St. Colbert * Pushing up daisies * Sin City: Friday’s Roundup

(RNS) Go green for God with an eco-friendly burial that drops the mahogany casket and gas-guzzling hearse. What can Catholics learn from Stephen Colbert? And is meditation only a thing for attractive blondes? All that and more in today's Roundup.

courtesy Comedy Central

Welcome to the Justin Bieber-free version of the Roundup. Perhaps the less we mention him the quicker he’ll go away. Unless you want to read Cathy Lynn Grossman’s take on L’Affaire d’Bieb.

They always talk about how you’ll be pushing up daisies when the time comes; now you can do that, quite literally, with a green burial. Lauren Markoe explores the spiritual side of green burials, and it’s actually a fascinating read.

Kosher food is apparently all the rage in Florida prisons, but Muslims say that means that Muslim inmates should also have access to halal meals. And the Mormon hierarchy says it won’t support any liberalization of Utah liquor laws, including taking down the famous “Zion Curtain,” a large partition in bars that is meant to keep patrons (and kids) from seeing drinks prepared.


courtesy Comedy Central

courtesy Comedy Central

America magazine says the Catholic Church could learn a thing or two from Stephen Colbert (and not just because America’s Jim Martin is chaplain to Colbert Nation): Colbert shows how to reach an audience: “delight, instruct and persuade.”

Remember Adam Shaw, who lost his job reviewing movies for Catholic News Service after he ripped Pope Francis a new one over his economic worldview? Well, he’s not letting up, now saying that the pope with a “peculiar dislike for prosperity” needs to “bring himself back into conformity with Catholic social teaching and reality.” Alrighty then.

Not a fan of Obamacare? Maybe you should check out these “health-sharing” plans in which members pitch in to pay each other’s medical bills. But no smoking, extramarital sex or excessive drinking. From Bob Smietana’s report:

The last few years have been good for health-sharing ministries. Medi-Share, for example, had 35,000 members in 2009. Today that number has doubled. Samaritan Ministries International, based in Peoria, Ill., went from 13,470 households in January 2009 to 30,068 households, or about 100,000 individuals, in January 2014.

About one in 10 new Catholic priests had to put off seminary for an average of two years to pay off college loans, according to a new profile by the Catholic bishops and the good folks at CARA.

Something just tells me this isn’t going to end well: Las Vegas officials are making a HUGE push to lure the 2016 GOP convention to Sin City, with Mayor Carolyn Goodman being very matter-of-fact about the city’s reputation: “There’s sin everywhere — we all know that.”

Things aren’t lookin’ so good for Dinesh D’Souza, the conservative activist and filmmaker who already lost his job as president of Kings College for checking into a hotel with a woman who wasn’t his wife. He’s now been indicted for election fraud. And Tobin Grant listens to all the crazy from the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer so you don’t have to.


From the Twittersphere:

Renee Gadoua tracks the latest news in the Methodist gay marriage wars, with no sign that things will be settling down anytime soon.

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan is siding with the protestors in Ukraine, saying: “We Catholics in the United States cannot let these brave Ukrainians, whose allegiance to their religious convictions has survived “dungeon, fire, and sword,” languish.  They deserve our voices and our prayers.”

Omar Sacirbey is back with another edition of Moozweek, with this little gem about a Muslim convert who was convicted of murdering his wife. He sent out text messages on her cell phone to all her contacts: ““I’m sorry everyone but I pretend like I’m a Muslim woman when in all reality I’m a (prostitute) and I represent Satan.”

And with that, the weekend is in sight. Make sure you’re subscribed to get the Roundup for free, in your inbox, by signing up below:

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