Thursday’s Religion News Roundup: G-O Cheerleaders * Santa Muerte * Jesus tattoo

(RNS) This kid needs more guacamole (and here's how you can help). Bible-quoting cheerleaders in Texas score a win, Santa Muerte is blasphemous and an artist decides to get tattooed with Jesus' 39 lashes.

C'mon, who can resist this face?
C'mon, who can resist this face?

C’mon, who can resist this face?

This is Gus. As you can see, Gus really likes avocados. As in, really really likes avocados. The thing is, avocados cost money, and his dad (that’d be me) has to have a job in order to keep Gus supplied in guacamole.

Knowing that you can’t resist that face, please consider a donation to RNS to help fund the Roundup, help keep me in a job and help this kid get his avocados. Gus thanks you in advance. He also needs a diaper change, if anyone is feeling extra generous.


Meanwhile, in the news …

Fascinating debate on the Senate floor yesterday about climate change, with Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse scoffing at the notion that God won’t allow humans to screw up the environment:

“We are here to do God’s work. He’s not here to do ours. How arrogant — how very far from humility — would be the self-satisfied, smug assurance that God, a tidy-up-after-us God will come and clean up our mess?”

Speaking of a mess, our own Jeff MacDonald asks why Boston-area Christian leaders are so muted on the controversy over where to bury Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Catholic bishops are distributing bulletin inserts, asking Catholics to “pray, fast and sacrifice” ahead of the Supreme Court’s upcoming decisions on gay marriage.

The activists who plan the March for Life in D.C. every year are exporting their tactics to Rome for this weekend’s anti-abortion march.

Tom Ogletree, the former Yale Divinity dean who is now facing church charges for presiding at his son’s same-sex wedding, explains why he broke the laws of the United Methodist Church. In a word, he says, they’re unjust.

Sgt. 1st Class Naida Hosan is on a one-woman crusade for better treatment in the Army, saying she’s not Muslim as many other soldiers assume (she’s Catholic) and no, she doesn’t appreciate being called “Sgt. Hussein.”

Those cheerleaders in Kountze, Texas, who made giant banners with Bible verses for football players to break through? They’re kosher, a Texas judge said. An appeal may or may not be in the offing.


As awareness of mental illness gains traction in religious circles, Katharine Welby (daughter of new Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby) talks about her battles with depression.

A Catholic archbishop in Puerto Rico is asking his flock to pray — not send letters — that he can keep his job despite Vatican pressure to resign for his (mis)handling of sexual abuse cases.

Too far? A Hong Kong artist got her back covered in tattoos resembling the 39 lashes Jesus endured before his crucifixion. The tattoos are actually scribbled prayers, and there’s more detail here.

Remember Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the culturally savvy Italian who was in the running to be pope? He was in Mexico City, and said the popular Mexican Santa Muerte (Death Saint) is blasphemous.

Pope Francis — can we call him Frank? — cautioned nuns not to become spiritual “spinsters.” Someone’s gonna get a ruler across his knuckles.

Israel’s attorney general said the days of gender segregation on public buses will soon be over, saying she’s had enough.


Totally not a religion story but totally awesome nonetheless: Police in Madison, Wis., had to remind people not to call 911 to report dead people “lying in the grass.” They’re called sunbathers, people.

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