Friday’s Religion News Roundup

Former boy wonder Ralph Reed launches his bid today to revive his old Christian Coalition (under the new Faith & Freedom Coalition) in Washington, and WaPo asks whether it’s “possible to revive the evangelical political movement into the potent voting bloc it once was.” CNN says Reed still “matters,” while Mark Silk is more skeptical. […]

Former boy wonder Ralph Reed launches his bid today to revive his old Christian Coalition (under the new Faith & Freedom Coalition) in Washington, and WaPo asks whether it’s “possible to revive the evangelical political movement into the potent voting bloc it once was.” CNN says Reed still “matters,” while Mark Silk is more skeptical.

One man to watch at Reed’s dog-and-pony show is Mitt Romney, who is still dogged (perhaps unfairly) by questions of his Mormon faith. Dan Gilgoff thinks Romney’s faith won’t be so scary this time around. And the woman to watch: atheist conservative godmother Ayn Rand as she and Jesus compete for the loyalties of today’s GOP.

Dr. Jack “Dr. Death” Kevorkian, the champion of doctor-assisted suicide, has died at 83, with no apparent assistance needed by a doctor. With Gallup showing Kevorkian’s cause to be the most morally divisive issue in the U.S., Catholic bishops will take up the issue — their first time as a body — when they meet in Seattle this month.


Rev. Susan “Sujay” Johnson Cook took the ceremonial oath of office yesterday as the new ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton looked on; Clinton’s full remarks here.

California isn’t required to pay for Wiccan prison chaplains, a federal appeals court said, ruling that a volunteer Wiccan chaplain was essentially trying to force the state to pay for his voluntary services. And New York can prohibit religious groups from renting school space for weekend worship services, a separate appeals court ruled. Parents are suing in Quebec over a ban on religion in government-subsidized daycare centers.

The “Token Conservative” at the San Francisco Chronicle smells a whiff of anti-Semitism in the city’s proposed ban on infant circumcision and supporters’ links to the “Foreskin Man” comic strip (that’s him, at left).

U.S. Catholic bishops say the abuse scandal is “mostly historical,” but the parents of a girl in St. Joseph, Mo., say their priest took explicit kiddy porn photos of their daughter between 2006 and 2010 and distributed them on the Internet.

A group of Catholic doctors in Germany is offering to help wash that gay right out of your hair with sugar pills, or what Der Spiegel calls “homo-homeopathy.”

Ratko Mladic, accused of orchestrating the murder of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Bosnia’s civil war, had his first court appearance in The Hague and was met by victims’ widows, who made a throat-slitting gesture. Mladic, according to the BBC, simply smiled.


Speaking of the Balkans, B16 is headed to neighboring Croatia this weekend. VPOTUS Biden held an impromptu visit with B16 yesterday, and there’s no indication il papa tried to excommunicate Biden for his support of abortion rights.

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