Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, left, says the pastor who turned away a boy from a Catholic school because he has two mothers “has my full confidence and support.” A nun who allowed an abortion at a Catholic hospital in Arizona — supposedly to save the life of the mother — suffered automatic excommunication and may be kicked out of her order. Two conservative Catholic authors are defending the pope’s handling of sexual abuse cases, saying it will (positively) shape his legacy.
An old friend and former pupil of Benedict, Vienna Cardinal Chrisoph Schonborn, is causing some headaches for his boss by seeming to advocate for optional celibacy for priests, or at least a study of it. The outgoing president of Catholic University says Catholic colleges need a little more direction from the top, noting that Notre Dame never “suffered” for its disputed invite and honorary degree for President Obama last year.
The DC church that hosted the funerals for both Frederick Douglass and Rosa Parks was named on the “most endangered” historic sites list published by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. There’s a minor dispute brewing within the extended Graham family over whether or not ailing evangelist Billy Graham has it in him to deliver one last big sermon.
Two women were arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle crystal meth inside a Bible to an inmate in Louisiana. The New York Review of Magazines profiles the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Watchtower magazine, the “most widely read magazine in the world.” The Church of England is warning the BBC not to cut its religious programming, and Muslims want an apology from a Tea Party leader who said Muslims worship a “monkey god.” The NYT profiles the Dalai Lama‘s point man who’s handling logistics for the DL’s four-day visit to the Big Apple.
Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber, who’s about as right (as in, opposite of left) as they come when it comes to vocalizing his disgust of homosexuality, wants Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan to answer, once and for all, the question of her sexual orientation. “Can a sitting justice, potentially engaged in the homosexual lifestyle, be trusted to rule on cases that might well grant special preferred government status to some … while, at the same time, eliminating certain free-speech and religious-liberties rights enjoyed by others?”
A judge in Malawi, as expected, sentenced two gay men to the maximum of 14 years in prison after they held an engagement party. Pakistan, which had already blocked online access to Facebook b/c of an “Everyone Draw Muhammad” campaign, has extended the ban to YouTube (some cartoonists take a dim view of the cartoon campaign). French President Nicolas Sarkozy says French Muslims shouldn’t feel singled out by a veil ban that, well, singles out Muslims.
And finally, in the category of What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding, rocker Elvis Costello has cancelled two upcoming shows in Tel Aviv to protest Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
