Happy Monday after Daylight Saving Time. Here are 10 religion stories you should know today.
Memorial of candles, flowers, stuffed animals, and cards for the children and 6 adults who died at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012. RNS photo by Arthur McClanahan, Iowa United Methodist Conference
1. In his first interview since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., the father of shooter Adam Lanza said that what his son did couldn’t “get any more evil,” he wishes his son hadn’t been born and his son would have killed him in a heartbeat.
2. Tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered in Manhattan on Sunday to protest Israel’s proposal to include them in the country’s military draft.
3. Patriarchs of the world’s 250 million Orthodox Christians ended a rare summit in Istanbul on Sunday calling for a peaceful end to the crisis in Ukraine, denouncing violence in the Middle East and agreed to hold an ecumenical council in 2016, the first in over 1,200 years.
4. Three Arab countries have banned the upcoming Hollywood film “Noah” on religious grounds even before its worldwide premiere and several others are expected to follow suit. Meanwhile, Malaysia has banned a comic book starring the Japanese superhero Ultraman because it contains a reference comparing Ultraman to “Allah.”
5. Pope Francis will head to South Korea in August for a Catholic youth festival. By the way, the pope wants you to get over him. And Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George is undergoing new rounds of chemotherapy.
7. A Tennessee pastor admits that the church crowd is often stingy when it comes to tips. He’s apologizing for Christians’ behaviors while offering the website, “Sundays Are The Worst” as a place for servers to vent their frustrations.
8. Planned Parenthood in Iowa suggests that a prominent Catholic priest played an “outsized role” in the state medical board’s decision to ban use of a telemedicine system for providing abortion pills.
10. During his Sunday morning service, Sweden megachurch pastor Ulf Ekman announced that he and his wife are converting to Roman Catholicism, causing a stir in the charismatic world.
Bonus, for possible discussion: Opposition to a Maryland rail line bidder raises questions about its role and future reparations in 76,000 Jews and other prisoners it shipped to Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust.
