many possible puns, so little time: newly minted mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner dodged a question on a controversial circumcision procedure that has been linked to several cases of infant herpes.

Here’s a helpful backgrounder on the centuries-old tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and how it’s all coming to a head in Syria’s bloody civil war.

Nigerian lawmakers approved a bill to ban gay marriage; couples that marry would face 14 years in prison, and officiants or witnesses would face 10 years in the slammer.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, a member of Pope Francis’ advisory cabinet, says he won’t be recommending a Third Vatican Council to reform the church; we’re still sorting out what Vatican II in the 1960s meant, Pell said.


Francis — I still really wanna call him Uncle Frank — says too many Christians look like they’re going to a funeral instead of praising God.

And perhaps this is why: there’s a shortage of Communion wine in Venezuela, and priests are being asked to ration what they still have on hand.

Or perhaps this could help: the Catholic Church’s top exorcist wants more leeway in priests performing exorcisms. He claims to have cast out 160,000 demons, which as Jonathan Turley notes is “over 1,818 a year or roughly 5 a day or one demon every 4.8 hours every day every week every month.”

There’s no demons in the RNS daily Roundup, and you can get it in your inbox every day for free by signing up below.

With that, it’s off to the weekend and my first Jewish wedding. Someone say a prayer that I don’t knock over the chuppah or fall off one of those dancing chairs.

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