medical ethics
Crisis pregnancy group reflects Jewish divide on abortion
By Tracy Gordon — June 14, 2011
SILVER SPRING, Md. (RNS) Saraleah was 19 and a part-time student when she discovered she was pregnant. She didn't know how it could have happened — until she flashed back to a party nine weeks earlier where she was given a drink, realized it was vodka and then passed out. Saraleah had been raped. “i […]
Monday’s Religion News Roundup
By Kevin Eckstrom — June 6, 2011
Some possibly good news for Mitt Romney‘s fledgling 2012 campaign: two-thirds of Americans say his Mormonism doesn’t matter, including 58 of evangelicals. But he could still face a tough road threading the eye of the needle in the evangelical-heavy early primaries: Evangelicals, more than any other group, say they’d be “less likely” to support a […]
Think you’ll need last rites? Better plan ahead
By Tracy Gordon — April 6, 2011
CLEVELAND (RNS) In days long gone, Roman Catholic priests regularly made deathbed house calls, even in the middle of the night with little notice, to pray over the dying and anoint them with holy oils. The candlelight ritual, popularly known as last rites, continues in hospitals, nursing homes, hospice houses and private homes. But it […]
Thursday’s Religion News Roundup
By Kevin Eckstrom — March 10, 2011
All eyes are on Capitol Hill today as the House Committee on Homeland Security opens hearings on homegrown Islamic “radicalization.” The hearings are being live-streamed here, with a handy WaPo guide to the witnesses here. Chairman Peter King (left) opened the show by saying there’s nothing “radical or un-American” about either the hearings or his […]
Vatican to draft guidelines for Catholic hospitals
By Tracy Gordon — February 4, 2011
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Controversies over bioethical standards at U.S. Catholic hospitals show the need for greater Catholic education for health care workers, Vatican officials said Thursday (Feb. 3). Church leaders said a new set of biomedical guidelines will be published later this year, as well as a separate document on AIDS prevention after last year’s […]
Vatican says no change to teaching on condoms, prostitutes
By Tracy Gordon — December 22, 2010
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI’s recent comments about condoms do not mark a change in “Catholic moral teaching” or “pastoral practice” on AIDS prevention or contraception, the Vatican said Tuesday (Dec. 21). The statement by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, the Catholic Church’s highest doctrinal body, represents a rare official clarification of […]
Lutheran leader seeks Communion agreement with pope
By Tracy Gordon — December 18, 2010
ROME (RNS/ENInews) The president of the Lutheran World Federation is calling on Lutherans and Catholics to issue a common statement on Holy Communion to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017. “Our intention is to arrive at 2017 with a common Roman Catholic-Lutheran declaration on Eucharistic hospitality,” Bishop Munib Younan told the […]
10 minutes with … Laura Hobgood-Oster
By Tracy Gordon — December 1, 2010
(RNS) The full force of Christian compassion and hospitality should be applied to all creatures — including animals, university professor Laura Hobgood-Oster argues in a recent book. Taking her cues from Christian scripture, history and tradition, Hobgood-Oster strives to alert Christians to the modern plight of animals. Her book, “The Friends We Keep,” is a […]
10 minutes with âÂ?¦ Linda Mobley
By Tracy Gordon — November 23, 2010
(RNS) In this season of giving thanks and counting blessings, Linda Mobley of Vancouver, Wash., says she’s been blessed by breast cancer. Twice. She thought she’d beaten the disease eight years ago. But soon after she’d self-published her book, “Blessed with Cancer,” in July, Mobley was told the cancer had returned, metastasized into her bones. […]
Study calls for sensitivity in Muslims’ medical care
By Tracy Gordon — November 11, 2010
(RNS) U.S. doctors need to take religious values into account while providing health care, especially when the patient is a Muslim woman, according to a new study in the Journal of Medical Ethics. Dr. Aasim Padela, the study’s lead author and a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Michigan, assessed the obstacles Muslims […]
Monday’s Religion News Roundup
By Kevin Eckstrom — November 1, 2010
More than 40 worshippers at a Baghdad Catholic church were killed when insurgents stormed the church Sunday night; U.S. military officials said the subsequent raid by Iraqi commandos that killed the hijackers demonstrates the Iraqis’ ability to fight for themselves. B16 denounced the attack as “ferocious.” Victims’ groups held a vigil yesterday in St. Peter’s […]
COMMENTARY: Thrift store saints
By Cathleen Falsani — October 6, 2010
(RNS) What I actually know about God might, on a good day, fit on a quarter of the head of a pin compared to the fullness of God’s true hugeness. That said, there are a couple of things about the Almighty that I’m pretty certain are true. God’s grace is always staggering and often surprising. […]
Anti-abortion `Pro-Life Freedom Ride’ turned away from King’s tomb
By Tracy Gordon — July 26, 2010
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) Invoking the memory of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, anti-abortion clergy members and their supporters on Saturday (July 24) embarked on a “Pro-Life Freedom Ride” but were turned away from King’s tomb in Atlanta. The group, organized by New York-based Priests For Life, held a prayer […]
ACLU wants protection for women at religious hospitals
By Tracy Gordon — July 1, 2010
(RNS) After a controversial abortion performed at a Catholic hospital in Phoenix, the American Civil Liberties Union is asking federal officials to protect “emergency reproductive care” at religiously affiliated hospitals. The ACLU called on the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) to investigate violations of federal law concerning emergency reproductive care at religious hospitals. […]
Thursday’s roundup
By Kevin Eckstrom — July 1, 2010
Secular groups are getting a little antsy with President Obama‘s slow pace of reform on the White House’s faith-based office. Outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens says he has cancer of the esophagus and cancelled his book tour. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan carried forth (someone get her an editor) on her interpretation of the First Amendment’s […]
