Monday’s Religion News Roundup: Sinful St. Louis * Francis for Pope! * Mormon Doubts

They're sinning (a lot) in St. Louis, apparently. Uncle Frank meets a mess and lots of high expectations as he touches down in Brazil. And we finally know how many Anglicans it takes to change a light bulb.

Pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Boston tour the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro ahead of Pope Francis' arrival for World Youth Day. Photo courtesy George Martell/Pilot New Media.

Our pal Laurie Goodstein at the NYT profiles Mormons who go online searching for answers and end up finding doubt instead.

Pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Boston tour the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro ahead of Pope Francis' arrival for World Youth Day. Photo courtesy George Martell/Pilot New Media.

Pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Boston tour the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro ahead of Pope Francis’ arrival for World Youth Day. Photo courtesy George Martell/Pilot New Media.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia makes the curious claim that unelected judges can lead to … the Holocaust?


There’s an interesting comment thread on Lauren Markoe’s Q&A with Cameron Partridge, a transgender Episcopal chaplain at BU.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul tell evangelical kingmakers in — surprise, surprise! — Iowa that the nation needs spiritual renewal.

Maybe Cruz and Paul can help evangelicals push immigration through the more conservative House. Then again, maybe not.

Three months after losing his son to suicide, megachurch pastor Rick Warren returns to the pulpit next weekend with a sermon series on “How to get through what you’re going through.”

Apparently what happens in Vegas doesn’t actually stay in Vegas: The new Sin City is, of all places, St. Louis.

Speaking of St. Louis, the Missouri-Synod Lutherans are meeting in their hometown this week, and delegates’ materials say it would be “counterproductive” to get bogged down in a debate after the “debacle” over interfaith prayer in Newtown, Conn.


Episcopal blogger Kendall Harmon asks readers how many Anglicans it takes to change a light bulb. My favorite: “Three—one to hold the ladder, one to change the lightbulb and one to mix the Martinis.”

A group of California rabbis has decided not to grant kosher certification to personal lubricant, after all. “The intended uses of these items as now revealed, was misunderstood,” they say. Ahem.  More details than you probably want here.

The always-awesome Michelle Boorstein asks the question on everyone’s minds here in hot and steamy D.C.: “How does God feel about exposed shoulders in a house of worship? Or toes? Or some glimpse of thigh?”

The Assistant General Secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales says U.K. bishops will continue teaching their understanding of marriage. Which prompts an interesting question: is there anything wrong with the church holding to its understanding of marriage while civil society holds to a different one?

British soccer player Papiss Cisse doesn’t want to play for Newcastle United because the team’s sponsor is Wonga, a lending firm whose 5,800 percent interest rates don’t sit well with Cisse’s Muslim faith.

It took The Foward seven grafs to mention the Israeli controversy that overshadowed the latter years of Helen Thomas’ pioneering career at the White House; she died this weekend at 92.


The LA Times profiles Uncle Frank on the eve of his first overseas trip (to Brazil, for World Youth Day) and describes his young pontificate as a “U.S. presidential campaign in reverse,” where he’s already won the race and is now out pressing the flesh.

NPR profiles a new convert to Catholicism who’s going to Rio to see her new pope.

The social justice-minded Uncle Frank will “dive into the middle of (the) ferment” roiling Brazilian society when he gets to the world’s most populous Catholic nation.

Still bent on shaking things up, Uncle Frank has recruited seven laymen and a priest to provide advice on taming the church’s bureaucracy. As far as we can tell, no Americans on the list.

The Brits are going to investigate whether Jews have faced discrimination in employment after an Orthodox man won his case involving not working on the Sabbath.

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